Long before they had gotten anywhere near the God-Slaying Mystic Realm, when they set down to resupply at a border city of the Southeast Divine Nation, Raven came back with a piece of news that stunned everyone.
The Western Divine Nation had declared war on the Eastern Divine Nation.
For ten thousand years, the eight Divine Nations had held to a peace pact. Now the Western Divine Nation had torn it up unilaterally. Western Divine Sovereign Hei Zhou’s declared reason: he had asked for the hand of Eastern Divine Sovereign God-Slayer’s most beloved youngest daughter and been coldly refused with the words, “I’d rather marry her to a mortal than to an idiot like Hei Zhou.” From that point on, Western Divine Sovereign Hei Zhou — under the excuse that his divine dignity would not tolerate such an insult — challenged Eastern Divine Sovereign God-Slayer to a duel. And on top of that, he announced that the Western Divine Nation would mobilize its entire army to “demonstrate the sincerity of the marriage suit”… The whole affair left everyone charred on the outside and half-cooked on the inside.
How old was Hei Zhou?
A thousand-year turtle, ten thousand years an undying old codger!
And he was asking to marry God-Slayer’s precious little daughter, a child of three years old, still babbling her first words — a pink, tender little loli!
Old bulls chewing tender grass didn’t get any more shameless than this. Never mind God-Slayer — swap in any other father and no one on earth would have said yes to that perverted request… Of course, even a fool could see that Hei Zhou wasn’t actually trying to marry a still-nursing little loli. He was fishing for a pretext to declare war.
But if you’re going to reach for a pretext, could you at least reach for something halfway plausible?
Did he really think God-Slayer had no temper?
As for Hei Zhou’s claim that “divine dignity brooks no insult” — that was funnier still. Whether God-Slayer had really said those words or not, only he knew — but he was a Divine Sovereign too, not some mortal. What kind of “divine dignity” was Western Divine Sovereign Hei Zhou pulling in front of God-Slayer? The performance was getting ridiculous. And as for mobilizing the whole army to attack the Eastern Divine Nation, that wasn’t a marriage suit. That was invasion.
“The Western Divine Nation has moved this soon?” When Winged Tiger and Wind Hawk got the news, both of them felt caught off guard.
“So it looks like everything was planned — the Tange hijacking, Ji Wuri’s return, and now Hei Zhou using this excuse to send in his troops. All parts of the same play,” Flamingo, who had come over to compare notes, offered his own read on the situation.
“So what do we do now?” Raven looked to Yue Yang.
“The Western Divine Nation has declared war. That means the entire West Camp has declared war on the East Camp. A Divine War sweeping across Mountain Beyond the Mountain is bound to happen.” Yue Yang pondered a moment, then made a decision. “We push on to the appointed rendezvous. The time hasn’t come yet, but we get in touch with Griffin Marshal and Wind Ear Marshal as fast as we can. If we can’t reach them, we head straight to the Eastern Divine Nation. The center of this coming war is going to be in the Eastern Divine Nation. The Southeast and the South, even if there’s fighting there too, won’t be the West Camp’s main strike target.”
“And what about you? You’re leaving?” Pelican was quick to ask.
“There’s business I have to handle personally at the God-Slaying Mystic Realm… Hei Zhou and God-Slayer won’t be crossing swords just yet. Armies going to war isn’t the same thing as a Divine War. Before Hei Zhou can take out Southeast Divine Sovereign Chiqiu and South Divine Sovereign Tianchou — God-Slayer’s two strongest allies — he isn’t going to risk a head-on fight with God-Slayer!” Yue Yang was in no hurry to strike yet.
“Fair enough. We’ll proceed according to plan. If we can’t catch up with the plan, we’ll wait for you at the Eastern Divine Nation’s Storm Fortress.” Winged Tiger and Wind Hawk exchanged a look and made their decision.
“Before I go, there’s one thing I want to remind all of you,” Yue Yang’s expression turned grave. “Ji Wuri’s cunning and his methods are far beyond what you can imagine. The battle we fought on the Tange — Guhai and Wan’e will have carried word of it back to Hei Zhou and Ji Wuri by now. Exactly what form their retaliation will take, I can’t say, but this much is certain: the enemy is going to work their way inside our ranks by every means possible, drop our guard down, and at the most crucial, most critical moment — turn on us from within… Hei Zhou I don’t know, but Ji Wuri is a master of shapeshifting. He can slip perfectly into different identities. And he has at least one humanoid war beast that can wipe memories. If any of you notice yourselves forgetting things you shouldn’t be forgetting, you have to be alert. And once I leave, if you ever see me again — unless the ‘me’ you see can grant you a Giant’s Shadow buff, he’s a fake.”
“Understood.” At Yue Yang’s warning, Winged Tiger and the others broke into cold sweat.
If Ji Wuri could transform into other people —
And could wipe memories on top of that —
Then he really would be a nightmare to fight. Not able to see through it, they’d be kept in the dark. Even if they did see through it, he could just wipe the memory of it… This Ji Wuri had no weakness at all. Their only hope now was that he wouldn’t bother turning his eyes on small fry like themselves. Otherwise, there really was nothing they could do about him!
After Yue Yang left, Winged Tiger, Wind Hawk, and Flamingo talked it over back and forth, and concluded that the best precaution was to act as a group.
Their subordinates could do as they pleased, but the chieftains had to move together.
Give the enemy no opening for infiltration.
Whether Ji Wuri would target Star Pirate small fry, and use them as a back-way into the East Camp — that was hardly out of the question. The Star Pirates knew no one in the East Camp, but they were joining forces against the enemy. Slipping into the East Camp under a Star Pirate identity was a very serviceable shortcut. If it weren’t a real possibility, Yue Yang would not have gone to the trouble of solemnly warning Winged Tiger and the others to guard against inside infiltration.
The God-Slaying Mystic Realm.
Yue Yang aimed for that mark and teleported at his full speed. It still took him two full days to reach the fabled Mystic Realm.
Without the map the Star Pirates had provided earlier, and the star-charts already onboard the Tange, Yue Yang could have spent ten times as long and never found this out-of-the-way place. Calling it a “mystic realm” was no exaggeration.
The God-Slaying Mystic Realm was not a region on the surface of Mountain Beyond the Mountain.
It was more like a colossal astral body, hanging high in the sky.
And all around it, black clouds spread through the heavens without ever dispersing, veiling both sun and sky. Below, the desolate land lay dim for ten thousand miles in every direction. The barren mountains rose gaunt and knobbly, and eerie tornados coiled out from the ceiling of clouds, whipping the land in fits, appearing and vanishing. Yue Yang could also see, in this place, the sort of aurora phenomena you only got in polar regions. Countless twisting auroras slid slowly across the sky, staining those permanent black clouds in strange, singular hues.
Piercing through a cloud layer more than a hundred kilometers thick, the sky opened up all at once.
Stars dotted the vault of heaven.
An enormous black form, as vast as an astral body, loomed into view. Its whole body was composed of God-Slaying Mystic Metal, near-purely, with almost no other substance mixed in.
The moment Yue Yang set foot on it, he found the place brimmed with a strange Law-force. It was not martial suppression, but it could reduce any incomer’s strength by a thousandfold or more, at the very least.
Yue Yang was standing on a mountain of treasure, but he did not rush to start mining.
First he flew a couple of circles around the entire God-Slaying Mystic Realm, missing nothing, exploring with care.
Once he had confirmed there was no “god” lying in ambush or trailing him, he brought out Princess Qianqian and the Divine Punishment Empress, so they could take their own read of the God-Slaying Mystic Realm. Given Princess Qianqian’s Six Senses talent and the Divine Punishment Empress’s extraordinary wit, Yue Yang felt sure that having them along would help immensely.
That was the hope.
Reality proved the opposite.
Even with Princess Qianqian and the Divine Punishment Empress at his side, after a day of searching, Yue Yang had found nothing at all.
“Nothing? How is that possible!”
When they returned to Grimoire World to rest, and Yue Yang laid out the situation, everyone gasped.
If Yue Yang, Princess Qianqian, and the Divine Punishment Empress combined could not sense a thing, then the probability of any target being there approached zero.
And yet — this was the fall-site of the two ancient gods, Taiyan and Bingli. No matter how thoroughly the eight Divine Sovereigns had scoured it, there was no way they could have wiped every last trace away. Everyone knew that beyond a certain tier, a martial cultivator was very difficult to truly kill. Especially divine-realm cultivators — even with an overwhelming power disparity, most such cultivators were only ever sealed away, not outright destroyed… Had Taiyan and Bingli really died? Even if the eight Divine Sovereigns had slain them together, where had all the residues of their divine power, divine mind, and divine standing gone in the last moments before their extinction?
The God-Slaying Mystic Realm did have Law-based sealing on it, but that was no reason for Taiyan and Bingli’s traces to have vanished so completely.
Was it something the eight Divine Sovereigns had done?
Or was there some deeper, hidden secret in the God-Slaying Mystic Realm?
After some discussion, and once Yue Yang had led the way to confirm there was no danger — that the God-Slaying Mystic Realm was completely safe — everyone came out to help, leaning on their numbers to search. This time, Yue Yu and Sick Beauty were not the only ones out; even the little gold spirit Bao’er, who ordinarily did nothing but stir up trouble, and Xiao Nu, who normally stayed quietly at home doing the housework, came out to lend a hand.
Whether Bao’er and Xiao Nu would help or would only end up multiplying the trouble was a question for later. At the very least, they had put their hearts into it.
Three days went by.
Still, with disappointing thoroughness, nothing.
“This place is too strange. I don’t sense any malice, but I’m sure there’s something misleading us,” little Tianzai gave voice to her flight of fancy — that some invisible existence was pulling a prank on them, weaving an illusion.
“Law-force is present, but it doesn’t create illusions.” Yue Yang had tried searching with Sovereign Intent combined with the Creation Domain, and had turned up nothing amiss.
“Maybe that thing can weave an illusion capable of fooling even your domain,” Tianzai was reluctant to let her pet theory be overturned.
“Enough!” the Divine Punishment Empress shot her a look.
“I didn’t say anything!” Tianzai flinched, stuck out her small pink tongue, and clapped her jade-fair hand over her mouth.
“There must be traces of Taiyan and Bingli, the two great gods, here. I can vaguely feel it. What’s strange is that I can’t confirm it, and I can’t pinpoint it anywhere on the God-Slaying Mystic Realm…” Not just Princess Qianqian — even Yue Yang, and Sick Beauty, and Yue Yu, all vaguely felt this same tenuous sensation. It was almost as if some voice were calling out. But when they tried to focus on it, to search for it in earnest, they came up with nothing. It was maddening.
“Everyone should get a good rest. We’ll keep looking tomorrow — this sort of thing can’t be rushed!” Yue Yu urged everyone back to sleep. She waited to be the last, then caught Yue Yang and whispered close to his ear: “Third brother, why don’t you have a word with Wuxia, see what she thinks…”
Xue Wuxia was still in her deep sleep. Her consciousness would occasionally surface from that chaotic state.
But only for very brief moments before slipping back down.
Yue Yang took this as a good sign — a signal that her awakening was near. Every few days he would take the chance to call out to her, hoping she would recover her senses sooner.
Yue Yu wanted Yue Yang to consult Xue Wuxia mostly in hopes that it would give him a spark, a way to see through the misty riddle. She knew what kind of person her little brother was. If he saw Xue Wuxia waking up, he would be overjoyed. Once his spirit was up, this seemingly-impossible puzzle of the God-Slaying Mystic Realm might just resolve itself in one stroke!
Hearing Yue Yu say this, Yue Yang was moved as well.
If turning to Xue Wuxia could untangle the mystery of the God-Slaying Mystic Realm, so much the better. Even if it couldn’t, being the trigger for her to wake up would in itself be a joyous event.
(End of Chapter 1160)