Having cleared the Fourth Stage, Desire Valley, Yueyang rested briefly and then stepped into the Fifth Stage — Beast Valley.

Grandma Sha had once described Beast Valley like this: every challenger was stripped of their own power entirely, and had to raise a war beast from its most primitive state to clear the stage. Cultivate it from weak to strong. If the war beast raised wasn’t powerful enough to leave Beast Valley, the challenger would remain trapped there forever, becoming one of its permanent residents.

Beyond the ban on using personal power, Beast Valley also enforced a law of death as punishment.

If a war beast died three times, the challenger received the Law’s verdict directly — they were transformed into a magical beast themselves.

If a challenger who had been transformed into a magical beast then died in turn, their soul was permanently erased.

Hmm.

Armed with Grandma Sha’s intelligence, Vivienne’s clearing tips, and additional research Yueyang had specifically asked Elder Nangong to conduct — including learning that the Prison Emperor had cultivated a Raging Flame Battle Soul in Beast Valley — Yueyang had discussed all the possibilities with everyone, made thorough preparations, and arrived expecting things to proceed smoothly.

Then he ran into his first problem the moment he entered.

Sky Fire Phantom — the war beast he had intended to use for this stage — had at some point absorbed some of the calamity god-force and chaotic energy, and had sunk into deep dormancy.

She was evolving on her own, entirely without Yueyang’s knowledge.

There was simply no waking her.

Fortunately, Xue Wuxia had been careful enough to remind him to keep a backup — designating the Death Reaper Mantis, who had been training at an extremely slow pace on the Sky Stairway, as an emergency contingency.

Without that foresight, Yueyang would have had to do what most unprepared challengers did — accept a war beast egg of unknown potential from the valley.

That would have put everything outside his control.

“It all comes down to you now,” Yueyang said quietly, standing in the Beast Valley Fortress, reaching out to gently stroke the Death Reaper Mantis’s wing.

For raising a war beast in Beast Valley, there were two options.

The first was what Vivienne had done: bring your own war beast and walk it through the Law-governed Rebirth Gate that could reverse time, resetting it to a newborn state. The advantage was that you knew your beast’s growth characteristics and could cultivate it properly. Vivienne had used this method, raising a supremely powerful Extreme Cold Ice Wraith that eventually swept through Beast Valley and cleared the stage.

The second was the Prison Emperor’s approach: freely select a war beast egg from the valley, hatch it in the Birth Pool, and raise it from there. If fortune smiled — as it had on the Prison Emperor, who cultivated his Raging Flame Battle Soul — the stage could be cleared just fine.

Each approach had its merits.

Vivienne’s method offered intimate familiarity with her beast’s development rather than depending on luck. The Prison Emperor’s method carried an element of chance, but as a powerful expert he had been capable of identifying a high-potential egg among the countless options in the Fortress. And if it succeeded, he came away with an additional powerful war beast as a bonus. On the other hand, Vivienne’s method required sending an already powerful, perhaps peak-level war beast back to square one — a genuine risk.

Crunch. Crunch.

The Death Reaper Mantis received the Dragon Crystal Yueyang tossed her and chewed it with evident enjoyment, savoring this last treat.

She had no objection whatsoever to any arrangement her master made. She wasn’t the most intelligent, and she hadn’t grown the fastest — she had never even evolved to Sacred Beast level. But some instinct told her clearly that her master had never neglected or overlooked her, and had always treated her with care and affection.

She reached out with her lethal twin scythes and gave Yueyang a gentle embrace.

Then the Death Reaper Mantis flew resolutely into the Rebirth Gate.

A flash of divine light.

The Law energy governing Beast Valley activated the Rebirth Gate immediately — time reversed, and the war beast that entered was reborn. The Death Reaper Mantis’s body rapidly shrank. The immense power stored within her converted entirely into potential. And her body, which Yueyang had refined multiple times with Innate True Qi and Nirvana Flames, underwent another profound transformation through the power of the Rebirth Law.

When the Death Reaper Mantis passed through the Rebirth Gate, flew through the U-shaped rebirth passage, turned through the rebirth corridor, and returned to Yueyang’s side —

She was now something that could fit on the tip of a finger.

And she was no longer classified as a standard war beast type — she had shifted to a special type.

Her rank had also changed — from her previous Gold rank.

To Diamond rank.

Now she was, more precisely, a she — compact and exquisite as Thumbelina. Through the rebirth, the Death Reaper Mantis had broken through the stagnation that had held her back, and her body had already begun evolving in new directions.

She landed in Yueyang’s palm. Tiny and delicate as she now was, she had evolved a human-like head, with a markedly higher intelligence. Her body wasn’t fully humanoid yet — beyond her more human-like arms, she still retained several mantis legs, and her golden wings remained on her back. What struck Yueyang as genuinely surprising and oddly moving was that she had detached her most powerful weapon — her scythe-arms. It seemed she intended to transform the lethal mantis blades into carried weapons rather than natural limbs. She had separated the largely original-form scythe-arms and positioned them on her back — like a human warrior carrying two great curved blades.

Yueyang tore a strip from his own clothing and gently wrapped it around her as a garment.

Thumbelina-sized, the Death Reaper Mantis turned herself in his palm.

Her expression was one of thorough satisfaction with her new form. To have finally evolved toward Sacred Beast level — of course she was thrilled. This was the deepest longing of every war beast’s heart.

Outside the Fortress.

Dozens of ferocious magical beasts lurked near the entrance, bloodlust gleaming in their eyes.

They watched each other warily while waiting with patience. The energy fluctuations from the Fortress had already told them a new challenger had arrived. Whether the challenger was powerful was irrelevant. Kill the newborn war beast — kill it three times — and the challenger would receive the Law’s judgment and become one of them.

These were beings who had already failed. Their bodies had become magical beasts. They had accepted they would never leave Beast Valley.

But they weren’t about to let anyone else pass under their noses.

Anyone who came through — drag them down. Let them become magical beasts too, and stay in Beast Valley forever. If you’re cursed to suffer, you don’t suffer alone — pull as many others into the pit as possible.

Beyond the dozens of failed challengers-turned-beasts lurking outside, three Sky-rank warriors sat mounted on powerful war beasts, conferring on a battle plan. Like the beasts, they were also failed challengers — though luckier. Their war beasts had not died three times, so the challengers themselves had escaped the Law’s punishment and retained their original forms. The problem was that through errors in cultivation, their beasts had grown with a critical flaw — severely insufficient intelligence. Without enough intelligence, no war beast could clear Beast Valley, and so their challengers remained trapped.

A war beast without sufficient intelligence, no matter how powerful, could not pass Beast Valley.

Yueyang had known this long in advance.

Beyond Grandma Sha’s vague intelligence, Vivienne had pointed it out explicitly: within Beast Valley, there were three locations where Wisdom Fruits grew — nourishment for a war beast’s intellectual development. Claim all three, and the war beast would not only clear the stage but grow into a formidable long-term asset.

Of course, the guardians of the Wisdom Fruits were war beasts of tremendous strength. Going for them at the start was suicide.

Many of the challengers who had permanently stalled in Beast Valley had learned of the Wisdom Fruits’ existence over time — but didn’t dare go for them. The attempt was essentially impossible. Try, and the result was always the same: war beast dead, challenger transformed into a magical beast. Some didn’t even get that far — souls erased outright.

“This new arrival still hasn’t come out — it’s almost time,” the Sky-rank warrior mounted on a deer-form war beast on the left said, puzzled.

“New arrivals are always like this — careful and hesitant, unaware there’s a time limit. Over the years, how many have we seen lose their window by dithering in the Fortress and watching their beast die its first death without even stepping outside?” the one on the right, mounted on a unicorn flying horse, replied with contempt.

“Everyone focus,” said the one in the center, mounted on a Raging Fire Griffin — clearly the leader of the three, and currently in no mood for conversation. “Before this new arrival, several challengers slipped past our blockade. Three of them even cleared the stage entirely. That is an embarrassment to every one of us stuck here. This time — no failures. When the new arrival exits the Fortress, their beast is at its most vulnerable. If we can’t intercept successfully at that point, it only gets harder. Stay focused. We kill this challenger’s war beast without exception.”

The two on either side fell silent immediately, nodding in unison.

Inside the Beast Valley Fortress, there was a three-hour protective Law in effect.

That meant at minimum three hours during which a newborn war beast was safe to grow.

After three hours — if the challenger still hadn’t left the Fortress, hadn’t stepped through the entrance into Beast Valley proper — the valley’s Laws would kill the war beast directly inside the Fortress.

This was both a protection and a pressure. A newborn war beast had to adapt to its harsh environment as quickly as possible, confront the constant threat of death, and prove itself. Otherwise it would be culled. No exceptions — regardless of the challenger’s identity or power, the Laws were impartial.

The three-hour period was almost up. The final minute was counting down. The magical beasts lurking outside were already tensed to spring forward in triumph.

A figure appeared.

Yueyang stepped out at last.

But what accompanied him was not what any of them expected.

There was no newborn creature at his side.

Only a small box, held in his hands. Nothing else.

Could the newborn war beast really be inside that box?

It didn’t matter whether it was a box or a mountain — the magical beasts around him would level it either way. They couldn’t attack Yueyang himself. But whatever was in that box, if it contained a newborn war beast, then hitting it meant a certain kill.

To devour a newborn war beast. To grow stronger. To survive longer.

Dozens of failed challengers-turned-magical-beasts let out thunderous roars and surged forward all at once in a frenzied rush —

The target: the box in Yueyang’s hands.