Once he had finally calmed Bing’er and the others down, Yue Yang had meant to talk over what he’d grasped in breaking through to the new realm.

Sick Beauty reminded him otherwise.

Too much time had been wasted already. If he didn’t set out now, the Divine War had probably started.

Had Yue Yang not been planning to disguise himself as Southwest Divine Sovereign Shafeng, it wouldn’t have mattered when the war opened, so long as it hadn’t finished. But that wasn’t the case now, and he had taken Chiqiu’s Tunlong and his divine power besides; not lending a hand would be indefensible. Arrive late and Eastern Divine Sovereign God-Slayer would very likely be dead, or at the least crippled by Tianchou’s treachery — entirely contrary to Yue Yang’s whole plan.

So he set aside, for the moment, the idea of sharing what he had learned.

He said his goodbyes and left the Grimoire World.

Once the situation was clear.

And there was time to spare.

He would come back and be with them again.

The “dragon pearl,” which was certainly no true dragon pearl, and the fully evolved Yinglong — there was no time now to examine either of them properly.

He didn’t even have time to look at “World,” which he could have seen simply by opening his summoning grimoire.

Yue Yang simply brought out Xuanya, the quasi-divine artifact confiscated from Shafeng.

And returned to Mountain Beyond the Mountain.

Disguise talent, phantom, Creation Domain — the three of them combined were enough to fool the eyes of the world. Add the dragon pearl holding the essence of Shafeng’s divine power and his knowledge, and Xuanya in hand, that unique divine weapon seized and subdued with Nirvana Flame, and Yue Yang believed that even Western Divine Sovereign Hei Zhou, who had known Shafeng closely for ten thousand years, could not see through him. With Shafeng’s identity for cover and the newly comprehended True Dragon Realm besides, his confidence in his primary objective — killing Ji Wuri — rose sharply.

If it could be managed, Yue Yang even wanted to finish Western Divine Sovereign Hei Zhou off as well.

Hei Zhou dead would be a serious loss to the Central Divine Hall.

Hei Zhou alive, on the other hand.

would certainly be a major obstacle to any future assault on the Central Divine Hall… Yue Yang had no wish, when he eventually fought his way up to the Hall and faced that final boss the Divine Hall Sovereign, to have a troublesome mid-boss like this pinning him down from the flank.

Teleport after teleport, a hundred li to a thought, Yue Yang drove toward Storm Fortress in the Eastern Divine Nation, sparing himself nothing.

Storm Fortress.

By now it was packed with the East Camp’s elite fighters — simply too many of them, with reinforcements still pouring in without a break. Wind Ear Marshal ordered the East Camp’s soldiers to make camp well to the rear of the fortress. The free mercenaries and volunteer militia out of the Northeast Divine Nation especially: a good many divine envoys and divine generals worried they might be plants sent in by the West Camp, so those men were moved out of the fortress area as far as possible and stationed in a valley sixty kilometres off, as a reserve force.

As it happened, the Star Pirates were quartered in that same valley.

Their numbers weren’t large. Their reputation was.

Without guarantees from heavyweights like Wind Ear Marshal and Griffin Marshal, the divine general handling reception would not have dared treat men who had been wanted criminals until very recently as allies of the same camp.

If Wind Hawk, Winged Tiger and Flamingo had chosen to make more of a show of themselves — sailing the old Tange, refitted by Yue Yang and renamed the Great Swan, into the sky above Storm Fortress — the Star Pirates would certainly not have been treated this way.

They hadn’t done it. Partly they were keeping their heads down, with no wish to slap the Southeast Divine Nation’s officers in the face with a ship captured from them; and partly it was strategic necessity. The Great Swan could serve as a surprise force, and striking the enemy line with her at a critical moment would achieve far more than parading her openly.

In fact the fleets of the Eastern, Southern and Southeast Divine Nations were all lying low, half-hidden and half-shown, running tactical deception.

None of them had revealed their true positions.

Any commander who laid his cards on the table and openly displayed his strategic intent to the enemy was an idiot, and nobody actually did it — unless the two sides were so unbalanced that one was simply bullying the other, big over small, strong over weak, in a fight already certain to be won.

And unless the commander was also vain and fond of appearances, in which case he might indeed get carried away.

Otherwise no ordinary person would be that brain-dead.

“I hate this Lean Dog Ridge. I hate this valley even more. I hate everything about this place.” Pelican, left in the valley by Wind Hawk to lead the detachment, thought back with fierce longing to the meat and fish and wine aboard the Swan not so long ago.

Those days had been the life of his dreams. Nothing to do from morning to night, not even any thinking required, countless Black Tortoise Guards preparing every dish and every drink and letting the Star Pirates eat and drink their fill, and never one Guard offering so much as a word of complaint. They laboured harder than worker bees and kept better order than ants…

Off the Great Swan, Pelican had not had a single satisfying meal on the ground. Always that damned bread harder than stone; always that flavourless stewed meat out of an army cook’s cauldron. And if what you turned up in the stew was a cockroach rather than a large rat dead for who knew how long and already starting to smell, you counted yourself lucky.

“Bear with it. We didn’t come here to enjoy ourselves. We came to fight a war.” Raven kept consoling him — with a line that had, in truth, been used by more people than anyone could count to console others, or themselves.

“If this keeps up, I suspect I’ll starve to death here before I ever die on a battlefield.” Guoguo complained for all he was worth.

“Shut it, you traitor and prisoner both.” Pelican gave him a hard slap.

“Prisoner I’ll grant you, but on what grounds am I a traitor?” Guoguo was thoroughly indignant. Back when the Five Great Villains and the Five Sense Generals had stormed the Tange, they had all shared the hardship together; and afterwards he had chosen not to return to Lord Mao’s side, but to stay with this pack of Star Pirates who hadn’t washed in half a month and stank of drink. What had that been for? Only that mucking in together hadn’t seemed bad, and he’d been enjoying himself. And now this nonsense about traitors. It was infuriating. Had the world ever produced a traitor as stupid as him?

“I’m not wrong. Your position really isn’t firm. You sold Lord Titan out once — it’s only that Lord Titan couldn’t be bothered to hold it against a traitor like you. On the battlefield, when things start looking bad, you might well go over again. So I intend to keep a close eye on you. And if you truly do harbour treacherous intentions, I’ll kill you.” Pelican said all of it and meant none of it. He locked a huge arm around Guoguo’s neck and made a show of preparing some torture, then let go and roared with laughter. “Of course, you haven’t defected yet, so I’ll give you a chance to be a good man… Come on, come on. We’ll go and drink. And if you lose, then you’re probably a traitor.”

“Rubbish. How does losing at drinking make anyone a traitor?” Guoguo was beyond words.

“If I say you are, you are. Not daring to drink means a guilty conscience.” Pelican slapped him hard on the shoulder, laughing, and dragged this bad element — who had joined halfway through and would not for the life of him become a Star Pirate — down off the ridge to drink until they dropped.

“It’s only drinking. Who’s afraid of whom? I happen to be a famous drinking divine general of the Southeast Divine Nation…” Guoguo’s failing was that he liked to boast. And drink, of course.

Watching the pair of them head off down the ridge to drink their troubles away without a care in the world.

Raven stood quietly on a rock.

And frowned slightly.

He wasn’t troubled over whether Guoguo was a traitor or might defect again. A man like Guoguo could be a hundred times stronger, a thousand times stronger, and still not shift the course of the war by a hair — never mind as he was now. And besides, if matters ever reached the state where Guoguo would defect, the day would already be lost, and then it wouldn’t be only Guoguo. There was no telling how many would turn, and some of his own comrades among the Star Pirates might not hold to the end either.

None of that was what troubled Raven.

What preoccupied him was how to bring his own strength and the Star Pirates’ to bear — how to be of some use to the East Camp, to God-Slayer, to Yue Titan, to Wind Hawk and Winged Tiger and Flamingo.

Without the Great Swan, Raven wouldn’t have thought about it at all. He’d have gone drinking with Pelican, because his strength was never going to sway the war.

But now there was the Great Swan, whose fighting power was no less than the Dragon Eagle’s or the Kunpeng’s, the largest hovering motherships in all Mountain Beyond the Mountain — carrying several hundred, close to a thousand, Black Tortoise Guards, dozens and nearly a hundred Black Tortoise Giants, and five Black Tortoise Colossi.

Commanded properly, that was absolutely a force that could shift the war.

Or at the very least shift the local strategic picture…

“Lord Titan will probably be back soon. We just wait for word from him. No need to think too hard about it. Also, I heard something. Southwest Divine Sovereign Shafeng, Northwest Divine Sovereign Shuanghan and North Divine Sovereign Zhaoxi tried to surround and kill Southeast Divine Sovereign Chiqiu together, and failed. Chiqiu, fighting his way out — and with help from South Divine Sovereign Tianchou, who came to the rescue — actually crippled Shafeng. Chiqiu took no light wounds himself, but the news has the whole army fired up. Three West Camp Sovereigns couldn’t handle one Southeast Divine Sovereign, and that with a North Divine Sovereign of higher standing and greater strength holding the line besides. Now Shafeng is crippled and Northeast Divine Sovereign Qingyun is staying out of it — he may even slip us some quiet help. The East Camp isn’t at a disadvantage. No need to worry so much about the war. And anyway it isn’t ours to worry about; the great lords above us handle that.” Unexpectedly, it was Flower Duck, that great oaf, standing behind Raven and offering him kind words of comfort.

“Where did you get that?” Raven was pleased at first, and then something went cold in him, an unpleasant premonition flickering across his heart.

“It’s all over the camp, inside and out. Who doesn’t know?” Flower Duck shook his head; he had no idea who had started it either.

“All right then. It’s nothing.” Raven mocked himself. Plainly it was good news, and here he was reading conspiracy into it. Was he too sensitive, or had he simply sunk too deep into this war?

He waved Flower Duck away.

And went back to his tent to rest, feeling somewhat lighter.

Before sleeping.

He thought about the good news again and still couldn’t quite feel it was real. Was Southeast Divine Sovereign Chiqiu truly so formidable? Perhaps Chiqiu had been gravely wounded as well and was keeping it quiet. Perhaps South Divine Sovereign Tianchou’s rescue had simply come in time. Perhaps Eastern Divine Sovereign God-Slayer himself had taken the field… Raven decided to stop thinking about it. Until Yue Titan returned or sent orders, he would rest properly and store up his strength, so as to meet the Divine War in the best condition he could, under Yue Titan’s command.

Following behind that young man who kept on producing miracles, surely he could produce a glorious result of his own.

He woke from that sleep feeling thoroughly refreshed.

He was just getting up when Flower Duck swept the tent flap aside, delight all over his face, and reported in a conspiratorial tone. “My lord, I’ve found out. The news came from the Prophet first! The Prophet is the Second National Preceptor under Eastern Divine Sovereign God-Slayer. Ordinarily he keeps himself hidden — it’s only now, with the Divine War broken open, that this Lord Prophet has become known to the world. And you should know the news is absolutely true. Storm Fortress sent couriers back to announce the good tidings themselves; they simply weren’t as quick about it as Lord Prophet was… Oh, and Lord Prophet is choosing lucky ones in camp right now. They say Eastern Divine Sovereign God-Slayer, to strengthen his own side, is sparing nothing and using ancient divine power to raise up any soldier in the East Camp whose attributes and potential are a match. The Prophet is testing everyone as we speak. Ha — you won’t have heard yet, but that jammy bastard Guoguo has actually been picked by Lord Prophet!”

“What?” Raven, hearing this good news, was not pleased in the slightest. It brought him out in a cold sweat.

(End of Chapter 1177)