By the time Raven had burst out of his tent and hurried back to the main camp, he found the place hung with lanterns and streamers, livestock being slaughtered, a full celebration under way.
Even Flower Duck, who knew everything, didn’t know what had happened.
He found someone and asked.
And learned that the first batch of lucky ones to receive ancient divine power had, under the command of a Prophet’s envoy named Wuwang, raided a West Camp scouting outpost that morning — killing six of the West Camp’s elite scout riders outright and taking four prisoner. The prisoners had now been escorted back to the main camp, whipping the crowd into a fever; the men were being draped in red silk and paraded through the lines to show off the first victory.
Storm Fortress itself was in a defensive posture at present, everyone drawn back inside the walls.
Even the regular army — including Eastern Divine Sovereign God-Slayer’s mightiest Blood-Dripping War Regiment and South Divine Sovereign Tianchou’s Mad Demon Butcher-Blade Regiment — had not managed to win so much as a scrap of advantage in the standoff between the two armies.
And yet it was the volunteer militia and the mercenaries, the ones everybody looked down on and worried about and watched most warily, who had opened the account and drawn first blood.
How could that not send everyone wild with joy?
The first batch of lucky ones, the moment they returned, were welcomed by the whole body of the militia.
Whether they came from the Northeast Divine Nation’s volunteers and mercenaries, or were bandits and thieves from every corner of the world, or were the Star Pirates who had turned from enemies to friends only recently — all of them were exhilarated, and morale soared.
And toward the Prophet, previously so low-profile that nobody had heard of him, they were now positively worshipful. People felt this National Preceptor was an existence second only to Eastern Divine Sovereign God-Slayer himself. If he hadn’t used ancient divine power to strengthen the militia whose attributes matched, then with the militia’s original strength — even a hundred times greater — they could never have hoped to kill West Camp elite scout riders, let alone take four of them alive.
“My lord, did you — did you hear? The ones whose attributes didn’t match or whose potential fell short can still go in for a second round of selection! Lord Prophet has decided to personally dig deep into everyone’s potential and hidden attributes, and he’s determined not to miss a single man! Ha, I still have a chance. I always knew it — the disappointment would pass soon enough, and future success is certain to be mine. Once I’m chosen, that Guoguo won’t be able to laugh at me any more. My hidden potential might even be higher than his…” Flower Duck came back from gathering the news beside himself with excitement, waving his arms about.
“Our people are going to be tested too?” Raven had gone green in the face, and a cold sweat had broken out on him.
“That doesn’t do it justice, my lord! Not just our people, not just our brothers of the Fallen Sky Righteous Bandits — the whole camp. Everyone! Every single man has decided to take Lord Prophet’s test.” Flower Duck laughed aloud and shook his head, correcting him.
“Where’s Pelican?” Raven had noticed a certain drunkard was not at his side.
“Lord Thornton went off to be tested a long time ago. My lord, you may not know it yet, but if the ancient divine power elevation succeeds, the weakest of them comes out a divine envoy, and the ones with better potential can even reach divine general. This is the chance of a thousand years. Only a fool would let it pass… Lord Black Leaf, let’s go too. I can’t wait to become a divine general. And even if I don’t make divine general, divine envoy would do nicely… That fellow Guoguo, they say he has the potential to become a divine envoy, and his nose is halfway to the sky over it. I refuse to lose to him.” Flower Duck grew more excited the longer he talked, and started tugging Raven forward into the crush.
“Flower Duck. Help me back to my tent first, I need to rest…” Raven wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, gritted his teeth, and seemed to reach an important decision.
“Ah — of course.”
Flower Duck’s heart had already flown off to Lord Prophet’s testing hall.
But seeing that Lord Raven appeared genuinely unwell, he naturally didn’t dare be careless, and hurried to help him back.
Every so often, roughly every three or four months, Raven would go through a stretch of extreme weakness and pain. The fiercer the fighting and the greater the drain on his body, the shorter the interval between attacks.
This was the backlash of a body that had taken on forbidden power, and Mountain Beyond the Mountain had no cure for it.
Were it not for the necklace he wore, set with an ancient crystal shard whose inner divine energy could suppress it, the backlash of that forbidden power would certainly have burst his body.
Flower Duck had seen Raven suffer the backlash of forbidden power more than once or twice, and assumed the sweating and the pallor now were simply another attack. He even sighed inwardly at how badly timed it was… Before he could leave, Raven suddenly charged him with something. “Flower Duck. If you have time, once you’ve taken the test, remember to come back here and call me. I’m afraid I might sleep and not wake.”
It was a trifling enough request, and Flower Duck agreed readily. “Rest easy, Lord Black Leaf. I’ll definitely come back. I promised Lord Titan I’d handle the logistics properly. I’ll go and come straight back, it won’t take long.”
“See that you remember.” Raven waved a weak hand, motioning him out.
How long passed, there was no telling.
Raven, who had been lying on the bed, suddenly opened his eyes.
There was not a trace of weakness or pain left in them. Light shot out of them, fierce and blazing, burning like flame.
Nimble as a spirit-cat, quick as a bird.
Raven rolled off the bed.
Hesitated a moment.
He took from inside his robe a small, cracked fragment of ancient relic, reached out with it and drew back again several times, and at last let out a long sigh and set the faintly luminous fragment down on the table.
Then he changed into black clothes, dressed as a thief, wrapped his head and covered his face, and slid two daggers into his belt.
Faster than lightning, he shot away, and after a few leaps and drops he had left the valley far behind.
Raven put the noise and revelry of the great camp steadily further behind him, but he didn’t dare relax for a moment, watching his back with strained attention, glancing over his shoulder again and again like a defeated general checking for pursuit… Only after he had left the valley and slipped into a stretch of rolling hills did he dare take a few breaths. And just as he thought he was out of the dragon’s pool and the tiger’s den, ready to steal back to Storm Fortress and consult with Winged Tiger and Wind Hawk on what to do, a pair of legs appeared in front of him.
His vision blurred.
CRACK!
Raven felt a burst of pain across his face, and the next thing he registered was his whole body slamming hard into the hillside rock.
“A cunning little worm. If my master weren’t so careful and cautious, you really might have fooled us.” The feet appeared before his face again, and without giving him the chance to speak, came stamping down.
“So fast—!” Raven’s mind couldn’t react in time, let alone his body. He threw himself into a desperate roll, and it was completely useless.
The foot didn’t land on the crown of his head.
But it was enough to drive the lower half of his body, the half that had been trying to flee, bodily down into the mud and stone.
Raven lifted his head through the pain.
The owner of those feet was a man dressed as a noble, handsome of face, carrying the particular air of a man born high above others, his expression arrogant beyond description, looking down at him with the cold detachment of a man watching an ant. “Little worm. If you tell me what flaw it was you noticed, then perhaps this Marquis will consider whether to be merciful and grant you a quick death.”
Five hundred kilometres from Storm Fortress, at Jiaoluo Waterfall.
The West Camp’s garrison.
Stationed a few dozen kilometres out from the falls themselves.
The water city at Jiaoluo Waterfall, of course, and the Eastern Divine Sovereign’s travelling palace beside it, had been designated the resting place of gods and were absolutely forbidden ground to ordinary soldiers.
Across the sky, a strange light of blazing flame suddenly cut past. The soldiers of the Southwest Divine Nation saw it and cheered as one, prostrating themselves on the ground. Because they knew: the Divine Sovereign they worshipped and followed, Shafeng, had finally arrived.
Shafeng’s lateness had left the Southwest Divine Nation’s soldiers under a steady drizzle of complaint from their allies.
There was, besides, a baffling rumour going round that Southwest Divine Sovereign Shafeng had failed in the encirclement of Southeast Divine Sovereign Chiqiu and been crippled for his trouble, which left the Southwest’s soldiers with no face at all. They were participants in the same Divine War: Northwest Divine Sovereign Shuanghan and North Divine Sovereign Zhaoxi had arrived at Jiaoluo Waterfall long ago, bodies and divine power alike entirely unharmed, and had been given a lavish reception by Western Divine Sovereign Hei Zhou. Against that, Southwest Divine Sovereign Shafeng simply hadn’t turned up, and it was hard to argue the case… Had the Divine Sovereign they worshipped and followed really been crippled by Chiqiu?
The whole Southwest Divine Nation host had been waiting in unease.
Until this moment.
Seeing their Divine Sovereign come to Jiaoluo Waterfall treading blazing divine light and riding the wind, they were finally released from it. The earlier rumours had been false after all. The Shafeng they worshipped and followed had not been crippled in the slightest. He was as fierce and unrestrained as ever, his divine might undiminished.
“Welcome, welcome! Brother Shafeng, you gave your old brother here a proper fright. They all said you weren’t coming, but I said I believed Brother Shafeng was not the sort of man to break faith. And here you are after all. Ha! Brother Shafeng, you’ve kept us waiting a good long while.” A shaft of black divine light shot into the sky, and the whole heaven, bright day though it was, went dim for it. A god-tier expert whose features could not be made out — and whose true strength could be seen through even less — came riding grey mist and black divine light, the first to rise and meet the blazing light streaking in.
“He’s come, certainly. Whether he is truly our ally Divine Sovereign Shafeng is another question.” A cold air rose, freezing Jiaoluo Waterfall solid in an instant, and the owner of that cold air questioned the newly arrived “Southwest Divine Sovereign Shafeng” in an icy voice, suspecting him of being a counterfeit.
“If I were God-Slayer in disguise, you’d be the first one I’d butcher!” Yue Yang, the counterfeit in question, felt not the slightest guilt about his knock-off status, and fired the sarcasm straight back.
“It can’t be God-Slayer. He’s no good at disguises to begin with. If God-Slayer were impersonating anyone, a blind man could tell at a glance it was false. Besides, that fellow’s a blockhead — he’d think tricks of that sort beneath him.” North Divine Sovereign Zhaoxi showed himself. He looked Yue Yang up and down until the counterfeit began to feel distinctly nervous, and then, at the end of it, shook his head and dismissed the idea.
“Hmph. God-Slayer’s impossible, granted. But don’t the rest of you forget there’s still a Northeast Divine Sovereign Qingyun in Mountain Beyond the Mountain!” Northwest Divine Sovereign Shuanghan reckoned this Shafeng was Qingyun in disguise.
“Brother Shafeng is absolutely not Qingyun.” Western Divine Sovereign Hei Zhou, face invisible inside the black light, sang his part in the duet and played the good man.
“…” North Divine Sovereign Zhaoxi said nothing either, watching quietly from the side.
“How do you prove you aren’t Qingyun?” Northwest Divine Sovereign Shuanghan had set him a hard problem, and it stumped the transmigrator. Proving he was Shafeng was easy enough — he had Shafeng’s residual divine power and the imprint of his knowledge, and the disguise wasn’t especially difficult. But how was he supposed to prove he wasn’t Qingyun? This was a genuine pain. Yue Yang didn’t know a single thing about Qingyun. Not one.
(End of Chapter 1178)