“Don’t imagine you’re the only one with a divine artifact. Is my Zhuye really inferior to your Lihen?” Facing a God-Slayer whose momentum seemed to swallow the world whole and looked impossible to turn aside, Hei Zhou still had pride enough to spare, and analysed the position calmly and coolly. “Zhaoxi’s Zhenmiao mirror, Tianchou’s Yinxue blade, and my Zhuye Heaven Pearl — the three of them together. Today, God-Slayer, even with the power to defy heaven itself, you will certainly lose!”

As he spoke, South Divine Sovereign Tianchou was first to summon a golden grimoire.

He activated his talent.

Then raised, at tremendous speed, a domain bristling with blade-qi.

In a frenzy of eruption and empowerment, the divine blade Yinxue in Tianchou’s hand fused in an instant with a life-guardian war beast of some strange, demonic shape, throwing off divine-artifact brilliance in thousands of rays. As his divine power was forced desperately upward, Tianchou’s whole body seemed to swell without limit, mountainous, growing until he was close to God-Slayer’s size — and only then slowly stopped.

He did not match God-Slayer’s height, that height which looked down on heaven and earth. But he came fairly close to it.

The impression was of a seven-foot bruiser standing before a nine-foot God-Slayer: no small gap, certainly, but nothing like the exaggerated contrast of dwarf against giant. They stood on the same tier of strength.

On the other side, North Divine Sovereign Zhaoxi was very nearly Tianchou’s equal.

More mysterious, if anything.

Even after Zhaoxi had summoned his golden grimoire and raised his domain, Yue Yang — the gold-medal extra playing dead at a safe distance — still could not make out what form his life-guardian war beast took. All he got was an impression of mist: hazy, insubstantial, blurred to nothing. If Tianchou was an awl that punctures, then Zhaoxi was a needle hidden in cotton wool and tucked away in a pocket. Nobody could say when he would show his edge, but Yue Yang was certain of one thing: once this North Divine Sovereign revealed his true colours, he would do terrible damage to whoever was standing in front of him.

Tianchou and Zhaoxi, the two of them alone, could never have held God-Slayer down.

But with Hei Zhou added.

The scales tilted inevitably toward the West Camp.

The sky went black the instant Hei Zhou summoned his grimoire — pitch black, black enough that a man could not see his own five fingers.

And then a purple-gold radiance came out of that deep, unlit blackness as though driving straight up out of a black hole, and flung its light ten thousand fathoms.

Yue Yang, watching, swallowed hard. That was a treasure pearl of divine-artifact grade. Since he was in the middle of playing dead he did not dare casually sweep it with the Heavenly Eye of Wisdom, so he could not judge its true quality for the moment. But even so, one thing could be settled: this pearl — presumably the Zhuye — outranked both the Zhenmiao Divine Mirror and the divine blade Yinxue by a clear margin, and came close on the heels of the ancient divine sword Lihen currently in God-Slayer’s hand.

Had Yue Yang been able to look down from the very roof of the highest heaven, he would have seen heaven and earth divided down the middle into two halves.

One half was day — radiance blazing to the horizon, sword-qi surging into the sky.

The other half was night — ink-black, half-seen and half-hidden, with the light of the divine pearl, the divine blade and the divine mirror flickering through it by turns.

The night, driven by Hei Zhou and supported by Tianchou and Zhaoxi, gradually pressed down the day that God-Slayer was holding up entirely alone. Hei Zhou and God-Slayer could not be set equal to one another, but as things stood now the gap between their strength was not large.

If God-Slayer stood nine feet, then Hei Zhou stood a little over eight.

And with two seven-footers in Tianchou and Zhaoxi supporting him, Hei Zhou was gradually taking the upper hand.

“Hmph!”

Northwest Divine Sovereign Shuanghan was watching from the sidelines. Had he thrown himself in to lend a hand at this moment, it would certainly have hastened God-Slayer’s defeat. He did not do it. Hei Zhou’s earlier conduct toward Shafeng, and toward him, had cut Shuanghan deeply. He had always held that he was helping of his own accord, out of righteousness, expecting no return, asking only for a long war to end sooner — and his heart was broken clean through. Never mind that Hei Zhou currently held a slight advantage; even if he had been comprehensively losing, Shuanghan would not have put out a hand to help him again. After that pitiless abandonment of Shafeng and that venomous suspicion of himself, the fact that Shuanghan was not dropping rocks on a man already down the well, not going over to God-Slayer, not turning his spear around and attacking Hei Zhou, was already generous of him.

Helping was out of the question, and turning his spear around was beneath him.

Shuanghan decided to leave.

Divine War, indeed.

He was finished with it.

Far better to live like Qingyun — free, unfettered, his own days his own.

It was a pity Zhaoxi still would not be moved by the way things had gone; otherwise Shuanghan would have gone away with an easier heart.

“Ah — one moment, please.” Ji Wuri appeared abruptly in front of Shuanghan, his face full of smiles, a kind of sincerity showing through them, the charisma of a superior radiating off him. Anyone who saw it could not have helped feeling that here was a man worth trusting; anyone of lower station would have felt shabby by comparison, and would not have dared raise his head and meet the eyes of this Grand Hall Master of the Sacred Hall.

“If you’re here to talk me round, don’t trouble yourself!” Shuanghan rejected any possibility of reconciliation flatly. Hei Zhou was simply not the best of leaders, and Shuanghan’s heart had gone cold on him entirely.

“Not at all. I have no intention whatever of talking you round. The grievances and misunderstandings between you and Hei Zhou hold no interest for me at all, and I’ve no wish to play the peacemaker.” Ji Wuri shook his head and waved a hand, indicating that Shuanghan should not misread him. He was smiling with quite exceptional sincerity, quite exceptional warmth, and looking at this Northwest Divine Sovereign with quite exceptional kindness — so much so that Shuanghan found it faintly baffling. And then, at last, he asked, one word at a time, “Northwest Divine Sovereign Shuanghan. Do you happen to think that because I am merely quasi-divine tier, you can simply leave without asking whether I agree?”

“Heh!” Shuanghan’s heart flared with fury, and his face broke into a smile instead. “So I need your agreement before I’m permitted to leave, is that it? Well then — will you agree?”

“I will not.”

Ji Wuri shook his head lightly and shrugged his shoulders. “If you were to kneel down, put your arms around my legs and swear an oath to be my slave, I might give some consideration to whether or not to spare your life.”

Shuanghan’s face froze over in an instant.

He was furious past bearing.

But he did not erupt on the spot.

A man of divine tier, who had cultivated bitterly for ten thousand years, had been headed off by a junior of merely quasi-divine tier — and this display of arrogance was something he had not seen in his entire life. He was expected to kneel and knock his head on the ground and swear himself into slavery, and then the fellow would consider whether to let him go? Was this not pushing a man too damned far?

Even a tiger fallen to the flatlands, bullied by dogs, does not have it this bad.

Even Tianchou.

Or that Hei Zhou who dared challenge God-Slayer — neither of them, facing him, would dare be arrogant on this scale.

“You — on what grounds?” Shuanghan could not stop the sneer.

“On the grounds that I am called Ji Wuri. A holder of the Sacred Codex, fated to devour the whole of your Mountain Beyond the Mountain, and beyond that the entire Trial Grounds. No — I shall be a holder of the Divine Codex. The last Divine Codex in the Trial Grounds is destined for me, and me alone.” Ji Wuri might have been describing something entirely trivial. There was not the least excitement in him, nor a trace of arrogance, nor a trace of unease. His expression was as placid as still water, and altogether matter-of-fact.

“…” That line struck Yue Yang like a bolt of lightning. Big brother, could you possibly watch your mouth a little? You haven’t laid a finger on the Divine Codex yet — could you keep it down? Do you know how the word “modesty” is written? If not, I can teach you. Would it kill you to stop being such an insufferable show-off?

Yue Yang, who had been playing dead for half the day, very nearly could not stop himself leaping up to argue the point.

Fortunately his self-control was decent.

He held it in by main force.

His whole body might have been scorched black outside and left raw inside by that thunderbolt, but he gritted his teeth and did not make a sound.

Shuanghan too was left blankly staring for a good long while. He had genuinely not expected Ji Wuri to answer like that, and had nothing to say to it.

But in the very next second, once he had come back to himself, ice chains blanketed the sky like a net flung across a river and came down over Ji Wuri, and a cold approaching absolute zero — cold enough to freeze water as it dripped — turned him into an ice sculpture in an instant.

“Too weak.”

The ice sculpture that was Ji Wuri shattered with a crack and reassembled itself as it had been.

He was entirely unharmed from head to foot, and utterly disregarded both the bone-deep cold and the frost chains whirling and coiling about his body. Very calmly, he put out his right hand — as gently as a man stroking a lover’s skin — and summoned a Sacred Codex of ten thousand splendours and surpassing glory. The moment it appeared, a protective barrier and a domain rose together. There was no telling what Ji Wuri’s talent was, but he too possessed Sovereign Intent, and with no more than a snap of the fingers of his left hand he converted every one of Shuanghan’s attacks — the divine-power-condensed ice chains included — into thousands upon thousands of harmless, gentle snowflakes, drifting slowly down.

“Sovereign Intent!” Shuanghan’s face changed violently.

“High-grade goods of that order are beyond the comprehension of country bumpkins like you, who only got hold of summoning grimoires because somebody else handed them over. Even with your grimoires, you will never become true gods, and you will certainly never become Sovereigns. In a word: you are all of you garbage. If Taiyan and Bingli had not stuck their noses in, none of you would ever have possessed a summoning grimoire in your entire lives!”

Ji Wuri turned the pages of that Sacred Codex of his idly, apparently unable to settle on which war beast to summon — the difficulty being that any war beast at all would easily dispose of a Divine Sovereign like Shuanghan, which left him spoilt for choice.

Shuanghan shook from head to foot with rage.

But he understood perfectly well how terrifying an enemy holding absolute Sovereign Intent and a Sacred Codex was.

God-Slayer had no Sacred Codex whatsoever. Merely by having comprehended the realm of Will more powerfully and more deeply than Hei Zhou, he had come to stand unshakeably in the position of first man of Mountain Beyond the Mountain.

And this Ji Wuri not only held an absolute Sovereign Intent higher than God-Slayer’s — he held in his hands the Sacred Codex that every living being dreamed of.

How was this fight supposed to be fought at all?

Shuanghan had no answer.

He had never once encountered an enemy who held a Sacred Codex.

Not even Taiyan and Bingli, who in their day had come near to invincibility, had ever held one.

“Master, allow me — Yuanji — to deal with this little worm! Ten thousand years ago, when this worm was still a snivelling brat, I gave him his lesson; frightened him until he wet himself. If Taiyan and Bingli hadn’t stuck their noses in, Mountain Beyond the Mountain would long since have been levelled flat. And now I, Yuanji, have returned here. Taiyan and Bingli are gone. The place remains and the people have changed. Since that great revenge can never be taken, venting on these little worms will do well enough — otherwise this knot in my chest will never come loose!” A golden shadow rose curling out of the Sacred Codex like a thread of smoke.

“Wh— what? Yuanji? Weren’t you sealed away by Taiyan and Bingli?” One look at that golden shadow, and Shuanghan shuddered from head to foot in fright.

“Sealed away I was, quite right. Except that my master released me several thousand years ago. Back then, freshly escaped from the seal, I really was in a wretched state — I was very nearly discovered by you people. To preserve my life I had no choice but to fuse with my master’s life-guardian war beast. Which is also, as it happens, what produced my perfect existence: a flawless body that can never die and never perish. Add my master’s talent to that, and — hahaha! — the day I, Yuanji, unify Mountain Beyond the Mountain is not far off. No, no, no. Not merely Mountain Beyond the Mountain. Human Valley, Earth Valley, and that Heaven Valley which was mine to begin with — the whole Trial Grounds, even — all of it will go into my pocket. You fools are not so much as qualified to be my slaves. Ah, hahahahaha…”

The golden shadow laughed aloud, insufferably arrogant, as though nobody else existed.

Shuanghan’s colour changed.

He wound his ice chains into a wall of chains to shield his body, then tore open space, preparing to teleport out of there in an instant.

The golden shadow did not so much as glance at him. It simply put out one finger, at random, and touched it lightly to the air. A divine light came across the intervening space, neither hurrying nor slowing, punched straight through that guardian wall of chains — which resembled a ten-thousand-year ice cliff — disregarded Shuanghan’s body-guarding divine power entirely, and shot the Northwest Divine Sovereign Shuanghan clean through from front to back.

From his chest to the middle of his spine, a hole the size of a bowl.

Straight through.

“Do you imagine I am still the pitiable worm who used to start in terror at the rustle of grass in the wind, in the days just after I escaped the seal? Shuanghan, Shuanghan. You and Zhaoxi had the best chance anyone ever had, back then — but you didn’t investigate it carefully, and in the end I escaped, with my master’s help. Several thousand years of recovery later, I have not only recovered my full power, I am stronger than I was when I fought Taiyan and Bingli. With those two gone, do you little worms really propose to contend for supremacy with me, Yuanji, First Heavenly King of Heaven Beyond the Heaven?” The golden shadow waved a hand carelessly and flung out a man covered in blood.

Shuanghan looked hard, and his eyes all but split at the corners. “Qingyun!“

That blood-soaked figure — drained of divine power, gravely wounded, at the point of death — was Northeast Divine Sovereign Qingyun, the one being in Mountain Beyond the Mountain who most detested fighting and warfare.

A Qingyun who cherished even the flowers and grass and trees, who looked upon every living thing alike. Of all the Divine Sovereigns, the first to be acknowledged by a grimoire had been this Northeast Divine Sovereign Qingyun — a few seconds earlier, even, than the Eastern Divine Sovereign God-Slayer.

Even Hei Zhou acknowledged that Northeast Divine Sovereign Qingyun was a gentleman.

When Qingyun refused to take part in the war, Hei Zhou did not press him.

God-Slayer had even seen him off in person.

Who could have imagined it.

That a Divine Sovereign who loved life and loved peace this much would be drained of his divine power by Ji Wuri and Yuanji, and tormented until he was barely recognisable as a man.

Shuanghan felt as though his eyes were about to burst from their sockets, and a fury detonated in his chest and came pouring wildly out of him. Heedless of his own mortal wound, he rushed over and gathered up the barely-breathing Northeast Divine Sovereign Qingyun. His throat had gone rigid; he wanted to cry out and could not force any sound through it at all; and at some point his vision had blurred over.

Even God-Slayer and Zhaoxi and the rest of them, locked in their killing struggle over on the other side, stopped in astonishment.

And stared at this in disbelief.

The golden shadow lifted the gravely wounded Shuanghan up in one hand and laughed madly. “With my master’s Devouring talent, you little worms are every one of you nourishment for my return to the peak, and for surpassing what I was. Do you know why my master provoked this war? To sweep up idiots like you in a single net. You thought that because my master is still quasi-divine tier after several thousand years, his natural gifts must be lacking? What genuinely stupid little worms you are. If my master’s Devouring talent did not require him to absorb energy of a tier and a strength above his own body’s, do you imagine you would ever have been able to look up at the rank he occupies? Do you imagine you would still be alive now? My master could have laid claim to divine tier several thousand years ago. Set against him, you don’t even rise to the level of worms — and still you think rather a lot of yourselves. What pitiful frogs at the bottom of a well…”

“Wuri. Why did you keep even me in the dark?” Hei Zhou’s expression had turned very ugly indeed.

“Because you are nourishment too.” Tianchou, standing at Hei Zhou’s side, drove the divine blade Yinxue into Hei Zhou’s heart like a bolt of lightning.

In under a thousandth of a second, Hei Zhou had already reacted.

He prepared to strike back.

But the golden shadow was behind him before he could. A great hand closed round Hei Zhou’s skull and slammed this ruthless warlord of Mountain Beyond the Mountain heavily into the ground. In the next second Hei Zhou heard Ji Wuri’s voice, placid as water and entirely unhurried, sound beside his ear: “Uncle’s power — Wuri accepts it with thanks. And Uncle’s dying wish, Wuri will do his utmost to see fulfilled for you.”

(End of Chapter 1185)