“You’re not dead?” The words burst out of Hei Zhou, his face the picture of astonishment.

A Shafeng who by rights should have died long ago.

Had suddenly picked himself up off the ground.

If you weren’t dead, wouldn’t the sensible thing be to stay flat on the ground and go on playing dead? Getting up to compete with everybody for a turn at last words — what state of mind produces that?

Hei Zhou genuinely could not follow a dumbass like Shafeng. Had the man not been visibly delighted at the prospect of competing for last words, Hei Zhou might have been genuinely touched; in a dead end like this, anybody at all who steps up to share the burden is offering help of an exceptionally precious kind. But a moron who wakes from wounds that should have killed him and immediately scrambles up in high spirits to bid for a turn at last words — Hei Zhou simply could not get himself to feel moved.

Shuanghan, burning from head to foot, looked at the Shafeng in front of him with the expression of a man seeing a ghost in broad daylight.

God-Slayer stared, dumbstruck.

And Yue Yang stood there like a fishwife cursing in the street, one hand on his hip and the other levelled at Ji Wuri, and swore at him. “You plague-chicken, what exactly do you mean by this? Looking down on me, are you? For God-Slayer you went and found a Love-Thread Spider-Demon to counter him. For Hei Zhou you found a Black-Hole Star-Devouring Nether Frog. For Zhaoxi you found a Drunken Muddle-Worm. Even for Shuanghan you’ve got some beast that turns ice into fire and buzzes around the place being as irritating as a fly. And I get nothing at all! That is looking down on a man far too much! I won’t have it. You are going to produce a war beast specifically to counter me, or I shall lodge a severe protest and issue a strong condemnation—”

“Shafeng, this is hardly the moment to be pursuing that, is it!” Shuanghan very nearly dropped dead on the spot at that.

“Ahem!” Hei Zhou was sweating freely as well.

“So what you mean is that I should extend the same treatment to you?” Ji Wuri was not angry in the least. He was smiling, eyes crinkled, apparently in a decent mood. But in the golden eyes of Yuanji, a cold killing intent flickered past.

“If you don’t produce a really impressive war beast that counters me specifically, I’m not finished with you!” Yue Yang looked entirely determined not to let it drop.

“In point of fact it isn’t only you, Shafeng. I have dedicated war beasts for Chiqiu and Qingyun as well. My sincere apologies — I assumed you had been finished off by God-Slayer in a single move and had no idea you were still alive. Let us do it this way: since there are really rather too many war beasts that counter you, I can’t settle on the best choice just at the moment. Suppose I summon a few at random and let you personally select your own manner of death?” Ji Wuri put the question with great patience, apologising as he did so for his own carelessness.

“If you’d said so from the start, we’d have had no trouble at all! Summon a few more and let me have a good look through them!” Yue Yang nodded, overjoyed.

“He’s beyond saving.” Shuanghan covered his face.

Knowing a dumbass like this and standing in the same camp as him really was a shameful stain on a man’s life.

Hei Zhou also lowered his head and said nothing. Did using a man of this sort as cannon fodder drag one’s own intelligence down by association? Hei Zhou was still reflecting on the question.

South Divine Sovereign Tianchou, who had not made a sound throughout, laughed coldly. He levelled the divine blade Yinxue straight at the Yue Yang who was disguised as Shafeng, and barked, “You. You are not Shafeng at all! Return to your true form this instant. Skulking creature — who exactly are you?”

Shuanghan started.

Hei Zhou raised his head to look at Yue Yang, apparently trying to find a flaw somewhere in him.

Quite so. However stupid and however dumb Shafeng might be, he would never go this far. Every scrap of everyone’s attention had been on God-Slayer, and they had all inexplicably overlooked this fellow. Thinking back over it now, it really did feel extremely suspicious.

Was Shafeng genuinely that much of a moron?

Ji Wuri clapped his hands and laughed. “I had strong suspicions on the day itself, and now I can be certain of it. That day, when everyone set on you together — not only were you not killed, you deceived every single person present! That fool Shafeng died at your hands long ago. You could fool Hei Zhou, you could fool Shuanghan, you could even fool Zhaoxi with his Zhenmiao Divine Mirror. But you cannot fool me. Chiqiu. In all of Mountain Beyond the Mountain, the man who hides himself deepest is you!”

Yue Yang immediately produced a well, you’ve caught me expression.

Shrugged his shoulders. Spread his hands.

And sighed. “Ji Wuri really does live up to the name Ji Wuri. Having no cock to speak of does make a difference! I flattered myself that my disguise was a good one — even Hei Zhou, my ally of ten thousand years, never suspected a thing. And you saw through it at a single glance. Very impressive indeed.”

Shafeng’s divine power faded rapidly out of him and the outer shell shifted, transforming in an instant into the figure of Chiqiu.

The quasi-divine artifact Tunlong hummed in his hand, and flames in the shape of a dragon leapt up toward the sky.

He put out a finger and touched the air.

The double prohibition — the ancient relic together with Ji Wuri’s Sovereign Intent — crumbled to powder all around his body. He had not summoned a grimoire; but not one person on that field would have doubted that this Southeast Divine Sovereign Chiqiu had comprehended Sovereign Intent. And most astonishing of all, the Taiyan Divine Power concealed in the Tunlong spear for ten thousand years blazed out in an instant, its divine majesty exactly as it had been in the old days — enough to set the corner of Yuanji’s eye twitching, proud First Heavenly King of Heaven Beyond the Heaven though he was, and enough to ensure he would not treat this lightly.

God-Slayer stared open-mouthed, as though he did not know this brother of his at all.

Shuanghan’s jaw hit the floor.

Surely not?

Was Chiqiu really this formidable and this quiet about it? He had comprehended Sovereign Intent and gone on serving as Southeast Divine Sovereign without ever breathing a word, and had not revealed his real strength even while being murdered on the field? The sight in front of them hit far too hard; there was simply no way to make oneself believe it.

And yet everything in front of them was real. Damn it all.

This world had gone quite mad.

It was enough to take the heart out of a man.

“Ji Wuri. And what is the war beast that counters me, Chiqiu, specifically?” Yue Yang, disguised as Chiqiu this time, swung the Tunlong in his hand in a magnificently valiant flourish, levelled the spear at Yuanji, and snorted coldly. “Or shall we have this Yuanji — once the number-one piece of filth in Heaven Beyond the Heaven — fight me first? And once I’ve sent him back to the God-Slaying Mystic Realm to be sealed again, and discharged the commission Taiyan left me, then you and I can have our battle?”

“Chiqiu! A little worm like you!” Yuanji was enraged. He might have been unable to beat Taiyan and Bingli in his day, but that was no licence for some brat like this to crow about it.

Even so, he was slightly wary of the Taiyan Divine Power on the Tunlong spear.

That was not a thing to provoke. Best left alone.

Because he had fused into one with a life-guardian war beast and could never die or perish, Yuanji no longer worried that a day might come when he fell in battle. But the agony of Taiyan Divine Power invading his body was not a memory he cared to revisit. Besides which, Ji Wuri had his own preparations for Chiqiu, so there was no need whatever to make complications.

That thought settled it. Angry as he was, Yuanji did not act himself.

He folded his hands and watched.

On the other side, Ji Wuri kept his gaze fixed on Yue Yang and said nothing for a long time, apparently taken aback by this chess piece that fell outside his plan.

South Divine Sovereign Tianchou felt precisely the opposite.

He strongly suspected that Chiqiu’s Sovereign Intent was a fabrication and that the man had comprehended nothing of the kind — otherwise, why had he not summoned a grimoire? Perhaps Chiqiu had some special skill that let him be immune to, or break, the law-prohibition generated by the ancient relic’s main body. But that was not at all the same as Chiqiu having comprehended Sovereign Intent the way God-Slayer had. With Chiqiu’s talent and potential, that was flatly impossible.

Trying to bluff people?

Dream on.

“Chiqiu, you will always be a man I have beaten!” Tianchou lifted the divine blade Yinxue high and brought it chopping down, unstoppably, at the Yue Yang who held Tunlong and wore Chiqiu’s face.

Blade-qi ran in every direction. Its power fell somewhat short of God-Slayer’s sword-qi, but with the might of a divine artifact behind Yinxue and South Divine Sovereign Tianchou’s divine power driving it, this was — by the old standards — absolutely not a stroke that a Southeast Divine Sovereign Chiqiu could stand against. Both Shuanghan and Hei Zhou saw it clearly, and both knew the outcome: if Chiqiu had no Sovereign Intent, then even supposing he lived, he would certainly be gravely wounded. No third outcome existed.

Except — how would it go now?

Had Chiqiu genuinely comprehended Sovereign Intent?

Ji Wuri did not watch the battle at all. He watched God-Slayer’s expression instead.

He seemed to be hoping to locate some flaw in Chiqiu by way of God-Slayer’s face.

God-Slayer’s face was expressionless.

Neither pleased nor angry, his proud bearing unchanged.

Nobody could spy into his inner world, and nobody could dig anything at all out of his expression. Trapped inside the net of love though he was, God-Slayer’s heart was solid stone and did not shift by a hair.

“Swift!“

Yue Yang did not meet the stroke head-on with the Tunlong in his hand. He thrust the spear out behind him instead, using the recoil to drive his body, and teleported in an instant clear of the killing radius of Tianchou’s Yinxue.

And in the same split second that he teleported, Tianchou — at some point nobody had seen — was already standing in front of him, with Yinxue going through his chest.

The ambush-kill had always been Tianchou’s single strongest technique.

Yue Yang, teleported ten thousand metres clear.

Frowned.

He put a hand to his chest and found a faint trace of blood seeping out of it.

The blade had not actually touched him. The ambushing blade-intent alone could wound a man across open space. South Divine Sovereign Tianchou’s capacity for the ambush-kill really had reached the very summit. Small wonder that men as strong as God-Slayer and Hei Zhou had both spilled blood on the spot beneath that blade of his; in the methods and the sheer force of assassination, this South Divine Sovereign Tianchou could unquestionably be called the foremost in Mountain Beyond the Mountain.

But compared with Yue Yang, who had taken the hit, it was Tianchou — whose strike had come up empty — who was the more shaken of the two.

The ambush had failed?

He could never have imagined that an ambush of his would miss!

Never mind the piercing stroke he had put through Chiqiu during the earlier gang-killing. This divine blade Yinxue had just drunk the blood of two Divine Sovereigns, God-Slayer and Hei Zhou! Once its assassination technique was launched, not even God-Slayer, first man of Mountain Beyond the Mountain, could evade a strike through the chest and the internal wounds that came with it. And this Chiqiu had got clear of it in one piece? Apparently with no more than the faintest trace of a flesh wound?

Could Chiqiu really have comprehended Sovereign Intent?

For an instant.

Tianchou, the assassin himself, wavered. If Chiqiu had not comprehended Sovereign Intent, then how could he possibly have escaped an assassination stroke from Yinxue?

The rest of them did not know any of that. Seeing Yue Yang get clear with his chest wounded and blood staining his robe, they were promptly and deeply disappointed.

They assumed this “Chiqiu” had merely been bluffing, and had never really comprehended Sovereign Intent at all.

Otherwise, how could he possibly have been wounded?

They had all forgotten one thing. God-Slayer, who likewise possessed Sovereign Intent, had been unable to avoid internal injury under Tianchou’s assassination even while pinching Yinxue between two fingers; he had not come away untouched either. And set against the God-Slayer of a few moments ago, by Tianchou’s own inward sense of it, this “Chiqiu” was slipperier by far, and far harder to land a solid hit on.

“Not a bad piece of trickery. I like your performance.” One look was enough to put Ji Wuri’s mind at rest. Chiqiu could still be wounded under Tianchou’s blade, which proved he had not surpassed God-Slayer. And so long as he did not far exceed God-Slayer, there was nothing whatever to worry about.

“Heh heh. Likewise, likewise — I like your performance too!” Yue Yang returned the heh heh like a well-mannered child.

“Sovereign Intent? Tch. Listen to him blowing his own trumpet—” Yuanji sneered, thoroughly contemptuous.

“Be careful. Chiqiu has very considerable strength.” South Divine Sovereign Tianchou, by contrast, hurriedly warned Ji Wuri and Yuanji on no account to grow careless.

“I’ll throw him into the World of Terror this instant! Without Sovereign Intent he will stay inside it for the rest of his life, tormented to the utmost!” Ji Wuri laid his hand on the Sacred Codex and summoned an immensely powerful humanoid war beast, its face veiled so that the features could not be made out, with a ring of strangely twisted light turning behind its back.

That mysterious veiled humanoid war beast looked at Yue Yang, and a wash of radiance kindled in its eyes.

Shuanghan flung himself at Yue Yang.

Heedless of everything, he loosed thousands upon thousands of ice chains, hoping to take the first wave of the attack in this “Chiqiu’s” place.

Every one of his ice chains turned into a fire chain in mid-air, whipped back and bound him, and began to burn savagely.

There was no time even to scream.

Shuanghan, standing in front of Yue Yang, was drawn bodily into the uncanny pupils of that mysterious veiled war beast’s eyes. And an instant later, inside the twisted halo behind the beast, a tiny image of Shuanghan was struggling in agony, wailing, apparently subjected to the most terrible torment that exists in this world — endless, ceaseless, without one moment’s peace.

Countless ice chains came shooting out of the twisted halo, whirling and lashing wildly, and under that streak of racing light in the sky they became fire chains filling the heavens and curled back on themselves.

Hei Zhou watched all this.

And his heart sank straight down.

Ji Wuri’s counters to the eight Divine Sovereigns of Mountain Beyond the Mountain had been researched to their absolute limit. Shuanghan was not weak, and yet in front of Ji Wuri he had not the smallest power to strike back. Shuanghan had gone down. What about himself, then? What was he supposed to do?

“Kill Hei Zhou! Ji Wuri’s own body can only absorb Hei Zhou’s divine power — stop him—” The fallen Qingyun suddenly forced the words out, weakly.

“What?” Hei Zhou’s heart lurched violently. Was this — was this the truth behind everything Ji Wuri had schemed?

(End of Chapter 1187)