“You laughed out a tooth? Ha ha ha — you actually laughed a tooth out? That’s genuinely killing me — ha ha — wait. Something’s wrong. Your face… ha ha… why does your face look like an old man’s?”

Crimson-Eye was still laughing, but it had noticed something was off. The Large-Eared Rat now looked like a withered, dying elder — the kind that could expire at any moment.

“Cough cough.” The Large-Eared Rat’s laughter had run dry. It collapsed to the ground.

The Draco Lizard’s laughter cut off like a blade dropping.

Its entire body went rigid, cold spreading through it from within.

Something was very, very wrong. Based on what had happened to Biyi, Samson, and White Deer, the Large-Eared Rat had clearly been struck by a calamity force curse.

At that realization, cold sweat broke across the Draco Lizard’s scales. Instinct overwhelmed strategy, and it roared toward the water: “Patterned-Belly — something’s wrong — we’re leaving!”

The lake surface was empty. No response. The Draco Lizard swept its eyes across the water in a frantic search — and found nothing. No ally. Not even a trace of life.

It understood.

Even a fool would have understood at this point.

Nearby, Crimson-Eye was still laughing uncontrollably, the laughter growing worse rather than better. Even as the bat demon recognized that something had gone badly wrong, it couldn’t stop. The laughter that remained was no longer triumphant — it was panicked, furious, terrified. Laughter that couldn’t be stopped was a hundred times more horrible than crying. Crimson-Eye clamped both hands around its own throat, and still the sound found its way out. Trying to forcibly suppress it seemed to threaten to blow apart its own lungs from within.

The Death Reaper Mantis drifted over the dying Large-Eared Rat.

Even in its final moments, the creature’s killing instinct remained. With the last of its energy, it raised its claw and brought it down toward the Death Reaper Mantis — determined to drag something with it.

The strike was spent. The claw fell limply against the rotating scythe-arms of the Death Reaper Mantis and went still.

The body dried out rapidly, crumbling to dust on the lakeshore. A breeze came off the water and in under half a minute, all that remained was a dry husk.

The Death Reaper Mantis’s scythe-arm swept gently through the air and caught a green magical core. She received it with obvious delight.

The Draco Lizard watched, trembling, and as the Death Reaper Mantis turned toward it, instinctively launched a shockwave in pure panic.

In the eyes of the two watching from the undergrowth, a flawless cross of lightning appeared in front of the Death Reaper Mantis in an instant.

Spatial fracture.

The shockwave was cut cleanly into four parts. The lightning continued through — but touched not a scale of the Draco Lizard’s skin. Every last unit of attacking force dissipated perfectly in front of it.

Crimson-Eye, still trapped in helpless laughter, ordered its hundreds of bat children to launch a massed assault on the Death Reaper Mantis. It itself, struggling against the laughter, tried to flee.

The Death Reaper Mantis moved faster than light, weaving through the swarms of bats with perfect precision.

Evading every strike.

Arriving at last before Crimson-Eye.

The sickle weasel and Longma looked at each other and gave small, bitter smiles.

The ultra-perfect Lightning Cross-Kill combined with the Light-Chasing Dance Steps — these had been their respective signature techniques. Now they were being deployed simultaneously by someone else, and with a mastery that surpassed the original creators entirely.

The bitter taste of that was inescapable.

The Death Reaper Mantis didn’t actually want to kill the Draco Lizard and Crimson-Eye yet. What she wanted was the same thing she had done with White Deer and the Large-Eared Rat — have the valley’s Laws recognize an ongoing combat between them. Once that was acknowledged, their deaths would count toward her growth. White Deer had given her the first kill; the twenty or more beasts in between, plus the Patterned-Belly Python and the Large-Eared Rat just now — all of them had become fuel for her advancement. The Draco Lizard and Crimson-Eye were next.

All of it within Yueyang’s design.

“Get away from me — ha ha ha — you think you can kill Crimson-Eye? Ha ha — not yet — ha ha…”

Crimson-Eye’s words were brave, but its heart had broken. It launched attack after attack in increasingly desperate combinations — sonic strikes, reversed sweeps, spinning blows, crimson-eye beams, bat smoke screens, formation attacks — a chaotic storm of techniques. None of it mattered. These were the death throes of something already lost, and its panic was so complete that even its strongest techniques were barely a tenth of their usual effectiveness. The only reason it hadn’t already fled like the Draco Lizard was the Death Reaper Mantis blocking every angle of escape.

The bat children were being cut down one by one. But Crimson-Eye could no longer manage even concern for them.

It fell to its knees at the water’s edge, barely holding itself up on its arms.

It drove its head into the lake — again and again — trying to hold the laughter down by force of submersion.

Bubbles rose. Even with its head underwater, the laughter continued, gurgling through the lake. It packed its nostrils and eye sockets with mud, but the laughter was still vibrating through its chest — and when it accumulated enough, it blew through the mud, erupting even more wildly. The force of it nearly asphyxiated the creature, and still it couldn’t stop.

In a final desperate measure, Crimson-Eye forced a mass of rags and debris down its own throat, sealing mouth and nostrils completely shut.

The convulsing stopped.

The laughter, in this moment, seemed to finally cease.

Yueyang whistled contentedly while adding seasoning to a lake fish on his grill, paying Crimson-Eye essentially no attention. In the sky, hundreds of bats rained down — death finally winning out over frenzied loyalty. The remaining few dozen, their courage shattered by the Death Reaper Mantis’s slaughter, abandoned their father entirely and scattered in every direction.

On the ground, Crimson-Eye tried to rise.

The moment it moved, its chest erupted outward from within — a massive bloody cavity torn through its torso.

It seemed as though only a howl of agony could provide any relief. Crimson-Eye frantically tore the rags from its throat, hoping to vent the unbearable pain —

And from its open mouth came only the same impossible, uncontrollable laughter: “Ha ha ha ha — mercy — ha ha ha—”

“What did you say?” Yueyang cupped a hand to his ear with theatrical helpfulness.

“Spare me — ha ha ha ha—” Blood and liquid sprayed from Crimson-Eye’s nose and mouth.

Its lungs had exploded. Laughter should have been physically impossible.

And yet.

Yueyang used the exact same tone Crimson-Eye had used to mock him, holding a hand to his ear: “I can’t quite hear you — louder?”

There was no strength left for words. Crimson-Eye convulsed between bouts of laughter, shredded internal organs ejected through the bloody wound with each spasm. Tears ran freely. In this moment, it wanted nothing more than a quick death. But the only thing it could do was keep laughing until it was done. For ten full minutes, its heart physically erupted from its chest — and still the laughter continued.

Regret and blood mixed together.

If Crimson-Eye had been offered the choice again, it would have chosen to end itself rather than face Yueyang as an enemy.

But life had no rewind button. Creatures as violent, cruel, and arrogant as Crimson-Eye rarely did.

At the same moment, in Seven Star Rock — the meeting ground reserved for faction leaders — dozens of magical beasts gathered around the barely living Draco Lizard. Its skin and muscle had peeled entirely from its skeleton below the neck, leaving nothing but exposed white bone.

“What curse words did the new arrival use?” Lion King, Toad King, and Human-Faced Tiger all pressed the dying creature.

“No… curse words…” The Draco Lizard’s pupils were beginning to dilate.

“What happened exactly? Who did this to you?” The Draco Lizard’s leader, Eagle King, arrived and took one look at its subordinate’s condition. Fury erupted.

Perhaps the arrival of its leader gave the Draco Lizard one last burst of clarity. It summoned what remained and weakly spoke: “Don’t say you weren’t—”

It didn’t finish.

The skeleton came apart. The skin on its skull began peeling the same way. A wave of blood. And before everyone’s eyes, the last remnant of the Draco Lizard became a pale, grinning skull.

The surrounding magical beasts all stepped back several paces, instinctively afraid of contamination.

Lion King urged Eagle King to collect itself first, and provided a summary: “While the rear guard was occupied, a new challenger arrived at the Fortress. Based on the Draco Lizard’s last words — and what Crimson-Eye had investigated and what Toad King confirmed — this person carries a triggering curse artifact called Pandora’s Box. It exists in gold, silver, and bronze. Opening one yourself has no effect — but once triggered, whoever opens it receives a divine force curse of some variety. Biyi died from dehydration. Samson from drowning. White Deer exploded. The Draco Lizard mentioned the Large-Eared Rat suffered aging—”

The Poison Wasp King arrived, surveying the scene with a slow, grim shake of its head. “I don’t understand why you keep provoking him. That young man frightened me the moment I saw him. He is like Ji Wuri and Zhonghua — not someone any of us should be picking fights with. And never mind the Central Divine Temple figures. Even the Demon Doctor, Ghost-Eye King, and Six Plate King have given us serious trouble. I never understood why we had to treat challengers as enemies. They only want to clear the stage. They have no interest in fighting us. But now — after all the attacks, after your forces killed their war beasts — they’ve had to band together for protection and essentially declared war. Even if we win eventually, it will cost us dearly.”

“The problem is,” Human-Faced Tiger said, “if we stop now, they won’t.”

“Ghost-Eye King and the others haven’t fully developed their war beasts yet. We still have a window,” Toad King said. As always, it was the most relentlessly acquisitive of the faction leaders.

“The only reason they haven’t counterattacked already is Blazing Beacon and Wanmo — those two Central Divine Temple figures who failed the stage are second only to Ji Wuri and the two of them still hold the challengers in check. As for the new arrival — also extremely dangerous. The three residential faction leaders have already said they want no part of this. If you keep sending beasts to die, the only outcome is feeding the new arrival’s war beast. Nothing else,” the Poison Wasp King said, formally announcing that it was withdrawing from any further aggression and ordering its subordinates to stay away from this future threat.

“The new arrival — agreed, we don’t move against him for now. Not until we understand Pandora’s Box fully. But the Demon Doctor and Ghost-Eye King and the others — we must trap them here. We need to grow stronger. The residents grow more powerful every year and if we don’t press our advantage now, it will be too late,” Human-Faced Tiger said with quiet urgency.

“None of this would have happened if you hadn’t provoked Ji Wuri and Zhonghua in the first place,” the Poison Wasp King snapped.

“Enough arguing — we still have an advantage,” Lion King said, bringing the assembly back under control.

“Exactly. If any of the residents’ war beasts die one more time, they lose all right to clear the stage and become our subordinates permanently. The Demon Doctor, Ghost-Eye King, and the others have each had their war beasts die twice. One more push and they’re ours. Missing an opportunity like this would be unforgivable,” Toad King argued forcefully.

“There’s no need to rush. Their war beasts haven’t truly grown yet, and even fully grown, clearing Beast Valley isn’t simple. They’re not Ji Wuri or Zhonghua,” Lion King said, keeping the increasingly fragmented assembly from flying apart entirely.

After everyone dispersed, Lion King sat alone with a single question.

Draco Lizard had said ‘don’t say you weren’t’ — was that the complete trigger phrase, or did it not finish?

If it ever understood the curse, and managed to destroy that dangerous new arrival — the boost to its authority and dominance would be incalculable. Of course, that was extraordinarily risky. Beast Valley had seen many powerful challengers over the years, and crossing the wrong one was suicide.

Better to accept the current situation and not overthink it.

In Beast Valley, an atmosphere of unease spread through every corner within hundreds of kilometers. The terror of Pandora’s Box and its calamity force had taken hold. Beyond the mindless wild beasts, no intelligent creature dared move against Yueyang. Even the sickle weasel and Longma, shadowing him from a distance, stayed well outside ten kilometers of his activity radius.

Days passed.

The Death Reaper Mantis grew a little more each day. With wings folded she now fit comfortably in a palm.

The energy from White Deer, Crimson-Eye, Large-Eared Rat, the Patterned-Belly Python, the Draco Lizard, and the twenty-plus magical beasts eliminated in the initial ambush — especially the first four — had given the Death Reaper Mantis both combat energy and a steady supply of magical cores. The effect on her early-stage development was like a volcanic eruption driving a rocket.

With that kind of momentum behind her, slowing down was nearly impossible.

Every day brought a new breakthrough. Every day brought measurable progress.

In all of Beast Valley, only the sickle weasel and Longma trailing behind knew how far beyond all expectation this newborn’s growth had gone.

Her growth rate versus that of every other war beast raised by every other challenger who had ever come through Beast Valley.

A hundred times faster.

Perhaps hundreds of times.

No matter how exceptional the challengers who had come before, Yueyang’s cultivation pace for the Death Reaper Mantis could genuinely be called unprecedented. He had known about the sickle weasel and Longma following him since early on. He simply chose to leave them alone. Sometimes keeping a pawn or two on the board was the key to winning the whole game. Yueyang didn’t just think this — he taught it to the Death Reaper Mantis as well.

“Yes!” The Death Reaper Mantis nodded obediently.

She hadn’t entirely followed that particular lesson yet.

But she kept every word he said carefully in her heart.

What she couldn’t understand now — with greater intelligence in the future, she would.