"..."

Startled by the objects suddenly flung at it, the Thunder-Hoof's scales bristled all over its body — and once it saw they were merely ordinary jade slips, shame and anger welled up at once in all four of its eyes. It immediately assumed the posture of a creature ready to stake its life, and roared:

"Base cur, how dare you humiliate me!"

Within the pitch-black light-curtain, the dense, teeming multitude of blood-red eyes turned to look at the jade slips on the ground.

The Nether-Gloom Spider Emperor finally spoke. "Is what it says true or false?"

Only this time, the one it questioned was the Gold-Eyed Lion.

"Some true, some false." Shen Yi met its gaze calmly.

"Which parts are false?" The Nether-Gloom Spider Emperor rose slowly, four thick spider-limbs extending from the light-curtain.

"Apart from that one sentence, nearly all of it." Shen Yi spoke without servility or arrogance.

"Which sentence?" The Spider Emperor grew rather more curious.

At this, Shen Yi looked down at the Thunder-Hoof, his voice slow, yet with a savage killing intent gradually spreading out from it. "This Emperor did indeed intend to tear it apart alive."

The moment those words were out, the Spider Emperor lunged abruptly out of the light-curtain, pressing close to the lion's face. "By what right?"

"By the right that I require an accounting."

Faced with those blood-red eyes at arm's length, Shen Yi neither flinched nor gave ground, and said with contempt, "Unless you're very fond of being used — a few whispered rumors, and a great demon emperor like you does as it's told."

"Hisss!"

Anger rose in the Nether-Gloom Spider Emperor's eyes.

But it made no move at all.

As though pondering something.

"Spider Emperor, I never—" Seeing things going wrong, the Thunder-Hoof Demon Emperor flew into a rage again in an instant, stamping its hooves — yet not daring to actually draw near the Gold-Eyed Lion. "You dare slander This Emperor! You're courting death!"

The Nether-Gloom Spider Emperor turned slowly to look at it, at that picture of a bird startled by the twang of…