“You want to fight me? You certainly know how to pick.” Yue Yang was a little caught off guard. He’d been planning to keep a low profile and stay inside the palanquin with the Southern Wilderness Demon King, but Her Majesty the Queen had pointed out that a coronation address required some attention to appearances, and ejected him.

Her concern was not unfounded. Leave a certain transmigrator alone inside a palanquin with her, and there was no telling what those wandering hands might get up to.

Palanquin-shaking was not, in principle, off the table between them — but perhaps not during the public portion of the coronation ceremony, especially on the very first day of her reign. The image considerations alone made it inadvisable.

Shimmer’s announcement that he wanted to single-handedly challenge Yue Yang, the guard captain, sent a ripple through the entire crowd. Nobody present was foolish enough to miss the calculation behind it. He was simply afraid to die, so he’d rushed forward to claim the weakest-looking target — the silver-masked young man who read as barely Sky-rank. Savage Force’s face went the color of old iron. The particular feeling washing over him was something like discovering that the brother you’d trusted with your life had been sleeping in your bed — and the discovery came from the brother’s own announcement, in public, in front of everyone. So much for brotherhood. The moment things got difficult, Shimmer had sold whatever remained of their friendship for exactly nothing.

“Unbelievable.” Savage Force’s animosity toward the Gentle Breeze Queen had, in the span of ten seconds, converted entirely into animosity toward Shimmer. There was almost something to be grateful for — without the queen’s presence creating this pressure, Shimmer’s true nature would never have surfaced so cleanly.

He wanted to tear Shimmer apart barehanded.

But Savage Force was still a national-ruler-class powerhouse, and he had some capacity for self-control. He clenched both fists, held Shimmer’s gaze for a full scorching second, then stepped forward and dropped to one knee.

“Savage Force was deceived by those without principle. I offer apology here and now for any prior disrespect. The Gentle Breeze Queen’s coronation carries authority across all directions, and Savage Force would honor it with blood and what dignity remains. Before the Gentle Breeze Queen takes her rightful seat above the gathered powers of the Tianhua Domain, Savage Force presumes — overestimating his own strength — to challenge the greatest fighter under the queen’s banner. If I survive by fortune, Savage Force pledges full and genuine support for both the Gentle Breeze Queen and the Divine Punishment Empress in their conquest of the Tianhua Domain. On this I give my word.”

The assembled Sky-rank cultivators reacted with another collective wave of surprise.

Whatever Savage Force looked like on the surface — a man whose brain appeared to be as thoroughly muscled as the rest of him — the reality was considerably sharper. Possibly sharper than the slippery Shimmer by a meaningful margin. Kneeling and apologizing gave the Gentle Breeze Queen full face, while openly declaring his support removed any justification for killing him. The queen had been angry before — no anger survives this kind of complete and public submission without looking like cruelty in response.

Savage Force was going to live.

And in the process, he had neatly sealed off Shimmer’s path to the same exit. Submitting the same way a second time would look like imitation at best, desperation at worst. The maneuver couldn’t be repeated.

Shimmer’s expression darkened immediately. His next look at Savage Force carried something that went past hatred and into the territory where a person starts mentally calculating what it would take to eliminate someone from the world permanently. You let me take all the risk while you watched, told me to wait and see when I suggested surrender, maneuvered me into the position of the obvious villain, and then dropped to your knees and played the reformed man the moment the opening appeared? You think pledging yourself to the queen protects you? Go ahead and see what happens when you get home and have to explain yourself to the people who sent us. Your territory is nowhere near Windstill Swamp — the Gentle Breeze Queen’s reach doesn’t extend there. The moment I’m back, I’m raising an army and taking everything you have.

Two men who had fought side by side through years of shared campaigns had just become enemies who would not be satisfied until the other was dead, all in the space of about ninety seconds.

Everyone’s attention had locked onto the two of them, which meant Ink-Flame, still on the fighting platform, had been more or less forgotten. Under ordinary circumstances, being ignored would have been a serious wound to Ink-Flame’s pride. Right now, Ink-Flame was devoutly grateful that no one was looking at him.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Ink-Flame, facing the Death Reaper Mantis girl, found himself unwilling to attack. And not because he couldn’t — he couldn’t afford to. Actually injuring one of the Gentle Breeze Queen’s personal attendants would be catastrophic regardless of outcome. So he wrapped himself in Black Fire shielding and tried to weather whatever came.

The Death Reaper Mantis girl shattered his defense with a single palm strike, flipped her body in the same motion, and swung one heel in a crescent arc that caught Ink-Flame under the chin.

A black meteor shot skyward.

Her afterimage dissolved. Her real body was already waiting a thousand meters above.

Both fists came together in a hammer blow.

The black meteor reversed direction and plummeted at a speed that made the air scream around it, impacting the stone fighting platform with a force that embedded Ink-Flame’s body into the solid rock, limbs spread, in the approximate shape of someone trying to make a floor impression of themselves.

Ink-Flame felt as though ten thousand golden mammoths had walked over him in sequence. At least half his bones had given way. His internal organs had nearly exited through his throat.

But he was alive.

That, right now, was the only thing that mattered.

Humiliation, defeat, the judgment of ten thousand watching eyes — all of that could wait. A national ruler losing a fight was not the end of a national ruler. There were no rules saying national rulers couldn’t lose. As long as you survived, as long as you stopped fighting unwinnable opponents, reputation could be rebuilt. Everything could come back. Everything except death.

“National Ruler Ink-Flame,” the Southern Wilderness Demon King’s voice drifted from the red palanquin without particular urgency, “I hope you will carry one lesson from today: don’t stick your head up when it doesn’t concern you. Some matters are not yours to involve yourself in.”

“The Gentle Breeze Queen’s wisdom is a gift I did not deserve. Ink-Flame is thoroughly ashamed, and offers sincere apology — along with gratitude for the queen’s mercy in leaving me alive.”

Ink-Flame was not without intelligence. He understood precisely why he was still breathing. It wasn’t his own strength that had kept him from dying. It was the decision made by the small girl who had been holding back the entire time. That final strike could have taken his head off cleanly, and it hadn’t. Without the Gentle Breeze Queen’s prior instruction to spare him, the outcome would have been different in every way.

A man who doesn’t recognize that kind of mercy isn’t worth the mercy.

His allies flew up to the platform, bowing first toward the red palanquin and then toward the Death Reaper Mantis girl. Finding Ink-Flame alive, they showed visible relief, and helped him down from the platform with care, leaving the stage open for Shimmer. If Ink-Flame had died, they would have lost their most substantial backing in the region. He’d lost badly, and in front of everyone, but he’d survived three exchanges with a personal attendant of the Gentle Breeze Queen — which, set against Hippo Kuang Liao being dropped in a single move from the same girl earlier, was not entirely without its dignity. At least he’d made it to three.

Shimmer felt the weight of what was coming settle on him fully.

Ink-Flame’s survival was the problem. It meant the Gentle Breeze Queen still hadn’t made her decisive example. Savage Force’s preemptive surrender was the other problem — it had closed that path off entirely. Which meant the demonstration the queen needed was coming from him, and only from him.

He’d chosen the silver-masked young man specifically because he’d calculated that surviving three strikes from a Sky-rank fighter was essentially risk-free. But now, with the crowd watching and the momentum building, a different concern had emerged: even if the young man couldn’t hurt him, the Gentle Breeze Queen herself could act from behind the cover of ‘defending her guard captain’ and finish him in the process. With ten thousand witnesses all choosing not to see what they’d seen, who would protest?

He was committed. He’d announced the challenge in front of everyone. There was no path back.

So what exactly do I do now?

“Coward.” Savage Force’s cold voice landed as he stepped ahead of Shimmer, leaped to the platform, and turned toward Hong with a respectful bow. “I don’t know your name, and I’m not worthy of asking it. But Savage Force would presume, without knowing his own limitations, to request your instruction. Please do not hold back.”

Anyone who only heard his words might have mistaken him for a scholar.

Savage Force had already knelt and apologized publicly — a little additional deference cost him nothing. And the target he’d chosen was the one who had dispatched three national rulers including Evil Lizard in immediate succession, who read as considerably stronger than the girl who’d fought Ink-Flame. Most people wouldn’t dare choose her. But Savage Force had made his calculation: challenging the strongest available was the only option that matched the submission posture he’d already taken.

Hong raised both hands.

Fire fell from the sky like feathers.

Not just Savage Force — the entire assembled crowd felt the air change. This attendant had comprehended divine will. There was no ambiguity about it. Any national-ruler-class cultivator who hadn’t broken past Sky-rank tier five and hadn’t reached divine will stood no chance against her. A hundred national rulers combined, facing someone who had comprehended divine will, amounted to a hundred people lined up to die. The gulf between them wasn’t the gap between Sky-rank and Ground-rank — it was a divide that Sky-rank cultivators simply could not cross in a lifetime.

Savage Force dropped to his knees immediately.

He had no intention of resisting. Resistance had no meaning here.

Hong’s right hand rose — the easy, unhurried gesture of a princess lifting a flower from her garden — and the fire-feathers in the sky collapsed into a whip of flame in the same instant, faster than the eye could register.

Crack.

The fire whip struck Savage Force’s body. He bit down hard enough to shatter a back tooth and held the sound in his throat by will alone.

The second and third lashes came in sequence, carrying obliteration in every fiber, the sound tearing through the air.

Savage Force’s eyes went empty. He closed them.

What hit him with those two lashes was not just his body. Something at the level of his soul felt the burning, pain beyond any physical description, and he couldn’t contain it. A sound tore out of him that he hadn’t chosen to make. He rolled across the stone platform, the flames eating steadily at his body and soul alike — not consuming faster because he moved, not slowing because he didn’t, just burning at their own pace, indifferent to his efforts. His blood painted the stone. The fire kept burning.

Only Tianzhu, the Dragon Emperor, the Underworld Emperor, and the other Sky Stairway cultivators knew the name for what they were seeing: Hong’s Whip of Anguish — the one technique, beyond Yue Yang himself, that she alone had mastered. A lash that burned the soul directly.

Savage Force’s allies were stranded between the need to act and the complete absence of any way to act. The whip’s effect was beyond anything they could counter, and if the burning continued to its conclusion, Savage Force’s soul would be destroyed even if his body survived. But the Gentle Breeze Queen hadn’t opened her mouth — and without that word, going up to intervene was not something anyone dared to do.

Savage Force’s body and soul had reached their absolute limit. The edge of death was close enough to see.

Hong snapped her fingers.

The soul-burning effect of the Whip of Anguish vanished.

The flames extinguished in the same instant, leaving Savage Force to drag himself back from the threshold at the last possible moment. His allies flew to the platform immediately — too urgently to remember to bow toward the red palanquin before moving toward their friend. Hong let out a quiet sound of displeasure and snapped the fingers of her other hand.

The reckless figures became sheep.

They stood around Savage Force, bleating, deeply confused about the situation.

The crowd broke into laughter. It didn’t stop quickly.

When it subsided, a significant number of cultivators who had come with insufficient respect for the Gentle Breeze Queen were bowing with considerably more sincerity than before, deeply concerned about the possibility of finding themselves similarly reclassified.

“National Ruler Savage Force,” the Southern Wilderness Demon King’s voice came again without hurry, “I have one thing I’d like you to remember as well. Regardless of whose orders you follow, don’t make yourself into the kind of fool who stands in the path of a flood and calls it principle. After today, I trust the phrase ‘a mantis blocking a chariot’ will carry some personal resonance. Given your prior attitude and the speed of your reversal, I have not yet seen your full sincerity — which means you are not yet someone my sister and I would consider a trustworthy national ruler. Conduct yourself accordingly going forward.”

She said it without softening, and her tone didn’t waver.

And yet — every observer present could see it clearly. Savage Force was fine. He’d been punished without being killed, criticized without being destroyed. Ink-Flame was the same — badly defeated, dignity thoroughly damaged, but alive and without the queen’s lasting enmity. Both of them had a path forward. A path to prove themselves, to earn trust, to actually matter. Most of the people watching would never have that chance at all.

Savage Force, barely managing to push himself upright through the damage, turned toward the red palanquin and pressed his forehead to the platform in gratitude. He added his thanks to Hong as well, for stopping precisely when she did — three more seconds and he would have reached the point of no return, soul detonation becoming inevitable.

“What incredible luck that man has.”

“I’m pledging to the Gentle Breeze Queen too. What’s the point of being a city master? Nothing but fighting every day, never knowing if tomorrow comes.”

“If I could get a squad leader position in the Gentle Breeze Queen’s guard, I’d give up my domain lordship in a heartbeat. All that administration doesn’t compare to actual prospects.”

“Oh please. A domain lord as squad leader? National rulers don’t even make the cut here. If I, as a national ruler, could get a reserve position in the guard, I’d consider that a win. The rest of you can stop dreaming — ten thousand people are standing here right now, do the math about where any of you rank. Squad leader? Get out of here.”

The crowd below the platform was talking over itself in a continuous mixture of envy and unease.

The queen’s attendants were this powerful.

So what was the queen?

And what about the Divine Punishment Empress — reportedly stronger than the queen, intent on unifying the entire Tianhua Domain as the new domain emperor?

Most people didn’t dare let their minds go all the way there. But what they did understand, finally and completely, was why the Gentle Breeze Queen’s coronation had arrived with this scale of ceremony, why Eastern Demon Clan members had come personally to offer congratulations. The answer was simple: these two sisters operated at the domain emperor level. The Gentle Breeze Queen might be slightly below that ceiling, but she was nowhere near the range of any national-ruler-class challenger. And any attendant she happened to have standing nearby had comprehended divine will.

If anyone still doubted that these two sisters came from the upper Sky Realm, that person was simply beyond help.

No one understood why a pair at this level had chosen to take the Tianhua Domain in hand — but the reasons existed, whether they were legible to outsiders or not. Maybe the chaos here had been an irritant for too long. Maybe it had touched something belonging to their people. Maybe they’d simply passed through, had a moment of inclination, and decided to fix it. Whatever the reason, the Divine Punishment Empress and the Gentle Breeze Queen intended to be here.

So the options were two: support them, or leave immediately.

Who was foolish enough to be the immovable obstacle in a situation like this?

Savage Force and Ink-Flame were the living demonstration of what that looked like — and they were the lucky version, alive because the queen happened to be in good spirits on her coronation day. Evil Lizard and his companions were the unlucky version.

And speaking of demonstrations — one remained.

A certain very clever man named Shimmer was still on the agenda.

Was he going to wet himself on the platform? The malicious speculation ran through the crowd like a current. Savage Force and Ink-Flame’s survival meant the queen still hadn’t landed her definitive statement. That weight had nowhere to go but Shimmer, and Shimmer’s particular brand of maneuvering — picking the weakest target, rushing to grab the advantage, selling out his allies in front of everyone — was exactly the sort of thing that tended to infuriate people who operated above a certain level. Strength at that height found small creatures scheming in front of them irritating in a specific way.

Compare: Savage Force, who had changed position at speed, had still been burned to near death. The more straightforward Ink-Flame had gotten off relatively lighter. The cleverest of them — the one who thought he’d found a safe angle — was likely to find the queen had opinions about cleverness deployed in this direction.

He’d gone for the silver-masked young man. He’d thought he was picking the safest target.

“Well then — looks like it’s my turn. I’m not generally enthusiastic about fighting. I prefer more refined pursuits. But since you’ve specifically chosen to challenge me, as the Gentle Breeze Queen’s guard captain and a person of considerable importance, I can hardly decline.” Yue Yang strolled out with complete unhurried ease.

Under the eyes of ten thousand cultivators, Aman, Hong, and the Death Reaper Mantis girl moved with practiced efficiency to fit him into a set of splendid battle armor, then buckled the crescent-moon blade at his waist. As he prepared to step forward, Hong did something that no one in the crowd was expecting: she half-lifted the edge of her veil, leaned in, and pressed a quick kiss to his lips — the easy, natural gesture of a wife sending her husband off with wishes for victory.

Ten thousand pairs of eyes dropped to the ground simultaneously, and then reassembled themselves into expressions of rapid comprehension.

This young man in the silver mask was not an ordinary person.

A real guard captain did not deliver improvised commentary during his queen’s coronation. The only people who got away with that sort of thing were those at the queen’s level or above. And attendants capable of killing national rulers in a single strike did not press their lips to the mouths of ordinary men before sending them into combat. They simply didn’t.

Whatever role he was playing today, Shimmer had just walked up to something very different from what he’d calculated.

Heh heh.

The crowd settled in with renewed interest.

Another good show was about to begin.