The Demon God Hall occupied a sealed space.

Ordinary challengers had absolutely no way of getting inside.

Deep within the ancient underground passages of Demon Valley, according to intelligence from Grandma Sha, there was an underground city ruin called the Dark Sky Nest, where a concealed transfer entrance could be found. Even reaching the ancient passages was extremely difficult for ordinary challengers — the moment they ran into the ancient demonic beasts down there, creatures of unimaginably formidable strength, their lives would be at immediate risk. Those ancient demonic beasts, casually tens of thousands of years old, were not things you wanted to provoke. So the idea of entering that beast-infested Dark Sky Nest to find the Demon God Hall’s entrance was, for an ordinary challenger — especially a newcomer — nothing more than wishful daydreaming.

Yue Yang, naturally, was an exception.

He was no ordinary challenger, and certainly no newcomer. He was the kind of freak genius who routinely punched several tiers above himself to take down boss-level opponents.

Because the Demon God Hall’s entrance was buried inside the ancient-beast-infested Dark Sky Nest, in all the countless millennia of the valley’s existence, the number of challengers who’d ever actually known about the hidden space called the Demon God Hall was vanishingly small.

Or perhaps some had heard the legend of it, but hadn’t dared act on it.

Not everyone, after all, had the nerve of a Yue Yang.

Over the course of tens of thousands of years, the terrain, landscape, and map markings inside Demon Valley had changed considerably. Cross-referencing Grandma Sha’s intelligence, Yue Yang could only make out a rough approximation on the current maps, and following the original route to the target was simply not possible anymore.

“At least the Angel Alliance camp locations haven’t shifted much…” Yue Yang quietly noted his gratitude for that much. If even those baseline camps had moved, finding his destination in any reasonable timeframe would have been hopeless.

He flew for a full day.

Conducted overhead comparisons across several regions.

And finally identified the sprawling rocky forest stretching hundreds of kilometers below as the best entrance point for reaching the Dark Sky Nest and, from there, the Demon God Hall.

Before descending into those branching, maze-like underground passages, Yue Yang called Ika out and left her outside. Whatever happened in the Demon God Hall, Ika could spend that time calmly hunting Dark Alliance enemies on the surface. With her current strength and intelligence, Yue Yang trusted her completely for this. And this kind of highly independent training would itself be part of what accelerated Ika’s growth.

By the time she came out the other side of Demon Valley, Ika — with her limitless potential — would undoubtedly have reached an entirely new level.

“Observe carefully, don’t let surface appearances mislead you, rely on your intelligence to overcome enemies. In combat, apply the techniques I’ve taught you flexibly — adapt to the terrain, use different approaches for different opponents. The one thing I want you to be especially careful about is keeping your anger under control. Even if it’s burning hot inside you, keep your reason intact. As long as you don’t lose your reason, I believe there is no war beast in Demon Valley that can defeat you.” Yue Yang smoothed a hand gently over Ika’s soft hair as he repeated his instructions one more time.

“Mm!” Ika gave an exceptionally serious nod.

When it came to carrying out Yue Yang’s orders, Ika was without question the most meticulous of all — once given an order, she executed it one hundred percent, without deviation.

And Yue Yang trusted this Battle Angel completely, the one who had exceeded every expectation from the very moment of her creation.

Whether it was learning, or fighting.

She surpassed imagination in both.

Ika spread the blade-wings of her Angel Sword, circled through the air three times overhead, waved one small hand at Yue Yang, then shot off like a flash of light with a sharp sound and vanished from his sight. Whatever enemy stood in this Battle Angel’s path would become her quarry, hunted without mercy.

Victory. Clearing the gate. On those points, Yue Yang had not a single doubt.

He simply didn’t know yet just how spectacularly well Ika would do it.

Alone again, Yue Yang entered those winding underground passages — how many exits they had, where they ultimately led beneath the earth, no one could say. Rather than fixing on one direction, he let his instincts guide him and pressed steadily forward. After two hours of flight covering at least several hundred kilometers of depth, Yue Yang suddenly caught the scent of blood on the air.

Less than three minutes’ further flight, and the passages ahead were carpeted in the densely packed corpses of subterranean monsters.

These creatures that spent their lives deep underground came in some bizarre varieties.

Yue Yang had never seen some of them before.

Others were common creatures found on the Sky Tower as well — cave humanoids, burrowing spiders, multi-horned pincer beetles, Dark Evil Eyes, and similar underground demonic beasts. Among the countless monster corpses, one could occasionally spot the bodies of war beasts too, surrounded and buried under towering piles of monster remains.

Some sections of the underground passages opened into remarkably broad, empty spaces — looking up felt almost like looking at a sky, the vaulted ceiling sometimes reaching a thousand meters above. Countless luminous minerals glittered from the rock, some patches more dazzling than an actual night sky. Plenty of the passages held features rivaling anything on the surface — vast underground rivers, for instance, comparable to major waterways above ground.

Everything Yue Yang encountered along the way was either dead, piled in mounds, or had been driven far back — and even the surviving creatures, upon catching any sign of Yue Yang alone, fled in all directions in sheer terror, every one of them looking as though they’d lost their souls.

“Have Angel Alliance challengers been doing a clearing sweep down here? Even for training, killing off every last creature seems excessive…” Something felt off to Yue Yang. Behavior this unusual — especially large-scale clearing on the exact route toward the Dark Sky Nest and the Demon God Hall’s ancient entrance — carried a strange implication that made him genuinely suspicious of whoever was directing it.

Another hour of flight forward.

The sound of battle crashed through the air ahead — countless monsters clashing with hundreds of challengers’ war beasts in a frenzied, sprawling fight.

The cavern in front of him was an enormous space with a vaulted ceiling spanning over twenty square kilometers. Countless flying demonic beasts and challengers’ war beasts wheeled and chased one another through the air in a breathtaking aerial battle. On the ground below, insects and monsters more numerous than a flooding tide, alongside ancient demonic beasts with bodies over a hundred meters tall, charged with earthshaking roars toward the challengers on the ground. Holding that line and killing with wild abandon were far more powerful contracted war beasts, alongside several thousand challengers. With several thousand fighters of at least Sky-rank tier three, many at tier five or higher, even an insect flood, even a sea of monsters, couldn’t cross that line — and even the enormous ancient demonic beasts joining the assault were ultimately fated to fail.

Yue Yang’s eyes were sharp.

He could see that these several thousand challengers fighting side by side were controlled primarily by five leaders.

The weakest of the five, in terms of apparent strength, stood at Supreme tier five — comparable to Yue Yang’s own current level. The strongest among the five, Yue Yang estimated, possessed at minimum Supreme tier eight strength — on par with Ming Rihao, though perhaps slightly below him, and clearly surpassing the Silent King and the late Water Palace Master Cang Long.

That someone this powerful was completely unknown beyond this place made Yue Yang shake his head in private admiration.

The Heavenly Realm really was full of hidden dragons and crouching tigers.

A figure like this great leader — if he stepped outside into the broader Heavenly Realm, he’d be domain-emperor caliber in any direction, east west north or south, with a realistic shot at challenging the Heavenly Realm’s greatest powers. And yet here he was, merely a camp leader, not even in full command of his four companions.

After studying this person, Yue Yang found himself puzzling over something. With strength like that, clearing Demon Valley should be no great challenge — so why was he still here, not pressing on toward the seventh gate’s Human Valley?

Could this person’s aim be the same as his own?

And while the great leader had the most obvious raw strength, Yue Yang’s instincts kept pulling him back toward the figure standing at the leader’s side — an extraordinarily handsome man with a powerful, commanding build, a swordsman whose looks were exceptional even by the standards of the Heavenly Realm. He felt more threatening, somehow. Was it just because the man was too good-looking?

Yue Yang noted, not for the first time, that when a man was excessively handsome, it genuinely did not tend to endear him to others.

Including, for instance, Yue Yang himself, who found he had no particular fondness for this infuriatingly attractive swordsman.

Fortunately the man’s strength was also Supreme tier five — second from the bottom among the five leaders, well below the threshold that would trigger Yue Yang’s envy. So Yue Yang smiled to himself without a sound and turned his Heaven’s Eye elsewhere, giving the swordsman no further attention.

Nice face was useful for certain things, perhaps, but it did nothing for combat — and mostly just made people want to punch you.

Beyond the great leader and the handsome swordsman, three other leaders remained.

The lowest-ranked of the five in strength was a bold, imposing warrior carrying a golden axe — three meters tall, blazing-red hair like a demon’s, every muscle of his body coiled and ready, his whole presence as solid and unyielding as a wall of iron. Besides him and the handsome swordsman, there was a masked, lean figure also at Supreme tier five, whose power edged slightly above the previous two. One look at those pale green eyes and those blackened hands told Yue Yang everything — this was a specialist in toxins, and when scanning the five leaders, Yue Yang spent an extra moment on this one.

The fifth and final leader was a white-robed scholar with silver eyes.

On the surface, this person appeared middle-aged.

But anyone who looked at him felt, immediately and involuntarily, that they were in the presence of someone who had passed through millions of years of accumulated experience and distilled it into vast, deep wisdom — every onlooker instinctively straightened up in respect.

Though this middle-aged man appeared to be blind, looking into those silver eyes gave anyone an uncanny feeling of being seen completely, right down to the bottom of their heart.

He wasn’t smiling, and yet the people standing around him felt a warmth spreading through them, as if simply standing near him imparted some rare and precious wisdom by proximity. He said nothing, and yet those nearby felt as though they were already receiving quiet, earnest instruction…

Yue Yang had never seen anyone quite like this. Compared to Elder Nangong, this middle-aged man was more powerful, his bearing more refined, the energy he radiated even more profoundly calm and serene.

Yue Yang identified at minimum Supreme tier seven strength in this person — and sensed some additional, concealed power being held back as well.

If fully released, Yue Yang estimated this man might not actually fall short of the great leader who appeared to be the most powerful of the five.

Of all five leaders, only the silver-eyed middle-aged man seemed to sense Yue Yang’s distant observation. The other four registered nothing. But this seemingly blind figure turned his head and appeared to “look” in Yue Yang’s direction.

Good thing Yue Yang had his concealment talent active and had positioned himself early within a cluster of other challengers, or being noticed would have been a genuine problem.

“Did you find something?” The great leader paid particular attention to the silver-eyed man’s observations.

“Nothing.” The silver-eyed man shook his head with a slight smile.

Yue Yang, of course, couldn’t hear this low exchange over the deafening sounds of battle — but his heart rate had still briefly spiked. He hadn’t expected a single focused look from within the crowd to register with someone that perceptive. Lucky his concealment talent had held. Yue Yang was just about to quietly slip away when a large hand grabbed his arm in a firm grip.

“Are you stupid? Trying to get yourself killed?” He turned to find a dark-skinned, one-eyed powerhouse of a man glaring at him with unconcealed fury. “Which captain’s subordinate are you? A fresh newcomer strolling into a place like this to die! And you’ve got no idea of the difference in power, do you — what makes you think someone barely at pre-Sky-rank can hold up against those things up front? Get back, now. Cleaning the battlefield after the fighting’s done is the only job for you. And even doing that, you need to watch yourself — some of those monsters play dead and will launch a fatal strike the moment you let your guard down. Are you even listening to me? Hopeless, that’s what you are. I don’t know whose relative you are or how you managed to wander into a battle like this, but let me tell you, kid — mixed-battle contributions aren’t something you just casually collect. You could lose your life any second in here!”

“Chief — let him stay with us! This kid walks into the front line and he’s dead meat!” A powerfully built bull-headed man was sharpening a massive single-handed axe with a whetstone, sparks flying.

“Keep an eye on him. Even when we rotate shifts, keep watching him. Someone at his strength level showing up here is practically delivering himself as a snack.” The dark-skinned one-eyed man clapped a firm hand on Yue Yang’s shoulder with evident exasperation, making clear he should be smart enough not to drift toward the front lines where even Sky-rank tier five challengers were rotating in shifts to hold the line.

“Our chief’s bark is worse than his bite. Which captain’s family are you with, kid?” A four-armed creature of unusual appearance asked.

“Ah, I’m a newcomer — just arrived…” Yue Yang indicated he was still fresh and green.

“What in the — a newcomer? How did a newcomer get all the way in here?” The bull-headed man and the four-armed creature both nearly choked.

“I wandered out from my camp for a walk and got lost.” Yue Yang offered with a small shrug. Even an eight-year-old wouldn’t believe an excuse this flimsy — but somehow both the bull-headed man and the four-armed creature bought it entirely, shaking their heads in disbelief. “I’ve seen plenty of people with no sense of direction, but this severe? First time for everything.”

“There weren’t any monsters on the way, so I just kept going.” Yue Yang said this as if it made complete sense.

“Today is your lucky day, and this was your lucky road. If you’d wandered in here any other day, you’d currently exist in this world in the form of bug droppings.” The bull-headed man let out a booming laugh, set down his whetstone, wiped his hands on his leather armor, and stuck one out toward Yue Yang. “Lucky little newcomer, what’s your name? With your luck, you’d better stand next to me for the rest of this — maybe some of it’ll rub off, keep the venom and claws away from my vital spots! Hahaha!”

“Allow me to introduce myself — I’m Four-Limbs, originally of the Nine-Star Clan from the Western Heavenly Realm, a wandering warrior who committed an unforgivable transgression and was forced to break from my clan.” The four-armed creature gave his own introduction.

“I’m North. My brother South and I were once a well-known monster-hunting duo across the Western Heavenly Realm — they called us the Twin Axes of North and South. Unfortunately, South died in Beast Valley. To carry on his will, I have to keep going until I’ve cleared all the gates. I’m of the bull-headed clan from the Gale Highlands — our distant ancestors were said to be the Ox-Head Demon Lords of the Eastern Demon Clan. The golden horns are our clan’s most honored inheritance! What about you, newcomer?”

“Because I love those shiny gold coins more than anything, and I’m rich enough to rival a nation, everyone calls me Fortune.” A short, pudgy figure squeezed in with his own self-introduction.

“Nobody asked you!” The bull-headed man North huffed at him with clear irritation.

“If any of you need to trade for anything, come find me anytime — I’m rich enough to rival a nation and I have everything.” The one called Fortune finished his advertisement, then squeezed back out to go introduce himself to someone else.

With North and Four-Limbs both looking at him, Yue Yang couldn’t very well just slip away, so he laughed and said, “My name isn’t as impressive as any of yours. I’m a human from the Eastern Heavenly Realm, and my name’s East Wind — you know, like in the old poem: last night the east wind came again through the small tower, the homeland too painful to look back upon in the bright moonlight — that East Wind… Rich enough to rival a nation is beyond me, but I do know one extraordinarily powerful ancient art.”

North and the others immediately perked up. An ancient art? What was that? It sounded incredibly impressive!

Curiosity ignited instantly.

Anticipation followed close behind.

Yue Yang spread both hands and explained with great solemnity: “I can play Mahjong.”

Four-Limbs and North both went cold. Neither of them had the faintest idea what Mahjong was, but one look at this kid’s expression told them it wasn’t anything worth their time — and here they’d gone and built their hopes up. Forget it. He was a newcomer. The fact that he wasn’t visibly trembling with terror in a battlefield like this was already something — could they really expect more?

“So what’s the plan here? Grinding levels? Farming gear? Taking on a boss?” Yue Yang let his newcomer curiosity run fully on display.

(End of Chapter)