Zhonghua had not only arrived — he’d arrived piloting one of Silver Maple City’s three great constructs: the Sword Dancer.

General Leihou was furious, but he was a man of the world.

He knew when to bend.

When the other side’s position was stronger, even if he was clearly eating a loss he couldn’t speak aloud, he accepted it. After all, the power behind Zhonghua was the Silver Maple City Lord — which meant that even if Zhonghua took over the mine district, the temple might change hands but the monks were still there. Leihou waved his personal guards back, giving Zhonghua no pretext to escalate. For the sake of a few lowly slaves and a dozen mercenaries, this fight wasn’t worth picking.

“Baron Zhonghua — regarding this matter, I’ll be reporting personally to Prince Reno.” General Leihou conceded the point but made clear the issue wasn’t closed.

“Please do. Zhonghua will be waiting.” If Leihou didn’t push to a fight, Zhonghua had no desire to force one either. He’d only been in Human Valley a short while and hadn’t consolidated his position yet. His full range of abilities remained undeployed, and provoking Prince Reno at this stage was inadvisable. If he’d had a few years in Human Valley and an established power base, taking out Leihou for Yue Yang’s benefit would have been a casual affair. As it was, he’d been in the valley barely three months, having only just secured his baron’s title at the Life Assessment Ceremony. Beyond the Silver Maple City Lord’s backing, he had nothing — and the Silver Maple City Lord happened to be Prince Reno’s loyal ally.

In other words, unless Leihou was brain-damaged enough to attack outright, Zhonghua wasn’t well-positioned to strike first.

Because however freely people behaved in Human Valley, maintaining the appearance of reasonable conduct was still expected.

“About the mine district — I’m sorry, brother. I’ll do everything I can. Leave this one to me.” What Zhonghua meant was that he hadn’t yet managed to help Yue Yang, as Star Diamond Castle’s master, reclaim the mining area. To everyone else listening, it sounded like an apology for the hostility Yue Yang had encountered at the mine.

“Don’t worry. Some things I’ll just handle myself — they fall under my responsibility anyway. It might take a little time.” Yue Yang smiled.

“Whatever comes, your elder brother stands with you.” Zhonghua indicated that this self-appointed big brother would cover his new little brother.

If Zhonghua had known that the Demon Dragon — an almost incomprehensibly powerful figure — had once tried to take Yue Yang on as a little brother and nearly lost face entirely in the process, he would have sweated himself to dehydration.

But right now, his mind was entirely on drawing in this Eastern Immortal Clan heir as tightly as possible. Presuming to call himself big brother — what of it? And how many people in all the Heavenly Realm even had the qualification to be an Eastern Immortal Clan heir’s big brother? Zhonghua saw nothing wrong with taking the initiative. If Ji Wuri ran into an Eastern Immortal Clan heir, he’d be wagging his tail just the same.

General Leihou looked on coldly. He dropped a single line — “this isn’t over” — and prepared to lead his forces back into the mining district.

Which was when Yue Yang nodded and replied, “That’s exactly what I was going to say.”

“……” General Leihou was genuinely losing his composure. Fine, Zhonghua pushing him around was one thing. But you — an ornamental sword-carrying mercenary, a fresh penniless challenger who’d just arrived — what exactly gave you grounds to run your mouth? If not for Zhonghua being present, and the worry that this was a planted provocation designed to draw him into striking first, Leihou genuinely wanted to one-shot Yue Yang and his insufferably confident attitude.

“You three, come with me.” Yue Yang glanced at the couple — currently pressed together, holding their daughter between them, unable to let go — then swept his gaze back over the blood-soaked mercenaries. “The rest of you are welcome to come too. And as for the labor slaves in the mining district — if you have the courage, follow me. I can strip you of your slave status and officially establish you as free commoners.”

The first part of that announcement wasn’t particularly surprising.

With Zhonghua’s arrival and neither side willing to fight, the couple and the small slave girl were obviously going to be taken away. The dozen-odd mercenaries were presumably Zhonghua’s chess pieces arranged for show — they’d leave as well, and keeping them around would serve no purpose beyond creating a liability.

What nobody had expected was what Yue Yang said last.

Especially the final line about freeing thousands of slaves and granting them commoner status — that landed like a lightning bolt.

Good grief, who did this man think he was?

Never mind some sword-decorating mercenary — even Zhonghua, who held a baron’s title, had no standing to make that declaration. The only person who could strip a person of slave status and simultaneously grant them commoner standing while accepting them as subjects within a real domain was a lord with genuine authority and independently administered territory. To make that kind of declaration, you needed actual standing.

Zhonghua as the Silver Maple City Lord’s tenth son had placed second at the most recent Life Assessment Ceremony. The domain he’d received was a village barely five li across with a population of no more than thirty people. He couldn’t do anything meaningful for thousands of slaves. And an ordinary sword-carrying mercenary babbling about freeing slaves? What made him think Human Valley’s laws were children’s games? These were solemn protocols established since antiquity, protected by divine will and law-force. Anyone who made such promises without the necessary standing would become the laughingstock of Human Valley and might very well face legal punishment. For a promise of this scale — thousands of people — the law-force response was virtually guaranteed.

“Did I hear that correctly? Haha — I’m actually eager to witness this miracle.” General Leihou stared for a moment, then burst into uncontrolled laughter.

“Ahahahaha!” His entire retinue of personal guards doubled over laughing, some to the point of tears.

“Idiot.” Zhonghua gave a cold snort.

But only he understood that Yue Yang had every right to say what he’d said.

Because Yue Yang — operating in Human Valley under the alias “Titan” — was not only the original owner of the mining district and its slave workers, but also the legitimate heir of Star Diamond Castle, its properly titled lord and baron.

For anyone else, voiding thousands of slave registrations and granting them commoner status simultaneously would be a near-impossible undertaking. But for the actual rightful master of Star Diamond Castle, it was a single sentence. If Yue Yang felt like freeing their slave status, granting them freedom and identity, making them commoners — he was the owner, and what he decided went. No outsider had any standing to object.

Zhonghua wasn’t going to explain any of this. He simply looked at General Leihou and his assembled subordinates with an expression of pure contempt.

Did it really take much thought? If an ordinary person could say something like this, would they?

The fact that he’d said it meant he wasn’t ordinary.

“Young master — I mean, my lord — can you really strip away our slave status and grant us commoner standing?” The slave mine workers had long since stopped caring much about dying versus not dying, since living was often harder than death. But they didn’t want to die. They couldn’t allow themselves to die — as the primary labor force for their families, they had to keep suffering through life, propping everything up.

For the sake of more family members, they had to survive.

They themselves were wretched slaves. But they harbored the hope that one day their children wouldn’t be slaves — that they could become free commoners, people who fought for their own lives and made their own choices. Perhaps even mercenaries.

But as descendants of slaves, every child born into slavery was a slave from birth. Utterly hopeless.

A slave was a master’s speaking ox or horse.

Personal property, over whose life and death the master held absolute dominion.

If a slave ever wanted to escape this desperate fate, there was only one path: shedding their slave registration and obtaining commoner standing, then finding acceptance under some lord as one of his domain’s subjects. It still wasn’t true freedom — but nobody would hold life-and-death power over them, they’d no longer be upright livestock, their children wouldn’t automatically be born into the lowest stratum of society. Commoners enjoyed a modest set of rights. With money, you could enter trade. You could become a mercenary. You could join an army, accumulate merit, become a genuinely free person.

Escaping slave status to become a commoner.

That was the dream of every slave.

Not only for themselves, but for their families and descendants, for the release from suffering that stretched across generations without end, for the right to breathe as free people — slaves would willingly die for it.

“I don’t repeat myself. If you’re willing to follow me now, you’ll find out immediately. If you want to bring your families, wait here three months.” No one except Zhonghua believed Yue Yang — it was simply too extraordinary. Even the couple he’d somehow brought back from the brink couldn’t trust their own ears.

But then Yue Yang made a single move.

And after that, not one person present doubted him.

He walked to the captain — who had been at nine-tenths death, pupils already beginning to dilate — and extended one hand. He let a single drop of divine liquid fall between the captain’s barely-breathing lips. Instantly, in the weeping young mercenary’s arms, the captain’s body visibly began to recover — and then, inexplicably, the man stood up, staring at his own hands with disbelief: “I’m alive? That can’t be — I was already dead, how is this possible? My wounds — how are they healed?”

“Is that divine dew? You gave divine dew to a mercenary—” Zhonghua witnessed this and nearly fainted on the spot. He knew Yue Yang was an Eastern Immortal Clan heir with treasures beyond counting, but giving divine dew to a mercenary? Mercenaries were literally ants. What kind of prodigal waste was this?

“Oh, it’s fine — I have several large bottles of the stuff.” Yue Yang said this with genuine modesty, indicating he treated this material roughly as others treated water.

“……” Zhonghua had nothing left to say.

“Absolutely unhinged!” General Leihou was so envious he nearly bled from every orifice. A few drops of divine dew could set Human Valley’s great powers at each other’s throats — what did several bottles imply? Did this person think divine dew and divine blood fell out of the sky like rain? And thinking back to earlier — the slave girl, the couple, how they’d made miraculous recoveries — the reason was now clear. The young man had placed divine dew in their mouths.

Thump.

The young mercenary dropped to his knees — partly in reverence, partly sheer shock.

Thump.

The captain knelt too, shock and emotion hitting in equal measure. If he could have, he’d have reached inside his own mouth and recovered the divine dew, saved it to exchange for vast amounts of Heaven Crystals to give everyone a better life. But the divine dew had already become the energy sustaining his recovery, and as he knelt, this man who was strong as steel found, without quite knowing when it had happened, that his face was wet with tears.

Thump thump thump— The couple holding their daughter. The blood-soaked mercenaries who’d just been fighting for their lives. And the watching slaves who had only now realized a genuine miracle had happened.

Everyone, save Zhonghua, General Leihou, and a handful of personal guards.

Fell to their knees.

General Leihou felt a cold wave of unease sweep through him. Having made an enemy of this strange young man who carried divine dew around to dispense at will — was that fortune or catastrophe?

No wonder Zhonghua protected him so fiercely. This young man was genuinely no ordinary figure — simply disguised as a sword-carrying mercenary, come to observe some excitement, which explained why he remained perfectly composed even while surrounded by overwhelming force. This was someone who’d seen everything and who nobody could afford to provoke.

“I have business. I’ll return in three months.” Yue Yang ignored every other gaze in the area and gave Zhonghua a single nod — making Zhonghua feel enormously respected. As those words concluded, a vast and impossibly complex ancient rune formation appeared at Yue Yang’s feet. The moment that formation blazed to life, the entire earth began to tremble.

Before everyone’s eyes.

A colossal earth-construct hundreds of meters tall heaved itself free from the ground with a world-shaking impact.

The ancient rune formation blazed with light like a thousand swords, its radiance so sharp and intense that no one could look at it directly.

Only Zhonghua could see it most clearly. General Leihou could barely make out its outline. Everyone else simply couldn’t open their eyes in that light. The ancient rune formation — at some point — had split into countless smaller formations, layered and inlaid across the earth-construct’s entire frame, while the profound and intricate ancient rune array at the construct’s face remained unchanged, only certain regions rearranging themselves to form the construct’s features.

The three-hundred-meter earth-construct gradually diminished, transforming within blazing light into a two-hundred-meter rock-construct.

And then, under Zhonghua’s awe and Leihou’s fear, transformed again into a hundred-meter black obsidian war giant — its grade shifting from the original bronze-tier earth-construct, through the silver-tier rock-construct, to this — terrifying gold-tier.

Same gold tier. But Zhonghua’s fifteen-meter Sword Dancer — one of Silver Maple City’s three great constructs — measured against this hundred-meter entity forged from solid black obsidian, was fit only to carry the obsidian giant’s shoes.

As for General Leihou’s various constructs — they were less than dust by comparison.

Making battle constructs.

General Leihou had seen that done many times.

But Yue Yang had simply drawn a rune formation on the ground with one hand, conjured a construct from nothing, poured some mysterious energy into it, and watched it come to life as though it were being born — and then continue elevating in grade. This was something Leihou hadn’t just never witnessed — he’d never even dreamed it.

“That damned Zhonghua — he latched onto a truly colossal backer and then used me as the villain to play the hero against.” General Leihou had never hated anyone this much in his life. It wasn’t Yue Yang who inspired his hatred — it was the “ally” Zhonghua, who’d known everything and said nothing, then exploited the situation for personal gain. Right now he didn’t know who Yue Yang was, but he knew this young man was not someone to provoke. One brush with him could mean the destruction of an entire clan. That said, he wasn’t entirely convinced the encounter was a pure loss — if handled correctly when reporting back, Prince Reno might even reward the information. But Zhonghua, that surface-ally who’d used him as a villain for personal benefit — that, General Leihou would never forgive. Betrayal — naked, shameless betrayal of brotherhood, alliance, and every basic principle that should hold between comrades.

“Betrayal, you say.” Zhonghua gave a cold smile internally. The world ran on contrast — and whose fault was it that Leihou had been brain-dead enough to leap forward and make himself the villain? Not feeding you to the wolves would have been the strange choice. What did Leihou expect — an introduction? “This is Titan, heir to the Eastern Immortal Clan”? Absolute idiot.

The black obsidian war giant stood upright.

But Yue Yang was already gone.

As the obsidian giant set its vast feet into motion and began walking in a particular direction, every person who followed — the couple still holding their daughter, the mercenaries, the slaves who had come rushing over in jubilant chaos — fell in behind it with everything they had.

In their eyes, in their hearts, the black obsidian giant was him — the beacon he had left to show them the way.

Even unto death.

They would follow to the end.

And besides — aside from him, who in the world would be this magnanimous? Who else would give them divine dew, give them freedom, give them hope, give them a future?

“The slaves are all leaving. What about the mining district?” After a very long silence, a personal guard finally managed a weak-voiced question.

“Move out. This has to go up to the Prince for a decision.” General Leihou shot Zhonghua one last furious glare and swept his forces away at speed. Everything else had become secondary — getting the news up the chain as fast as possible was now the only correct move. With that obsidian giant in play, chasing back the slaves was simply impossible. One finger from that thing could crush every construct beast and personal guard construct combined. And besides — with endless sources of slave labor available, what was the point of chasing this batch? A waste of resources.

“Extraordinary. He really is an Eastern Immortal Clan heir.” The moment the obsidian giant had appeared, every last trace of Zhonghua’s lingering suspicion dissolved entirely. Right now, anyone who dared doubt that Yue Yang was exactly what he claimed to be was going to have to deal with Zhonghua personally.

“The young master’s mastery of construct-craft really is astonishing.” Steward Duli, who had been concealed nearby throughout, couldn’t contain her admiration as she watched the obsidian giant’s departing form.

If it had been a meticulously crafted piece, built with time and care, that would have been remarkable enough on its own.

But created with one casual hand, in passing — and already carrying this level of terrifying power.

This was genuinely what the legends described. A miracle from the hands of divine beings who could create life itself.

(End of Chapter)