After returning to Star Diamond Castle, Yue Yang didn’t wait for Steward Duli and went directly into the Grimoire World.

The obsidian giant and the crowd trailing behind it — he trusted Steward Duli and Cook Sushan to make good arrangements. These two women had kept Star Diamond Castle operational for ten years under constant threat from enemies watching from all sides, maintaining balanced accounts through both internal and external pressures while holding everything together. Their capabilities were beyond question. What did Yue Yang have to worry about?

When things came up, the best approach was to put them in charge and let them handle it.

Upon hearing Yue Yang describe what had happened at the mining district, kindhearted Yue Yu felt considerable sympathy for the couple and the little slave girl.

Xia Yi, who had witnessed similar circumstances in the Thunder Castle region, nodded her approval at Yue Yang’s decision to take in the slaves. She understood that there was nothing worse in the world than a slave’s life, and nothing more hopeless than a slave’s existence.

Whatever else might be said, Yue Yang freeing those slaves had earned him genuine points in her estimation.

Her mouth stayed hard as always, still ready to argue with him.

But what he’d done today filled her with a quiet, involuntary pride — a warm, pleasant feeling she couldn’t quite suppress.

“If Zhonghua hadn’t shown up, what would you have done?” In Human Valley where combat was forbidden, Luohua had always been anxious about Yue Yang’s safety.

“Getting hit wasn’t a concern, but pulling off a noble lord rescue without revealing yourself might have been tricky.” Princess Qianqian was in unusually good spirits and actually made a small joke at Yue Yang’s expense — though her tone made clear she genuinely approved of what he’d done today.

“Even if you don’t want to reveal Yao and Yu’s power as divine soldiers, you should at least have Taotie and the Star Scorpion follow along. They spend all day with nothing to do — what a waste. And that lazy little creature — if you don’t put it to work soon, it’ll forget what it even is.” Inan was normally the most agreeable of the group, but for Yue Yang’s safety she couldn’t help pushing back a little, raising a small fist in mock scolding — achingly cute in her feigned indignation.

Human Valley’s combat restriction was the will of divine beings, encoded into law-force, designed to steer people toward certain tools while preserving the semblance of ordinary human society’s order, preventing any power outside the permitted range from disrupting Human Valley’s existence.

Yue Yang had already tested this extensively. Using martial force directly was simply impossible, short of surpassing the ancient law itself. Even deploying construct beasts or battle constructs required authorization from the War God statue’s residual divine sense. At the same time, even those who possessed constructs couldn’t simply attack others at will — construct power could only function when the target had demonstrably threatened Human Valley’s existence or stolen from someone’s rightful interests, constituting an actual offense. The constructs of Human Valley had not been created to plunder wealth — the opposite, in fact. They had been created from the beginning to protect lives and personal property, to maintain Human Valley’s normal functioning.

But however stringent a system of law and will, loopholes existed.

It was only a matter of whether they were discovered and exploited.

In Human Valley, Grimoires couldn’t be summoned. Life-guardian war beasts couldn’t be summoned. Even contracted constructs were unusable. On the surface, everyone was constrained to the kind of ordinary life found in normal human society. However, through Yue Yang and Princess Qianqian’s testing, they’d discovered Human Valley did in fact have exploitable gaps.

For instance — the “human divine soldiers,” “earth divine soldiers,” and “heavenly divine soldiers” that were apparently extremely rare even in the Heavenly Realm.

Heavenly, earthly, and human — the three tiers of divine soldiers.

Whatever form of life they were, within Human Valley they were classified as “weapons” or “tools.”

Unlike battle constructs and construct beasts, these divine soldiers possessed independent consciousness and free will — they were intelligent weapons, tools with personality, not puppets to be operated by someone else.

In other words.

The creatures Yue Yang carried — Taotie, Star Scorpion, and the little metal beast — were all capable of moving freely in Human Valley. Ika, however, whose life was fused with Yue Yang’s, couldn’t be summoned freely the way those three could. What had surprised Yue Yang and Princess Qianqian most was discovering that the twin dragon-girl sisters Yao and Yu, whether in their human forms or their conjoined divine-soldier state, could move freely within Human Valley with their combat power entirely undiminished. Yue Yang hadn’t brought them along simply to avoid drawing attention, which was why they’d stayed in the Grimoire World studying and cultivating alongside everyone else.

“If you’re not going to bring them, at least take Lingling along!” Luohua felt it wasn’t right for Yue Yang to go out without some kind of support.

Lingling, as she called her, was the ancient guiding spirit — Duoduo’s close friend, the mysterious little metallic life-form that had emerged from the golden ancient coffin.

Said spirit, who had been hiding behind Duoduo eavesdropping, heard her name mentioned and immediately bolted — as though Yue Yang were some great tiger who might swallow her whole at any moment.

Forget relying on her. Optimus Prime and Megatron, those grunt-labor puppets, were more dependable. At least they could help with mining and earthwork.

“No need. Today at the mining district, I stumbled onto something.” Yue Yang described what he’d done — acting on a sudden flash of intuition, projecting an ancient rune formation into the earth and combining it with a tiny quantity of chaos energy to directly create the obsidian giant as something resembling a “proto-life-form.” What was certain was that the same thing would be impossible in the Heavenly Realm. Even if an obsidian giant could be constructed there, it would never carry a proto-life-form’s essence, would never achieve that near-awakening of something resembling human consciousness.

In the Heavenly Realm, or anywhere in the Sky Tower, for a puppet construct to develop any form of consciousness, it had to be Sacred-tier or above — without exception.

In Human Valley, Yue Yang had noticed something peculiar long ago: ordinary mercenaries, soldiers, even regular people could “pilot” battle constructs and construct beasts.

A construct puppet with no consciousness whatsoever could not possibly follow a pilot’s complex commands. Piloting required exactly that kind of nuanced instruction.

So while they didn’t have autonomous consciousness, there had to be some trace of awareness that allowed construct beasts and battle constructs to respond to their operators.

Following this suspicion.

After observing the mine garrison and the mercenaries in battle, Yue Yang had tried it himself — and succeeded in creating something unprecedented: an obsidian giant with a half-awakened awareness, a genuine proto-life-form.

This obsidian giant had no autonomous consciousness. Its mind was a pure blank.

But it could faithfully execute any instruction Yue Yang issued, however complex — without question and in perfect order.

“A gold-tier obsidian giant capable of possessing consciousness — even if it isn’t autonomous, that’s a remarkable discovery.” Princess Qianqian’s interest sparked immediately at this news. Among Yue Yang’s many abilities, rune formation work was his specialty, surpassing virtually anyone else. If projecting an ancient rune formation into the earth to directly create an obsidian giant could be done reliably and repeatedly, Yue Yang could theoretically produce an inexhaustible puppet army within Human Valley — and every puppet would match the very first obsidian giant in quality.

“Projected into earth, it became the obsidian giant. If projected somewhere else, what would it become? And why haven’t the ancient runes lost power in Human Valley — if anything, they seem slightly amplified?” The beauty with the quiet demeanor, who rarely spoke up, raised this question.

“Creating puppets might be one of the secrets of life that Human Valley exists to reveal.” Princess Qianqian’s expression was bright with insight.

“Battle constructs outside Human Valley are almost entirely metal-based. If the earth here can create earth-attribute beings like the obsidian giant, then other elements should also be viable — water, wind, fire, and so on.” Fengxian felt that if Yue Yang could successfully create constructs from other elemental sources, that would be the real achievement.

“Oh!” Inan lit up with sudden realization. “If you create giants from water, wind, and fire — wouldn’t that be practically invincible? If you combined Punishment Sister’s divine thunder and created a divine punishment giant on top of that, who in Human Valley could match it?”

“Your imagination knows no limits.” Yue Yang laughed heartily.

In truth, he had some sense of what Human Valley’s law-control was primarily concerned with — balance.

The obsidian giant could be created.

But this was effectively exploiting a loophole in the law, not unlike certain exploits in a game. If used without restraint, someone would eventually notice, and the ability would be sealed. Using it in a limited, targeted way — not significantly disrupting Human Valley’s balance or damaging its patterns — was probably fine.

A small loophole, used carefully within the law’s framework, was harmless enough.

Unlimited exploitation was a different matter entirely.

Hearing Yue Yang lay it out this way, everyone felt the reasoning was sound. Even if Yue Yang’s guess wasn’t perfectly accurate, this particular risk of triggering the law’s response wasn’t one they wanted to take.

“Creating too many and disrupting Human Valley’s balance is clearly off the table, but three or four should probably be fine.” Yue Yu estimated a handful wouldn’t cause problems.

“If it’s only three or four, that’s not nearly enough. Best to make one of each elemental attribute — and if that’s too many for Human Valley, there’s no rule saying the constructs made here can only be used here. We can take them out to the Heavenly Realm.” Luohua felt Yue Yang should make a hundred or so when time permitted, build up a reserve, and eventually field them outside as a formidable puppet army.

“Mass producing them to store in a warehouse serves no real purpose. Rather than that, it would be better to understand the true reason why puppet constructs awaken awareness more readily here in Human Valley.” Princess Qianqian disagreed with the hoarding approach.

“If he figures that out, there might even be a law-reward!” Inan perked up immediately.

“Hooray!” Little Yue Bing seemed to already see her brother’s success in her mind.

“Why not just dig up Human Valley’s soil and take it all back to the Sky Tower? We could each have our own obsidian giant construct!” Baobei’s imagination went to an even more creative place.

“All of you go to sleep!” Fengxian deployed her full Divine Punishment Empress authority. Any small person delaying the Empress’s business would receive a bottom-smacking if they didn’t clear out immediately. This was adult time — no children permitted. The Empress’s dignity was absolute. Baobei and the others got the message, sticking out their little pink tongues and making exaggerated scared faces before retreating to their beds for pillow fights, which would probably keep going another half hour before anyone settled.

“We’re not much use to this discussion either — we’ll head to rest.” The Southern Wilderness Demon King nudged Luohua quietly.

Not just the two of them — the Wine Cat Imperial Lady and Xia Yi followed.

Everyone understood what came next: Yue Yang’s time to work on the long-standing issue of Princess Qianqian’s Divine Sword fusion. When Yue Yu and the quiet beauty both withdrew as well, Princess Qianqian gripped her small fists, privately fuming at everyone for having no loyalty whatsoever, abandoning her alone to face the scoundrel.

Without another word, she sent a fist his way first. “What’s with that look on your face — you’re asking to be hit. You think I don’t know what you’re thinking?”

Having the Six Sense Gift was truly a liability sometimes.

Yue Yang’s eyes went a little watery.

Fortunately, the proud tiger girl was only fierce toward him in front of others. With everyone gone and only the two of them remaining, she wasn’t fierce at all — sometimes even a little soft: “Idiot — why didn’t you dodge? Fine, I didn’t actually put any force into that. Stop playing dead. You have no idea how much you were asking to be hit just now, smiling like that. Even Xue Wuxia, who’s always been fond of you, would have probably given you one. And let me be clear — I’m not asking for your help because I can’t fuse the Prison Emperor’s Divine Sword myself. I’m only giving you this chance because Yue Yu kept asking, and because of time constraints. Consider yourself fortunate.”

Yue Yang said nothing at all. He simply reached out and gently took Qianqian’s small hand.

This wasn’t the moment for words.

Hadn’t anyone said it — on a still night, with no one around, silence speaks far louder than words?

Princess Qianqian saw the scoundrel drawing near, his lips slowly lowering toward hers, and her small hand flew up in flustered defense. “Everyone’s still awake. What are you doing? You think that just because you’re not talking and you’re pretending to behave, I’ll let you kiss me?”

Yue Yang still said nothing. But somehow, without her quite noticing when it had happened, his hands had gently come to rest around her fragrant shoulders. His breath fell warm across her face, carrying a faint heat that left her slightly dazed, her stiff posture slowly loosening. The beautiful fierce eyes that had been glaring at him a moment ago now drifted half-closed, their gaze growing soft and hazy. Her small hand was still half-pressing against him, but somewhere beneath the surface she was contradicting herself entirely, a secret part of her wanting him closer.

Somehow, the terrible scoundrel she’d been furious at just moments ago — she’d completely forgiven him. However infuriating he’d been before, the instant he turned gentle, she couldn’t hold onto her anger at all.

Perhaps he really was her natural nemesis.

It wasn’t as though this was the first or second time he’d taken advantage of her anyway.

Princess Qianqian worked very hard to find herself a reasonable excuse — before he kissed her, she needed a justification she could live with. Whatever happened, she absolutely could not admit, even to herself, that she actually wanted his kiss.

In any case, the person who’d made her life so complicated and turbulent was none other than the insufferable, infuriating, impossible fool standing right in front of her.

She parted her small white teeth, preparing to give Yue Yang’s lips a bite of her own as punishment.

Unexpectedly, Yue Yang got there first.

Ow!

Princess Qianqian startled.

He’d bitten her? She caught a glimpse of Yue Yang making a panicked escape, and immediately understood — the scoundrel had been teasing her deliberately. Fury ignited. “You absolute villain — a kiss I could overlook, but you dared bite me?”

“It’s a misunderstanding — I had no intention of biting!” Yue Yang called back while fleeing. “It’s just that a certain proudly stubborn princess is so impossibly endearing that the impulse to bite that little mouth of hers was completely beyond my control. Pure instinct. Why are you drawing your sword? Someone’s going to get killed! Help!”

The furiously blushing princess gave chase, sword in hand. “I’m going to cut you down, and that’s my instinct. If you think you can run, then run!”

“Communication is a good foundation for any relationship…” Luohua and the Southern Wilderness Demon King exchanged glances from their hiding spot nearby, both smiling.

“Does biting count as communication?” Little Inan looked genuinely puzzled.

“Ah — sometimes biting is the most effective communication there is.” Luohua explained this with perfect gravity.

“I’m tired — everyone get to sleep soon.” Yue Yu had heard quite enough of this topic and fled to her room as fast as her feet would carry her.

(End of Chapter)