“What do we do?” Mingzhu clutched Yue Yang’s large hand, sprinting alongside him while crying out in alarm.

“What do we do? Nothing to be done!” Yue Yang had no answer either. The one throwing a tantrum overhead was some nameless great deity, and a deity’s wrath was no trifling matter. However formidable Yue Yang was, he couldn’t contend against a god — the gap in strength and tier was simply too vast. Of course, if you couldn’t beat them, you could still run. Hands and feet intact, who would be foolish enough to stand in place and wait for death?

“But there’s no way to run!” Mingzhu felt on the verge of tears. They’d already been locked on by that divine awareness — could they possibly escape?

The position where one finger of that fully-unseen divine hand was jabbing down was precisely the puppet academy’s transport gate. Reaching it would mean being crushed into meat paste at the perfect moment. This wasn’t fleeing — it was more like marching to one’s death. And the most despairing part: even knowing hope was slim, the cruel reality still forced people to make one last desperate effort, even knowing that fleeing forward meant death all the same. They had no choice but to grit their teeth and press onward. Truly the greatest sorrow of life.

The enormous divine hand pressed down at extreme speed, its fingertip — larger than a mountain peak — grinding violently against the atmosphere in its high-velocity plunge, igniting roaring flames. The fingertip burned red. From time to time tiny fragments flaked off it, turning into a meteor shower, scattering like a celestial maiden strewing flowers, descending toward the earth alongside the divine hand. All of this, in the same instant it radiated fleeting beauty, brought boundless death.

Beyond the divine hand and the meteor shower, an unimaginably fierce shockwave bore down on the entire land. The puppet beasts on the ground were pulverized one after another under the stress. Not a single one survived. Even the indestructible puppet academy now gave off teeth-grating, terrifying sounds, countless fissures spreading like spiderwebs, on the verge of collapse. More and more cracks appeared, looking like so many mocking mouths. The puppet academy could crumble at any moment.

Running there now was meaningless.

But were they really to give up now, halt their steps, and quietly await the descent of death?

The crueler reality was that Yue Yang and the others, sprinting below — once swift as lightning — were now slowing because the divine awareness, a hundred times stronger than the shockwave’s pressure, had locked directly onto them. A force equivalent to law itself directly constrained their bodies. Not only could their running speed not increase, it grew slower and slower. Though everyone struggled against it under the threat of death, exploding with effort again and again, the group’s pace still dropped lower and lower, until at last it became as sluggish as a snail’s crawl. At this rate, even Yue Yang and Mingzhu at the very front wouldn’t reach the puppet academy — wouldn’t even cover half the distance to the transport gate — before being flattened by the giant “divine hand” overhead.

No one could survive beneath that divine hand. This was the judgment of a god.

“Aaaaaaaaah…” Hauge was nearly going mad. Against an enemy of this caliber there was simply no resisting; the helplessness of a weakling about to be obliterated in an instant was something he loathed with all his being.

“Is there still hope?” Ren Tiange had lost his confidence by now.

“There is.” The only one who dared say there is now was Yue Yang alone.

“What do we do?” Phantom asked urgently. Whether what Yue Yang said was right or wrong, he was willing to believe it completely and cooperate with all his might.

“Pray!” Yue Yang’s answer nearly sent everyone toppling face-first to the ground. What kind of method is that? It’s just irresponsible deflection! If prayer worked, would there still be misfortune in the world? If prayer worked, a god would be the busiest being alive, running himself ragged dawn to dusk over every trivial little affair in people’s lives.

Hauge couldn’t take it. He erupted in a wild roar, loud as a great thunderclap splitting the heavens, gritted his teeth, and savagely came to a stop. Even in death, he would die standing, gloriously — not as some useless fleeing turtle. Ren Tiange thought the same. Then Phantom, Blood Shave, and Golden Bones all stopped as well, lifting their faces to the sky, watching the “divine hand” bearing down, frantically searching their minds for some means of survival. But there was none — they could only watch, wide-eyed, as death pressed down from above.

At last even the Silver-Eyed Great Sage, that wise man, gave up and halted his steps.

Perhaps sensing their master was in danger, the four platinum puppets all came rushing over, raising their arms skyward, intending to hold up a patch of sky for their new master Yue Yang. But before the divine hand even pressed down, they were already wrenched into utter distortion by that incomparable shockwave and divine-awareness pressure, their eight arms snapping with a crack on the spot. Their hundred-meter frames — how minuscule, set against the divine hand — could not possibly bear that devastating pressure. The four platinum constructs exploded one after another, bursting into fragments, debris flung across the entire sky. Had they not seen it with their own eyes, no one would have believed these fragile things were the same all-conquering platinum puppets from before.

No sound. No despairing screams. Everyone could only stare in petrified shock. In truth, under that devastating pressure, no mouth could produce even a sliver of sound.

The pressure multiplied with the divine hand’s descent. Hauge and the others felt their feet sinking deep into the ground; the whole earth began to quake and split, the surface, unable to bear the pressure, cracking apart in a frenzy. Doomsday — the entire Tower Beyond the Tower was now a scene of apocalyptic destruction.

Without the law’s restriction, everyone could at least have unleashed their strongest force and put up some stubborn resistance. It might not have helped, but it would have felt far better than dying like this without any resistance at all. But this was Human Valley; all combat strength was shackled under the law. And as the divine hand descended, Hauge and the others found their minds going blank, unable to even rouse the will to resist. Before this absolutely overwhelming divine power, they discovered that they — supreme powerhouses though they were — amounted to no more than slightly larger ants. Compared to a god, they were truly, despairingly weak.

“I have a way to send you out of here, but I have conditions.” Mingzhu transmitted secretly to Yue Yang, face streaming with tears.

“What conditions?” Yue Yang asked.

“First — you can’t forget me…” Mingzhu wept rain, gripping Yue Yang’s hand tightly, abandoning the usual habit of turning hostile the moment Yue Yang touched him.

“Ah — that one’s a little difficult. My memory only works for beautiful women!” Yue Yang scratched his head sheepishly. Ordinarily, daring to speak to Mingzhu like this would have earned him a golden hammer to the head at once. But now Mingzhu laughed through the tears, half-crying, half-laughing as he wrapped his arms around Yue Yang and, in a gentle tone Yue Yang had never heard before, whispered softly in his ear: “I don’t care. Whatever happens, you simply cannot forget me — even if it’s only the occasional thought… I can’t bear to part with you. I want so much to be with you, to watch you blunder around like a witless goose making a fool of yourself every day… But I can’t be with you anymore. I hope that when you live happily with your little wife, you’ll think of me now and then… Goodbye. Goodbye, you fool!”

Mingzhu held Yue Yang tight in both arms, tears streaming, unwilling to let go no matter what. And in an instant, his body radiated ten million strands of brilliance — dazzling, impossible to look at directly. The laws of heaven and earth seemed to shift slowly; both time and space were warped by some force. The “destroying divine hand” plunging from overhead with death in tow also seemed to stall in midair.

Mingzhu released Yue Yang and cried out, “Didn’t you want to know my secret? My secret is—”

As Mingzhu spoke, boundless power began spinning at extreme speed. And just as that power was about to teleport Yue Yang away — an unimaginably powerful, terrifying divine force suddenly struck, sneaking in to hit the defenseless Mingzhu, who’d been wholly focused on teleporting Yue Yang.

From this single blow, blood sprayed from Mingzhu’s mouth.

“Pfft!”

The secret could no longer be spoken.

And the marvelous force meant to teleport Yue Yang away weakened steadily, finally suppressed by that terrifying divine power into stillness. The light radiating from Mingzhu’s body dimmed more and more, very nearly guttering out like an oil lamp run dry. Yue Yang hurriedly gathered the gravely wounded Mingzhu into his arms, tenderly wiping the blood from his lips. “You fool — even if we leave, we leave together. You should know I’d never abandon you and run off alone…”

Mingzhu mustered a faint smile and said, blurrily, “All right. Then we die together.”

The words finished, he could hold on no longer and fainted away.

Qingmo had said nothing all this while; he too seemed to have a means of escape. But seeing Mingzhu’s effort come to nothing, and judging himself incapable of contending against that terrifying divine power, a wry smile crossed his eyes. He shook his head, abandoned the struggle, and closed his eyes to await death.

“How can this be? Human Valley shouldn’t have so powerful a deity standing guard. And besides, we merely entered to temper ourselves as required — we shouldn’t be subject to a god’s wrathful attack. Where did things go wrong? I can’t make sense of it. To die with this regret is genuinely a shame.” The Silver-Eyed Great Sage felt regret as well — not because he cherished his life, but because he lamented not having uncovered the truth.

“Damn you, heaven — I, Hauge, am not afraid of you! I live standing and I’ll die standing, and I’ll never beg for mercy!” Hauge roared with the last of his strength. But under the divine pressure, his roar carried hardly louder than an ant’s squeak.

At Yue Yang’s side, two girls had appeared at some unknown moment — none other than the dragon sisters Yao and Yu. Gently, he passed the gravely wounded, unconscious Mingzhu into the younger sister Yu’s hands, and still not at ease, ordered Taotie, the Star Scorpion, and the Heaven-Devouring Beast — formed from the sheath of Princess Qianqian’s Tiger Prison Divine Sword — to stand guard. From between his wrists, the slender shadow slid out soundlessly, forming a heaven-piercing war blade.

Yue Yang, the heaven-piercing war blade in hand, turned utterly grave. He had never once attempted a challenge like this before. The one he challenged now was no ordinary opponent, but an unimaginably powerful god.

The divine hand pressed down from above. The weakest, Hauge, had already collapsed, unable to stand at all, fallen flat to the ground and sunk deep into the rock. Then came Qingmo and the Silver-Eyed Great Sage, and finally the strongest, Ren Tiange and Phantom — all of them unable to withstand the divine hand pressing down and the divine power coursing through their bodies. They shared a single sensation: both body and soul carried a death-premonition of being crushed by divine power, and the divine hand was the grave that would bury them. In their minds, thought gradually dissolved into chaos, and as darkness closed in, only one final notion remained: It’s over.

The only one still able to stand and resist was Yue Yang alone.

Yue Yang, who possessed a Sovereign Intent stronger than Ren Tiange, Phantom, Blood Shave, or Golden Bones — even a god could not shake his will. So long as he willed it, no force could make him submit. So even against a god — an invincible god — Yue Yang could persist in fighting to the end, and held the basic conviction to resist and fight back.

It was only that his tier had not yet caught up; his will had long since reached the divine tier. Whether through resonance with the Supreme beneath the World Tree, or through the fusion of his soul with Empress Vivienne in the Black Void space, Yue Yang had glimpsed the secrets of the divine tier, and the Sovereign Intent he’d comprehended on his own was eternal and undying — far surpassing the realm of Hauge, Ren Tiange, and the rest.

That destroying divine awareness, too, seemed to discover the secret within Yue Yang. In an instant, endless divine power wrapped around him, intending to obliterate him.

“Get the hell out!” Yue Yang spat a mouthful of blood, and the law-power that belonged to him erupted across heaven and earth. The clinging divine power was flung off entirely; space and time were grasped within Yue Yang’s palm; the divine hand in the sky, along with the land-destroying shockwave, all came to a halt.

When Yue Yang raised his hand, the divine hand in the sky trembled, as though about to lift away.

A tremendous divine force, faster than thought and the obstruction of his minor-law power could intercept, flashed like a thunder-hammer and struck Yue Yang. Yue Yang didn’t retreat a single step, clenching his teeth. Blood seeped from between them.

On the devastated ground, as Yue Yang’s other hand danced its blade — under the sword-qi of the heaven-piercing war blade — a colossal, peerless rune array flashed into being. Heaven-crumbling, earth-splitting tremors followed; countless rock pillars thrust up from the ground, like a god raising mountains, surging upward in their multitudes, each comparable to a mountain peak, blocking beneath the divine hand. And Yue Yang, who forced all of this into being against the strain, had his battle armor long since blasted to powder by the divine-power hammer, exposing a body scarred all over and dripping with blood.

This act thoroughly enraged the deity bent on destroying the world of the Tower Beyond the Tower. The divine claw pressed down again with a hundredfold force. The mountain-like rock pillars all shattered. Not one could block the divine hand’s descent.

The divine hand bore down, seeking to fold heaven and earth into one. Once heaven and earth folded together, the entire Tower Beyond the Tower world would return to chaos, and all life within would dissolve into nothingness. Yao and Yu had both been forced by the divine power to sit collapsed at Yue Yang’s feet, shielding Mingzhu with their bodies, unable to lend aid. Taotie and the others were likewise pinned immobile by the divine power, roaring without cease, their hearts willing but their strength insufficient — unable to come to the rescue.

In all of heaven and earth, only Yue Yang remained.

He held back the folding of heaven and earth single-handed. Alone. Resisting that all-destroying divine hand pressing down from above.

Drenched in blood, back bowed, both feet driven into the ground, both hands bracing that unimaginably enormous divine hand — his Sovereign Intent never wavering for an instant — Yue Yang erupted from his throat with an unyielding roar, hurling a cry of challenge-to-the-end at the god bent on destroying the land:

“Bring it on — I can take it! I’ll hold you up, I’ll hold you up with everything I’ve got, I’ll hold you all the way to flowers blooming and fortunes blooming with them!”

(End of Chapter)