Over the days that followed —

The number of things Yue Yang was creating with God-Slaying Mystic Metal only grew, and his creative technique with it kept climbing. He turned out plenty of inconceivable things — for instance, a multi-form war doll called the “Black Tortoise Guard” that could enter water, come up on land, and even take to the sky. Fighting alone, they were humanoid war dolls. When mounted, they took on a beast form as well. And against enormous opponents, dozens or hundreds of them could combine — merging their transformed states into a single “Black Tortoise Giant” or “Black Tortoise Colossus.” These indestructible, all-purpose transforming war dolls were powered by Divine Stones, so long as light existed, they would never stop moving.

And, of course, engraved on the bodies of these “Black Tortoise Guards” were the Heavenly Realm rune-diagrams Yue Yang had manifested by a single thought.

Those beautiful, mysterious rune-diagrams were absolutely not decorative.

Anyone who faced these war dolls in combat —

Would come to know their meaning most deeply.

God-Slaying Mystic Metal could be shaped, under Yue Yang’s guidance by divine mind, into virtually anything in the world. Its ways of expressing itself were limitless.

Except for one thing: it could not, under any circumstance, be made into “life.”

Once Yue Yang had discovered that ancient law, he did not press for a breakthrough on it. Impossibilities were not worth exhausting one’s heart over. If God-Slaying Mystic Metal could not give birth to life, then the ancient great gods who had created it must surely have had their reasons.

He put his attention on breakthroughs of another kind — advances in the act of creation itself.

As for the dresses the Southern Wilderness Demon King and the others had asked for, he was not, of course, going to sit down and make those himself. Those little things were for the sweet handmaid Xiao Nu to sew.

Yue Yang did, however, take the God-Slaying Mystic Metal to upgrade everyone’s Moon War Robes, fusing the two together. In a single act of thought, brand-new “Moon War Robes” were born — carrying both the transformation ability of the old robes and the defensive power of God-Slaying Mystic Metal.

The war doll “Nine-Headed Dragon,” which had once cost nine oxen’s worth of effort to build —

Now had to be remade as well.

The one thing that left Yue Yang a bit regretful was that though the Nine-Headed Dragon’s combat power leapt a hundredfold, it still could not become an earth divine soldier. That, perhaps, was God-Slaying Mystic Metal’s greatest limitation.

Half a month later.

“I, I’m not seeing things, am I?” When Raven and Pelican returned to the Tange with a large crowd of Star Pirates in tow, the sight that met their eyes had them mistrusting their own eyeballs. The Tange as she now stood had no visible change on the outside — but her interior had been utterly reshaped. Every deck and every cabin had been overhauled. Aside from the Warriors’ Plaza, which remained in the middle, every other part had been redone according to Yue Yang’s own vision. She had become an unprecedented “new ship.” Never mind Raven and the rest — even her old captain Griffin Marshal himself would not have recognized this as the original Tange!

“What in the world happened here?” Pelican scratched the back of his head like a fool. Given his level of intellect, working out the truth was a project he could probably chase for the rest of his life without success.

“I don’t know. Don’t ask me!” Flower Duck’s intellect was roughly Pelican’s rival, and neither was in a position to be laughing at the other.

He, along with Guoguo and the rest, had been told by Yue Yang that he intended to refit the Tange.

At first, none of them had paid any real attention. They assumed the whole project would take several years, if not decades, and that Yue Titan was merely floating a plan. Who could have imagined that, after a night’s sleep, they would wake to find themselves living inside a different hovering mothership? They stood petrified for a good long while, then eventually — with great difficulty — found their way to the Warriors’ Plaza and, seeing the cargo stashed temporarily there, at last realized that yes, this was the Tange, refitted by Yue Titan.

Nobody could work out how Yue Titan had refitted her so fast.

Nobody knew what method he had used.

But after living aboard for ten-plus days, their thick-skinned selves had grown accustomed to the new ship. And truly, the refitted Tange was in every way more sensible, more convenient, and more comfortable than before.

“One good night’s sleep and it turned into this?” Once Raven had heard Flower Duck’s account, his heart nearly burst out of his chest. Even for one of the eight Divine Sovereigns, building a hovering mothership took at least ten years. For a super-massive one like the Dragon Eagle, they said it took several centuries. Yue Titan had completed the entire interior refit of the Tange in a single night. Just what kind of monstrous existence was he? Was this fellow even still human? He was a monster.

“Why didn’t he refit the outside?” Even a numbskull like Pelican now believed Yue Yang could refit the whole thing, but he could not fathom why the exterior had been left alone.

“He said the outer hull was already perfectly designed, and didn’t need touching,” Guoguo shrugged.

“And to hide the truth of the refit,” Raven caught on.

“Maybe. But I still don’t think that guy’s the low-profile sort!” Guoguo unwittingly let another big secret slip: “Word is, to boost our fighting power, he’s designed us all a suit of armor forged from God-Slaying Mystic Metal — called ‘Black Tortoise Heavy Armor.’ I’ve already seen it. The style is aggressive as hell. Put one on and I wouldn’t even fear the Five Great Villains — I’ll be cutting enemy heads off through armies!”

“Guoguo, spare me!” Flower Duck mocked without mercy. “A little rat in a lion’s suit doesn’t become king of the beasts.”

“We get one too?” Pelican tore off toward the captain’s quarters in excitement.

Stepping into the newly-built main bridge, Raven and Pelican found several hundred God-Slaying-Mystic-Metal humanoid war dolls of every size in there, working away in perfect order — a hundred times more efficient than the original Tange’s crew.

Sitting on the specially-crafted captain’s seat up on the high bridge, Yue Yang yawned and waved a hand at the dazzled, wide-eyed Raven and the others: “Don’t ask me anything, all of you. I haven’t slept properly in days, I’m out of energy. I’m going back to catch up on sleep. Take your time. Once Winged Tiger and the others get back, we set off. Oh — your heavy armor, I put it in the armory. It’s for combatants only. I worked hard on it — don’t waste it.”

Guoguo felt the last remark seemed pointed at him.

Terrified he’d be shut out at the end —

He hastily stepped forward in protest: “I’m a standard combatant too. Black Tortoise Heavy Armor will suit me perfectly — at least better than that fool Flower Duck!”

Flower Duck had lately grown quite friendly with him and did not take offense. Everyone here was riff-raff anyway; they could not exactly be expected to pitch in on the fighting. Yue Titan’s Black Tortoise Heavy Armor was surely for Raven, Pelican, Winged Tiger, and the other leaders — but if you could shamelessly scam a set for yourself, that was absolutely worth doing. This was the greatest bit of luck and honor of a lifetime — nothing to be lost by grabbing while there was grabbing to be had!

Since Yue Titan could make more of them, and could make them well, nobody was going to be polite about it.

Down in the armory, once they had happily suited up in the heavy, solid “Black Tortoise Heavy Armor,” it finally occurred to the numbskull Pelican: “Those war dolls aren’t the pilots, are they? If they do all the work, what do we do? No, no. Flying the ship — that’s a job we’re claiming for ourselves!”

Raven rolled his eyes so hard they nearly stuck.

Say you’re an idiot, and you still don’t believe it.

If the Star Pirates could actually fly the Tange, would Yue Titan have gone through all that trouble making war dolls with God-Slaying Mystic Metal to fly her?

By the time Winged Tiger, Wind Hawk, and Flamingo returned with a great flock of freshly-hired veteran hands, several more days had gone by. When they saw the Tange — now, at Raven’s suggestion, renamed the “Great Swan” — they too were left completely dumbstruck.

Those retired veterans who once knew hovering motherships inside and out were now hopelessly at sea.

Was this the standardized, ten-thousand-years-unchanged hovering mothership they knew? This thing, apart from her outer shell, had every interior part more foreign than a stranger’s face. Even a first-mate veteran who had served aboard hovering motherships for decades felt himself blinded on the spot. Everything he looked at was black to his eyes. Nothing he saw was familiar; nothing he saw made any sense.

Fortunately, Yue Yang had already made several hundred Black Tortoise Guards.

These multi-purpose war dolls, versed not only in combat but in every kind of daily-life support besides, needed no one’s assistance at all. They started the ship with practiced ease and took her straight up into the sky.

They never made mistakes. They never tired.

Their skill at flying the ship was so precise that even the most seasoned old hand would have wept for joy at it.

“Living here is heaven itself! Drink, drink, drink — down this whole barrel!” Pelican, a fellow without much of anything above his neck, had after a few days already settled comfortably into life aboard. He had nothing to think about — every day was eat, drink, and be free. Food? The ship had provisions enough on hand to feed tens of thousands for years — ten years of eating wouldn’t finish it. And the generous master, Yue Titan, sprang for the drink besides, treating everyone to Sky Tower wine again and again. Where else in the world could you find a life like this?

“Fine, then!” Winged Tiger and the others sweated hard. They suspected Yue Titan had somehow gotten the idea that the Star Pirates were all a lot of starved poor beggars.

Pelican and Flower Duck and those other food-hounds were disgracing them all in front of the master.

Raven shrugged helplessly, spread his hands.

He couldn’t help it.

The truth of it was, life here really was that good…

Unlike those food-hounds, Winged Tiger, Wind Hawk, Flamingo, and Raven, once past their initial shock, sat down to discuss the coming fighting.

Since Yue Titan was making preparations at this scale, it was proof that the fighting to come would be anything but light. Flower Duck and his sort aside, they, as chieftains, absolutely could not become idle rice-eating worms. Putting their backs into the fight was a given — the question was only how much they could contribute.

Besides, they had a killing-count wager with Lei Beast and the other Southeast Divine Nation generals on the line.

To lose it now would not merely mean disgracing themselves — it would drag Yue Titan, who had crafted their Black Tortoise Heavy Armor, into the shame.

In Grimoire World.

Yue Yang, for his part, was discussing the next step of the plan with Princess Qianqian and the others.

Whether it was Princess Qianqian or the Divine Punishment Empress, all felt Yue Yang should first go and take a look at the “God-Slaying Mystic Realm.” Some information about Taiyan and Bingli, the two fallen ancient gods, might still linger at the site of their fall, and if any of it could be recovered, it would surely give an edge in the fight against Hei Zhou and the West Camp. Beyond that, Yue Yang’s chief purpose in coming to Mountain Beyond the Mountain was to search for ancient relics — and information about them might well still exist in the God-Slaying Mystic Realm.

Even at worst, if they came up empty-handed, at the very least there would be God-Slaying Mystic Metal there!

“The God-Slaying Mystic Realm — we absolutely need to go. What I’m worried about is running into Ji Wuri there,” Yue Yang knew that a man like Ji Wuri had an extremely acute sense of danger. Once he detected anything off, he would flee — and then killing him would become much harder.

“Rather than worry about Ji Wuri, I’d worry about the East Camp.” Princess Qianqian’s brows knit together. “I’ve had a very bad feeling…”

Princess Qianqian’s Six Senses talent normally gave her far better sensory acuity than Yue Yang.

And her ability to sense battle-omens was the strongest.

Aside from Xue Wuxia, no one could compare with her.

The moment she said that, the atmosphere sobered. The Divine Punishment Empress ventured a bold guess: “Could it be that Eastern Divine Sovereign God-Slayer has failed to persuade Northeast Divine Sovereign Shalong to join the East Camp? If that fence-sitter, at the critical moment, turns coat, that would indeed be a serious problem. An openly declared enemy is easier to deal with than a mole burrowing deep inside your own camp. And this is a Divine Sovereign — a superlative one. He’s the piece both camps must fight over. Whichever side he throws in with will see its own strength surge. In such delicate circumstances, the East Camp — already the marginally weaker side — is in a very passive position.”

Yue Yang pondered for a while, then shook his head. “We aren’t familiar with Mountain Beyond the Mountain. We can’t be sure of the relationships between the eight Divine Sovereigns. But this fight, we’re fighting it, no matter what. Even if the East Camp loses, we absolutely must complete our own mission. And Ji Wuri absolutely has to be eliminated!”

(End of Chapter 1159)