Mountain Beyond the Mountain. The Reception Platform.

The storm of the battle had finally settled.

In the middle of a heaven and earth beaten to pieces, one man was still standing: Ji Wuri, called the first genius of the Heavenly Realm’s Central Divine Hall. Even when the mysterious man had run him through the chest in front of everyone, he had not looked like this. He was covered in wounds from head to foot and running with blood, and the cuts crossed one another everywhere, deep enough to show bone, so that the sight of him raised the hair on a man’s neck. Ji Wuri, who in front of others was always above them, as glorious and as fierce as a god — Ji Wuri could not even keep his feet under him. Blood ran down out of his wounds, drop by drop. The arm with its tendons cut and its bones broken could not close into a fist.

The worst injury of his life.

All of it.

All of it had come from the other great rival in his life — and it was not Yue Titan, the man Ji Wuri had settled on in his own mind. It was an enemy he had all but overlooked. The mysterious man’s disciple. One of the three great powers of the old Western Heavenly Realm. Jiuxiao.

“A pity.” A voice came out of what sounded like the underworld, and in the instant it entered the ear it was strangely sucked away, as though a black hole had taken it. “So you had a power that size hidden away. No wonder you had the nerve to talk the way you do. But today is only the beginning. Fighting will keep you company from here until your life ends. I promise you that. Neither of us stops until one of us is dead.”

“Jiuxiao.” Anger flashed through Ji Wuri’s eyes at the name, and he quickly put it down again.

He drew a deep breath.

He got his feelings under control as far as he could, after what the pain had done to him.

Facing the man who had done it, Ji Wuri opened not with a furious accusation but with earnest, patient persuasion. “You were my brother once. Whatever prejudice and whatever grudge you hold against me, I have borne it all in silence, and I have not argued with you. But before you settle in to enjoy your revenge, I would like to say a few honest words to you. Whatever you think of them afterward, I hope you will give me one chance to say what is in my heart. Jiuxiao, after a fight like this one I believe you are in as much pain as I am. We are both geniuses. We are both among the first rank of the Heavenly Realm. We are both extremely intelligent. We both know how to hide ourselves, and without ever discussing it, we both hid our real strength from the world… which is to say that, seen from a certain angle, we are very alike. Alike enough to be twin brothers.”

Jiuxiao’s voice came up cold and eerie out of a black hole in the sky, an unstable thing that looked ready to collapse at any moment. “I don’t deny there are similarities. Heh. Though rather than intelligent, say cunning. Or say selfish. We will never trust anyone. Not even the master the two of us respect above all others is a man we can trust a hundred percent. So, Ji Wuri, do you still want to talk me around? Do you still not understand?”

Jiuxiao’s cold laugh went to the bone. “People like you and me trust nobody but ourselves. What makes you think anything you say could change my mind? What a joke. Never mind you — if there really were another Jiuxiao in this world, my own twin brother, I would not trust him either.”

“Agreed. Neither of us trusts his own right hand to his left.” Ji Wuri did not argue the point.

“Then why waste your breath?” Jiuxiao snorted contemptuously.

“I never expected to talk you around. I only want to lay out the most important information for you, once.” Ji Wuri laughed up at the sky. “We are both intelligent men and we should both understand one thing. A fight between us cripples us both. If one of us goes down, the other will be hurt past anything he can repair.”

“You mean somebody will rise while the two of us are busy fighting?” Jiuxiao laughed him off. “If you’re about to say Xukong, save your breath.”

“Xukong is a genius too, and he is certain to achieve a great deal in time.” Ji Wuri shook his head. “But he is not the man who is catching up to us.”

“Not Xukong. Ming Yueguang, then?” Jiuxiao paused a moment. “If you are trying to shift the target onto Ming Yueguang, I’m sorry, but I think an idea that naive is not going to happen. About Ming Yueguang I want to say two things. First, whatever you do, you cannot stop her growing. Her ascending to godhood is only a question of time. Second, if you imagine I will transfer my hatred of you onto Ming Yueguang, you are badly mistaken. Even if Ming Yueguang comes to rule the whole Western Heavenly Realm, I will not interfere much with anything she does. She is not my enemy. She was not before and she will not be. In front of other people I may put on a show of treating her as a rival to be hated, and give the world the impression of dangerous currents running under the three great powers — but that does not mean I actually want to fight Ming Yueguang, or Xukong. I will stay wary of those two and I will guard against them. I will not make enemies of them.”

“And if I said Yue Titan?” Ji Wuri smiled suddenly. “You traded blows with him in the Prison Emperor’s Divine Hall. You of all people should understand how frightening his rate of growth is.”

“I do want to kill him.” Jiuxiao granted that Yue Yang was a frightening opponent.

“And if the two of us keep fighting, then this Yue family third young master grows fast, in a comfortable environment with nobody holding him down.” That was Ji Wuri’s argument. “He is the Sky Tower’s hope. We should strangle him first, and then go back to this fated battle of ours.”

“You’d like that.” Jiuxiao did not agree at all.

“What?” Ji Wuri could not work out why Jiuxiao would disagree.

“Let me go on making war on that Yue Titan? Let me get myself entangled with that crowd from the Sky Tower, and then have Yue Titan, or some other Sky Tower power, spend his life sealing me away the same way the Prison Emperor did? And this time with no life-guardian war beast left outside. And by the time I come out, you — Ji Wuri, the self-styled first genius of the Central Divine Hall — will perhaps have unified the Heavenly Realm. Or at the very least have taken the Western Heavenly Realm and stolen the ground I stand on.” Jiuxiao gave a long, deeply strange laugh, and then the laugh came down like a blade. “You are wrong, Ji Wuri. Do you think I would fall for the same thing twice? What is it to me if the Sky Tower rises? What is it to me if Yue Titan grows? I am not their first target. So long as I leave them alone, they will be delighted to have one less enemy like me. The Sky Tower, and that Yue Titan who is more of a genius than you are — their target is you, and the Central Divine Hall standing behind you. He is your enemy. Why should I involve myself? Do I look like an idiot to you? That cursed place, the Sky Tower — I will never go back there, whatever words and whatever temptations you use. Talk about the Ruins of the Gods. Talk about the Sky Stairway. Talk about ancient relics. Talk about a Sacred Codex. I believe those things are there. But I understand perfectly well that some things in this world do not belong to a man, and what does not belong to him cannot be taken by force. If a Sacred Codex belonged to me, then even if I did nothing at all, fate would guide me to it. And if there is no Sacred Codex in my fate, do you think I would go begging for one the way you do? Hahahaha! Ji Wuri, Ji Wuri, you are in fact the first-ranking fool under heaven. Everyone knows a divine artifact chooses its master. In ten thousand years, whatever you have done, you have nothing to show for it and nothing in hand. And you think you are qualified to own a Sacred Codex? You?”

“The title of first genius of the Central Divine Hall is one you trumpeted for yourself. Doesn’t it make you blush?”

“Standing in front of Dongfang, what exactly are you?”

“Even leaving aside Dongfang and his great wisdom, and leaving aside your master, who is a genuine genius — there are several men in front of you and behind you who are no worse than you are. You have the Divine Hall Supreme for a master and you are still only one of the Three Hall Masters. Do you honestly think you have surpassed the other two? Without the Divine Hall Supreme as your master, without the best resources and the best opportunities, would you have what you have today? That, Ji Wuri, is why I despise you. You have completely wasted the finest environment and the finest talent for growth anyone ever had.”

“Enough. I have said plenty. If I didn’t enjoy watching you squirm, I would not open my mouth to a man like you for so much as a single sentence. Go on feeling superior, my friend. Your arrogance covered your eyes a long time ago. You see the surface of people and never what is inside them. Perhaps you have forgotten how the Conquest Queen swept the Heavenly Realm in her day. And with an eye like yours you think you could unify it? Leave Yue Titan and Ming Yueguang out of it for the moment. I want to say one last thing. If the Conquest Queen ever comes back, she will beat you until you look like a dog dragged out of a river. Go on with your wishful thinking. Daydreaming is the thing you have always done best.”

Jiuxiao’s voice weakened, and at the last it disappeared into nothing.

The black hole in the sky, already close to collapse, broke apart at some point too, and turned into countless fragments of void.

Ji Wuri, standing there in midair, had a face that was a terrible thing to look at after all that mockery. He had known it would be hard to talk this stubborn enemy around — but at the least he had hoped to drive a wedge and set Jiuxiao onto Yue Titan, which would have produced a reasonably stable three-cornered standoff.

Unfortunately, Jiuxiao would not take the bait at all.

What he had instead was Jiuxiao and Yue Titan both turning their fire on him together.

And later, Ming Yueguang on top of that — and the Conquest Queen, who might show herself at any time.

He stood quietly in the air and said nothing for a long while. A man with an unmoving will was not going to feel beaten because Jiuxiao had said hard things to him, and he was not going to be shaken by the bitter fight that had come before it. On the contrary, he had come out of that fight slightly ahead. Without even producing his last trump card, he had badly hurt a Jiuxiao who had lain in wait a long time and picked his moment.

Ji Wuri had won this fight. It gave him no pleasure.

Because for him, winning was simply what happened.

What made him feel he had failed, and put him on his guard, was that he had not crushed Jiuxiao’s body under him the way he had imagined he would. A Jiuxiao who had spent several thousand years sealed by the Prison Emperor still had strength like this — enough to force him nearly to the point of using his last card. There was no getting around it. This Jiuxiao was a rival on the order of that Yue family third young master.

“Master, why not ascend to the divine tier? We have stayed at the quasi-divine tier far too long.” Jingbu had come out and stood at attention at Ji Wuri’s side.

“If all of us ascend to the divine tier through forbidden power, we can certainly grind Jiuxiao out of existence.” Wuwang nodded, and offered it as a guarantee.

“We still have a hundred thousand blood slaves, and what there is here in Mountain Beyond the Mountain besides. It’s enough.”

“By the time we finish absorbing the forbidden power it should be about the critical moment when Dongfang and the Sky Tower have fought each other to the end. We watch for our chance, strike once and kill, and take the last of the harvest. With supreme divine power in hand, wiping that battlefield flat would be nothing at all. Master, please stop hesitating.”

“…” Ji Wuri frowned and weighed the gains and the losses for a long time.

There was no telling how long it went on.

Only when his body’s self-healing had nearly brought him back whole did he grunt out an answer. “Ascending to the divine tier is necessary. But before that, I want to watch Weiguang kill Yue Titan. Until that man is removed the Heavenly Realm will never have a peaceful day. Jiuxiao is frightening, but he is nothing next to Yue Titan. If Jiuxiao is a starved wolf traveling ten thousand li alone, Yue Titan is a tiger that swallows mountains and rivers. Wait for that tiger to finish growing and every power in the Heavenly Realm together will not be enough to fill an appetite that eats the world.”

Jingbu and Wuwang both agreed with what Ji Wuri said. They shook their heads, a little troubled. “The evil god Weiguang is strong beyond compare, but unfortunately he is trapped inside a seal.”

A proud smile came onto Ji Wuri’s face. “Don’t worry. Well before I entered Human Valley, I sent someone back to invite that person to undo the seal… Originally I intended to use the opportunity to devour the evil god Weiguang, but things happened. Since that is how it is, let Yue Titan have him. This time I am going to stuff that brat until he bursts.”

Meanwhile, Yue Yang, for his part, was resting comfortably in his Grimoire World.

And enjoying some very good barbecue.

Yue Yu grilled him a skewer. The Sick Beauty grilled him a skewer. The Drunken Cat Imperial Lady grilled him a skewer… every last one of them grilled him a skewer, and even with Bao’er and Niuniu helping him eat it he was in trouble. Looking at last at the visibly charred chicken leg from Princess Qianqian, he could not hold back a belch — and then, before Tiger Girl could take it away, the transmigrator threw himself on his sword and grabbed it and shoved it in his mouth. “One chicken leg? I could eat a whole mammoth. You people don’t know it, but I have a nickname: the Undefeated Stomach King… my God, how much salt did you put in this? You didn’t get the salt and the sugar mixed up, did you? Sweetheart, could you put one line on my headstone for me — ‘A little water. He might still make it’? If there’s anything worse than being stuffed to death, it’s being salted to death while you’re still alive.”

(End of Chapter 1224)