Weiguang’s enormous foot was about to come down on the heads of Yue Yang and Xue Wuxia.

And it stopped dead.

There was no ice.

And there was no lightning strike.

The world-destroying foot hung directly overhead, and Xue Wuxia was still lost in a fierce kiss with her beloved wolf. Only — behind her, the Book of Truth turned a page, lightly. The turning of that page did not stand for the passage of time, and it was not a change of space. It was nothing but the disclosure of a truth, or perhaps a reflection and a record of what was real.

Heaven and earth, after that page turned, were made new in every particular. The land of Mountain Beyond the Mountain had plainly been beaten into a stretch of barren ruin.

Then her Book of Truth turned its page, lightly.

And it became a world of ice and snow, crystal underfoot for ten thousand li and snow drifting across it, beautiful past saying.

Weiguang discovered, appalled, that there was another existence in this world he had not noticed before.

That was a god… the divine statue golden body stood a full ten thousand fathoms high, and the feeling of it was that this body had already filled heaven and earth to their limits, and there is no word in the world for that kind of terrible splendor. She was thousand-armed and serpent-tailed, and every one of those arms wore ornaments of unspeakable beauty, and every one of those hands held a different treasure beyond any price. A million rays of light came off her, and every ray carried her eternal will and her majesty through and through.

This thousand-armed, serpent-tailed woman, fit to stand beside the giant gods of the primordial age, was looking down at Weiguang’s divine statue golden body.

Or to put it another way.

She had been looking down at him the entire time.

Weiguang simply had never noticed.

When this thousand-armed, serpent-tailed “goddess” turned the divine light of her eyes on Weiguang in front of her — with a divinity so supreme that no will anywhere could overrule it, and pressure behind the look — even a fierce god like Weiguang felt small, and ashamed of what he was. It was true enough. In front of this goddess he was in fact a tiny existence, and in divine power, divine sense, divine mind, divine majesty and divinity alike, he was simply not a being of the same order. Facing the thousand-armed, serpent-tailed goddess looking down at him, Weiguang’s first reaction was to duck his head and get out of the way, not daring to meet her eyes, not daring to look straight at them.

Because Weiguang had a feeling that if he once met her eyes, his whole divine sense and divine mind, and even the divinity he had made a self out of, would be overruled by her.

One look exchanged, and perhaps he would collapse entirely, and be annihilated.

Weiguang kept his head down.

Like an ostrich driving its head into the sand, he wrapped both arms over it and covered his face tightly.

And even so, in the deepest part of himself, he understood one fact: this was nothing but a coward’s flight from a reality he could not accept, and refusing to look at her did not help in the slightest.

There was no resisting that overwhelming divine majesty. She had only to move her intent a fraction, and not merely his body but the whole world would belong to her to command.

He was in this world of ice and snow. He was standing in front of her.

It did not matter what he did.

The outcome would be one thing only.

Because she was the one god of this world.

“You’re that little girl from back then. You’re that little girl from back then. This is not possible. You are more than ten thousand times stronger than you were ten thousand years ago.” Weiguang’s will finally gave out under that majesty, and he let out a great unwilling shout. “No life can surpass itself like this. Not even a god could. This is all illusion. It’s a false image out of the void.”

“Pitiful. Have you been frightened until you can’t even talk straight?” The ten-thousand-fathom golden divine statue with its thousand arms and serpent tail let out a sigh. She changed slowly, and shrank, and at last became a serpent-demon golden body two thousand meters high with six arms, and beckoned at Weiguang without much interest. “I can guarantee I will not use more divine power than yours. If you can fight one exchange to a draw — if you can so much as take one move from me — I’ll let you go. What do you think of a wager like that? Do you feel it isn’t fair? Shall I spot you another three moves?”

“Conquest Queen.” The black shadow, who had been frightened out of her wits, finally came to herself, and let out a shriek that would have torn the world apart. “So it’s you. You damned witch, how did you get out of the seal?”

“Thanks to your informing on me back then, this queen did indeed sit in a black cell for the better part of ten thousand years.” The serpent-demon golden body put on a delighted expression, covering her mouth and smiling. “Unfortunately this queen has to disappoint you. The black hole seal could neither destroy me nor hold me — and that terrible dark black hole seal space, how could you ever have imagined it, has actually become my place of good fortune. Ha. Come to think of it, this queen ought to be thanking you. Originally I meant to throw you into the endless void the moment I saw you and let you be a wandering ghost. But I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided not to kill you and not to exile you. I want you to live, and go on being jealous of this queen’s happy life. I want your own jealousy to swallow your whole will, a piece at a time, and your body with it.”

“You witch. It was you. You ruined me. You ruined my face. You ruined my life.” The black shadow let out a shrieking cry, madder and more horrible than a crow of ill omen.

“You brought it on yourself.” The serpent-demon golden body laughed lightly. “I never once went looking for trouble with you. It was you, with your eyes full of profit, who wanted to kill me and take the throne of the Heavenly Realm’s first beauty. What is laughable is that you never once looked squarely at your own face. You only leaned on your power and forced other people to sing the praises of your beauty, without ever considering that in their hearts they had long since been sick to the point of vomiting. I have no interest in being compared with you, because there is no need to compare at all. Never mind me — there are who knows how many thousands upon thousands of women in the Heavenly Realm more beautiful than you. For that laughable empty title of the Heavenly Realm’s first beauty, which was never going to land on your head anyway, how many women did you kill? Those pitiful women died because of you. That was their misfortune, and their helplessness fed your arrogance. What is tiresome about it is that you assumed I would turn out like them. What I said back then I still say now. I, Vivienne, am the serpent-demon queen who set her will on conquering the Heavenly Realm. I would not presume to claim the first beauty of the Heavenly Realm, but when an ugly creature like you dares bare her teeth and show her claws in front of this queen, and pick fights without shame, and set herself against this queen at every turn — that is asking to die, and this queen will abuse you without any discussion about it.”

“Witch, this is jealousy. This is an excuse. If you had not ruined my face, there would be nobody in this world more beautiful than me. Even Night Dream, the first beauty of your Sky Tower, would have known herself the lesser.” The black shadow’s excitement rose into a long shriek, and the sound of it went through the throat like a blade.

“The only thing she would ever have conceded to you is the thickness of your skin. To a creature like you, twisted in the heart and not even aware of it, she would not want her dreams dirtied — which is why she built you a separate illusory dream of your own. Ha. Go on guarding your dream of being the Heavenly Realm’s first beauty, then, and go on being proud. And then hide yourself away in the shadows, not daring even to show your face, crouching behind things like an ugly old witch, cursing other people’s beauty and other people’s happiness. Jealousy scalds your chest every hour of the day. On one side you hate other people’s happiness with everything in you, and on the other you sit there admiring, thoroughly satisfied, a face that is not worth mentioning. That is what you are.” The serpent-demon golden body mocked the black shadow without the least courtesy.

“You ruined me. You ruined a beauty without equal in this world.” The black shadow flung the accusation at her furiously.

“Why do I feel the ruined face is an improvement on the one you had before?” The serpent-demon golden body laughed coldly. “You ruined yourself. Think about the various things you have done. Any one of them would be enough to have people despise you a hundred times over. I cannot even say out loud how twisted you are.”

“You ruined me. Witch, don’t imagine you’ll have an easy time of it. I will absolutely not let you have one good day. Wait and see. Your future holds nothing but destruction.” The black shadow shrieked.

“Don’t imagine that being Tianyu’s sister lets you frighten people. I’m sorry, but that identity is no use whatsoever against this queen. Get out. I won’t kill you. This queen is going to keep you, so that you can feel small and jealous your whole life until you die. You won’t let me have one good day? I’ll be happy every single day where you can see it. A creature like you, twisted in body and mind alike — get out of my world of ice and snow this instant. You aren’t fit to stay one second longer in a world as beautiful as this.” The golden serpent-demon reached a hand down and caught her lightly, and the black shadow was trapped in her palm and could not move.

The golden serpent-demon’s divine statue drew a ball of green light out of the black shadow’s body by force.

And with a radiance to rival the sun, she annihilated it.

Then she flicked the black shadow away the way a man flicks off a fly.

One flick of a finger.

Carried by the divine power of that flick, the black shadow punched straight through the world of ice and snow and vanished without a trace in an instant, and there was no telling where she had been thrown.

At that same moment, Weiguang, who had been silent all this while, suddenly turned into a rainbow of gold and shot through the same opening, ten thousand times faster than lightning, and was out of the world of ice and snow on the black shadow’s heels in an instant.

“…” Duoduo and Pandora stood there with their mouths open. That was how a god ran away?

Yue Yang, for his part, was still kissing his snow girl and lost to the world, and did not see it.

Which was a pity.

He would certainly have lodged a strong protest and a formal complaint.

Calling himself an evil god, damn it. He looked like nothing so much as a little scuttling turtle.

As for Weiguang running, Her Majesty Empress Vivienne, in her golden serpent-demon divine statue, was not surprised in the least. This world of ice and snow was a world her will commanded, which is to say that in this world she was the god… and as for Weiguang running away, he really was a little scuttling turtle who wanted to run and who could never possibly escape before Empress Vivienne agreed to it. Unless he possessed a divinity, a divine majesty and a divine power greater than hers, he was a “guest” in the world of ice and snow who absolutely could not get out the door without his host’s permission.

A second later, Weiguang came back out onto the land of Mountain Beyond the Mountain.

He found the scene in front of him had changed.

The Conquest Queen, in her golden serpent-demon divine statue, was looking at him, her eyes as cool as though nothing whatsoever had happened.

“There is a little fellow. His strength is so-so, but he brought me a wholly new realm, and turned the black hole space that used to seal me into the world of ice and snow that is entirely under my control now. You did not mishear. This world of ice and snow is that black hole space — the one ten thousand times more terrible than the one sealing your true body away from your grimoire. Weiguang, you may be a god, but you can’t break your own seal, and you can’t get your grimoire or your true body back. And you still dare to run in front of me, who has comprehended the laws of the world?” Empress Vivienne, in her golden serpent-demon divine statue, raised the fists of her six arms, and the way an adult beats a child she pinned Weiguang down and rained punches on him, a thorough beating delivered without regard for his head or his face.

Weiguang understood it completely now. What she had said before, about his not being able to take even one move, really was a fact with the force of law.

Beyond wrapping his arms around his head, there was nothing he could do.

What evil god?

In front of this violent serpent-demon goddess he was simply a piece of trash born to be beaten…

“Out of my great mercy, I’ll overlook the business of your bullying the children of my household.” Empress Vivienne, in her golden serpent-demon divine statue, suddenly transformed and shrank, and at last became a two-armed beauty about Yue Yang’s height, the perfect serpent tail changing into a pair of white jade feet. She put out an arm of snow-white more crystalline than diamond, and with a rose-red finger drew a light circle in the air around Weiguang.

Weiguang felt a divine power wrap itself around him.

Empress Vivienne put out a hand and lifted.

That enveloping divine power formed a small transparent sphere, and Weiguang, two thousand meters tall a moment ago, shrank to the size of a bean and struggled desperately inside the little sphere, trying to break out — and every effort came to nothing. That transparent boundary was a world in itself, and however hard he tried, he could not break that world.

Holding the small world in her jade hand, Empress Vivienne set the little world with Weiguang inside it onto one of the pages of her Sacred Codex, as casually as that.

“Go on serving your sentence. In ten thousand years, if this queen’s mood is good, she might consider letting you out.” Empress Vivienne’s mood was plainly not very good at the moment, because Yue Yang, for his part, had been holding his snow girl and kissing her without stopping the entire time, and had overlooked her existence completely.

“I don’t accept this. This is your world. You won by unworthy means.” Weiguang shouted it with everything he had, but the sound of it was a mosquito’s.

“Shut up. A prisoner is required to have some self-awareness about being a prisoner.” Empress Vivienne could not be bothered with him any further, and turned a hand, and the Sacred Codex turned another page. Weiguang estimated that he would probably never see the light of day again in this lifetime. The only thing left for him to do now was to pray that Her Majesty Empress Vivienne and Yue Yang, for his part, had a happy sex life and a good mood, so that on some day she might be generous enough to let him out. Otherwise he would be living out the rest of his days in one small world on one page of a Sacred Codex.

Perhaps one day, lonely and alone, he would think that death was in fact a rather good benefit.

But he would never have it.

Because as a divine-tier being, wholly in his divine statue golden body, he would never obtain the one benefit that belongs to ordinary human beings alone.

(End of Chapter 1232)