Yue Yang and the Nine-Headed Clan were on the point of going at it.

Then, all of a sudden, several more figures came flying in from the edge of the sky.

At their head was a handsome man in extraordinarily gorgeous battle armor, with two dragon heads set into it, one on each shoulder. Close behind him came a mysterious man in black dragon armor, his whole face hidden behind a visor with only a pair of sharp, glittering eyes showing. A step behind him was a beautiful queen standing in midair with flame pouring up off her whole body, a long fire-whip coiled around one hand, its thorns growing backward like a dragon’s tail. Last of all came four huge men, each with a different face but every one of them heaped with muscle. The shortest of them stood over five meters and the tallest over six, and when they landed it was like four small hills coming down on the ground with a crash.

“Wait a moment. No need to start just yet.” The handsome man in the gorgeous armor waved a hand with great elegance, wearing the face of a man who has just spotted an old friend he has not seen in years.

“You? Gu Ang, the Two-Headed Dragon? What’s a playboy like you doing here instead of hiding in the Heavenly Realm playing with women?” The Nine-Headed Serpent and the Nine-Headed Worm did not seem to think much of this handsome man at all.

“If you of the Eastern demon race can come to the Sky Tower, why shouldn’t I?” The handsome man called Gu Ang the Two-Headed Dragon smiled, perfectly at his ease.

“Grand Hall Master Dongfang is the Sky Tower’s true master. We came at his invitation, the same as you did, so our being here is perfectly reasonable!” The mysterious man in black dragon armor with his face concealed let an eerie blue-violet light flicker in his eyes — and it was not the five of the Nine-Headed Clan he looked at, but Yue Yang, looking him up and down. His expression could not be seen, but he gave the impression of being extremely interested in Yue Yang, and rather surprised by him too.

“Tee-hee. This little lady came to the Sky Tower on an invitation, and there’s nothing in it for her at all. Grand Hall Master Dongfang is too heartless. This handsome little fellow is much easier to talk to. We heard you just now, discussing a wager over the Ruins of the Gods — why not let us in for a share as well? We of the Sky Dragon Clan are nowhere near as greedy as the Nine-Headed Clan. We wouldn’t dare ask for half the Ruins of the Gods. If we get one tenth, we’ll be perfectly satisfied.” The flame-wreathed queen in midair shot Yue Yang a look charged with a hundred kinds of charm. “Handsome little fellow, all you have to do is nod. Promise our Sky Dragon Clan a tenth of the treasures in the Ruins of the Gods and we won’t say another word about it. We might even think about stepping in on your behalf and seeing off some of these bandits who never know when they’ve had enough. How about it?”

“You? You lot?” The Nine-Headed Bird burst into a run of strange laughter the moment he heard it.

“There are seven of us and only five of you. We have the numbers, don’t we?” Gu Ang the Two-Headed Dragon gave a handsome shrug.

“Are you sure there are only five of us? And for that matter, are you sure there are seven of you?” The Nine-Headed Monster spat contemptuously. “I can finish off those four lumps behind you with one hand.”

“What?” The four huge men standing at the back like small hills flew into a rage, roaring over and over, and there was a dragon’s bellow buried in the sound.

“There are a great many kinds of dragon. The Eastern clans and the Western clans have plenty of them. But you four — even among the Western clans you’re nothing but pot-bellied lizards, and you can’t properly be called dragons at all. However much you blow your own horns, we don’t recognize it!” The Nine-Headed Demon rubbed his own face and laughed with a trace of self-mockery. “We of the Nine-Headed Clan are shaped more like dragons than you are, and far stronger besides, and even we don’t dare call ourselves dragons. And you lot have the face to call yourselves a dragon clan? Doesn’t it make you blush?”

“Everyone has his own standards. There is nothing to be gained by arguing it.” Gu Ang, the handsome Two-Headed Dragon, waved it away. “Whatever your standard may be, we are a dragon clan. Every one of the brothers behind me is an overlord in the Heavenly Realm whose name has been known for ten thousand years. That is not something one sentence of yours can wipe out!”

“All right. Then pretend I didn’t say anything.” The Nine-Headed Demon let the subject drop.

“Are you all acting like the master of this place doesn’t exist?” Yue Yang discovered that he was being ignored, and it was not a pleasant feeling in the least.

“Of course not, handsome little fellow. We’re only waiting on a word from you. One nod and we can turn from enemies into friends on the spot!” The flame-wreathed queen looked at Yue Yang with a grin.

“I suggest you start by getting a big bed ready…” Yue Yang said, out of nowhere.

“You’re so wicked! It’s broad daylight — how can you talk about something so shameful?” The beautiful queen covered her lovely, bewitching face in pretended embarrassment.

“You can’t say it in daylight? Then you should say it at night?” Yue Yang asked, puzzled.

“You can’t say it at night either!” The beautiful queen pouted at him coquettishly.

“Then when can you say it?” Yue Yang did not understand.

“You can’t say it ever…” The beautiful queen stamped one jade foot in a pretty temper — and that one movement set a certain pair of prominences on her body, standing up as proud as mountain peaks, into a fit of trembling, with an effect like a magnitude-ten earthquake that set every soul watching on fire. Every man there swallowed without meaning to. Now they all understood: there are certain things you cannot say. Or more precisely, there are things that need no saying at all — you just go ahead and do them!

“Did you get hold of the wrong end of something?” Yue Yang was the only man present who did not quite follow, and he asked it in complete confusion.

“It isn’t the wrong end of anything. You — you’re a bad man, a bad little man!” The beautiful queen raised her fist and shook it at him, which set off another fit of trembling and left every man there dry in the mouth all over again.

“…” Yue Yang was silent for a moment, then suddenly explained with enormous sincerity. “When I told you to get a big bed ready, I meant so you could lie on it and dream. That’d be more realistic for you. If you’ve got the wrong idea and think I have designs on you — I’m sorry. I really don’t think I could work up any sexual interest in an old, ugly, lecherous she-dragon who’s gone charcoal-black everywhere, chrysanthemum and all. And if a mattress for ten thousand men like you thinks dressing up as an innocent young girl is going to reel me in, then I very much regret to inform you: you’re in for a disappointment!”

When those words were out, the whole field went dead silent.

The five of the Nine-Headed Clan held in their laughter with everything they had, straining not to crack, to make the awkward silence last as long as it possibly could.

The members of the Sky Dragon Clan looked as though they had each been slapped hard across the face. The flame-wreathed queen most of all — the color of her face went through a dye-works’ worth of changes: red, then ashen, then blue, then green.

The look she turned on Yue Yang now carried a hundred times, a million times more hatred than she would have felt for her own father’s killer.

It is fair to say that Yue Yang had offended her about as thoroughly as it was possible to.

Whatever happened next, between her and Yue Yang there could only be one ending, the kind where one of them ends up dead — and absolutely no possibility of a second kind!

“You little bastard! If I don’t break you into a hundred thousand scraps today and eat you one scrap at a time dipped in sauce, then my name isn’t ‘Bonemelt’!” The flame-wreathed queen was so furious even her nose had gone crooked.

“I’ve got nothing to say to a burnt-out old tramp like you!” Yue Yang ignored her completely and turned to the other side of the sky. “There’s exactly one Ruins of the Gods. Are you all idiots? So many of you tricked into coming here by that traitor Dongfang, and not one of you has used that rusted-up brain of yours to consider that far from getting a share of the treasures in the Ruins of the Gods, you’re more likely to be handing over your own lives?”

Just then three more people came drifting down out of the sky.

The one in the middle was a black bear demon. The one on the right was a wild boar demon — though unfortunately not Pigsy, since he had no nine-toothed rake over his shoulder. If he had, Yue Yang’s mood would have been a great deal better. Why? Simple. Pigsy’s meat sells dear!

The one standing on the left was a young man with an extremely arrogant attitude, who came just short of having everybody hurry up and provoke me, I’m dying for a fight written across his forehead. What kind of monster he was, Yue Yang’s Heavenly Eye of Wisdom could not tell. The creature looked like a tiger and was not a tiger, looked like a lion and was not a lion, looked like a wolf and was not a wolf, looked like a leopard and was not a leopard, and there was no telling what strange race he came from.

Naturally, anybody who knew the place was thick with masters and came rushing to the Sky Tower anyway, meaning to get his hands into the Ruins of the Gods and fight over the treasures, was certainly no good man and no pious woman.

The swaggering young man — lion’s brow, wolf’s eyes, fish’s lips, tiger’s teeth, rhino’s horn and dragon’s claws — stared at Yue Yang and would not look away.

Everybody present assumed he would attack the instant a word went wrong.

Nobody expected that the moment he opened his mouth he would come close to knocking every one of them flat. “Just now I wanted to make a move on you and knock your teeth out all over the floor, kid, because you put your old man in a thoroughly foul mood. What your old man hates most in this life is anybody better-looking than he is! But then you went and spat all that venom at Bonemelt, that rotten-through slut, and that’s very much to my taste. What your old man admires is exactly a hard case like you… So now your old man’s a bit torn. What do you say — should I beat you half to death and turn you into an idiot, or should we make friends first and drink three hundred cups together?”

“Damn it, you idiot, can’t you see what’s going on here? Every one of them eyeing me like a tiger — drink my foot!” Yue Yang flashed across and appeared right in front of this swaggering man, and drove a punch into his face. “Let’s keep it simple. This young master will just turn you into the idiot!”

“…” Every soul present was left without a word.

If there were a ranking in this world for offending people, then this Yue Titan would stand at the top of it — for the Sky Tower, no, for the whole Heavenly Realm, the Sky Realm included — as the single man most gifted at drawing hatred and offending everybody!

It seemed the boy had been fated for it from the day he was born — fated to offend every last person in the world.

Or, to put it another way, this Yue Titan had been born into the world for no purpose other than offending people.

So many enemies all around him, the ones who had shown themselves and the ones who had not, every one of them strong enough to make the Heavenly Realm shake — and now they had all come, and his life was in danger at every moment. And yet this Yue Titan was not only without a thread of fear, he seemed determined to offend every single person who might have become his friend, as though he could not rest easy until he had.

Was it that the boy knew he was a dead man, and had simply decided to smash the pot since it was cracked anyway?

But that was not what his face said!

To look at him, this Yue Titan’s expression was entirely unconcerned, without the least trace of fear. Damn it all — was the boy just born with a streak of reckless nerve the size of a water vat? However dim, however idiotic a man was, he could not have no reaction at all! The Nine-Headed Clan’s five, the Sky Dragon Clan’s seven, the three demon-race newcomers besides — pull out any one of those fifteen and let him stamp his foot, and he could shake the Heavenly Realm three times over. How could the boy be wearing a face like that?

Surely not…?

Everybody exchanged a glance.

Every one of them was beginning to suspect that this Yue Titan had never been outside the Sky Tower, had never been to the Heavenly Realm, and had no idea at all of everyone’s strength and reputation! Fearless out of ignorance? Could the boy really be a country bumpkin shut up inside the Sky Tower, who knew nothing whatever about the world outside?

“Come with me to the blood altar! There’s an entrance to the Ruins of the Gods there. If you can beat me, I’ll hand it over with both hands. If you lose, the wager stands and every one of you clears off. My ground, my rules — and I don’t welcome bandits out of the Heavenly Realm!” Yue Yang waved a hand, split space open with sword-qi, and signaled everyone to follow him to the blood altar in White River Valley.

(End of Chapter 1255)