The blood altar.

Someone was already there — sitting quietly beneath a broken statue of some nameless god.

Another man stood with his hands clasped behind his back at the front of the blood altar, smiling as he welcomed Yue Yang and the whole crowd that came with him. What Yue Yang most wanted, looking at this smiling, graceful middle-aged scholar, was to put a fist straight into that face, flatten that nose, smash every tooth in that mouth, and then make the creature swallow the lot down with his own blood…

Naturally this could only be thought about. If he actually threw the punch, Yue Yang’s fist was not going to find it easy to land on a super-power reputed to be the Central Divine Hall’s foremost strategist.

“Welcome, welcome!” The middle-aged scholar was in an excellent mood at the sight of Yue Yang, and offered him an elegant, courteous gesture of welcome. “If none of you think this Hall Master too crude for it, I am willing to act as arbiter for everyone. Whether it is the third son of the Yue family, Yue Titan, on behalf of the Sky Tower, or the Nine-Headed, Black Terror and Sky Dragon clans on behalf of the Heavenly Realm, I can promise that I will be even-handed and favor no one, protect no one, and stand as a neutral witness in fairness, justice and full view. I swear it here upon the will of the ancient gods: I will absolutely not interfere on behalf of any side.”

“Thank you, Dongfang. You are the fairest of the wise, as all the world knows, and we trust you.” Gu Ang the Two-Headed Dragon of the Sky Dragon Clan smiled back, the two of them as thick as thieves.

“No objection from us either.” The black bear demon and the wild boar demon exchanged a glance.

As men who were each a demon king and an overlord of his own territory in the Sky Realm, they had a good deal more cunning in them than their rough exteriors suggested.

Sharp-witted and slippery as they were, both reckoned that Grand Hall Master Dongfang had come here mainly because he did not trust everybody to fight fairly over the shares in the Ruins of the Gods, and was afraid that someone would strike a cooperation deal with Yue Titan — so he had come under the guise of a witness to supervise the decisive fight.

He might also have some secret agreement with those Sky Dragon Clan fellows. Otherwise the Sky Dragon Clan would never have had the nerve to come and challenge the Nine-Headed Clan.

Still, Grand Hall Master Dongfang coming was not entirely a bad thing.

At least as far as the fight itself went, it was a good thing.

With him here, whatever tricks this Yue Titan tried to pull would come to nothing.

Whether or not Grand Hall Master Dongfang took part, the boy was fated to lose, because Grand Hall Master Dongfang would absolutely never give him an opening to turn the tables!

The swaggering man who had come in with the black bear demon and the wild boar demon snorted, but did not raise any objection either. He was still mainly smarting over Yue Yang’s sneak attack earlier, and the refusal. All his life he had cursed far more people than he had admired, and he had very rarely tried striking up an acquaintance with anybody on his own initiative. He had never imagined that this time, far from being overjoyed, Yue Titan would turn him down flat, brazenly, to his face. It had left him with a bellyful of frustration and nowhere to put it.

The five of the Nine-Headed Clan looked at each other as well, and all laughed together. What that was supposed to mean, there was no telling.

The middle-aged scholar looked over at them.

And the Nine-Headed Serpent spoke for his clan. “If Grand Hall Master Dongfang is willing to be arbiter, nothing could be better. Only — what does Yue Titan over there think?”

“My bet right now is with you people, and it has nothing to do with him!” Yue Yang ignored the smiling middle-aged scholar completely. “As long as you beat me, never mind the Ruins of the Gods — the whole Sky Tower, Longteng Continent, Demon Abyss, Sky Stairway and all, I’ll hand over with both hands! As for whatever agreement you’ve got with him, that’s no concern of mine!”

“Good!” Gu Ang, the handsome Two-Headed Dragon, clapped his hands in loud approval. “Nicely decisive. Then that is settled! But there is only one Sky Tower, and a great many guests who would like to take it over. I wonder who would like to go up first and take the wager against the Yue family’s third son?”

With that one sentence the whole field went silent.

Going up first was not necessarily a good thing.

The first to take the stage is usually the first to be eliminated.

The best part of a show usually comes last, and whoever goes on first is very likely just a bit player… Having gone to endless trouble to reach the Sky Tower, and paid no small price to get here, nobody wanted to be a passer-by who served as a stepping stone for somebody else to walk all over on the way to success. Everyone wanted to be the one who laughs last.

The one who had been sitting quietly beneath the broken statue of the god suddenly stood up and volunteered. “Since everyone is being so modest about it, let me go first!”

The moment those words were out they rang like metal struck on stone.

The whole field was shocked.

The Sky Tower’s sixth floor. The Emerald Forest.

The Tianliang Divine General, one of the Eighteen Divine Generals under Grand Hall Master Dongfang, was setting fires like a madman, burning that treasured green forest to nothing.

A few dozen li away from him, Leo the Minotaur, Valentine, the four pig-folk girls and Lynn and her husband were all down on the ground, struggling in agony, without the strength to get up and stop this powerful enemy from destroying the Emerald Forest. Thanks to Yue Yang, Valentine and the others had improved enormously — they were far stronger than they had ever been, strong enough to squeeze into the Sky Tower’s top hundred — but set against this Tianliang Divine General out of the Central Divine Hall they were still much too weak and small.

Never mind the few of them. Even Sea Fatty and Ye Kong and the rest, when they ran into the Solar Divine General earlier, had had a desperately hard fight of it. If it had not been for Duoduo’s blessings and the help of the two divine powers of the Ancient Forest and the Ancient Thorns, Sea Fatty and the others would never have had any chance of beating the Solar Divine General so easily.

Now the Tianliang Divine General, like an arsonist gone mad, burned the Emerald Forest without restraint.

Apart from Leo and Valentine and the few others who were Yue Yang’s own teammates, every Sky Tower warrior who had come to stop him had been killed.

The only reason those few had been left alive was that Grand Hall Master Dongfang had instructed it. It was the same as the Solar Divine General being sent to torture Sea Fatty and Ye Kong and Old Fox to death: Grand Hall Master Dongfang wanted, at every moment, to strike at Yue Yang’s heart and will. To him these people were pieces to be used. Kill them, and all it would do was make Yue Yang angrier and let loose a greater strength in him.

But if they were held and tormented without let-up, Yue Yang could forget about calming his mind enough to fight.

The game on the board was already won.

And yet Grand Hall Master Dongfang was still careful, and still hoped to use every advantage and every arrangement he had to manipulate his opponent Yue Yang perfectly…

“That’ll about do it.” The Tianliang Divine General thought this mission was really too simple. Catch a few Sky Tower natives as weak as little bugs, set this forest on fire. Once the fire was set, take these people to the Sky Tower’s fourth floor, to the Hanging Garden, the old residence of Yue Titan’s little sweetheart City Lord Luohua, and hand them over to the Ziwei Divine General, the eldest of the Eighteen Divine Generals, and the job was done.

Was there any easier mission in the world?

The Tianliang Divine General felt that using him for this was a waste of good timber. Tiantong and Tianfu and Tianyue and those fellows had at least been sent to more important places like the Thunder Fortress, Blazing Fire Island and the Succubus Palace — and what kind of garbage mission had he been given? Go and set a forest on fire!

Really, the best mission would have been setting fire to Yue Titan’s old home on the Longteng Continent, the way Wuqu, Wenqu, Dijie and Jumen had.

Unfortunately his luck was bad this time, and the lot he drew was the Emerald Forest.

There was not even a small bit of credit to be earned.

“Somebody send me a real Sky Tower power! A mission this easy is too boring for words!” The Tianliang Divine General very much wanted to run into an opponent; otherwise he could not work up any enthusiasm. Of course he knew it was impossible. In a backwater like the Sky Tower, whose only local products were bumpkins and hicks, there was nothing else worth having. Apart from that one exception, Yue Titan, did the Sky Tower have any powers at all? The Tianliang Divine General did not believe the Sky Tower could produce a second freak of genius like Yue Titan.

“As you wish!” A shadow flashed into being behind the Tianliang Divine General, without a sound.

“Eh?” The Tianliang Divine General was startled.

“I was in a hurry, and I meant to finish you in one move. But seeing as you’re so badly in need of an opponent to torment you, I suppose I’ll oblige you, just this once!” While the words were still echoing in the Tianliang Divine General’s ears, a Whip of Pain charged with divine power came down hard across his back.

This Whip of Pain was not only an attack on the mind. It carried a divine flame in it that could set even the soul on fire.

His flesh sizzled where it burned.

His marrow grew so hot it nearly boiled up and burst out of the bone.

In the space of a breath, the Tianliang Divine General found that what was going in and out of his mouth and nose was that same terrible, burning purple divine flame.

A powerful enemy had come — a super-powerful one! Enormously experienced in battle, he reacted correctly at once. He did not run for his life. He gathered the greatest strength of his whole life and sent a do-or-die strike at the enemy behind him.

With the powerful body and the tough vitality he had, he believed that the final victory would still be his.

However strong the enemy was, they could not possibly beat him, because his body and his vitality were more than a hundred times as powerful as theirs.

Among the Eighteen Divine Generals, he was not the strongest in fighting power — but his body was absolutely the strongest, and his vitality absolutely the toughest!

“Come on, then!” The Tianliang Divine General forced back the agony of divine fire burning his soul, clenched his teeth, gathered his greatest strength, and struck savagely at the powerful enemy behind him. The natives of the Sky Tower had one characteristic: however strong they became, their bodies and their vitality were never very strong. Only the warriors of the Eastern demon race were something of an exception.

“Shriek!“

Before his heavy blow could even break loose, the Tianliang Divine General heard a scream right at his ear.

It was no ordinary scream. It was a scream that could make the soul itself tremble and shatter… The Tianliang Divine General felt as though a ten-thousand-ton hammer had struck his head. His whole self, soul and all, felt as though it were bursting apart. His will went into collapse, his reason went blank, and he sank deep into chaos, and for a long time he could not think at all.

When he came to, he found himself lying on the ground.

Above him, standing in midair and looking down at him, was a bloody queen with wings burning in purple-gold divine flame. Not far off, the minotaur girl and the others who had been lying on the ground had at some point gotten back on their feet. Their wounds were almost entirely healed, and the presence and fighting strength coming off them were ten times what they had been before.

What on earth had happened?

How long had he been unconscious?

The Tianliang Divine General prepared to struggle up and use his powerful body and his vitality to challenge this super-powerful enemy in front of him again. You want to kill me, whose body is famous for its toughness? It won’t be that easy!

The bloody queen looking down at him from the sky showed no reaction at all.

Her eyes — was that contempt in them?

Was she looking down on him?

As humiliation rose in his chest, the Tianliang Divine General suddenly discovered something utterly incredible. He could not stand up?

No… The Tianliang Divine General discovered that he had, for no reason he could understand, turned into a sheep. A small, pitifully weak sheep. The body and the vitality he had been so proud of were gone. He was only a sheep now, a sheep so feeble that anybody could break its spine and smash its skull with one punch… Why? He was a Divine General. Short of the “divine power” of a true god, who in the world could turn him into a sheep? No — this was impossible!

“The sheep form lasts another ten minutes. He’s yours to deal with.” Hong traced a Heavenly Realm rune array of unfathomable intricacy in the sky, and drove that array, which carried the property of binding, into the Tianliang Divine General’s body by force of divine power.

The Tianliang Divine General discovered, to his sorrow, that he had not only become a sheep — he could not even run away.

He was bound completely.

Never mind moving — he could not so much as blink!

Then, realizing how bad things were, he suddenly wanted to beg his opponent for mercy, to plead for his life… Unfortunately, he discovered that the thought had come too late. Now, even if he wanted to beg, he could not open his mouth to speak!

“You all go first. I’ll finish him off with a guillotine at the end. A Divine General, so very imposing! I’m going to cut his head off and hang it on the wall as a decoration!” Valentine the minotaur girl first bowed to Hong in gratitude, then waved the pig-folk girls forward to start. She had decided to go last herself: the head of a grand, imposing Heavenly Realm Divine General like this one was absolutely the finest trophy the Minotaur clan could ask for.

“Let’s slice off a bit of meat to go with our drinks too!” The four pig-folk girls felt it would be downright rude not to eat some of a Heavenly Realm Divine General who had come ten thousand li to deliver himself as meat.

“…” The Tianliang Divine General was so frightened he wanted to cry, but under the binding, not even a tear of despair could come out.

The Thunder Fortress.

Unlike the Tianliang Divine General, the Tianfu Divine General was having a fine time.

This was supposed to be one of Yue Titan’s strongholds. He could have leveled it in ten minutes, but he was in no hurry at all. He had made a proposal to the Sky Tower natives guarding it: anyone could come up and challenge him, but whoever lost, one of Yue Titan’s buildings would be torn down. He wanted to take apart Yue Titan’s name and Yue Titan’s stronghold bit by bit amid the despair of his opponents, amid these natives’ pain and grief.

“Next! Who’s going to challenge me? If nobody does, I’m going to burn Yue Titan’s garden! Is there not one hero who’ll step forward? Is everybody in the Sky Tower a coward? Ha ha ha — is the Sky Tower’s local specialty cowards? Come on up! Somebody come and challenge me!” The Tianfu Divine General tossed out balls of energy without looking, throwing them all around him, blasting the Thunder Fortress’s buildings into one ruin after another.

“How about letting me try?” A particularly soft and particularly lovely voice spoke up behind the Tianfu Divine General.

“You?” The Tianfu Divine General turned his head and found a little human girl too frail to stand in a wind — no, to be precise, it was a war beast that looked like a little human girl. A life-guardian war beast! Its original form could no longer be made out at all, and there was no telling how it had grown. The Tianfu Divine General asked, somewhat puzzled, “What is your true body? A giant dragon?”

“Not a giant dragon.” The newcomer, who was no different at all from a human woman, gave a sweet smile. “Though I do very much like tearing giant dragons apart and eating them!”

(End of Chapter 1256)