The Tairen King’s execution was confirmed — ten days hence, at high noon, when the sun stood at its peak. He would be beheaded publicly at the Divine Punishment Execution Platform.

Yueyang was still en route when this new information reached him.

The Central Divine Temple, when executing major criminals, almost always chose high noon.

The Heavenly Realm had a saying: those put to death at noon had their souls more thoroughly cleansed of sin beneath the fierce midday sun — the most righteous form of atonement.

The Sky-Reaching Tower, predictably, had an entirely different interpretation of this tradition.

Its predecessors held that killing at noon was an act of particular cruelty. The fierce sunlight at that hour dealt amplified damage to the fragile soul at the moment it left the body — for ordinary people, a soul exposed to direct sunlight was easily scattered and destroyed entirely. Even powerful cultivators, once killed, had newly-departed souls that were vulnerable to the same assault. The Sky-Reaching Tower’s forebears considered noon executions a vicious form of punishment, not to be used lightly — reserved only for those whose crimes were so grave they had forfeited all mercy.

After thirty minutes of flight, the Lieyan Bandit Squad’s airship finally spotted its destination.

Redemption City.

The city sat at the foot of Soul-Summoning Ridge, atop which stood the Divine Punishment Execution Platform where the Tairen King would meet his end.

Theirs wasn’t the only vessel — at least a dozen airships and other flying craft of various kinds floated outside the city walls, queued and waiting to be directed in.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Luohua said, stifling a bored yawn and stretching in a way that made the air around her distinctly more interesting. “We’ve been cooped up in cities and stuck on this airship for days — it’s insufferable. I bet Redemption City has rare Heavenly Realm flowers and plants you won’t find anywhere else. Come on, let’s go look.”

“At your service, my City Lord,” Yueyang said, already resigned. When Luohua conscripted you, there was no point objecting — and honestly, being stuck on the airship day after day was starting to feel genuinely suffocating.

“What if the Chou Squad recognizes us…” Lieyan’s biggest worry hadn’t gone away.

“He won’t make a move — not here at least.” Yueyang wasn’t particularly concerned about Chou anymore. Unless the power behind Chou was the Central Divine Temple itself, Chou’s individual strength wasn’t enough to cause real trouble. His real danger lay in knowing the Sky-Reaching Tower’s secrets and being extraordinarily cunning — and if he managed to make contact with the right person inside the Tower, that could get complicated. But for now, here and in the open, Chou wouldn’t act.

“Besides, didn’t someone say this is the Heavenly Realm — where strength is all that matters? We don’t need to be afraid of Chou anymore. The Lion Heart King, maybe,” Luohua said brightly. With her dramatically improved strength, she was feeling the itch to test herself against a real Heavenly Realm powerhouse and find out exactly how far she’d come.

“Then let’s go,” Lieyan said, dropping her objection. With Yueyang here, she deferred to him — and even without him, she deferred to Luohua. She used to think herself fairly sharp, capable of making her own calls on anything. After spending time around Xue Wuxia, Princess Qianqian, and the rest… she had come to the quiet conclusion that she was better off not making too many independent decisions.

A few hours of wandering later, Luohua had acquired several pots of rare Heavenly Realm flowers and was practically skipping down the street with delight.

The unfortunate Yueyang and Lieyan, conscripted as flower-carriers, followed behind her with two pots each — and Yueyang found himself reflecting, for the first time, on why young masters always kept an entourage of errand-runners. The answer, it turned out, was very simple. Without them, you ended up carrying flower pots.

Fortunately, Yanzao had gotten word through the Mercenaries’ Guild and rushed to Redemption City early. He spotted Yueyang and immediately sprinted over.

One look at Yueyang carrying potted flowers, and he dove forward. “Let me — let me take those!”

Yueyang asked after Bi Lv. Hearing that Yanzao hadn’t located her yet, he sent him off to find her at once — the assorted bits of miscellaneous intelligence Yanzao had gathered could wait. Some things had to come first. Yanzao thrust the flower pots back and shot off toward the Mercenaries’ Guild, his best guess being that Bi Lv would have left someone there to keep watch.

Yueyang and Luohua wandered for another half hour before a commotion ahead caught their attention. Curious, they moved toward it.

Yueyang leapt up for an aerial view of the crowd gathering below.

One familiar face stood out — the Black Skull captain, Leiqie. The only person he recognized.

The conflict, however, didn’t directly involve the skull-faced man. His companion was the one in trouble — a vampire-like figure of decent power, Sky-rank Level 3, dressed in a blood-red robe embroidered with a distinctive insignia. Clearly from some major family or sect.

Facing the vampire was a Minotaur.

Roughly equal in strength.

Bare from the waist up, with muscles that seemed about to burst through his skin. His chest and back were covered in fierce tattoos. His nose, ears, and lips were studded with gold rings and bone piercings of various sizes, giving him a truly savage, menacing appearance. Put a face like that on Dragon Rise Continent and no amount of power would attract a second glance from any self-respecting woman. The Minotaur was just that ugly — the kind of ugly that could make a crying child stop just from the shock of it. Even the well-traveled Yueyang got a start when he saw him, quietly marveling at the sheer psychological fortitude required to look like that and still choose to keep living.

What Yueyang found hardest to explain was the presence at the Minotaur’s side of a gorgeous, dangerously alluring woman — snake clan by the look of her, or something close to it, with a faint shimmer of scales on her unusually smooth skin. Her red lips parted to show a flickering forked tongue that gave her an unsettling, cold kind of appeal. She had her slender arms wrapped around the Minotaur’s massive one, and her long snake tail coiled around his leg with unmistakable suggestion.

Yueyang noted one detail: the tip of the snake woman’s tail ended in a shape resembling a bee’s stinger.

“Apologize to my woman right now, or I’ll split you in half on the spot!” The Minotaur bellowed at the vampire, with a verbal tic of “right now” punctuating nearly every sentence.

“From what I’ve heard, that’s a Southern Heavenly Realm rogue by the name of Lima,” Lieyan murmured to Yueyang. “Nasty piece of work — but I didn’t know he was a Minotaur. Besides the bandit squads, there are plenty of solo operators out here. People who don’t want the hassle of managing a group — they work alone or in small pairs, picking off merchant caravans. They usually call themselves wandering heroes. Only the genuinely vicious ones, the kind who take pride in their reputation for brutality, go by the name ‘rogue.’ Lima here is one of those.”

“Ha! I was wondering who it might be — turns out it’s you, Lima, you brainless little pest!” The vampire’s laughter rang out with contempt.

“The name’s not Lima. I am the great and famous Rogue Heijue.” Lima was apparently a nickname outsiders had slapped on Minotaurs in general — used often enough that his real name had been all but forgotten.

“Fight me then. Winner gets your woman.” The vampire extended a corpse-pale hand and raised it to his nose with a delicate sniff. “I got a good feel earlier — interesting texture. And there’s a certain… fragrance. She’s clearly very talented in certain areas. I’ll be taking her, Lima. Unless you want me to beat every tooth out of your head, walk away now. The weak don’t get to keep beautiful women.”

“YOU’RE DEAD!” The Minotaur erupted with fury, his palm-strike like a falling axe, sending a shockwave of force crashing toward the vampire.

“Pathetic.” The vampire sidestepped it with ease, letting out a cold, sneering laugh.

Yueyang watched with rapidly fading interest. When two combatants were this evenly matched, a fight like this could drag on for days without resolution. The Minotaur had the edge in raw power, the vampire had the edge in speed — they’d be here all week. Especially in Redemption City, where neither of them would risk using anything truly destructive, the whole thing was guaranteed to stay a sloppy, inconclusive scuffle.

Luohua agreed there wasn’t much to see here. Better to keep looking for rare flowers.

She and Yueyang turned to leave. Lieyan would have happily stayed to watch a proper fight to the death, but when Yueyang moved, she moved.

They spent another half hour in the flower market on the next street over. By the end, both Yueyang and Lieyan had accumulated additional flower pots to carry — even Luohua, taking pity on them, had picked up one herself.

The three of them were making their perfectly contented way back.

Then — a thundering crash.

A figure came streaking through the air from far away like a falling meteor, and slammed into the ground directly in front of Yueyang and Luohua.

The Minotaur.

Up in the sky, Leiqie and the snake woman had engaged each other. The vampire had lost an eye, and now dropped from the sky in white-hot fury, pointing one shaking finger down at the Minotaur on the ground.

“You sucker-punched me and took my eye. You’ve officially made me angry, Lima. Today is the day you die.”

“You’re in no position to threaten anyone.” The Minotaur hauled himself upright, spat out a mouthful of bloodied saliva, and kept right on sneering.

“What?” The vampire blinked.

“Do you have any idea who was hit by that wild shockwave when you lost control just now? The City Lord of Redemption City’s favorite concubine. She was standing on the balcony up there watching us fight.” The Minotaur’s grin was absolutely merciless. “You want to know why I took ten of your punches and five of your kicks just to get your eye? It’s not that I didn’t know you could regenerate it — I’ve heard of you, Bloodsucking Shade, I know what you can do. The reason I did it was precisely because when you get angry, you lose control, and your attacks start hitting things they shouldn’t. You know why I made sure to position myself in that specific spot? Because I needed you to strike from that exact angle. Out of everyone watching from that crowd, the only person there who wasn’t at least Sky-rank was the City Lord’s concubine. She was the only one your stray attack could actually hurt. And now, ha — you’re going to have the City Lord’s forces hunting you down before you can take another step toward me. Still feel like fighting? Besides — my real strength isn’t any lower than yours. If I hadn’t been deliberately drawing you in, do you think one hit from you would send me flying a thousand meters?”

The Minotaur’s speech left the entire surrounding crowd with cold sweat running down their spines.

Anyone who still thought this Minotaur was dim was the genuine fool in the room.

The vampire had looked like the scheming one — but who could have guessed that the truly cunning mind belonged to the creature who looked like he’d been assembled from spare parts with no brain included?

Leiqie and the vampire didn’t wait around to hear more. Damaging the City Lord’s concubine was the kind of offense that could go very badly, very quickly. The two of them shot off into the sky at maximum speed, putting as much distance between themselves and the scene as humanly possible, not daring to linger for another second.

A few words, and he’d driven both of them fleeing.

Lieyan didn’t quite know what to say.

No wonder Lima the Minotaur — a solo rogue working entirely alone — had managed to carve out such a thriving reputation across the Southern Heavenly Realm. Everyone who laid eyes on him got completely taken in by his appearance.

He looked like a complete brute. The kind with no brain to speak of.

In reality, his mind was sharper than just about anyone’s.

Yueyang, Luohua, and Lieyan, satisfied that the show was over, turned to leave.

But the Minotaur shot out a hand.

“Captain Lieyan.” His voice stopped them cold. “Unless I’m misremembering, you’re the wanted Captain Lieyan? I didn’t get a proper look earlier in the middle of all that arguing, and you were already heading off — I thought I might have missed my chance. Lucky for me, you still had time for a leisurely stroll. Otherwise I’d never have known you were still in the area.” He tilted his massive head with a knowing look. “Taking a hit that hurt for the sake of this opportunity — it was worth it.”

Lieyan’s eyes went cold. “You think you’re enough to stop me?”

The Minotaur shook his head and waved a hand, those bovine eyes glinting with pure cunning. “Of course not — on my own, certainly not. But I sent a partner to report to the City Lord before I even got here. The City Lord might not particularly care about one dead concubine — he has over a hundred of them. But delivering a wanted criminal announced by the Central Divine Temple to Lord Tiangui and Warden Tantai as a gift right before the execution? That’s a contribution so significant that even the City Lord couldn’t pass it up. I’m quite certain he’ll find that offer very compelling.”

Yueyang couldn’t hold it in any longer. He turned to the Minotaur and raised a sincere, unhesitating thumbs-up.

“Impressive. Genuinely — out of every Minotaur I’ve ever met, you are without question the most intelligent.”

He paused.

“Also the most shameless.”