Complete surrender to an illusion — losing oneself entirely to its fabrications — was similar in nature to illusions of life and death. Once the consciousness accepted the experience as real, the body suffered real consequences in turn.

And beyond that, the deeper into the illusion one sank, the deeper the Law of Desire pulled.

Layer by layer, the quicksand tightened its hold.

For all of Vice Hall Master Shen Du’s immense strength, his fate could be said to have been sealed from the moment he entered. He would not — could not — pull himself free.

The illusion continued.

In the pursuit of more women and greater pleasure, and driven by the promise of the reward waiting at the summit — the privilege of leaving with as many women as he desired — Shen Du threw himself into endless day-and-night campaigns.

By day, he conquered enemies like a war god and claimed more beautiful women for himself.

By night, the battles never stopped.

Far from feeling exhausted, Shen Du felt a profound and swelling sense of satisfaction and pride in all of it. If not for the small, distant voice in the deepest part of him that still wanted to leave, he might have been content to stay here forever. Nearly every opponent in this world was beneath him — the rare few who posed a challenge couldn’t truly threaten his life; at most they were a nuisance for the safety of the women waiting behind him. More and more followers bowed to him in worshipful devotion. More and more women arrived, drawn by his fame, seeking the privilege of bearing his exceptional lineage.

In the outside world, Shen Du was merely a Vice Hall Master.

Here, he was Emperor.

Unrivaled Emperor.

His inner court had grown past a thousand consorts, and not one of them had yet bored him. Every single woman brought him extraordinary pleasure. Shen Du loved this life. He knew he would have to leave eventually — but he had decided first to become the absolute sovereign of all of Desire Valley, claim the ultimate reward, and depart with every single woman as his tribute. Until that moment, nothing else existed for him.

He had no idea that just behind him, someone was quietly watching it all.

He didn’t know that Yueyang was using him as a mirror — studying his performance to methodically unravel the Law mechanisms of Desire Valley.

He existed only within the illusion he had accepted as his world.

In that world, he had annihilated countless non-existent centaurs, personally slain a mighty black dragon, and defeated formidable rivals in combat.

In Shen Du’s subjective experience, ten full years had passed.

Over a hundred thousand loyal followers stood ready to die for him. The women in his inner court had exceeded ten thousand.

Every one of them was a peerless beauty of once-in-an-era caliber.

Every one of them had mastered the art of bringing him pleasure, and each night brought him a new pinnacle of ecstasy.

In the real time of Desire Valley as Yueyang measured it, two and a half days had passed — not yet three.

The only thing that matched reality was that Shen Du had, through his frenzied indulgences, thoroughly exhausted his body’s energy reserves.

Under the Law of Desire, his body’s power was being consumed at a terrifying rate. But in the overwhelming rush of pleasure and the false perception the illusion projected, what Shen Du felt was not diminishment but growth — as though he were rising higher and higher rather than sinking lower and lower.

“Most admired and magnificent Emperor — we are now only two steps from the final summit.” The first young woman he had saved, long since elevated to his most beloved consort and his primary source of happiness, came to him each night with new inventions to bring him joy. The two steps she referred to were the last two formidable rivals to be defeated — two Temple Elders who had entered before Shen Du and had formed an alliance with him: Dark Whisper and Smoke Fire.

“Yes. Though they were once my companions in the same Temple, they have been thoroughly untrustworthy in this alliance — plotting against us in the dark on more than one occasion, even driving a knife in from behind. This Emperor will not tolerate them further. Breaking the alliance is inevitable. There can only be one final victor — this Emperor. They forfeited the right to appeal to past fellowship the moment they chose treachery. No one should be surprised when this Emperor repays them in kind. History and glory are always written by those who win.”

Shen Du had initially formed an alliance with the two Temple Elders to defeat common enemies — but now the time had come to turn the table. As Emperor, he made the decision to eliminate his former companions without hesitation — a thing he would have been incapable of in his real life, but here, it came to him with ease.

“The Emperor’s wisdom is beyond compare — your servant will follow you to the end of all things.” The young woman finished her declaration of loyalty and then added with apparent concern: “The Emperor is unmatched, but once the battle begins, there will be two of them against you. If the Emperor could absorb a deeper reserve of power first, the odds of total victory could be guaranteed.”

“Understood. I will use that secret source of power.”

The secret source of power Shen Du was referring to was the Desire Altar — offering himself to the Goddess of Desire and receiving divine power in return.

All he had to do was prove himself through his unique, undefeated strength.

Everything unfolded exactly as desired.

From his distant observation point, Yueyang’s vision confirmed what he already knew: none of it existed.

The two Temple Elders, Dark Whisper and Smoke Fire, had died long ago. Their souls had already sunk into Desire Valley, becoming part of the valley’s resentment and curse.

In Shen Du’s illusion, the Goddess of Desire descended in her glory — beauty so extraordinary it defied language, making Shen Du — who had experienced more than he could count — feel a shock of longing unlike anything before. When the Goddess asked whether he was willing to offer everything in devotion, Shen Du answered without the smallest hesitation.

The encounter commenced.

In his moment of absolute ecstasy, Shen Du’s soul drifted free from his body — and together with the countless other souls of those who had failed before him, his consciousness was permanently extinguished. What remained was only base desire and the endless torment of resentment.

The moment he failed, the Law mechanism activated.

As punishment, Shen Du’s body was turned to stone — merging with the final hallucinated image in his mind to become one of the millions of frozen stone figures, locked forever in the poses that filled the valley. Beside him, the stone forms of the two Temple Elders who had entered before him — Smoke Fire and Dark Whisper — stood nearby. All three had died in the same way. The same illusion. The same boundless greed. The same pit of delusion from which there was never any waking.

If Shen Du had possessed even a sliver of lucidity throughout — one moment of honest self-examination, one flicker of restraint, one genuine attempt at awakening — his exceptional strength might have saved him from this ending.

Regrettably, his name meant restraint and self-scrutiny, and his character embodied the opposite in every particular.

Yueyang watched the entire process.

Only when he saw Shen Du completely transformed into stone did he rise slowly to his feet.

He had never been touched by the illusions. He had never struggled against the Laws of desire. All that remained was to walk forward — stepping over the stone masses of those who had failed — reach the end of Desire Valley, and clear the stage.

But the Yueyang who had comprehended the Creation Domain through standing in the threshold between life and death was not inclined to simply leave.

Within Desire Valley, beyond the Law of Desire he had recognized immediately, he could sense a second force — one of overwhelming resentment. This was an existence even Vivienne hadn’t understood. When Vivienne had passed through, she had been pressed for time, hadn’t stopped to think more deeply, and had simply walked straight to the endpoint and cleared the stage.

She had told him: at the final endpoint, a single drop of a virgin’s tears — or a single drop of a virgin’s blood — was enough to clear the Fourth Stage of Desire Valley.

Yueyang knew the answer to clearing the stage.

But he wasn’t satisfied.

He wanted to observe with his own eyes — using Shen Du as a mirror — to find the truth behind that resentment force in Desire Valley.

At the end of the valley, there are two headless kneeling stone figures, identical to the two at the entrance — a headless man and a headless woman. For blood: let it fall into the cupped palms of the man. For tears: let them fall into the cupped palms of the woman. Both seem to work. I was in a hurry when I passed through and didn’t study it carefully — I shed a single tear and moved on. If you haven’t prepared in advance, there are women you’ll encounter along the path through Desire Valley — those are failed challengers who have been partially reincarnated in a half-lucid state. Legend has it that earning one of those women’s love is enough to pass, but that’s unreliable at best. Better to prepare something yourself well in advance.

That had been Vivienne’s experience clearing Desire Valley.

I have both — a virgin’s tears and her blood. Yueyang opened his hand and murmured quietly, half to himself: But what is this resentment force? What is it really?

“Can you feel the resentment?”

A voice, clear as the sound of heaven, spoke from directly behind him.

Yueyang’s soul felt as though it had been struck by lightning. His body jolted sharply.

He hadn’t sensed her.

Someone had been standing behind him, and he hadn’t felt her presence at all.

This was impossible. Completely impossible. Under the protection of his Creation Domain, with the Heavenly Eye at full capacity, not even a divine being could approach within his blind spot without detection. And beyond that, there were minor Law energies circling his body at all times — within a hundred meters, no foreign will should have been able to enter the space undetected.

How?

Who in the world could do this?

In an instant, Yueyang detonated his Sovereign intent and regained his composure. His mind settled to a state of perfect stillness as he turned to look at the newcomer.

She was a woman of beauty so extraordinary it was genuinely beyond words. The Goddess of Desire that had appeared in Shen Du’s illusion was, by comparison, a firefly next to the full moon.

Unfortunately, this woman existed only from the neck up.

Everything below her neck had been severed by someone at some unknown point in history.

Even so. Even reduced to only a head — her appearance was enough to steal the breath from anyone who saw it. Even Yueyang, long accustomed to exceptional beauty and armored with Sovereign intent, felt the surface of his heart’s lake disturb with the faintest of ripples. Without the Supreme’s realm, Vivienne’s realm, and the guidance of countless ancient powerhouses within the World Tree guiding him to glimpse the borders of the divine — without the transcendent, perfect Sovereign realm he had achieved — he would not have been able to hold against her.

And this was only a head.

If she had a body as well, Yueyang genuinely wasn’t certain his Sovereign intent would be sufficient.

Terrifying.

He had never once imagined that a woman could be beautiful to the point of being genuinely terrifying. This face — a face that could make kingdoms fall — was the most lethal poison conceivable to any man alive. If this woman said she had chosen to love someone, he believed any man without exception would willingly abandon everything else in the world and prostrate himself at her feet.

“Are you afraid of me?” The beautiful woman smiled faintly. The moment her smile bloomed, it felt as though heaven and earth lost their color beside it.

“You — you are the source of that resentment!” The enormity of what he was sensing struck Yueyang hard, and even his Sovereign intent wavered for an instant. “No — you are the source of all the energy in Desire Valley entirely. That’s why I couldn’t sense your presence — you don’t just exist within the Law of Desire Valley. The Laws of Desire Valley aren’t truly Laws of Desire at all. They exist to seal you — and you turned the seal against itself, assimilating it into the Law of Desire instead. Who — who in the world are you?”

“My name is Pandora,” the beautiful woman said, still smiling. “I died a hundred thousand years ago. I remember nothing of who I was — only endless resentment.” She tilted her head slightly and asked with what seemed like idle curiosity: “Does that answer satisfy you? Oh — one more thing. I seem to have been born with the ability to prophesy deaths. Would you like to know when yours is? Hmm… it appears to be today?”