Word of an exceptionally powerful new arrival in Beast Valley spread quickly to the faction leaders.

The valley’s permanent population fell into two categories: residents — challengers who had failed to clear the stage and remained trapped, still holding onto the faintest hope of eventual departure — and magical beasts, the majority, who had failed so completely that there was no coming back. Residents retained their strength and that microscopic possibility of escape, so they called themselves residents rather than failures. Based on differing philosophies, these residents had organized themselves into three factions.

The magical beasts, who far outnumbered the residents, were forced by survival necessity into five loosely governed but tight-knit beast factions.

Eastern Beast Valley — the Great Grassland Zone.

This territory belonged to Lion King, leader of one of the five beast factions. The elephant, rhinoceros, baboon, and the recently deceased ape and chameleon had all been Lion King’s subordinates.

Having faced Yueyang directly, Lion King’s intelligence arrived first.

Lion King was a challenger who had failed over twenty thousand years ago. After losing hope of ever leaving, he had spent most of his time building his own strength — simply to survive longer. He was now a Sky-rank Level 7 Vajra Lion, his physical transformation and skill control not the finest among the five faction leaders, and an Innate Sovereign comprehension being entirely out of reach — but his raw power was unquestionably the highest. No one else, in pure magical beast form, had ever reached Sky-rank Level 7. The other four faction leaders, though weaker, had evolved partial humanoid features and some had grasped a thread of Sovereign comprehension. None had matched Lion King’s raw power in full beast form.

This long tenure and considerable strength had made Lion King’s eastern grassland territory the quietly envied domain of every other faction leader for years.

Which meant Lion King also commanded the largest and most diverse roster of beast followers.

The elephant, rhinoceros, and the recently deceased ape were just a portion.

“Biyi and Samson both died from a curse, you say? Are you certain it wasn’t the newborn beast’s own ability?” Lion King was skeptical. In Beast Valley, challengers’ personal abilities, innate talents, and artifacts were all suppressed. How could this new arrival have killed two beasts with a silver and bronze box? Could this possibly be the newborn beast’s power?

“It’s suspicious,” agreed Lion King’s advisor Longmao, an elderly mandrill, stroking his chin.

“But how could a newborn beast have the power to kill Samson and Biyi?” a massive crow objected.

“Perhaps if a beast that entered the Rebirth Gate still retained its original unique talents. Worth noting — the newborn beast never came out of the box at any point. Perhaps it was casting the curse from inside,” speculated a bob-tailed cat who hadn’t been in the ambush.

“Very suspicious indeed,” Longmao agreed again, nodding vigorously.

“That’s not what happened at all,” the elephant said flatly. “Whether or not the newborn beast has those abilities is irrelevant — it had nothing to do with killing Samson and Biyi.”

“The newborn beast developed wisdom, for goodness’ sake,” the rhinoceros said, feeling this whole meeting was a waste of its time.

“Then explain the curse inside the boxes,” the bob-tailed cat shot back.

“Exactly — artifacts can’t function in Beast Valley unless a war beast evolves to Sacred Beast level or above. Are you telling me the newborn was already a Sacred Beast the moment it was born?” A vulture beat its wings and pushed forward to challenge the rhinoceros.

“I don’t know!” the rhinoceros said in exasperation. If it knew the answer, why would it have come back to discuss it? It would have gone straight to ambush the newborn beast.

“I’ll tell you what happened — Samson and Biyi were scared to death. Ha ha!” The four hyena brothers dissolved into raucous laughter.

“Watch your mouth,” the baboon snarled — Samson had been a friend.

“You said you wanted to smell it, so here you go — pffft!” One of the hyenas turned around and unleashed a thunderously pungent blast in the baboon’s direction, sending every beast within range scrambling. The baboon went berserk and launched itself at the hyena, but with four brothers, even the stronger baboon found itself going nowhere against opponents this hideously thick-skinned and difficult to damage.

“Divine force might be involved. Divine force may operate outside the Laws entirely,” the elephant proposed.

“Extremely suspicious!” Longmao bobbed his head enthusiastically.

“Old ghost, is ‘suspicious’ the only word in your vocabulary?” The crow, serving as the other advisor, couldn’t stand the mandrill’s habitual fence-sitting.

“Since you’re clearly the smartest one here, go ahead and solve the mystery,” Longmao said, spreading his hands and washing them of the whole thing.

“You—” The crow fell silent too.

“Allow me to say a few words.” Lion King, seeing the meeting devolve further toward chaos, rose to deliver his summary. The faction may have had its internal fault lines, but even the most fractious member knew to show respect when the leader spoke. Everyone set aside their grudges and came forward.

Lion King swept the assembly with a gaze of supreme authority. Only when every head had lowered in deference did he give a satisfied nod: “Based on all available intelligence, only those who physically broke open a box suffered the curse. Those who didn’t touch one were unaffected. I’ll draw attention to one key point: how many boxes does this person actually have? Cursed boxes of that magnitude can’t be unlimited. Most likely there are only the three — gold, silver, and bronze.”

“Absolutely right — the number of boxes is extremely suspicious!” Longmao burst into applause and produced a torrent of praise for Lion King.

“Even if there are only three, there’s still a gold one left,” the rhinoceros said coldly.

“Not anymore. The third gold box already took out the resident White Deer,” the eagle reported from the air. “I saw it myself.”

“Then we go after that arrogant new arrival immediately and finish off the newborn beast!” The hyena brothers were practically drooling, teeth bared and ready to charge. Only Lion King’s final word kept them from bolting already.

“Go yourselves then — we’re not going.” The two leopard brothers took the exact opposite position. They would sooner do anything than encounter that young man again. Only they — who had narrowly escaped with their lives — truly understood how terrifying he was. And they weren’t alone. The elephant, rhinoceros, and others who had been part of the first ambush similarly refused. Even the crow and the bob-tailed cat, who hadn’t participated but were sharp enough to have concerns, felt something was deeply wrong here.

Divine force was not something ordinary people could possess.

An opponent like this required caution.

Lion King considered briefly. Having his forces kill this arrogant new arrival would certainly reinforce his authority and reputation.

But personally getting involved carried risk. Divine force was genuinely troubling. Better to send subordinates — whatever happened to them had nothing to do with him.

And so Lion King assumed the mantle of inspiring leadership, praising the highly motivated and aggressively greedy hyena brothers effusively. He offered consoling words to the battered elephant and the others, giving them leave to rest. He had his two advisors Longmao and the crow prepare a thorough battle plan, directing the hyenas, vultures, bob-tailed cat, and other volunteers to strike in sequence — and announced that whoever killed the arrogant new arrival’s newborn beast would receive a reward of ten magical cores, with one magical core for any beast that made a meaningful effort.

At the prospect of ten magical cores, the hyena brothers, who were already eager, became absolutely frantic with excitement.

They bolted.

“Idiots,” the baboon muttered under its breath.

“Well,” the rhinoceros said by way of consolation, “Beast Valley has never had a shortage of fools.”

Lion King pretended he hadn’t heard either comment. Running a faction required fools — if everyone were clever, what use would a leader be? He departed with stately authority toward Seven Star Rock for what the leaders called their Royal Assembly. He was quite certain the other faction leaders had also learned of this exceptional new arrival, and there was coordinating to be done. More importantly, further into the valley, a dozen or so strong challengers were working hard to find a way through. Not a single one of them was an easy target — and if the faction leaders didn’t make something out of the war beasts those challengers were raising, what had they been dominating this valley for all these years?

One hour later.

Yueyang and the Death Reaper Mantis had just emerged from a stretch of forest when, barely a hundred meters out, he found several thousand stampeding wild bulls charging directly toward him — their eyes blood-red, hooves like rolling thunder, capable of grinding anything in their path to dust.

What made it even more alarming was that these valley-born wild bulls all possessed the Savage Charge ability, which could pulverize any obstacle ahead. Several thousand wild bulls with Savage Charge generating overlapping shockwaves was nothing short of an apocalyptic vision.

The hyena brothers, hiding at a safe distance and feeling extremely pleased with themselves, had herded the bull herd and were using them to obliterate the newborn beast. Curse boxes and divine force couldn’t do a thing to four hyenas hiding at the back.

They were playing dumb — not being dumb.

Strangely, less than ten seconds after the bull stampede passed through, the situation shifted.

The ground began to shake.

A violent earthquake twisted the earth, the ground buckling and warping as though something deep below were writhing. From beneath the surface, vast rivers of brilliant red, superheated magma surged up through the cracks.

The ground had become a vision of the underworld.

The hyena brothers exchanged glances, suddenly uneasy. It seemed someone else was also launching an ambush on this newborn beast — and had chosen the underhanded move of a follow-up strike.

Were it not for Beast Valley’s Laws protecting Yueyang personally, the collapsing earth and the magma erupting in every direction would have ended him already. Instead he was entirely unconcerned, calmly coating a chicken wing in honey sauce over the convenient heat source.

Yueyang happened to glance up while applying the sauce and noticed the sky had darkened considerably without his attention. Heavy black clouds had gathered while he wasn’t looking. A bolt of lightning cracked — and what fell wasn’t rain, but meteorites. Dozens, then hundreds of flaming rocks rained from above, hammering the ground with tremendous force.

Yueyang stared in genuine astonishment, chicken wing between his teeth.

Was this what they called a meteor shower?

He pressed his palms together reverently and closed his eyes with pious sincerity, making a wish in the ancient tradition of those who see shooting stars:

Since the heavens are raining down gifts, could they possibly send a beautiful young woman as well?

No young woman appeared. What materialized instead, a short distance ahead, was several hundred massive tornadoes, each bristling with blades of wind, sweeping everything they touched — stone, tree, anything — into fine powder.

Yueyang took one long look at this collection of intersecting catastrophes and promptly raised one hand in the air.

“The wind’s picking up!” he announced cheerfully. “Better bring the laundry in!”

From multiple hiding spots in every direction, the various ambushing parties who had arrived independently to coordinate their assault all heard these words — and collapsed simultaneously, foaming at the mouth, legs twitching.