“Welcome, welcome!” When Yueyang arrived at the entrance to the First Trial Hall with the Death Reaper Mantis, Toad King was already there waiting. It slapped its belly and produced a laugh so unpleasant that people who heard it instinctively felt ill — politely described, it was among the least appealing sounds in Beast Valley, and that was saying something.

“You again, you ugly toad. What do you want?” Yueyang knew this creature didn’t make social calls.

“Just a friendly reminder — failure in the First Trial results in Law punishment and the war beast’s death. More challengers fail here than anywhere else. Young man — good luck!” Toad King’s grotesque mouth opened and closed as it laughed. It turned to leave before Yueyang could respond, apparently terrified of having a divine curse invoked. At the last moment it looked back with an expression of theatrical concern: “Oh — and the Hall’s protective Laws cover the challenger, but not the war beast inside. A little free intelligence. If something happens to attack your war beast while it’s moving boxes around in there — don’t say I didn’t warn you! Aha ha ha ha!”

Toad King departed on a cloud of foul-smelling breath.

Yueyang considered briefly.

Then gestured for the Death Reaper Mantis to enter the Hall and begin the trial.

In the distant underbrush, Longma and the sickle weasel were torn. Should they come forward and warn him about what was inside? Revealing themselves would expose them to Toad King’s waiting ambush forces. But staying quiet and watching the small creature potentially fail was an equally horrible prospect.

They were caught between two impossible choices.

If this young man failed here, then what hope remained?

Hope couldn’t be allowed to die in front of them — not when such a person had finally appeared after so long.

Longma signaled the sickle weasel to stay back. He still had one war beast death remaining as a resident — he would be the one to step forward and warn the young man about the traps in the Spirit Beast Hall. Even if Toad King’s forces attacked him after, it was worth the risk.

The sickle weasel clenched its jaw.

Eyes fixed on the direction Toad King had vanished. If Longma was attacked, it would charge out without hesitation and help him escape.

Before today, that would have been unthinkable. But today, the two of them stood on the same side — both fighting for the hope in their hearts, both fighting for the freedom they’d spent their existence dreaming of.

“What are you doing here?”

A melodious, beautiful voice spoke directly behind them.

Beautiful as it was, both of them went cold to the bone — a chill that seemed to start at the base of the skull and slide all the way down to the heels. The Poison Wasp King’s hands rested lightly against both of their backs. With her strength, she could turn them into stiff-bodied living corpses like the vulture with a touch, any time she chose. That stinger was among Beast Valley’s most lethal weapons — one hit, no exceptions.

Both Longma and the sickle weasel froze.

The Poison Wasp King withdrew her hands and gave a short hum. “You call that concealment? You’ve both been completely visible. Blind and deaf could have spotted you. But I’m in a good mood today — keep your heads attached, stay in your place. Watch. Don’t speak. Don’t act. This doesn’t need your voice or your input. Understood?”

A shadow flickered in the distance. The Poison Wasp King went instantly silent — breath held, presence gone entirely, as though she had never been there at all. She vanished without a trace, her concealment beyond anything Longma or the sickle weasel could match.

Both of them broke into a fresh sweat.

This was a battle between forces far above their weight class. Whatever they could contribute was limited to watching.

A large silhouette approached from the distance — a six-meter Cyclops with Sky-rank Level 4 cultivation. Not remarkable power on paper, but the intelligence behind its single eye was clearly above average for its kind — more cunning, more calculating. It didn’t spare Yueyang a glance. It walked straight into the Spirit Beast Hall.

Yueyang tilted his head slightly, puzzled.

Was there a queue for this trial? Someone was actually eager to go first?

Longma and the sickle weasel understood immediately. The Hall contained several hundred boxes of varying materials, distributed across three levels. Among them were Five Elements boxes — the most valuable. Opening them yielded identification tokens. Higher-tier boxes yielded higher-tier tokens. But higher-tier boxes were harder to find and harder to open, with some requiring a partner outside to manipulate specific mechanisms while the war beast worked within.

Certain spatial gates would seal permanently once entered. Others would only open with someone pressing a specific mechanism outside. Some mechanisms only triggered if someone stood on a particular pressure plate — or failed to trigger if they did. The Spirit Beast Hall rewarded coordination and could be turned into a trap for the enemy. Any challenger who knew the layout could use it to sabotage another.

Unless a war beast settled for the basic token on the first floor — the easiest to obtain, the smallest reward, and the most likely to trigger Law punishment. On the first floor, mishandling the wooden boxes carried a fifty percent chance of summoning ten wild magical beasts into the Hall, a thirty percent chance of calling down a lightning strike, and only a twenty percent chance of no consequence at all.

The Cyclops hadn’t come to take the trial. It was here to sabotage it — to bait the Death Reaper Mantis into breaking boxes, block access to higher mechanisms, and force her toward the lowest possible result. This was an old trick in Beast Valley. Everyone knew how to use the Hall against rivals. No one had ever found a clean answer.

“The Cyclops probably isn’t the only one,” Longma said. “It’s just the one Toad King wanted us to see.”

“She might be able to work around them,” the sickle weasel said, with a note of trying to reassure itself as much as anything.

The small creature was exceptionally intelligent. She had reached Sacred Beast in under a month. She wasn’t an ordinary war beast. This was the easiest challenge in the easiest trial, after all.

Yueyang, entirely calm, unrolled a sleeping mat on the Hall’s front steps and lay down comfortably to nap. He looked less like a waiting challenger and more like a bored examiner taking the afternoon off.

The Death Reaper Mantis tilted her small head, thinking.

After a long moment, she drifted quietly into the Hall.

No one was going to tell her what to do. No one could help her. Inside the Spirit Beast Hall, everything depended on her alone.

Toad King’s enormous silhouette flickered briefly in the far distance — confirming the Death Reaper Mantis had entered — and settled into position near the second trial, hiding. Longma and the sickle weasel could tell it had indeed not left at all. It had prepared layers of obstruction and interception, each more lethal than the last. To kill this creature of extraordinary potential, to restore its own tarnished reputation, Toad King had committed fully — it would not stop until the small creature was dead.

Inside the Spirit Beast Hall, another shadow crept in behind the Cyclops — noticing Yueyang sound asleep and slipping in quietly.

The Death Reaper Mantis paid the Cyclops no attention. She simply moved with care, staying alert.

The interior was surprisingly vast. Beyond the main corridors and walkways, the space was divided into many individual rooms of similar appearance but different numbers. Each room contained boxes of various sizes.

She tried moving a large box out of one room with telekinesis — and noticed something odd. A door in another room closed. When she returned the box, the door opened again.

Weight-balance rooms.

With that understood, she reached a mechanism bridge — and immediately grasped why the rooms had boxes. They were counterweights. When she placed a large box on the pressure plate at the bridge’s head, the seemingly broken bridge extended one meter. She tossed a small stone ahead to test the path — it was instantly shattered by the spatial Law. No shortcuts. Without enough boxes moved here, any other approach was useless.

There was an alternate route, though.

Multiple corridors branched in every direction.

At the end of one, the Cyclops appeared briefly, peering at her.

Her master’s teaching surfaced: in any situation, remain calm. Stay alert. Read the environment. Use strategy, not force. Intelligence combined with action defeats enemies a hundred times more easily than brute strength.

Her eyes steadied. Across her small face appeared the same sunlit smile Yueyang wore when he was most satisfied with himself.

Any enemy who saw that particular smile felt a chill at a primal level.

Because that smile, when you looked closely, was a hundred times more frightening than any demon’s.

“Let’s go!” The Death Reaper Mantis clenched her tiny fist, gave herself an internal push, and drifted toward the corridor where the Cyclops had disappeared.

She had her master’s guidance.

What challenge in this world could truly be faced alone?

She had to work hard. Harder than Hong and A’Man and Duoduo. Catch up to them as quickly as possible. Not disappoint her master.

Go, go, go.

With that fierce determination burning in her, the Death Reaper Mantis began to move.