The “Meridian Detonation” cultivation technique Yue Yang had just devised was not, in truth, particularly useful to super-powered figures like Ming Rihao, Tianzhu, or the Dragon Emperor.

They had nothing like Yue Yang’s Phantom — the shadow life-guardian war beast that could be repurposed into a specialized attack technique. And their combat style dictated their approach to a fight. Whether it was the overwhelming Ming Rihao, or the rapidly rising Tianzhu and Dragon Emperor, they were the kind of fighters who crushed their enemies with raw power. Ambushes, indirect abilities used to weaken an opponent, multi-angled assaults — the whole Yue Yang playbook — none of it suited them. They were orthodox warriors: force broke skill, strength broke weakness, and that was the end of it. Rarely did they do what Yue Yang did, which was break force with skill and win as the weaker party. They also rarely challenged opponents clearly out of their league. Yue Yang was the exact opposite. Nearly every major battle he’d fought was a life-or-death slugfest against someone he had no business fighting — a straight punch upward, straight through to the end.

“Good stuff. This technique couldn’t have come at a better time.”

And yet the ice-cold Tianzhu, the imperially imposing Dragon Emperor, and even Ming Rihao all had nothing but praise for the Meridian Detonation.

The arrival of this specialized cultivation technique meant that the Eastern Demon Clan, the Heaven Devil Hall crowd, and every Sky Tower warrior trying to force their way up to Sky-rank had just been handed their single greatest breakthrough aid. Super-powers like Tianzhu, the Dragon Emperor, and the Underworld Emperor came to the Heavenly Realm often to train, and every trip they brought back Sky-rank war beasts, treasures, demon crystals, ores, and medicinal herbs to enrich their kin, friends, subordinates, and tribes.

Take the Heaven Devil Hall lot, for example.

After Tianjian broke through to Sky-rank, Tianjie, Tianzui, and the rest were now edging up to that threshold themselves. Their real destination was the Perfect Innate Sovereign Realm — but Sky-rank was the first step of that road.

For people like Tianjie, Tianzui, and Heaven’s Wrath, obtaining a Sky-rank war beast was easy enough, and clawing your way up to Sky-rank strength itself wasn’t especially difficult. The hard part was breaking through inside Sky-rank and continuing the climb. Plenty of Sky Tower warriors had reached Sky-rank strength and yet had no realistic hope of ever reaching the Perfect Innate Sovereign Realm in this lifetime.

That kind of warrior. And in the Heavenly Realm proper, they were beyond counting.

Between a Sky-rank warrior and a Perfect Innate Sovereign there lay five nearly impassable chasms. If a Sky-rank warrior couldn’t cross them, they’d spend their entire lives pacing the same plateau, staring pitifully up at the Perfect Innate Sovereigns from below. From Sky-rank Level One through Sky-rank Level Five, those five tiers were where the vast majority of Sky-rank warriors got stuck — five tiers that could consume an entire lifetime without a single successful breakthrough.

But now, with the Meridian Detonation technique, at the very least the first three tiers — Sky-rank Level One through Level Three — were no longer a serious obstacle.

“Kid, old Hao here owes you one.”

Ming Rihao committed the secret method to memory, then gave Yue Yang a grateful nod.

With the Meridian Detonation in hand, restoring his family to its former glory was going to take a lot less time than he’d feared.

Compared to the Sky Tower, the situation in the Heavenly Realm was frankly worse — a full ninety-five percent of the Heavenly Realm’s Sky-rank warriors were locked in those first three tiers with no way forward. That was truly pitiful.

Yue Yang had put the technique together with some personal use in mind, but the main beneficiaries had always been Tianzhu’s Heaven Devil Hall people, the Dragon Emperor’s Eastern Demon Clan, and the younger generation back on the Longteng continent. With it, Snow-Hungry Wolf, Tianra Prince, Ye Kong, and Sea Fatty wouldn’t have to keep sighing at the impossibly distant Perfect Innate Sovereign Realm any longer. Armed with the Meridian Detonation, they could push up to Sky-rank Level Five first, then head into the Gate of Life and Death to enlighten themselves on Immovable Will, and finally combine the two to break through into Perfect Innate Sovereign.

When Yue Yang carried the little booklet back to the Sky Tower, Elder Nangong, Old Fox, Jun Wuyou, and Elder Yuehai came rushing over the moment they heard, and all four were floored.

Even the ever-composed Elder Nangong couldn’t stop a single hot tear from falling onto his notes as he wrote it all down. He understood, completely, what this manual meant for the warriors of the Sky Tower.

A ladder to heaven.

It wasn’t just a breakthrough technique for Sky-rank powerhouses. Innate warriors could practice it. Even cultivators below the Innate threshold could practice it.

Sky Tower’s powerhouses had produced excellent cultivation techniques before — this wasn’t the first — but every one of them had only ever fit its creator’s own physiology, or at best a handful of cultivators built the same way. Nothing like the Meridian Detonation had ever existed: practicable by nearly any race, with almost no restrictions, and even those with unusual physiologies who couldn’t run the whole method could still practice pieces of it to level up their strength. A no-limits technique like this was, without exaggeration, the first of its kind in recorded history.

What moved Elder Nangong most was that Yue Yang had gone even further. Working from the different characteristics of humans, golden elves, the Eastern Demon Clan, dragon-kind, sea-folk, beast-tribe, demon-tribe, ghost-tribe, and more, he had drawn up variants — related, but each subtly different — tailored to each of them.

You couldn’t really call it a single cultivation method. It was an entire system.

Anywhere in the Sky Tower you cared to apply it, some form of it would work.

This wasn’t simply the rise of the Sky Tower’s warriors. It was a pair of powerful wings pinned to their backs, ready to launch every last one of them into flight.

Between the war beast wrist device and the Meridian Detonation, these two inventions were going to drag the Sky Tower — which had spent so long sunk in suffering and weakness — out of the abyss for good. Given time, the Sky Tower would return to the Heavenly Realm, and its warriors would stand at its very summit.

“San’er, you’ve done well this time. Fourth Mother’s very pleased. But you still have enemies to handle and time is short, so I won’t keep you.”

Yue Yang carved out a moment to go back and look in on Fourth Mother and the little one, and even made a special trip to request an audience with His Majesty. His Majesty was, in fact, quite pleased. But he didn’t grant Yue Yang the audience. Instead, he sent his personal palace attendant out with a single line of reply.

“This technique of yours is a genuine surprise. But don’t forget the actual work you’re supposed to be doing.”

The actual work meant attending the birthday banquet of the Windstill national ruler’s beloved concubine, Lady Zhiguang. All of Sky Tower’s various people, and Ming Rihao besides, were waiting for Yue Yang to come back so they could go make a spectacular scene.

The only person who could realistically make a round trip between the Sky Tower and the Heavenly Realm in a single day and still have time to spare for a birthday banquet was, of course, Yue Yang.

By the time he’d said goodbye to Fourth Mother and made it back to Greenvalley City, it was already afternoon.

Steward Ye and Gold-Tooth, sent out to fetch him, were pacing like ants on a hot pan.

They had very nearly stamped the inn’s courtyard flat, but with Yue Yang nowhere in sight, there was nothing they could do about it. As for Ming Rihao, Tianzhu, the Dragon Emperor, the Underworld Emperor — none of them was anywhere to be seen either. Every one of them had retreated to pore over the Meridian Detonation, working out how best to adapt it to their subordinates and their kin. Zhongguan and the escort had fobbed Steward Ye off with polite laughter, insisting the Titan Young Lord was napping and mustn’t be disturbed.

“The banquet isn’t until later, is it? The young lord went to bed very late last night. This is the nap he needs to catch up. I’d hardly dare disturb him.”

Zhongguan, of course, knew perfectly well that Yue Yang had gone back to the Sky Tower. But telling the truth was out of the question.

“Oh, my sainted grandmother!”

Gold-Tooth’s teeth ached the moment he heard Zhongguan’s standard-issue answer.

“The banquet hasn’t started yet, true. But the Titan Young Lord is our most honored guest — how could we possibly dare to slight him? If we can’t produce the Titan Young Lord, Gold-Tooth’s head and mine had best not stay attached.” What Steward Ye was actually worried about wasn’t the time. It was the possibility that the Titan Young Lord was in a temper.

“The young lord will absolutely be there — ah, perfect, he’s up!”

Zhongguan spotted Yue Yang throwing his window open inside the room and immediately shouted.

“My good young lord, you’re finally awake!” Gold-Tooth nearly burst into tears.

“Good, good, thank goodness!” A large stone came off Steward Ye’s chest too.

As long as the Titan Young Lord wasn’t in a temper, everything else was manageable. He could nap however long he pleased.

Ordinarily they wouldn’t have dared come rushing over to hurry him at all. But the Windstill national ruler was in a state.

The reason: the news of the divine blood gift had leaked. Nobody knew which spy had put the word out, but three neighboring national rulers had now arrived — entirely uninvited — at the residence. The very same three rulers who normally wouldn’t have deigned to sneer at a concubine’s birthday banquet had turned up together, in matching lockstep, bearing lavish gifts with entirely fake sincerity.

Never mind the Windstill national ruler — a blind man and an idiot could between them still have read those three’s intentions.

But what could Windstill, as the host, actually do? Turn guests away? Obviously not.

His only option was to get the Titan Young Lord over as fast as possible and redirect those three rulers’ attention onto the fabulously wealthy young lord instead. Best-case scenario: the three would see the prey, get greedy, make a move on the Titan Young Lord, and provoke him into wiping the three of them off the face of the earth in one clean sweep. As for that drop of divine blood, Windstill had sworn to himself — even if the Radiance Domain Emperor himself came in person, it wasn’t going anywhere.

“Young lord, the situation is this: three national rulers have arrived with rather less than pure intentions — we suspect they’ve got their eyes on your treasure. Presenting divine blood as a gift may have caught the notice of certain small-minded types, and made them desperate enough to try something reckless. Your lordship really must be on your guard.”

Steward Ye made it clear he was here on the Windstill national ruler’s behalf, giving Yue Yang a heads-up.

“What a nerve. They’d actually dare?”

Yue Yang, for his part, put on a very convincing show of outrage.

“Your lordship’s origins are of course divine and exalted, but the world will always have its share of greedy madmen.”

Steward Ye, quietly delighted, was throwing oil onto the fire with everything he had.

“Then this young lord would rather like to see who thinks he can help himself to my treasure!”

Yue Yang played it exactly like the rebellious young lord he was pretending to be. Told that someone was coming for him, he not only refused to duck the issue — he decided to arrive in even grander style than originally planned and hit back first. Steward Ye was ecstatic. This was exactly the effect the Windstill national ruler had been going for. If they didn’t get the young lord’s temper up, there was every chance those three would quietly try to sweet-talk him over to their side. But once that spark was lit, the Titan Young Lord would have it in for the three rulers, and whatever they tried next, he’d already have his guard up.

Yue Yang, who had originally intended to attend the birthday banquet “quietly,” informed Steward Ye and Gold-Tooth that he had decided instead to make a proper high-profile entrance — to put the fear into any small-minded riffraff.

Steward Ye and Gold-Tooth immediately loosed a barrage of flattery.

Then they respectfully presented the Thousand-Star Ring and the Dragon-Devouring Pearl the Windstill national ruler had given the day before: “Young lord, the ruler’s small gifts from yesterday are frankly unworthy of your notice, but they are offered in complete sincerity. Your lordship left in such a hurry yesterday there was no chance to accept them. Today, whatever it takes, please do accept them. The ruler said that if the young lord refuses, this incompetent old servant and Gold-Tooth here needn’t bother going back at all.”

Yue Yang, for his part, nodded with feigned indifference. “Well, if it’s the national ruler’s earnest wish, I suppose I’ll accept them. But then what do I give in return?”

Steward Ye quickly cut him off. If they had to wait for the young lord to pick out a return gift himself, they’d still be at it after dark. Better to leave the selection for the head table at the ruler’s residence, where the national ruler could enjoy the sight of a peerless, publicly-conferred honor that nobody else would ever get to receive…

“The Titan Young Lord has arrived!”

Gold-Tooth ran all the way back to the ruler’s residence at the fastest speed of his entire life to make the announcement. The personal guards would gladly have handled it — they were practically fighting each other for the job — but he’d decided to do it himself. This, after all, was a form of glory.

“Quickly — bring him in!”

The Windstill national ruler had been sitting there humoring his three uninvited “friend-enemies,” irritated to the marrow, and the moment he heard, he leapt to his feet.

“Brother Windstill, since a distinguished guest is at your door, why not introduce us to him?” The three of them exchanged looks and stood up in one motion, asking to come along to greet the guest. From the look of them, even if Windstill refused, they’d force their way along anyway. Windstill was cursing their mothers on the inside, but on the surface he kept the composure a host was supposed to maintain, smiling and gesturing that they all go together.

From a distance, they saw a procession.

Like stars circling the moon, an entourage escorted a young man of heroic, almost godlike bearing, advancing steadily out of the distance.

One beast walked on each side of the young man. On one flank, a scruffy black creature that looked like some sort of pet dog — strength impossible to read, could have been anything — was lounging along beside its master with a bone in its mouth, chewing lazily, drooling all the way down its chin.

The three rulers’ eyes slid straight past it. Just a pet — dismissed instantly.

But on the beast’s other side stood a ferocious, primeval creature bristling with murderous aura, and the sight of it made all three of them twitch at the corner of the eye.

Heavens — that beast was an earth divine soldier!

An earth divine soldier of that caliber had to be rare even in the Upper Heavenly Realm. In all honesty, the three had never before laid eyes on an earth divine soldier this powerful, this attuned to its master. Just what kind of background did this Titan Young Lord actually come from? Even in the Upper Heavenly Realm, how could the scion of some ordinary family possibly own an earth divine soldier this spiritually developed? The intelligence had been right after all — a Titan Young Lord with an earth divine soldier at his heel had divine blood, no question.

That bastard Windstill had truly stepped in dog shit for luck to have drawn a guest of this stature.

The three uninvited rulers exchanged one look, and every one of them saw the same heart-shaking shock in the others’ eyes.

“Look — that one over there…”

One of the rulers gave a cold snort, which pulled the other two’s greedy gazes off Taotie and swung them onto the figure standing just barely visible behind Yue Yang: Tianzhu.

Both faces changed on the spot.

It hit them both at once — the man from the top-secret intelligence report. Tianzhu.

Without Tianzhu here, even with the earth divine soldier standing guard, they’d have chanced a snatch. Because with divine blood, you had everything. Even if it cost you an entire nation to get it, you still went and got the divine blood. You could give up being a national ruler. But if you passed up divine blood, that opportunity was never coming back, and you’d spend the rest of your life gnawing on the regret. But with Tianzhu here, seizing the divine blood was probably out of the question. Worse still, at Tianzhu’s side were two more men, only faintly visible — only a shade weaker than him. Getting past all three of them to abduct the Titan Young Lord would be roughly as easy as climbing to heaven.

The Windstill national ruler took in the three of their expressions, and inwardly sneered.

The scion of a prominent family from the Upper Heavenly Realm — how would three national-ruler-tier warriors possibly get any ideas on him? Even a domain emperor showing up would most likely go home empty-handed and out of sorts…

He was just about to lead the party forward to receive their guest when — from the eastern sky and the western horizon simultaneously — golden light flashed. Two overwhelmingly powerful Sky-rank presences streaked across the heavens in the same breath, cutting a straight line toward the ruler’s residence in Greenvalley City, and arriving at the precise instant Windstill and Yue Yang were about to meet.

One look at the two newcomers, and even the Windstill national ruler — until then a picture of practiced composure — went pale, his voice slipping out of control in an involuntary gasp: “Ah — it’s actually—”

(End of Chapter 944)