The moment the transparent thief was pinned down, every Sky-rank cultivator in the hall felt the same crooked satisfaction: if I can’t have it, neither can anyone else. But at the same time, watching the transparent shadow being subdued, one after another they felt the same nervous chill. This “Long Xuan” and “Ming Feng” — the strength on those two might well be no less than that of the god-of-slaughter Tianzhu.

Blue Wolf, Wanjiao, and Luoluo all quietly frowned. With the strength Long Xuan and Ming Feng had shown, even if the three of them could still win a straight fight one-on-one, it would cost them dearly — quite possibly severe injuries. If one-on-one was already this taxing, then one against two, or one against three, was simply impossible. And that Tianzhu was the truly frightening one — his actual strength was very likely a match for anyone at national-ruler tier in this hall.

The Windstill national ruler knew the divine blood wasn’t going anywhere. He hadn’t rushed to intercept the thief himself.

The first thing he’d done was throw himself into position beside the Titan Young Lord.

Never mind the divine blood — if this young lord took so much as a scratch, that was the truly catastrophic outcome.

Just as the thief was subdued and everyone’s nerves had begun to settle, disaster struck again. The Windstill national ruler suddenly saw two Sky-rank guests — men whose appearance and cultivation had, until this moment, seemed unremarkable — shed their disguise in a single breath and reveal themselves to be as powerful as Windstill himself. What appalled him most was that these two weren’t going for the divine blood at all. Their target was the Titan Young Lord.

If they’d intended to capture the Titan Young Lord, that would have been survivable.

But one look at how these two attackers moved, and Windstill knew they didn’t intend to leave anything on the table. They were going straight for the kill.

If the Titan Young Lord died here…

The consequences were not something any human being present could shoulder.

The entire Tianhua Domain would likely be finished. As the ruler responsible for hosting the young lord, dying a thousand times over would not begin to atone.

“Bastards — how dare you?” The thought flashed through Windstill’s mind. He was furious. He hurled every ounce of his strength at intercepting the two assassins. Even Blue Wolf, Wanjiao, and Luoluo — who had been happily watching the show — went pale. If the Titan Young Lord died in Windstill’s hall, they would all be dead men too. But they held their positions, not wanting Tianzhu, Long Xuan, and the other escorts to misread their intent, and waited to see how it played out.

“Ignorant vermin — die!” Tianzhu, who had never left Yue Yang’s side, brought his lightning-forged hand down in a single strike and hurled both assassins into the air.

“Ah?” At the sight of Tianzhu’s strike, all three uninvited rulers felt the small hairs on their necks lift. Even after their most careful assessment, they had still been underestimating this man.

A wave of glittering starlight bloomed.

Hulei realized that the starlight was coming from behind him.

He’d had a small misunderstanding with the Titan Young Lord earlier. It had since been forgiven, but Hulei still wanted to make a better apology. His position, however, was that of a very junior guest — he had been seated in the outer ring of the hall with the rest of the Sky-rank arrivals. He’d noticed the transparent thief only after the thief was already being subdued, but when he’d spotted this second wave of attackers, he had already gathered his power and made himself ready to intervene should he be needed. Yue Yang probably wouldn’t come into any real danger, but Hulei didn’t mind an opportunity to prove himself.

At this instant, right behind him, thousands upon thousands of blinding points of starlight bloomed at once, and Hulei froze.

Was there another enemy behind me?

There was no time to turn.

That impossibly beautiful starlight scattered into millions of little pinpricks of light and re-formed itself into a dreamlike river of stars, and every person in the hall was hopelessly transfixed by that peerless celestial river.

The mesmerized crowd seemed to have sunk their souls entirely inside it.

Hulei realized that every single person in the hall had gone stiff as a wooden puppet.

Only the Windstill national ruler was still moving — and even he, Hulei noticed with horror, was moving at the speed of a crawling ant. This was too slow to be possible.

Windstill understood what had happened. This was a domain-power effect, or the specialized ability of some artifact — quasi-divine artifact at minimum. This terrible power had, in a single breath, frozen the movement of every person in the hall. Windstill dropped all thought of the divine blood. The only thing that mattered now was protecting the Titan Young Lord. The enemy was after more than just the divine blood — they were after the young lord’s life. Windstill dropped even his beloved Lady Zhiguang from his mind and threw himself toward the frozen figure of the Titan Young Lord.

Windstill had just now been rushing to intercept the assassins. Returning to Yue Yang meant covering the distance he had just crossed.

The distance was no more than two meters.

But those two meters felt like a chasm he would never bridge in this lifetime.

On the other side, Tianzhu — who had just hurled both attackers away with a single strike — was likewise racing back. His speed was no better than Windstill’s. Only a fraction faster. Still nowhere near fast enough to reach Yue Yang in time.

“…” Lady Zhiguang’s lips trembled slightly, as if she meant to say something. In the end she said nothing.

She resumed her frozen posture.

And waited for the situation to unfold.

Meanwhile, the two heavyweight assassins Tianzhu had just blasted seemed to be under the protection of some artifact of their own — the drag of the star-river simply did not affect them. They shot at Yue Yang like arrows off the string, their arms alive with strange flickering brilliance, and in each of their hands flashed a poisoned assassination dagger in dark purple-black, throwing off death-light.

“No!”

The Windstill national ruler was so frantic he could have wept dry. Kill anyone else — but why does it have to be the young lord from the Upper Heavenly Realm? This young lord was covered in treasures — go ahead and rob him, that was one thing, but under no circumstances could he be killed. Once he was killed, would there even be a Tianhua Domain left? But Windstill had no power to stop it. All he could do was watch, wide-eyed, as the tragedy unfolded.

In front of every eye in the hall, at the exact instant the two assassins were about to plunge their daggers into the Titan Young Lord’s heart —

The pet dog that had been chewing a bone under the table this whole time suddenly leapt up.

Fast as a spooked hare.

Quick as lightning.

Not even the star-river power — quasi-divine artifact at minimum — could bind it. Because at that moment, Windstill and Blue Wolf and Wanjiao and Luoluo and every other Sky-rank in the hall realized in a single collective jolt that this unremarkable, dopey-looking dog was a divine beast.

The divine beast’s will detonated in a mad surge, briefly canceling out the artifact’s suppressive field. It summoned out its grimoire, first putting up a shield to block the assassins’ killing blow, then sealing its immobilized master inside the grimoire world.

Then it turned itself into a rotating column of black-flame smoke.

Whirling like a tornado.

And fled the Greenvalley Ruler’s Hall.

The two assassins, robbed of their kill, tried to give chase — but the earlier ferocious creature had by now snapped back into action and intercepted them. Even with everything they’d seen in their lives, they still couldn’t help crying out in disbelief: “High-intelligence earth divine soldier?”

An earth divine soldier was, to some degree, rare — but not the rarest thing. However, an earth divine soldier that could shape-shift its weapon and possessed enough intelligence to cover its master’s escape at a moment of crisis — that was almost unheard of. In simpler terms: an ordinary earth divine soldier compared to a high-intelligence earth divine soldier was like a Sky-rank war beast compared to a divine beast. The one might be strong, but it had a fixed ceiling; the other was strong and had unlimited room to grow. Same principle applied to earth divine soldiers — one was merely bonded to its master, while the other was an entity capable of endless growth with a future no one could measure.

Taotie’s claws sliced like blades.

Its whole body was a wall of bronze and iron between the enemy and Yue Yang.

The two assassins tried everything they had, and could not get past that guard-line. They could only watch, helplessly, as the divine beast made off with its master.

Fortunately, the earth divine soldier was fiercely loyal. The moment its master was fully clear of danger, it turned itself into a bolt of black light, ripped open space in the manner of a genuine divine artifact making its appearance, and used a reverse-summon to return directly to its master’s side.

The Windstill national ruler was deeply moved.

That unimpressive-looking black dog had turned out to be a divine beast; that ferocious-looking earth divine soldier had turned out to possess this level of intelligence. Heaven had not forsaken him. Whoever this enemy was, having offended the Titan Young Lord, they were fated to a very bad end. And now with the Titan Young Lord safely away, and their whole plan collapsed — that would be the killing wound.

Blue Wolf and the other two rulers were half-dead of fright.

Who could have guessed that this bone-gnawing mutt was a divine beast?

Thank the ancient gods they hadn’t tried to grab the Titan Young Lord. Otherwise they would have died in ways they couldn’t even have understood. A divine beast and an earth divine soldier at his side. Tianzhu, Long Xuan, and Ming Feng — three heavyweight escorts. Plus a whole battalion of Sky-rank subordinates. Move on this young lord? Please — you might as well go up to the Radiance Domain Emperor’s front door and pick a fight.

The Titan Young Lord had, at least, escaped.

But the crisis wasn’t over.

The two assassins, taking advantage of the fact that the artifact’s suppression was still in effect, did not run. They pressed forward instead. One threw himself at the Windstill national ruler.

The other went for Lady Zhiguang…

Faster than either assassin, however, someone else drifted in through the hall’s main door — a man who moved with the perfect ease of someone strolling into his own home, unhurried, and yet somehow faster than the lightning-quick assassins. Every person in the hall could see him clearly. A golden-armored man walked into the great hall… his face was so handsome it drew a sigh — except for the incalculably charismatic Titan Young Lord himself, even the ice-cold Tianzhu was a hair short of his beauty. This dazzling man wore golden dragon-carved battle armor, and in his right hand he gripped a sword whose sword-aura pierced heaven — the Radiance God Sword — and without a single motion of it, that sword-aura seemed to lance through every heart in the room.

In his left hand was a necklace of studded stars, brilliant as the Milky Way.

Before every witness, he sheathed the sword at his hip.

Then he took the golden box Steward Ye had been holding, cradled it in his hand, and with a golden ripple of energy tore open space and vanished… Tianzhu’s fist and Windstill’s fist landed almost simultaneously on the spot he’d just occupied, and struck nothing.

“Holding the quasi-divine ‘Radiance God Sword,’ plus the ‘Star Diamond Necklace’ — this man is the Revenge Domain Emperor! It has to be.” Blue Wolf shouted.

“Hmph!” The Windstill national ruler didn’t buy it. This man did look like the Revenge Domain Emperor — but if the Revenge Domain Emperor were going to intervene, he had no reason to show his face. With a domain emperor’s power, he could have killed everyone in the hall and walked out. For a single drop of divine blood, why lower himself to petty tricks? With the Revenge Domain Emperor’s leverage, forming a friendship with the Titan Young Lord would have been far easier than trying to assassinate him. Someone had deliberately imitated the Revenge Domain Emperor — and above all, the moment the Titan Young Lord was safely out of harm’s way, this man had shown himself, which meant the whole point had been to frame someone.

In the entire Tianhua Domain, how many parties actually had the strength to frame the Revenge Domain Emperor?

Aside from the other two domain emperors, the only candidate was the Central Divine Hall… Would the other two domain emperors dare to publicly assassinate the Titan Young Lord — a scion of a great Upper Heavenly Realm family? Even with as little sense as the Radiance Domain Emperor and the Rage Domain Emperor had, they probably wouldn’t dare. Which left one candidate: someone in the Upper Heavenly Realm with a running grievance against the Four Great Clans… Windstill was no fool. It clicked into place instantly, and he burned with hate — though for the moment he had no intention of naming any of it out loud in public.

“Save me!” Lady Zhiguang went pale as a corpse.

Now that the star-river artifact’s effect had lifted, Windstill could easily dodge the enemy’s blow. Lady Zhiguang could not.

She was frail. The assassin’s blow was one hit away from killing her.

Thank the gods for the fiercely loyal personal guard captain Fish Tide, who threw himself into the strike to shield her and only barely managed to block the assassin’s attack.

Windstill had no time to explain any of this to Tianzhu. He rushed toward Lady Zhiguang to rescue the woman he most loved. Meanwhile Tianzhu was moving toward the captured transparent thief, preparing to interrogate him about who had ordered the strike — who had dared to move against the Titan Young Lord, against the noble houses of the Upper Heavenly Realm.

The two assassins, cornered, threw everything they had into a final all-or-nothing assault.

Windstill meant to take them alive and put them to the question. He kept his composure and gestured for Lady Zhiguang to fall back — ideally to Tianzhu and the other heavyweights, where she’d be safe.

“After I die, every last one of you — every person in this hall — will fall under a curse. If you want to live, you’ll have to take the Freedom Queen to Windstill’s Central Island. Ha ha ha — you’ve all walked right into the trap.” The captured transparent thief was cackling in insane triumph. His originally see-through, gas-like body began to develop endless rune patterns across its surface, patterns that grew and mutated rapidly until — silently — the whole body exploded, scattering black, mutated fragments of runes onto every cultivator in the hall.

“…” Tianzhu tried energy resistance, discovered it wasn’t doing anything. The rune fragments sank into his arm and disappeared into his body. He frowned deeply.

“There is definitely an abnormal energy invading — this is a curse. This is definitely a curse!” Wanjiao spat in disgust.

“Damn it. Let’s take those two accursed assassins down together — Brother Windstill, we’ll help!” Just as Blue Wolf stepped forward to lend Windstill a hand, the two remaining assassins began to show signs of self-detonation.

“National Ruler — get out of the way!” The loyal Fish Tide threw himself at the enemy, meaning to take both of them out with him, so that his master could escape.

“You want to self-detonate? Hmph — not that easy.” Windstill knew self-detonation wasn’t impossible, but it took time. In the hands of himself and Tianzhu and the other heavyweights, could they really just — self-detonate? Even if they couldn’t stop both, they’d surely take one alive? Or did these desperate men really think their national ruler was that easily bested?

Windstill lunged past Fish Tide and threw himself into a full-strength strike against both assassins.

Blue Wolf, Wanjiao, and Luoluo were rushing in from their side. Tianzhu, Long Xuan, and Ming Feng were forming a ring around them. You want to self-detonate? You’ll have to get past us first.

At the very instant the situation seemed decided —

Everything changed again.

The ever-loyal Fish Tide suddenly drove a dagger into the small of the Windstill national ruler’s back — the same poisoned assassination dagger the two attackers carried. It ignored Windstill’s protective dragon-hide armor, punched straight through the muscles of his back, and lodged in his heart. And that fat, ball-shaped tertiary administrator — the one who had been trembling from head to toe in obvious terror the whole time — suddenly seized Lady Zhiguang by the arm and rode a wave of golden light straight at them.

Fish Tide, the two assassins, the ball-fat tertiary administrator, and Lady Zhiguang — all of them, in the single instant it took anyone to react, ripped open space and vanished.

The manner of their departure was identical to the way the handsome man who had stolen the divine blood had departed.

The Windstill national ruler crashed to the floor. From the wound in his back, blood was pouring like a spring…

For a long time, no one in the hall spoke.

No one had imagined it could go this way. Not even Blue Wolf, Wanjiao, and Luoluo — three rulers who had come here fully intending to make trouble — had imagined it could go anywhere like this.

(End of Chapter 948)