Ming Rihao didn’t answer. He continued his performance as a man of no particular consequence.

On the other side of the space, the Windstill national ruler walked forward slowly, extending one hand toward Lady Zhiguang across the distance.

“My Lady — if I truly possessed a Star Realm Stone fragment, do you think I would withhold it? There are ten thousand treasures in this world, and not one of them is worth a single smile from you.” His voice was steady, carrying the weight of someone saying something they mean completely. “I did receive a chest, yes. But it was a trap. Empty inside. I was made into a scapegoat. If I had actually received the Stone fragment — how could I not have brought it out and shared it with you?”

“Your Majesty…” Lady Zhiguang was weeping openly now.

The man wearing Fish Tide’s face smiled coldly.

“Perhaps we need a different approach. A more instructive one. If we were to remove Lady Zhiguang’s left hand, for example — it might help the national ruler remember where he’s been keeping things.”

The Windstill national ruler went rigid. He raised both hands in urgent negation and turned to the impersonator directly, his voice stripped of everything except raw honesty.

“Fish Tide — I treated you as a brother. Everything I had, I shared with you. I never shorted you once. You remember that, don’t you? From the day we escaped that battlefield together, through everything after — I never wronged you. I don’t understand why you’re doing this, but I’m asking you: leave Lady Zhiguang out of it. She has nothing to do with any of this. Come at me if you want to come at someone. She’s gentle, she’s not a fighter, she can’t withstand what you’re threatening.” He exhaled. “And I’m telling you the truth about the Stone — if I had it, I would have handed it over already. You know that. Lady Zhiguang is my life. She’s worth more than my life. How could I sit here and watch her suffer if I had anything to trade?”

The man wearing Fish Tide’s face laughed until tears threatened to run.

Then he shook his head, pointing at the national ruler with what might have been genuine amusement.

“I genuinely can’t tell if you’re senile or just foolish. I’m not your brother Fish Tide. I have no relationship with whatever charming brotherhood you’ve built in your imagination. If you want to discuss brotherhood, go talk to the dogs in your back courtyard — because your dear brother has been inside their stomachs for some time now.”

The understanding landed on everyone simultaneously — the real Fish Tide had been killed and replaced long before the betrayal at the banquet. The man in front of them was an impersonator who had worn the role for however long it had taken to position himself perfectly.

Blue Wolf’s voice came out sharp. “Who are you?”

The impersonator waved a dismissive hand. “Please. Save the national-ruler authority for someone it works on. Do I look three years old to you? You’re not the kind of person whose name I need to know, and you’re certainly not the kind of person who needs to know mine.”

Blue Wolf’s composure fractured.

His killing intent detonated outward — a full release, no restraint — his soul-wolf war beast summoned and merged into his body in the same motion, three seconds of absolute focus driving his power to Sky-rank tier five peak. When he raised both claws and tore at the space in front of him, the passage walls groaned.

He charged.

The Windstill national ruler threw himself in front of Blue Wolf without thinking.

Across the space, the impersonator had done nothing dramatic. One hand held a dagger, and the dagger rested against Lady Zhiguang’s throat with the casual ease of something that had been waiting for exactly this.

If Blue Wolf reached him, Lady Zhiguang would not survive the next second.

The national ruler held on. Blue Wolf’s claws were stopped by the man he was trying to protect, and in the half-second of mutual obstruction, the impersonator read the opening cleanly.

Two punches. One for each face.

The Windstill national ruler and Blue Wolf went flying — twenty, thirty meters — and hit the floor with the specific quality of people who have just been insulted more than hurt.

“Ha! Idiots, fools, absolute waste of space, every one of you — even dying would be too good for you, you’d just be wasting someone’s time burying you!” The impersonator spat at the passage wall with theatrical contempt.

“I’ll—” Blue Wolf started.

“Please don’t move yet, just let me get Lady Zhiguang back first—” The Windstill national ruler was already hauling himself up, one hand out, trying to hold Blue Wolf back while simultaneously trying to get to Lady Zhiguang.

“You think yielding is going to get your woman back?” Blue Wolf’s voice had gone raw with anger. “Zhifeng, look at this situation. This is a trap and we’re all inside it. Giving ground is only going to get us killed. What is a woman worth against your life? If you survive, there are other women. If you die, what does getting her back even mean?” He grabbed the national ruler’s shoulder. “If you held firm, he wouldn’t dare touch her. Your weakness is what gives him permission. Do you understand that?”

The impersonator drove his dagger into Lady Zhiguang’s chest.

To the hilt.

Her hand moved once — a small, slight motion — and then she folded, silently, and went down.

The Windstill national ruler stopped functioning.

Yue Yang glanced sideways at Ming Rihao.

There it was — one-thousandth of a second, a fissure in the performance, there and gone. By the time Yue Yang’s gaze fully registered, Ming Rihao had already sealed it back up. The dead-man affect was back in place, immaculate, unreadable.

The impersonator wiped the dagger on his sleeve and considered his options.

“Windstill national ruler. I think some things are starting to come back to you. If they need further encouragement — this face of hers, perfectly formed as it is, would look very different with some work done to it. Or perhaps a hand removed. The fingers one at a time, if you’d prefer a slower process.”

“No — no, please—” The national ruler’s voice broke completely. “Whatever you want, anything, I’ll give you everything, just please don’t hurt her anymore—”

“Your Majesty—” Lady Zhiguang’s voice came out barely above a sound, one hand pressed to her chest wound, blood already coming to her lips between the coughs that followed.

“The Star Realm Stone fragment,” the impersonator said.

“I don’t have it, I genuinely don’t have it—”

He didn’t let the sentence finish. The dagger went through Lady Zhiguang’s right arm, straight through, and the Windstill national ruler stumbled forward — proprioception gone, rationality gone, nothing left but the need to get to her — and crashed over the space between them, landing over her, arms around her. The impersonator began working with the dagger on the national ruler’s back, punching holes in systematic patterns, and the national ruler registered none of it. He bled and wept and held her, and neither sensation competed with the other.

From across the space, the Freedom Queen screamed.

“Stop!”

The impersonator looked at her.

He drove a different blade into the Windstill national ruler’s back, through the heart from behind, and stood back to watch the two of them sink together to the floor, intertwined, before he turned to address the Freedom Queen with a pleasant expression.

“The Stone fragment — is it with you?”

The Freedom Queen shook her head.

“Then what exactly are you yelling about, sweetheart? You don’t have it, so sit down and shut up before I decide you need a lesson in minding your business.”

He crossed to her in a single motion, hand closing around her throat — that long, elegant neck, caught in a grip that had very simple intentions.

He swung his arm back, preparing to introduce her to the floor at speed.

Blue Wolf hit him first.

Blue Wolf was fast — genuinely fast, flash-of-lightning fast.

The golden-armored man who had impersonated the Revenge Domain Emperor was faster. His sword came out and found Blue Wolf’s shoulder before Blue Wolf’s claws found anything, the thrust clean and deep, driving through and out the other side with the efficiency of something that had done this many times.

Luoluo was already moving to help — and found the golden-armored man directly in his face, examining him with the focused attention of someone who is deciding what to do next. The only thing that kept the golden-armored man from making that decision immediately was Yue Yang standing three feet to Luoluo’s left.

Luoluo and the fake Wanjiao traded a glance. Both lowered their hands. The sensible-observer position was available and they were taking it.

“Good. We need more sensible people.” The impersonator turned to Yue Yang. “Young Lord? You?”

“I have always been sensible!” Yue Yang raised one hand agreeably, the very image of cooperative youth.

“Then step aside. This is between me and Zhifeng and Blue Wolf. Nothing to do with you.”

The impersonator was deeply irritated by Yue Yang’s manner but unwilling to make an enemy of someone from a great celestial house with escorts of demonstrable quality. The calculation was simple: if he couldn’t kill everyone capable of reporting back, retribution would arrive. So he needed Yue Yang out of the equation through cooperation, not confrontation.

“Agreed,” Yue Yang said, with immediate pleasantness.

The room held its breath.

Then Yue Yang added the follow-up:

“If you kneel down and ask me nicely, I’ll think about it.”

Every face in the space changed at once.

The Windstill national ruler and Blue Wolf, who had been wearing the expressions of people watching their last options vanish, suddenly looked as though someone had opened a window in a sealed room.

Luoluo and the others cycled through confusion, realization, and something approaching reverent understanding.

Of course. No one had ever actually believed the Titan Young Lord was going to step aside. This young man’s natural habitat was precisely this kind of situation — the more chaotic, the more dangerous, the more comprehensively absurd, the more at home he was. Getting him to remove himself voluntarily would require geological timescales.

He wasn’t backing off.

He was escalating.

The impersonator’s nose practically bent with rage. Fine, you’re powerful, you’ve got protection, you’re from a great house — but demanding someone kneel before you’d consider helping? The sheer unconstrained nerve of it—

“You had Tianzhu and your escorts with you before, so I let it go. But Tianzhu’s getting beaten half to death out there by the Revenge Domain Emperor right now — you’ve got nothing left, and you’re still mouthing off?”

“Whoever kills this idiot for me,” Yue Yang announced, gesturing at the impersonator, “gets a position as a low-ranking household servant. Very prestigious opportunity.”

He waved at Zhongguan and the escort unit.

“Young Lord, we… can’t actually beat this particular idiot.” Zhongguan, to his credit, was honest about it. He didn’t get to finish the sentence before Yue Yang’s foot sent him skidding across the floor.

“Useless! Every single one of you! A combat score of five? You can’t even handle this? Absolute waste—” He proceeded to beat them comprehensively and enthusiastically, and they scattered in all directions with the conviction of people who understood their role in this production.

“Are you done performing?” the impersonator said. “Get over here and die, if you’re going to.”

“I suppose I have no choice but to handle this personally.” Yue Yang rolled his sleeves up with the energy of someone deeply inconvenienced. “Don’t let the old-man face fool you — push a tiger far enough and even the sick-cat routine wears thin.” He raised his voice pointedly toward the hovering figure above the Still Sea. “Hey — you there, the arbiter or whatever you’re calling yourself — are you actually dead? Can you not see this idiot assaulting me? He’s Sky-rank tier six and I’m barely pre-Sky-rank. Is this what you call impartial?”

“The Arbiter’s role is mediation,” the Two-Faced King returned, voice carrying no inflection whatsoever. “If a party declines mediation, that falls outside this jurisdiction.”

“…”

Several people in the room formed highly specific opinions about the Two-Faced King that wouldn’t have been appropriate to say out loud.

“That’s all I needed to hear,” Yue Yang said, apparently delighted by this response. He patted his chest once — Xiao Wenli emerged and settled — then stepped behind Ming Rihao, pointed at the impersonator, and began issuing orders with the ease of someone who has been looking forward to this.

“Take that idiot down. Pull his teeth out. Get my divine blood back — full bottle, not a drop missing.” He raised his voice further, addressing the room at large. “Dead Arbiter, take note: we no longer require mediation! Everyone — go! All of you! Turn that entire group of trash into water and flush them into the ocean—”

The Two-Faced King’s eyes tracked Xiao Wenli.

A quick calculation happened behind those eyes.

The Titan Young Lord has another card. And it may not be his last.