The moment Xiao Wenli appeared, the fake Fish Tide’s face went pale.

At his level of strength, all he could really do was bark at the Windstill national ruler and Blue Wolf — and only while he had a hostage in hand.

The truth was that even without Yue Yang summoning Xiao Wenli into the fight, he still wouldn’t have dared casually raise a hand against Yue Yang, “the Titan Young Lord of a great Upper Heavenly Realm family.” However powerful the Central Divine Hall was, it could not throw its weight around against Upper Realm nobility the way it could crush a lower-realm ant.

The golden-armored man impersonating the Revenge Domain Emperor lifted a hand.

He stopped the fake Fish Tide.

His bearing carried an unusual clarity — cold and measured. He said: “We have no need for more enemies. The Titan Young Lord is only a guest here.”

The moment he heard it, Yue Yang objected: “That’s not a guest. That’s a nemesis. You lot tried to assassinate me not that long ago. That’s a debt I still haven’t collected on.”

The golden shadow remained placid: “An unsuccessful assassination is not really an assassination.”

Yue Yang found himself, for once, in the classic bind of the scholar meeting the soldier — unable to reason with the man.

An assassination that failed doesn’t count as an assassination? Then what is it? A dinner party? He’d only escaped because he was capable enough to escape, not because the killers hadn’t intended murder. If they’d struck the killing blow, the “assassination” was very much on. And a failed one wasn’t grounds for revenge? What kind of horseshit reasoning was that? Now he understood — the Central Divine Hall’s way of doing business, their whole style, was fundamentally its own animal.

The golden shadow paused briefly, then made a decision: “If the Titan Young Lord is willing to withdraw, I can return that drop of divine blood to you.”

Yue Yang corrected him: “It was not a drop. It was a bottle. You stole a whole bottle of my divine blood.”

The room broke out in cold sweat.

The other side is prepared to hand you back one drop of divine blood — that in itself is quite something.

You want a whole bottle? What, is divine blood just tap water to you? Grab the drop of divine blood and get out of here — that is the correct move.

The golden shadow — the man who had impersonated the Revenge Domain Emperor — didn’t respond further. He simply turned and retreated back into his own ranks, as though he had already predicted Yue Yang’s answer.

Outside, Tianzhu, the Dragon Emperor, the Wild Bull Brothers, and Gray Wolf were still ganging up on the real Revenge Domain Emperor. More accurately, they had to: if any single one of them relaxed for a heartbeat, the Revenge Domain Emperor would catch that fractional opening and kill someone.

At the very back of the spatial corridor, energy ripples began to pulse.

Slowly, they formed a spatial doorway.

The base of that doorway was inlaid with celestial runes of every kind, glowing in gold and silver, dazzling and cryptic beyond words.

Was that the Star Realm Gate? Yue Yang’s whole attention snapped away from the fake Fish Tide and locked onto the door. Xiao Wenli, who had been about to strike, aborted her attack and returned to Yue Yang’s side, quietly guarding him. In the moment she returned to him, back over by the Storm Sea, several new shadows appeared — and somehow, these shadows had slipped past the Revenge Domain Emperor’s notice, crossed the Storm Sea, and were now sneaking their way into this fast-collapsing spatial corridor.

At their head — a tall, muscular, tribal-looking giant, powerfully built as a bull.

Fangs like daggers protruded past his lips.

His upper body was bare; his skin was the color of packed earth, and it was carved with strange, primitive totem-war tattoos. Around his waist he’d casually tied on a beast-hide skirt, held in place by a sinew belt threaded through copper rings — and hanging from those copper rings were several severed human heads, still fresh, eyes wide open with terror.

This bloodthirsty savage held a wolf-tooth club in his left hand and a chunk of raw, bloody meat — from what animal, no one could tell — in his right, chewing at it with vicious enthusiasm.

Just one look at that face and posture was enough to weaken the knees.

Right behind this ten-meter-tall wild-tribe hulk came a dwarf who barely broke half a meter tall.

The Dwarf wore staggeringly gaudy clothes.

On his head sat a hat that was at least half his own height.

Unlike the murderous savage in front of him, the Dwarf’s face was all smiles — he seemed in genuinely fine spirits.

Behind the Dwarf came a bald elder with a long white beard, wearing an expression as though every person in the world owed him money. Beyond that coffin-lid of a face and the snowy long beard, there wasn’t a great deal remarkable about the old man on the surface. But any Sky-rank in the room could see immediately that this white-bearded elder was, in fact, several times more powerful than either the savage or the Dwarf ahead of him. Compared to the first two — this corpse-faced old ghost was the truly terrifying one.

Behind the elder came a fat man, shuffling along.

Fat men were common enough.

But nobody in that hall had ever seen a fat man like this one… He’d essentially crossed the line from man into ball of flesh. Even his fingers were too fat to open. His eyes had been so thoroughly pushed shut by the rolls of his own face that they had become two thin slits — if you wanted actually to see his eyes, you were going to have to trim off ten or twenty catties of face with a knife first.

Fat as he was, though, the fat man did have feet.

He could still walk.

Watching him walk was tiring on his behalf.

Any human being setting eyes on this fat man could not help thinking the same thought: he’d get there much faster if he just rolled.

The distance wasn’t great, but the fat man took a solid ten minutes to grind his way from the corridor’s entrance over to the barely-breathing Lady Zhiguang. The moment he took in the pearl at her forehead, twin pinpricks of light squeezed themselves out of his eye-slits like needles: “Wah, wah — is that a Prayer Pearl? What a treasure! Little beauty, if you’d be willing to hand it over to me, I’ll do anything you like. Quickly, quickly, take it off — I want it. I love it — hand it over to me, quickly!”

“If I give it to you, will you spare my life?” Lady Zhiguang, gasping for breath, asked weakly.

“No, no — no way. If you won’t hand it over, I’ll just take it. Even if that’s a bit of trouble.” Between labored breaths, the fat man delivered his position with total conviction.

“That is my trophy — Fat Man, piss off!” Fish Tide flared with fury.

“You and I are brothers. What’s yours is mine. You’re busy, I’ll hold it for you.” The fat man was smiling shamelessly.

“What? We’re brothers, so what’s mine is yours? What about what’s yours, then?” Fish Tide swept the fat man’s grasping hand back from Lady Zhiguang’s forehead.

“Well, mine is mine, of course. Even brothers should keep their accounts clean!” The fat man hadn’t even finished the sentence before Fish Tide gave him a savage kick that sent him flying. Having kicked the fat man, Fish Tide bellowed toward the corridor’s entrance: “Idiot — you’re not joining us on this? The Star Realm Gate is about to open. If you want your slice, why haven’t you come in yet?”

“Can’t be bothered to crawl…” At the corridor entrance, sure enough, there was another figure — sprawled on the floor like a dead snake, dozing lazily, not stirring so much as a finger. That was the Lazy One.

Yue Yang was the most incurably curious member of the party, and before anyone realized what he was doing, the young lord was already outside.

He had a stick in his hand from somewhere.

He was poking. Poking the Lazy One who was lying so shamelessly on the ground. Left poke. Right poke. The Lazy One did not so much as twitch — for all appearances he was dead — until Yue Yang finally poked him in the backside with the stick, at which point the man lazily rolled over, mumbled dreamily, and said: “I’m not dead. I just can’t be bothered to move.”

The whole party broke out in cold sweat.

Lazy to that degree really was not easy…

Curiosity and nerve at Titan Young Lord level — even harder!

Zhongguan and the escort quickly retrieved Yue Yang. With the Windstill national ruler essentially crippled by grief over Lady Zhiguang and Blue Wolf carrying non-trivial injuries, Zhongguan’s small team alone was insufficient — it now required Luoluo and Wanjiao working together with them to keep the Titan Young Lord safe. And, most importantly of course, there was one snake-demon loli in play. Without her, the party might as well have surrendered — going toe-to-toe with this many enemies was simply not possible.

Ming Rihao continued to play dead.

Blue Wolf, though — his face was fully serious now. He was starting to recognize these arrivals.

If only one or two of these figures had come, Blue Wolf might not have made the identification. But so many of them, presenting themselves this vividly at once, he had to be blind not to place them.

Once Yue Yang was back, Blue Wolf whispered his introduction: “Titan Young Lord — these people are, in fact, the Eight Generals under the Solar King. That fake Fish Tide should be the one known for betrayal and treachery — the Hanged Man. He specializes in impersonating other people, and his misdirection is extreme. In the fights ahead, he may take on other identities. So — for a while now, unless you can recognize your own people at a glance and be certain, do not lightly trust anyone in this space. Any of them could be the Hanged Man in disguise.”

“And the fake Revenge Domain Emperor?” Yue Yang had already reasoned out three strongest ones among this bunch — and the Hanged Man was not in the top three. Only the fake Revenge Domain Emperor, the white-bearded elder, and the Lazy One out at the door were in the top three.

“He should be one of the Eight — the Poet.” Luoluo estimated.

“If the Hanged Man represents betrayal and treachery, then the Poet represents knowledge and reason. That savage stands for bloodlust and madness. The Dwarf stands for miserliness and wealth — the former is a cannibal, viciously cruel; the latter is a stingy little thing who specializes in stealing his enemies’ treasures and gold. He never comes away from an engagement empty-handed. The Fat Man stands for greed and plunder — he doesn’t let any advantage pass him by. As for the white-bearded elder — he stands for stubbornness and orthodoxy, and he’s one of the two most powerful of the Eight Generals… Aside from the white-bearded one, the other strongest is the fellow at the door who can’t be bothered to move. Outwardly he represents stupidity and sloth, but he is in fact the classic ‘great wisdom masquerading as fool’ type — his strength is unfathomable.” Wanjiao, hoping to curry favor with Yue Yang, ran through the roster fast.

“The Eight Generals under the Solar King?” Yue Yang deliberately counted on his fingers, and feigned surprise: “Isn’t there supposed to be one more? Could it be…”

He glanced pointedly at the scythe-wielding Two-Faced King.

Blue Wolf lowered his voice further and shot a lightning-fast look at the Two-Faced King: “The eighth is said to be a man called the Jester, who stands for evil and conspiracy. He’s the most mysterious of them all — no one has ever seen the Jester’s true face… Perhaps the answer is right in front of us. Who knows?”

Blue Wolf’s insinuation was that the Two-Faced King was the legendary Jester.

But Yue Yang knew.

The Two-Faced King was the Two-Faced King. The Jester was the Jester.

Seven of the Eight Generals under the Solar King were now present. Where was the Jester? Because of Yue Yang’s own presence? If the Jester wasn’t appearing, what conspiracy was he running in the shadows instead? And on top of that, there were three other Kings on par with the Two-Faced King. And the Solar King himself — so terrifying that even Ming Rihao was going out of his way to play the coward. Where were they?

Yue Yang had a hunch: nearly all the enemy pieces were now on the board. Which meant that next up should be the full unveiling of the entire scheme.

(End of Chapter 961)