With the Conquest Queen’s divine might behind him, Yue Yang no longer had to worry about what to do with the Silent King.
In a straight fight, Yue Yang could have beaten him — eventually, and almost certainly. The problem was the cost. No matter how perfectly he played it, a full clash with the Silent King would have left him too spent to face the Solar King afterward. So instead, Yue Yang had spent considerable effort constructing a scheme built around misdirection layered on misdirection.
First, the Reality of Illusion — inverting heaven and earth, hanging the stars upside down — to deceive the enemy and steer the Silent King’s entire group from the Storm Sea into the Sky Stairway.
Then, while they were disoriented, the Illusion of Reality — quietly sliding the primary target, the Silent King himself, into the ice world inside the Black Void sealed space, without anyone noticing until it was already done.
Once the Conquest Queen appeared, even someone at the Silent King’s level found his nerve simply evaporating. There was nothing to compare between them — even at less than full strength, Vivienne was so far beyond the Silent King that an actual fight wasn’t a consideration. Self-detonation wasn’t even available as an option.
One move. That was all it took for the unparalleled Conquest Queen to take him down.
Inside the Black Void sealed space, inside Vivienne’s ice world, the Solar King himself would fare badly — it was a domain so absolutely hostile to outside power that it was comparable to Yue Yang walking alone into the Central Divine Hall and letting Ji Wuri, the Solar King, and Grand Hall Master Dongfang surround him at once. Worse, arguably, because the seal itself did the work. Even if Vivienne ignored the Silent King entirely, he would never get out. Even if he avoided the ice world and stayed in the Black Void space, the seal would consume him in time. There was no exit.
When the Silent King’s ice-encased form was split cleanly in two by the Wheel of Apocalypse — and his frozen soul was first burned by the Nirvana Flames, given the full experience of ice and fire working together, then sealed under Yue Yang’s sovereign intent and Creation Domain, and locked into the Demon-Suppressing Tower — the Lion King and Golden Crown King dropped to their knees.
There was no other rational choice. This ice-and-fire combination wasn’t something anyone could endure. Not them. Not the Solar King, if he’d been standing there instead. With the Conquest Queen on one side, Yue Yang’s Wheel of Apocalypse and Nirvana Flames on the other, and the inescapable Black Void seal closing off every exit — what was there to hold out for?
“I won’t make things difficult for you…” Yue Yang said, and no one believed him, but their lives were in his hands, so they had no grounds for argument.
“Get in.” Vivienne’s voice was flat. The Lion King and Golden Crown King flinched as one, and walked themselves into the interior space of the Demon-Suppressing Tower.
When they’d be let out was a matter of Yue Yang’s mood.
But however long they sat in the dark, it beat dying. They were still alive. And more than death, what the Lion King and Golden Crown King had truly feared was something worse — suspended between life and death. Under Vivienne’s absolute cold and Yue Yang’s Nirvana Flames working in combination, not even an immortal body, an indestructible divine nature, or an unshakeable divine mind could hold out indefinitely.
To avoid that particular torment, the Lion King and Golden Crown King made the same choice countless Central Divine Hall veterans had made before them, in other encounters with the Conquest Queen.
Surrender with dignity rather than resist with stupidity.
If you don’t have to die, who actually wants the posthumous bravery commendation?
“Little one.” The Conquest Queen’s manner toward enemies was the same it had always been — absolute, instant, annihilating. Toward Yue Yang, it was something else entirely: warm, amused, openly pleased. “Are you certain you don’t want my help against the Solar King?”
“Taking down the Silent King just now cost you a significant amount of energy, and you’ve been working so hard to recover even a little of it.” Yue Yang knew exactly how difficult it was to restore power inside the Black Void sealed space — and Vivienne was also building an entire ice world at the same time. If she burned what she had left fighting the Solar King, her path out would be pushed back by years. “Leave the Solar King to me. You’ve done enough.”
That was the practical argument. There was also the fact that the Solar King was sharp-minded and meticulous to a degree the Silent King wasn’t — a quasi-divine level fighter who couldn’t be lured the way the Silent King had been. The Silent King had only been deceived because Yue Yang had first confused him by pulling the group from the Storm Sea to the Sky Stairway, rattling his composure before the real trap was sprung. Even then, it had been close. The Solar King was essentially impossible to trick into the Black Void space under normal conditions, and for Vivienne to break out of her seal to face him openly would mean abandoning the ice world she’d spent so long building. Yue Yang was not willing to let that happen.
There was also, somewhere underneath all of this, a small stubborn point of masculine pride that the strongest enemy should be faced by him personally.
Vivienne understood all of it without needing it explained. She gave him a look — part reproach, part fondness.
He grinned and scratched the back of his head.
Vivienne’s expression settled, and she returned to the matter at hand with full seriousness: “As your power stands right now, defeating the Solar King is near-impossible. Even if you give everything you have, I’d estimate one chance in ten.”
Yue Yang didn’t dispute the estimate. Honestly, one in ten was better than his own guess. He’d been thinking more like one in a hundred.
“The Solar King is extraordinarily powerful compared to you at this stage. But not completely unbeatable. In terms of raw ability, he and Ji Wuri are roughly matched — except the Solar King has one weakness Ji Wuri doesn’t.” Vivienne smiled. “If you can identify that weakness and exploit it, you have a chance. You’ve already done something right — going to all that trouble to open the Divine Codex passage and send him in there. Yes, his weakness amplifies significantly inside the Divine Codex space. You moved well. But even so — the Solar King remains extraordinarily dangerous. You’ll need to be careful.”
“I didn’t actually see the weakness,” Yue Yang admitted, genuinely curious. “I just thought I’d have better odds in there than he would.”
“If he weren’t greedy,” Vivienne said, “you could make all the progress in the world and still never touch him.”
“So. What do I do now?”
“Let me spank you first — as punishment for waking me from such a perfectly pleasant dream — and then I’ll think about whether to tell you.” She raised one white-jade arm.
“I’ll trade you a kiss instead.” Yue Yang’s talent for shamelessness operated at a grandmaster level. He snatched her slender hand before she could do anything with it and pressed his lips to her fingertips — one crisp, bright kiss that landed before she’d processed what was happening. The unexpected ambush sent a small tremor through the Empress’s hand and she pulled it back immediately, tucking it safely away, not daring to extend it again in case this scoundrel decided to work his way up.
“All right, stop playing around, go take care of your business.” Vivienne gave him a look — equal parts exasperation and warmth — those luminous eyes saying everything words didn’t need to.
A moment like this needed no words.
Yue Yang couldn’t help himself. He pulled her close and kissed her — properly, on those tempting lips — and held it.
Xiao Wenli covered her face with both small hands, faintly pink. Her fingers, however, parted just slightly, to allow a gap through which she observed her father and mother’s moment of tenderness with carefully concealed curiosity.
When Yue Yang stepped out of the Black Void sealed space, he was still a little dazed — not quite recovered from the sweetness of the Empress’s embrace. Xiao Wenli climbed onto his back, tiny hands reaching up to grab his head, puckering her small pink lips with clear expectation: she wanted a kiss too.
Yue Yang obliged without reservation, pressing several loud smacking kisses to her forehead.
Under normal circumstances, this would have delighted her completely.
Today, she was unsatisfied.
She refused to get down.
Because what she wanted was a kiss on the lips — like the one he’d given her mother — not the forehead.
“If you’re going to be difficult, somebody’s getting a spanked bottom,” Yue Yang muttered, glancing around with the mild guilty air of a person doing something he probably shouldn’t. The coast was clear. He gathered the small creature close and pressed one gentle kiss to those soft little lips — light, almost careful, as though too much pressure might break something precious.
“Heh!” Xiao Wenli lit up immediately — thoroughly, completely satisfied. She laughed so hard her small nose crinkled, the picture of pure adorableness, the kind of creature capable of disarming an entire battlefield with a single expression.
“Don’t tell anyone,” Yue Yang added, very specifically.
“Mm-mm!” She nodded vigorously. This little willing accomplice — who knew how many of Yue Yang’s small crimes she’d been cheerfully covering up for.
The blood altar.
By the time Yue Yang returned, four young women had gathered there.
From left to right: Aman, Hong, and Ika — and sprinting toward him at full speed to launch herself directly into his arms, the Gold-Crowned Thorn Queen, Duoduo. In preparation for the coming battle with the Solar King, Yue Yang had called all his war beasts to him. He couldn’t afford to underestimate anything.
They hadn’t been in training all that long. But because they had accompanied Yue Yang as he glimpsed the divine realm — that vantage point clearing every bottleneck above — their cultivation on the Sky Stairway’s World Tree had accelerated beyond any normal measure.
A single day apart could leave you needing to look twice.
Half a year of focused co-cultivation among them had produced results that were something else entirely.
Yue Yang welcomed them back one by one, holding each of them, offering recognition and warmth.
“Where’s Jiang Ying? And the Dragon Sisters?” He was gently smoothing the top of Ika’s head as he asked. In non-combat mode, Ika looked exactly like Yue Bing — she could also shift into the shape of young Yue Shuang, but seemed to prefer Yue Bing’s form, perhaps because it matched how she learned.
“They haven’t come down yet. Maybe another ten minutes.” Hong had become the group’s de facto older sister since she and Yue Yang had grown closest — she handled the practical details.
“Then we’ll go check on Bingbing and the others first.” Yue Yang was worried about collateral from his battle with the Solar King — the destructive scale of it made bringing Yue Bing’s group anywhere nearby unthinkable — but before the final confrontation, at least stopping to reassure them seemed right.
Five hundred kilometers to the northwest, Fengxian was in a full temper.
“The absolute nerve of him — not bringing us to fight the Solar King is one thing, but he can’t even come and see us?! Just wait until he gets back. I am absolutely ignoring him for a week!”
Divine Calamity and the Southern Wilderness Demon King were privately laughing their heads off at this. The Heaven Devil Hall crowd, along with the Eastern Demon Clan members and the Demon Abyss fiend lords, were all practicing their most earnest expressions of complete deafness. Divine Punishment was already in a temper, and getting on her bad side was genuinely worse than getting on Yue Yang’s. When she went off, even Lord Tianzhu preferred to be somewhere else.
Inside the surrounding perimeter, one of the Eight Generals had already gone down — the White-Bearded Elder, critically wounded. He’d had the particular misfortune of wandering directly into Divine Punishment’s line of fire.
Ten thousand Heaven-Judgment Bolts — each carrying full Law force.
All of them landing on the White-Bearded Elder’s head at once.
That kind of lightning strike would turn not just any of the Eight Generals but the Lion King himself into a charred, sparking, smoking ruin.
The Dwarf and the Fat Man were clinging to each other in the corner, teeth chattering, shaking as a unit.
Because they had just come to the realization that this entire assembled force — human cultivators, Demon Abyss fiends, Eastern Demon Clan members, dozens upon dozens of them — combined, didn’t add up to half as frightening as this one angry woman. Could this be her? The one named in the Jester’s intelligence as Sky Tower’s single most powerful person — the Supreme?