The Divine Codex space.

None of the Windstill national ruler’s group had ever set foot in the Divine Codex before.

Passing through the Divine Wish ancient rune formation, they arrived in a world that defied easy description. A golden dome arched overhead like the vault of heaven itself, stretching so far in every direction that its far edge was barely visible. Everywhere they looked, gardens spread in lush profusion — fragrant, vivid, the air thick with the sweetness of flowers. By the scale of that distant golden boundary, this space was at least a hundred kilometers across.

Within that vast expanse were many smaller spaces.

Each one enclosed in its own smaller golden shell.

Some sat ahead at ground level. Some hung suspended in the air. Some were arranged in clusters — a great spherical shell at the center with several smaller spheres in slow revolution around it, all of it moving according to Laws of almost incomprehensible intricacy.

Even the smallest of these enclosed spaces was a full square kilometer. The largest ran to dozens.

Through the semi-transparent golden walls, each inner space was clearly its own world — alive, vibrant, brimming with distinct energy.

But what drew every eye, when they looked toward the center, was the palace.

Gold. Towering. It rose so high that trying to find the top of it was like trying to find the top of a mountain with your eyes. No one in the group could have imagined a building constructed on this scale. The celestial realm was not without talented architects. National rulers, domain lords, city masters — none of them lacked ambition or competitive pride in their construction. But the Windstill national ruler could say with certainty that this palace could not be completed in a single lifetime, no matter how much time or effort or resource went into it.

The ruler’s palace in Greenvalley City reached a thousand meters at its highest point.

Against this golden palace, that was a flea measured against a mammoth.

“I rather think the Central Divine Hall on Holy Radiance Mountain wouldn’t compare to it,” the Windstill national ruler said, almost to himself. He had never been to Holy Radiance Mountain. Had never seen the Central Divine Hall with his own eyes. He knew it only from legends and from pictures. He had assumed it was the grandest structure in existence.

He had not expected to feel small inside a nameless space attached to a lost divine artifact.

Only something like this could be a fitting dwelling for a god. The Windstill national ruler had never laid eyes on a divine being, but looking at this palace, the distance between himself and that tier collapsed into immediate, visceral clarity. It wasn’t just large. It was a different category of thing entirely.

Flea and mammoth? Maybe that wasn’t even the right scale.

What were ants, before a god? He supposed that was precisely what he was, standing here.

“If I could be the master of this palace for even a single day,” Blue Wolf said softly, “I could die content.” He paused. “Though honestly — just being here, just seeing this — I think I already could.”

“Do we move toward the palace, or try one of the smaller spaces first?” Luoluo had been studying the situation. Every shell in this space — the large outer dome and all the smaller ones within — was inscribed with ancient rune formations. Law-force moved through those formations constantly. The golden palace itself had a shell around it too.

He doubted any of them could simply walk in.

One of the smaller spaces might be more accessible.

And his greater worry was the Solar King. He had entered the Divine Codex — that much was certain. If he’d moved directly for the golden palace, walking toward it now was walking toward him, and without Yue Yang, there wasn’t a soul in this group who could survive that encounter.

The Windstill national ruler looked at Lady Zhiguang.

Whatever she wanted, that was his answer. He had no particular ambition here. He wasn’t going to possess this Divine Codex. No ordinary Sky-rank warrior would ever be acknowledged by something like this — he had enough self-knowledge to accept that plainly. After everything he’d lived through, the Windstill national ruler had lost his appetite for conquest. What was left to fight for? Even a lifetime of striving wouldn’t lift him above the Solar King’s sight. He couldn’t beat one of the Eight Generals, let alone any of the Four Kings.

If he set down the ambition to rule the world and instead spent his years wandering beautiful places with the woman he loved — wasn’t that its own kind of having everything?

Lady Zhiguang turned to him and smiled. Still pale, still recovering, her face not quite at full strength — but that face, even like this, sent a tremor through him that nothing else could.

This woman he wanted to hold close and cherish for the rest of his life. Why had heaven taken so long to bring her to him?

“I just want to walk a little closer to the golden palace and look,” she said, with the particular warmth she saved for requests. “Not inside. Just to see it. Is that all right?”

The Windstill national ruler nodded without hesitation. He would have taken her if the Solar King were standing directly in front of them. From the day he’d met her, she had almost never asked for anything. Could he really not manage to bring her close enough to look at a palace?

“Let’s go,” he decided.

“We’re coming too,” Luoluo said. No more deliberation.

“Whether we can actually get in — forget it, looking is enough! Ha!” Blue Wolf laughed — genuinely, wildly — laughed so hard he aggravated his wounds and coughed up a mouthful of dark blood.

The blood hit the immaculate ground.

And then didn’t.

It simply ceased to exist before landing — absorbed, dissolved, gone in an instant. The flowers it had already touched trembled faintly, as though an invisible hand were wiping them clean with a soft cloth, and within a moment there was no trace at all. Clean as it had always been.

That was when the group understood. The reason nothing here was dirty. An ever-present force of Law maintained it without pause or exception.

Lady Zhiguang reached out toward a bloom and began to close her fingers around it.

The Windstill national ruler suspected this might trigger something — some response from the Law that governed this space — but he couldn’t bring himself to stop her.

Blue Wolf and Luoluo made a point of looking elsewhere. Whatever happened to someone else’s woman was not their concern. Several other Sky-rank warriors in the group exchanged less charitable glances. Your woman wants to pick flowers; if that brings danger down on all of us, the least you could do is say something.

“Don’t.”

A voice, from nowhere, spoke in all their ears at once.

The Windstill national ruler listened hard. It wasn’t Ming Rihao. It wasn’t Yue Yang. It wasn’t the Freedom Queen — the voice was male. Anyone who had entered the Divine Codex other than Ming Rihao and Yue Yang was almost certainly an enemy. Almost certainly, not a friend.

Everyone spun around.

The space behind them was empty.

Blue Wolf reacted fastest — looked up. Fifty or sixty meters above, a tall, thin man in a top hat and a coat of bizarre multicolored patchwork was drifting slowly downward through the air.

He wore a silver mask. It was shaped into a face caught exactly between weeping and laughing.

In his left hand, he twirled a short, gleaming baton — spinning it idly, casually, without looking at it. In his right hand, he kept three colored balls in a continuous juggling arc. He looked less like a warrior and more like the kind of performer hired to entertain guests at a banquet.

Blue Wolf’s expression shifted the moment he saw the figure clearly. The name came out of him before he’d decided to say it: “The Jester. You’re the Jester — first among the Solar King’s Eight Generals.”

The silver-masked figure’s half-weeping, half-laughing face turned toward Blue Wolf. The baton kept spinning. The balls kept moving. “Sharp. Unfortunately, sharp people tend not to live very long.” A brief pause. “Before I send you all on your way, I find myself quite curious about one thing. You knew the Solar King had entered the Divine Codex space. Why did you come in anyway? Are you tired of living? Did life stop being interesting?”

Blue Wolf reached out with his senses. No one else in the vicinity. The Eight Generals weren’t here. Neither were the Four Kings.

They were all outside. Fighting Yue Yang.

Something steadied in him. “You alone? Jester — you may be first among the Eight Generals in the Solar King’s organization, but that’s for your mind, not your power. Sky-rank tier four at the peak, and you think you can come at us? Before the Solar King arrives, I could take you down in ten minutes. Don’t imagine that being a Sun God Palace warrior means you can posture at me. Blue Wolf has died before and come back. I stopped fearing death a long time ago. Sometimes a man does something brave, and this might be one of those times.”

“If you were Yue Yang, I’d find that speech perfectly reasonable,” the Jester said, with a strange, quiet laugh. “Blue Wolf. Think for a moment. You’re a national ruler. You’re injured. And you think those words apply to you?” He paused, and something shifted beneath the half-mourning, half-mocking mask. “I’m tier four, yes. Pitifully weak. Come up here and kill me if you want.”

“You —” Blue Wolf’s anger surged. He’d died and been resurrected — what was there left to be afraid of? Get one kill and you’re already ahead.

“Wait.” Luoluo caught his arm. “He came here prepared for this. Don’t.”

“Of course I’m prepared.” The Jester’s baton stopped mid-spin, and he gestured casually around at the space surrounding them. “Accurately speaking — I have nothing to fear. Now. For those of you who aren’t blind — you can all see that this Divine Codex space is alive and vibrant, flowers and greenery and fragrant air. Does anything seem to be missing?”

A pause.

“Missing —” The Windstill national ruler felt the thought arrive like a cold hand on the back of his neck. His voice came out wrong. “Animals. There are no animals. No birds. No creatures of any kind.”

He reached for his Grimoire.

It didn’t open.

In the same instant, the entire group understood.

The Law that governed this space prohibited the summoning of Grimoires.

No Grimoire meant no war beasts. And — worst of all — no innate talents. Without beasts and without talents, every warrior here was a fraction of what they should be. Already wounded, already worn, stripped of their core abilities — taking down an uninjured Jester at full Sky-rank tier four peak was suddenly, genuinely, not simple.

The Jester’s laugh was cold. “I’ve been planning for this for a long time. I’ll tell you freely: there is no rescue coming. And even if Yue Yang Titan somehow found the time to come here personally — you would still be dead.”