The Divine Codex space.

The Windstill national ruler, Blue Wolf, Luoluo, and every Sky-rank warrior in the group lay on the ground.

Collectively, they far outclassed the Jester — a single national ruler, on a normal day, could have beaten him to the floor without breaking a sweat. But with one casual shockwave, the Jester had put them all down. Like a hurricane flattening a small grove of trees — every last one of these Sky-rank warriors collapsed as though their legs had been cut out from under them, completely stripped of fighting ability. The three national rulers — Windstill, Blue Wolf, Luoluo, the strongest among them — were no more capable of resistance than the weaker fighters beside them. Some couldn’t move a finger.

If a single phrase captured their situation, it was this: waiting to be slaughtered.

“How —” Blue Wolf couldn’t make sense of it.

“Impossible.” Luoluo’s face was blank with disbelief.

The Windstill national ruler said nothing. He had spent his last fragment of strength, before he went down, making sure Lady Zhiguang was cushioned in his arms — unwilling to let her hit the ground.

“It’s quite simple,” the Jester said, raising one long index finger. His laugh was a low, unpleasant thing. “You’ve all been carrying a curse. Actually, the entire plan was mine from the beginning — the ambush at the banquet, the suicide bomber’s curse, its activation in the Storm Sea. All of it was my design.”

“Our wounds in the Storm Sea — the blood was activating the curse?” The Windstill national ruler saw it now. He understood, finally, why the Two-Faced King and the Eight Generals had left them alive rather than finishing them then.

He had thought that was luck.

It was a trap.

The Jester had not only calculated the curse — he had calculated that the survivors, out of sheer curiosity, would press forward and enter the Divine Codex.

“Correct.” The Jester gave a small, odd shrug. “Killing you too early would have been inconvenient. Someone at my power level can’t simply force open the golden palace’s shell. For the plan to reach its full conclusion, I needed to let you come here and die here — your blood as the sacrifice to open a temporary breach in the shield, long enough to enter the golden hall.”

“Why us?” Blue Wolf’s voice was raw. “We’ve done nothing to you. You have a grievance with the Windstill national ruler — that I can understand. But why us?”

“Do you remember the Ginkgo Valley Massacre?” The Jester’s voice changed. Something cold and ancient poured into it, the accumulated poison of years. He kept it controlled, barely, his voice going tight and flat. “Fifteen hundred souls. Men, women, children, elderly — not one spared. You, Luoluo, and Wanjiao led that.”

“You were the child with no legs.” Blue Wolf stared at him as though he had seen something that shouldn’t exist. That child had had no legs. Both of them gone.

“You really are the last survivor —” Luoluo’s face drained.

“We burned you.” Another Sky-rank warrior’s voice cracked with shock.

“Impossible!” Nearly everyone present had been at Ginkgo Valley that day. The word revenge landed on all of them like a stone dropping into still water, and every face went grey.

“Yes. I am the one you couldn’t kill even after half a day in the fire.” The Jester’s voice was colder than anything in this pristine space. “Did you think what I said then was just words? Every moment of every year since that day, I have been planning for this. You think the invitation to the Windstill national ruler’s banquet was a coincidence? I arranged every piece of it. I calculated your greed exactly. Even without Yue Yang’s involvement, without the divine blood as bait — you would have fallen for it regardless.”

“Ginkgo Valley’s reckoning,” Blue Wolf said quietly, something moving through his expression. “That was the one act I’ve never stopped feeling guilty for. At the time — a close friend had just been killed, and the bloodshed had pushed me past the point where I could think clearly. What happened in Ginkgo Valley — I have regretted it ever since.”

“Regret?” The Jester laughed, and it was a terrible sound. “You participated in the assault and killing of the Ginkgo Queen, and you stand there saying the word regret? Ha!“

“What was done to her —” Blue Wolf’s voice had gone hollow. “That is the one thing I cannot forgive myself for. She said she forgave me, before the end. But I never forgave myself. If you’re here for her — then take my life. I owe you that much.”

Blue Wolf’s hand — trembling — shifted into a wolf’s claw. He set his jaw. Reached into his own chest. Tore his heart free.

Held it out toward the Jester, bleeding, still faintly beating.

The Jester spat. Didn’t even look at it. One long leg swung down with contempt and crushed the offered heart underfoot.

Blood splashed across the immaculate ground.

He didn’t stop there. With his baton as a conduit, the Jester drew every drop of Blue Wolf’s blood upward — pulling it from the dying body, condensing it into a sphere that hung suspended before him, set aside for the blood sacrifice to come.

Blue Wolf, nearly emptied, face the color of ash, moved his lips one last time. “I’m sorry. Even though you forgave me — I never became a better person. I could never forget your smile. Or your tears. Or the way you forgave me even then. But I was always a coward. In the Tianhua Domain, surrounded on all sides by cruelty, I could never find the courage to simply be good. All I ever knew how to do was hide my fear behind something uglier. All these years — my lady — I never forgot. I’m sorry —”

His pupils spread wide and went still.

At the very corner of his eye, a single tear formed and fell. It landed in the blood beneath him.

Luoluo saw Blue Wolf’s self-inflicted death and lost his nerve entirely. He threw everything he had into one desperate leap, bolted into the air, ran without any direction in mind.

The Jester drifted after him, unhurried. One hand shot out at lightning speed — five fingers punching through Luoluo’s back, driving forward through his chest and out the other side, closing around something.

A heart, slick with blood.

Crack.

As the arm withdrew, the Jester closed his fist. Luoluo tumbled forward through the air, a long arc of blood tracing behind him — a crimson rainbow stretching across the space. The Jester pulled it back with his baton, condensed it into a second sphere.

Luoluo’s body, drained of everything, dropped like a cut kite and hit the ground.

Blue Wolf, who had died in confession, still had some trace of will remaining — his body dissolved gradually, slowly, as though the space were honoring the process. Luoluo, who had died running, was cleared away almost immediately by the Law-force inside the Divine Codex, broken to powder, gone.

The Jester made a sound of contempt.

He walked to Blue Wolf’s remains and brought one foot down hard on the skull. It shattered.

The body crumbled and vanished.

But something remained beneath his foot. A small crystalline form, shaped like a demon crystal — dense with the accumulated weight of Blue Wolf’s final regret, every confession pressed into matter. A heart of repentance, the kind no one would ever know to look for.

The Jester moved quickly through the remaining Sky-rank warriors — killing them, drawing their blood into more spheres of varying sizes, until only the Windstill national ruler and Lady Zhiguang remained.

The Windstill national ruler lay with her cradled against him, knowing what was coming. He hadn’t been at Ginkgo Valley — but this was the Jester, and the Jester was not known for fine distinctions. Still, he looked down at her face one long moment, committing it to memory, before he raised his eyes.

“Jester. I know what you want.”

The Jester smiled his half-weeping mask of a smile. “Oh? Tell me.”

“You didn’t kill me first because you want to take your time. You want the Star Realm Stone fragment.” A slow exhale. “Without it, you can’t open the golden palace. And if you can’t get inside the golden palace, your mood suffers. And when your mood suffers, you tend to find a woman to take it out on.” He held Lady Zhiguang a little closer. “You know how I feel about her. So.”

The Jester raised a thumb in mock approval. “Intelligent people really are different. Fine. If you’d rather not watch me violate your beloved in front of you, then hand over the fragment. It’s simple enough.”

“Swear on the name of the Ginkgo Queen,” the Windstill national ruler said. His voice had gone very level. “Swear you won’t harm Zhiguang. Swear that once I give you the fragment, you release her immediately and let her go. If you agree to that — I’ll give it to you. If you don’t — I’ll die like Blue Wolf did, and the fragment disappears with me.”

He had thought through his options. He had found one thread of hope inside the Jester’s plan.

He gave that thread entirely to her.

The Jester swore without hesitation. Not a hair on Lady Zhiguang’s head would be harmed. The moment the fragment was in his possession, she would walk free.

The Windstill national ruler looked down at her. One last moment. Unwilling to spare even a second of it. Lady Zhiguang began to weep. He wiped the tears from her face with a gentle hand, and he smiled — careful, warm, unhurried.

“My darling. The road ahead — you’ll have to walk it alone. But you’re clever. As long as you’re careful, I think you’ll be all right. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Be brave. Live well.” He cupped her face and pressed one long, deep kiss to her forehead, eyes closed, his whole self poured into it.

The Jester watched from the side with cold amusement.

“You must keep your oath,” the Windstill national ruler said, releasing her at last, wiping her tears one more time, his expression suddenly very serious as he fixed his eyes on the Jester. “Otherwise, the Ginkgo Queen herself will curse you.”

“Rest easy.” The Jester arranged his face into something resembling gravity. “I would let nothing soil the Ginkgo Queen’s name. The oath stands.”

“Good.” The Windstill national ruler produced a crystal.

It was unlike the Star Realm Stone fragments on the gate outside. Those had been fragments — pieces, shards. This was something else entirely: crystalline to the core, luminous, radiating energy at a level hundreds, perhaps thousands of times greater than any of the ordinary fragments. The others had been splinters of the stone. This was the heart of it.

He held it out to the Jester.

The Jester swept the space once, twice, three times with his senses — watching for an ambush. Only when he was completely certain they were alone did he dart forward and seize the Star Realm Stone’s core, securing it in his storage ring.

As his hand came back, his foot swung forward in the same motion — a single strike that drove straight through the Windstill national ruler’s chest from the outside in, detonating his heart completely.

The Windstill national ruler’s face held something that looked almost like recognition. A ruined smile. “Even my most hidden weakness — you knew it. I can’t say I lost unfairly.”

He twisted his head back toward her, forcing his face into something gentle. “My darling. Go. I — I can’t protect you anymore.”

The Jester laughed until tears streaked his face.

“Perhaps that’s a little cruel,” he said. “But I really must tell you one true thing before you go. Otherwise you’d die with that magnificent self-congratulating glow of a man who gave his life to protect the woman he loved, and I really can’t allow that.” He turned to the Windstill national ruler with genuine delight. “Windstill — you are the greatest fool in the world. Lady Zhiguang. Do you understand what she is? Your weakness — who do you think told me about it? Her. The entire plan — who do you think it was designed for? Her. Entering the golden palace — who do you think that was arranged for? Her. You thought you were being magnificent. You were a toy in someone else’s hand the entire time. Calling you a fool is actually generous. You’re something much simpler than a fool. You’re the world’s most complete idiot.”

The Windstill national ruler’s body hit the ground.

His eyes, still open, found Lady Zhiguang — who had wiped her face dry and was rising calmly to her feet.

“Your Majesty.” Her voice was as soft as it had always been. As beautiful. “I am genuinely grateful for the affection you showed me. As you walk your final road, I will stay with you until the end.”

The Jester, who had shown no emotion toward anything else, instinctively stepped back at the sight of her standing. He put distance between himself and her, carefully.

“I —” The Windstill national ruler found he had no words. He closed his eyes. He could not bear to look at her.

“Your Majesty, Zhiguang has one small question, if you would answer it.” She leaned over him — that flawless face close to his, her voice as light as a spring breeze. “Your Majesty has not known Yue Yang Titan long, but he is a man of rare perception, and he clearly valued you. You are also a man of deep loyalty — the kind of person Tianzhu and people like him genuinely respect. A man of Yue Yang’s intelligence and ability — he would have no reason to simply watch you die. Your Majesty — in these last few moments — I ask you to tell me honestly, as you always have: is Yue Yang Titan somewhere behind us right now? Is he waiting for us to open the golden palace? Please. If you don’t want everything I’ve done to serve someone else’s gain, tell me the truth.”

“I don’t know.” A long, quiet breath. Blood welled from his lips. With what little strength remained, he said: “Even though you betrayed me — I still love you the same. Zhiguang — if I see Yue Yang, I will ask him to spare you.”

“Thank you.” Lady Zhiguang seemed genuinely moved. She dabbed at her eye. Her voice caught, very slightly. “Your Majesty.”

She paused.

“You may die now.”