Sky Beast and Burrowing Demon Worm

Several guards accompanied the high priest of the Yinsai Temple. Prince Weishi, meanwhile, had more than a dozen subordinates drawn up and waiting.

Market guards poured out to aid the temple's high priest. A passing patrol, however, sided with Prince Weishi and raised their weapons against the priest of the Yinsai Temple.

Chaos gave way to slaughter.

The two sides fought through the market until blood ran like a river.

Both senior priests unleashed their full strength, wreaking appalling destruction.

Their power swept down the street like a whirlwind. Anything could become a weapon in their grasp, whether stone or something else entirely. Even a basin of water could be made to kill.

In the blink of an eye, more than twenty corpses littered the ground.

Terrified by the sight, Stan collapsed and scrambled backward. He curled into a corner with both arms wrapped around his head, still clutching the bone tablet tight.

Never could he have imagined that picking up a plain, unremarkable bone tablet on the road would drag him into such horror.

The high priest of the Yinsai Temple yielded not an inch. The longer he fought, the fiercer he became.

His voice rang down the entire street.

"Prince Weishi, you stand in the God-Descended City, seat of the Xilong family. This is not your Hosen family's Volcano Kingdom."

"Was it you who ordered the Tito family slaughtered? What drove you to commit so unforgivable a crime?"

"What was it? What could move a noble prince to raise the butcher's blade against the great poet's descendants?"

"Will you answer me, Your Highness?"

Prince Weishi said nothing. He neither wished to explain himself nor spare the man any attention.

All he wanted now was to take back the Final Chapter that belonged to him.

At that moment, a large force of regular troops rushed into the market with weapons in hand.

At the sight of them, the prince of the Volcano Kingdom withdrew. This was plainly no retreat in defeat. He was giving ground only until he could muster greater strength.

When the regular troops moved to give chase, the high priest of the Yinsai Temple stopped them.

"We cannot stop him."

"There is something more important now."

The high priest of the Yinsai Temple and his soldiers shielded the bewildered Stan, then hurried away along the main road.

As they went, the high priest used the mind-reading power of his wisdom ability to draw everything he wanted to know from Stan's consciousness.

In the administrative residence beside the Yesael Palace, the city lord waited in tormented impatience until the priest finally appeared before him.

"We have found it!"

"You truly found it?"

"How?"

After hearing the entire account, the lord of the God-Descended City gazed in delighted astonishment at the young craftsman and the bone tablet in his hands.

"You are of the Tito family?"

Stan nodded, not daring to utter another word.

The city lord stared at the bone tablet Stan held in both hands, his eyes almost glowing. He reached out to touch it, only to snatch his fingers back an instant before contact.

He understood at once. This was more than a supreme treasure left by the great poet. It was a wellspring of disaster capable of killing every soul in the God-Descended City.

Keeping such a thing in the God-Descended City would be like burying a volcano on the verge of eruption beneath the city.

Even the lord of the God-Descended City could not master his dread and unease.

He could scarcely imagine the madness that the great poet's Final Chapter and the secret of the road to the domain of the divine would provoke among the people of the other kingdoms.

The city lord looked from the young craftsman who had inherited a saint's blood to the great poet's Final Chapter in his hands. Several thoughts crossed his mind, and he reached a decision at once.

He spoke to the high priest of the Yinsai Temple. "Now!"

"Take him and the great poet's Final Chapter to the Sky Temple at once. Bring them before Her Majesty the Queen."

"Do not stop for anything along the way."

He added one final instruction. "See him safely there. He is the Tito family's gift to Her Majesty the Queen."

"And he is also the gift the divine has granted to the Star Luo Kingdom..."

Before the words had left his mouth, a tremendous crash erupted nearby.

Rumble!

The terrible Burrowing Demon Worm tore out of the earth. Spreading its dreadful mouthparts toward the sky, it released a long, wailing moan.

Wooo!

Atop its head stood a figure they knew all too well.

Prince Weishi, gone only moments earlier, had slaughtered his way back as fast as he could.

The city lord had reacted quickly, but not quickly enough to match Prince Weishi's desperate rush to seize the Final Chapter.

The instant the city lord laid eyes on the beast, the words burst out of him. "A Ruhe Beast!"

He had never imagined Prince Weishi would bring a Ruhe Beast. In that instant, every plan he had made came to nothing.

Everyone present went pale at the sight of the Burrowing Demon Worm. Fear and trembling seeped into their hearts against their will.

Though the beast remained hundreds of meters away, they were already backing off in terror without meaning to.

The dread was carved into their blood, a testament to hundreds of years of the beasts' seemingly invincible power.

It made no difference who they were.

Whether common folk or soldiers, whether mortals or priests, or even the powerful high priest of the Yinsai Temple. Before this beast, every one of them was no better than an ant, without the courage to resist or struggle for even a moment.

Prince Weishi turned his gaze upon the Yesael Palace, and his eyes were cold.

"Mortals, quake before a beast of myth!"

"If you would live, surrender what is mine."

Roaring, the beast charged toward the Yesael Palace. Streets collapsed into a long trench beneath its path, while stone buildings on either side thundered down at the slightest scrape of its body.

Many trilobite men failed to escape in time and were crushed flat in the road, reduced to smears of bone shards and pulped flesh.

Just as the beast seemed poised to fall upon the Yesael Palace, the sky suddenly darkened.

Something immeasurably vast blotted out the bright sunlight. At the same time, slender translucent tentacles reached down from the heights.

Whoosh!

A gale swept across the whole of the God-Descended City.

Every head lifted. Only then did they see the vast shape in the sky, like an enormous jellyfish with its great canopy spread wide above the Yesael Palace.

The Sky Beast and the Burrowing Demon Worm collided with terrible force. The whole of the God-Descended City shuddered from the impact.

Boooom~

Across the city, many of the less sturdy buildings collapsed in an instant with a roar.

The Volcano Kingdom had collided with the Star Luo Kingdom, and the power of the sky was contending with the power of the earth.

From within the Sky Beast came the voice of Her Majesty the Queen of the Star Luo Kingdom, carrying across the entire God-Descended City.

"Weishi Hosen. Who gave you such courage, that you dare run rampant through my kingdom?"

The prince of the Volcano Kingdom felt not the least awe of the queen. "Courage?"

"For the secret Saint Tito left behind, for the road that leads to the domain of the divine, what is courage set against that?"

"What price could ever be too great?"

With a furious roar, Weishi Hosen drove the Burrowing Demon Worm forward to challenge the Sky Beast.

They were willing to shatter a calm that had held for hundreds of years for a single bone tablet.

Even if it meant opening a war, they would not count the cost.