Gen looked at Liang, then at Kang Mao. "What should we do? Should we reveal ourselves?" He kept his voice low. "Stealing the Zenith Sky Root in front of all these people is almost impossible."
Kang Mao frowned. "In the past, from what I know of the Golden Touch, he could steal almost anything, anywhere. If we had his skill, it would be fine."
Liang shook his head. "We should teach Gen how to be a thief? Madame Su would strangle us with her bare hands."
They all exchanged a weary look. The plan was non-existent.
Then, an idea sparked in Gen's mind. "Back then, when I faced the chess piece in Shelia's domain, there was always some kind of… trial. If this one is the same, the danger might force the others to retreat. That would give us space to solve the puzzle and get the root."
Liang nodded slowly. "That… actually sounds like a good idea. How come you managed to get something that makes sense this day?"
Gen cursed at him, a flicker of a grin on his face. "I'm not dumb, you know."
Kang Mao bit his lip, the practical one. "And how do we escape afterward?"
His question fell on deaf ears. Neither Gen nor Liang seemed to care about the 'after.' Just the moment counted.
*So carefree,* Kang Mao thought. In the Kang Family, every young master had rigid programs to follow, a way of thinking, of behaving. Protocol. Consequence. But these two… Gen had a prestigious background, but it was in the past. He was just Gen Jiang now, on an impossible quest. And Liang followed him, not out of duty, but out of something Kang Mao was still learning to name.
While he was thinking, Gen had already stepped into the open.
His sudden appearance from the crowd caused a ripple. A few cultivators tensed, hands dropping to weapon hilts, as if expecting another challenger to make a move.
The moment Gen appeared, Baili Feng's eyes flashed open. It was a sharper, colder motion than any sword being drawn.
"You came," Baili said. His voice was flat, but it carried across the silent plateau.
"Why wouldn't I?" Gen smiled, but his senses were stretched tight. He felt the immense, focused aura around Baili now. It wasn't quite to the level of the three-tailed Sky Demon or Nix, but it was a dense, cutting pressure—something to reckon with.
Baili rose to his feet in one fluid motion, massaging his shoulder as if working out a stiffness. "Before we start, I need to know something." His eyes, chips of grey ice, pinned Gen. "Where is Duo Yi?"
Gen froze. The smile vanished from his face. His hands curled slowly into fists at his sides. This was a memory he did not like to relive, a part of him he wanted to forget. But how could he?
Observing his silence, Baili's face flickered with an inexplicable, cold rage. "No," he said aloud, the word a sharp crack. He was looking at Gen, but seeing something else. "She can't be."
Gen found his voice, though it was tight. "I couldn't do anything."
Baili's aura spread outwards, not in a wave, but in a sudden, violent expansion. The heavy, liquid-silver air and the floating iridescent bubbles were shoved violently away from him, creating a clear sphere of distorted space. Inside, the pressure grew crushing.
*He had spent all that time chained in that place with only one thought: getting out and getting his revenge.* The memory of his humiliation, of Gen's father's indifference, had been his driving force, the fuel for his growth. He had learned **Fendow**. He had improved. But now, hearing the unspoken truth about Duo Yi, he felt empty. It was as if all the strength he'd accumulated over that time had evaporated. It had nothing to do with love for Duo Yi. It was the feeling of chasing something your entire life, only to learn you had reached the destination and found it already abandoned.
Baili bailed his fist. In Gen's eyes, he could see the pain, the guilt, the frustration. A reflection of his own hollow anger.
"Why?" Baili asked aloud, the single word heavy with a confusion he never showed.
*I felt another aura disappear,* Baili thought, the memory of a distant, familiar Qi winking out brushing his mind. *Ning, too, left and is not coming back. Why was it that all those who had been to the Tower of Wonder were dying one after the other?*
Gen opened his mouth to say more, to explain about the Divine General, about choices made in desperation.
He never got the chance.
The statue of the horse chess piece moved.
It wasn't a shudder. It was a precise, grinding rotation of its stone base. Dust, ancient and grey, plumed from its joints. The crowd gasped and took several steps back.
Then, from the eyes of the stone knight, twin beams of soft, white light shot out. They didn't strike Gen or Baili. They met in the space between them and expanded, flowing into a perfect, shimmering sphere that enveloped them both completely.
To the external observers, it was as if Gen and Baili had been paused in time, sealed inside a giant, opaque bubble of solidified light.
Outside, the murmurs grew, fear quickly overwritten by greed.
"We've been here for over three days, but this statue has never moved!"
"It reacted to that boy!"
Another cultivator's eyes gleamed. "It could be another treasure of the Sky Ocean. Who knows?"
Greed ignited. One cultivator, unable to contain himself, unleashed his **Jingdao** and shot forward, a fist sheathed in crackling energy aimed at the bubble's surface.
*THUMP.*
The impact didn't ring. It was a dull, deep sound. The bubble's surface rippled with complex, runic patterns of Qi, and the attack dissipated as if it had never existed.
Another tried, flinging a lance of **Zhidow**-forged lightning. The bolt struck and simply vanished, absorbed without a spark.
"Let's just wait and see," a wiser, older cultivator advised, though his eyes never left the Zenith Root. Many took his advice, settling back to meditate, their goal clear: once the two boys came out—if they came out—seize whatever treasure they had triggered.
Liang and Kang Mao looked at each other, worry plain on their faces.
"This is bad news for Gen," Liang muttered.
Kang Mao's gaze was fixed on the bubble. "He should be fine. Ever since we left Shelia's domain… she has been with him." He glanced at Liang. "Any idea what happened back there?"
Liang looked at Gen's still form inside the light, his expression uncertain. "Gen keeps the secret, for fear of making us worry. All we know is, Shelai is always around him now. But she appeared on her own accord."
Kang Mao nodded. "Then we wait by his side. Once he finishes the trial and gets the root, we improvise and flee."
Liang gave a single, firm nod. The two of them took up defensive positions near the bubble, their backs to the light, facing the restless, hungry crowd.
As to what Baili and Gen were doing or going through inside that sphere of ancient Qi, no one had any idea. And what would happen when they left the bubble was equally unknown.
Unbeknownst to all the cultivators, focused on the bubble and the root, another presence observed from behind a jagged spire of rock.
It was a Milky Beast of another breed native to the Sky Ocean. Its figure was almost humanoid, but it moved on all fours with a predator's grace. Apart from its elongated limbs and sharply pointed ears, its back was armored with rows of seven overlapping, iridescent scales like those of a deep-sea shark.
This was a **Greedy Shark** of the Sky Ocean. Unlike most Milky Beasts, which evolved by absorbing environmental Qi, this one fed on a different energy: human greed. And around this place, with a legendary root and a mysterious treasure unveiled, the atmosphere was thick with it.
In another part of the Sky Ocean, stillness had returned.
A tall figure stood in the middle of ten corpses. The bodies were Sky Demons, each bearing two sinuous, whip-like tails. They lay broken and still on the strange, golden moss of a floating island.
The figure was imposingly tall and broad-shouldered, wearing a simple, sleeveless shirt and loose martial pants. His arms, thick with corded muscle, were bare. On his right forearm, a series of strange, interlocking tattoos spiraled from wrist to elbow—not decorative, but like tallies, marks from different worlds or victories. He released no aura. The air around him was simply empty, a void of pressure.
The sole other figure present, a man named Bax, stood a few paces behind him, head slightly bowed. He trembled, though not from cold.
"Bax," the tall man said. His voice was deep, matter-of-fact. "You said the Sky Demons were strong." He nudged the nearest two-tailed corpse with his foot. "Comparing this and the legendary aura I felt that day is an insult to that person."
Bax felt cold sweat trickle down his temple. *Where am I supposed to find someone on the level of the Immortal Jiang?* he screamed internally. *He was the strongest in the world. A legend.* Outwardly, he forced a tight, respectful smile.
"Master Buqu, there is nothing in this Sky Ocean that can compare to the figure you refer to." He chose his words with extreme care. "However… the Three-Tailed Sky Demon, or the Seven-Scale Greedy Shark… they should be the peak predators here. They are not Old Monster stage Milky Beasts, but Adult Milky Beasts at the very peak of adulthood. There is no cultivator in this place, other than you, who can safely claim to face them and leave in one piece." He paused, adding with brutal honesty, "Not even me."
Buqu turned his head to look at Bax, his expression one of slight displeasure. "I told you to call me Bu."
Bax wiped the sweat from his brow. "Yes, Bu."
Buqu turned back to the dead demons, his brow furrowed in mild curiosity, like a scholar examining a disappointing specimen. "These ones were good training dummies. How does one more tail make them more powerful?"
"It is not just about one more tail, Master Bu," Bax explained, his voice patient. "You will understand once you meet one. Unfortunately, we have no Milky Beasts at the Old Monster stage of evolution in this place. Otherwise, such a being would be strong enough to be a real challenge, even for the Pillars."
Buqu's eyes, which had been dull with disinterest, suddenly illuminated with a spark of genuine intrigue. He turned fully to Bax. "Really?" The word held weight. "Back then, Nix almost died facing one of those you called 'Pillars.' If an Old Milky Beast is a good replacement… I wouldn't mind getting one."
Before Bax could say more, formulate a warning or a plan, Buqu's head snapped to the side. His consciousness, a vast and hungry thing, spread out across the golden void, touching distant islands, tasting the Qi of battles and treasures.
It settled on a specific location: a rocky island where a peculiar tension shimmered—the clashing auras of two promising young cultivators, the dense, ancient Qi of a puzzle, and beneath it all, a deeper, more primal hunger.
A smile, the first genuine one Bax had seen in days, touched the corner of Buqu's lips. "Are you sure," he asked, his voice now a low rumble of anticipation, "there is no Old Milky Beast in this place?"
Bax blinked, his own senses stretching. He felt the distant island, the common greed, the unusual bubble of sealed energy… but nothing that screamed *Old Monster*. "Absolutely," he said, confidence returning to his voice. "My skills in detection are—"
A sonic boom cut him off.
Buqu was already gone, having ascended into the sky so fast the air itself collapsed behind him in a thunderclap. The golden liquid of the Sky Ocean swirled violently in his wake.
"Follow me." The command echoed in the distance, already fading.
Bax cursed, stomping his foot on the mossy ground. But the curse was born of habit, not defiance. He gathered his Qi, a complex weave of **Shidow** and **Jingdao** that was far more refined than his subservient posture suggested, and shot into the sky, chasing the vanishing ripple of his master's passage.
The hunter had caught a scent. And he was bored with training dummies.