Today's fourth update: Chapter 3152! 4/4!
The edict Erh had slapped onto the jade steps bore a startling title across its opening scroll—Edict on the Tortoise Lord's Abdication and the Appointment of an Acting Tortoise Lord!
Within the Black Tortoise Race's long and rigid hierarchy of power, there had traditionally been two main ways to determine which of the kings would ultimately rise above the rest and ascend to the position of Tortoise Lord.
The first was the most brutal and direct, and also the one with unquestionable authority—personal appointment by the Black Tortoise Race's ancestor, the supreme Black Tortoise Venerable God, the Profound Darkness God!
As the supreme being who had created the entire Black Tortoise Race and held its ultimate fate in his hands, a single divine decree from the Profound Darkness God was the highest possible law.
Yet the Black Tortoise Race had multiplied to this day, growing vast with countless branches, and instances of the Profound Darkness God issuing clear divine decrees had become exceedingly rare.
When it came to the specific succession of the Tortoise Lord's position, he usually maintained the attitude that descendants had their own destinies and did not interfere directly.
The last time the Profound Darkness God had personally designated a Tortoise Lord was already a distant matter from five or six centuries ago.
Thus, a tacit consensus had formed within the modern Black Tortoise Race: when the current Tortoise Lord stepped down and the struggle for succession was about to begin, the only way to avoid a bloody internal conflict that would sweep through the entire race was for their ancestor to once again issue a divine decree.
And if such a decree truly came, then without question, Tien—the one whom their ancestor had accepted as his final disciple, with