At the Foot of Buzhou Mountain

A golden rainbow dove down from the clouds, tearing through the air with a piercing shriek.

Taiyi did not crash directly into the heads of that group of Witches; that would have been too deliberate. When he was still a hundred zhang above the dense forest, he suddenly slowed, paused in midair, then lightly landed atop an ancient tree. Beneath his feet was a horizontal branch as thick as a bowl, its dark green leaves so thick they looked as though they had been coated in oil.

Fei Lian landed on another branch behind him, folding his wings without making a sound.

From here, the clearing in the forest was clearly visible.

There were over twenty Witches, men and women alike, all bare-chested—not because they were being indecent, but because that was simply how the Witch Race was. They revered physical strength and thought clothing got in the way. Their bodies were painted with colorful tribal totems using some kind of mineral pigment. They surrounded the fallen beast, which looked like a wild boar magnified tenfold, covered in bristles as hard as steel needles. Its two tusks were thicker than an adult man's arms.

It was already thoroughly dead. A huge gash had been cut into its belly, its organs pulled out and piled beside it. Blood stained the ground dark red, and the stench drifted upward, mingling with the moldy smell of decaying leaves.

A burly man who appeared to be the leader was crouching beside the beast's head, prying at its tusks with a stone knife. The knife looked crude, but its edge glimmered with a faint light. It was clearly no ordinary object. The muscles in the man's arms bulged in knots with every exertion, as though living things were hidden beneath his skin.

Taiyi watched for a while, then suddenly smiled.

"Tell me," he said, turning to Fei Lian, "if we went down there now and snatched those tusks, do you think they'd be mad enough to jump?"

Fei Lian's mouth twitched. "Your Majesty... we came here to investigate."

"Investigating is investigating." Taiyi patted the tree trunk. "We can have a little fun while we're at it. Otherwise, what's the point?"

As he spoke, he leaped down.

He did not fly. He jumped, dropping straight down from the treetop a hundred zhang above. Yet when he landed, he made little sound, merely causing the ground around him to tremble faintly—he had evenly dispersed the force of the fall throughout his body. Such was the precise control over strength possessed by a Grand Unity Golden Immortal.

But that small disturbance was already loud enough for the Witches.

The clearing fell silent.

Every Witch stopped what they were doing and turned to look at him in unison. The burly leader rose with the stone knife in hand, narrowed his eyes at Taiyi, then glanced up at the tree—Fei Lian had not come down and remained concealed among the branches.

"Demon Race?" the burly man asked, his voice rough as sandpaper grinding against stone.

Taiyi did not answer immediately. He first looked around, examining the forest. The trees were truly enormous; any one of them would require more than ten people to encircle. Their canopies blotted out the sky, allowing only scattered specks of light to filter through. Thick layers of fallen leaves covered the ground, soft beneath his feet. There was an indescribable scent in the air—the fishy smell of earth, the sourness of rotting leaves, and... a faint pressure that belonged to Buzhou Mountain itself.

It was Pangu's aura.

Even after countless epochs of death, this body that had held up Heaven and Earth still emanated waves that inspired awe in all living beings. Taiyi could feel that even the circulation of the True Sun Fire within him had become somewhat sluggish here, as though something invisible were suppressing it.

No wonder the Witch Race regarded this place as sacred ground. To those carrying Pangu's bloodline, Buzhou Mountain was like a mother's embrace. The closer they were, the stronger they became.

"I'm talking to you!" Seeing that Taiyi did not answer, the burly man's tone turned hostile. "What kind of mangy bird are you, barging into my Buzhou Mountain territory?"

Mangy bird.

Taiyi raised an eyebrow. That was... a fresh one. He looked down at himself—black light armor, sun patterns. No matter how he looked at it, there was nothing "mangy" about him.

"Heavenly Court. Eastern Emperor Taiyi." He gave his name in a tone as casual as if he were saying the weather was nice.

The clearing fell silent.

Then laughter erupted.

"Eastern Emperor Taiyi?" A young Witch laughed so hard he slapped his thigh. "With those skinny arms and legs? Who are you trying to fool?"

"Exactly! Eastern Emperor Taiyi doesn't look like that! I've seen his portrait—three heads, six arms, a blue face, and fangs!"

"This brat must be out of his mind..."

The Witches talked over one another, laughing so hard they bent over. But the burly leader did not laugh. He stared at Taiyi, his expression growing increasingly grave. He had seen Taiyi's landing clearly—a direct drop from a hundred zhang, yet the ground had only trembled slightly. Such control over power was not something an ordinary demon could possess.

"Are you really Eastern Emperor Taiyi?" the burly man asked in a deep voice.

"The real thing." Taiyi shrugged. "Want to inspect the goods?"

As his words fell, he raised his right hand, palm upward.

A wisp of golden flame ignited from nothing.

It was no ordinary fire, but the True Sun Fire. The flame danced in his palm, radiant and blazing, giving off light and heat of utmost purity. The temperature around them instantly soared. The moisture in the forest evaporated, and the nearest leaves visibly curled and yellowed.

The laughter stopped abruptly.

Every Witch's expression changed. They might not have met Eastern Emperor Taiyi himself, but no one in the Great Wilderness was unfamiliar with the True Sun Fire. It was the origin flame of the Sun Star, supremely yang and unyielding, capable of suppressing all yin and evil. Although the Witch Race did not cultivate Primordial Spirits, their physical strength carried some turbid energy, and they naturally feared the True Sun Fire.

"Believe me now?" Taiyi closed his hand, extinguishing the flame.

The burly leader drew a deep breath and gripped his stone knife tightly. "Eastern Emperor Your Majesty, to what do we owe the honor of your visit?"

"Nothing important." Taiyi stepped forward, his boots treading along the edge of the blood pool and splashing several dark red droplets. "I was just passing by. I saw you busy here, so I came down to say hello."

He made it sound casual, but he did not stop walking until he reached the beast's corpse. Lowering his head, he looked it over. "Oh, this pig looks decent. What breed is it?"

"Mountain boar." The burly man watched him closely. "A vicious beast unique to Buzhou Mountain. Thick hide, endless strength. Our tribe spent three days surrounding it and lost two brothers before taking it down."

"Is that so?" Taiyi bent down and touched the beast's bristles. They were indeed hard, like iron brushes. "Then these two tusks... must be worth quite a bit, right?"

The burly man's gaze sharpened. "What do you mean, Your Majesty?"

"Nothing." Taiyi straightened and patted away dust that was not there from his hands. "I just think it would be a pity to leave such good things with you. Why not... give them to me as a meeting gift?"

The moment he said that, the atmosphere in the clearing plunged to freezing point.

The Witches all stared wide-eyed at Taiyi as though looking at a lunatic. Mountain boar tusks were the tribe's pride, their spoils of war, and prime materials for forging witch artifacts. Stealing them was the same as slapping the entire tribe in the face.

"Eastern Emperor Your Majesty," the burly man said word by word, forcing each one through clenched teeth, "that is not a funny joke."

"Who said I was joking?" The smile vanished from Taiyi's face, and his eyes turned cold. "I said I want those tusks. Didn't you understand?"

Dead silence.

The wind passed through the forest, rustling the leaves. From afar came the sharp, grating cries of unknown birds and beasts.

The burly man slowly raised his stone knife, its tip pointing at Taiyi. "Then we'll have to ask whether my knife agrees."

"Your knife?" Taiyi sneered. "A broken piece of stone, and you call that a knife?"

Before his words had faded, he moved.

He did not charge forward, but twisted sideways—at the same time, he raised his right hand, pressed his index and middle fingers together, and lightly flicked the blade of the stone knife.

Clang!

A crisp metallic impact exploded through the clearing.

The burly man only felt an irresistible force surge through the knife, shattering the skin of his palm and sending blood spraying. The stone knife flew from his grasp, spinning through the air in an arc before embedding itself in a nearby tree trunk with a thunk. Most of the blade had sunk into the wood, leaving only the hilt exposed as it buzzed and trembled.

Everything happened in the blink of an eye.

By the time the Witches reacted, their leader had already staggered back three steps while clutching his bleeding wrist, his face drained of color.

"That's it?" Taiyi withdrew his fingers and blew nonexistent dust from his fingertips. "I thought it would be more impressive."

Humiliation.

Naked, blatant humiliation.

The burly man's eyes turned red. With a furious roar, he ignored his bleeding wrist and lunged barehanded at Taiyi. His fan-sized palm howled through the air toward Taiyi's face—Witches did not cultivate spells, focusing solely on their bodies. If that slap landed, it could smash apart a small mountain.

Taiyi did not dodge.

He did not even move. He simply stood there, watching the palm come at him. Only when the wind from the strike had already brushed his face did he casually raise his left hand, spread his fingers, and meet it.

Slap.

A dull impact.

It was not the sound of a palm striking a face, but of two palms colliding. Taiyi closed his fingers and firmly gripped the burly man's wrist. That wrist was as thick as an ordinary man's calf, tendons bulging and muscles swollen, yet trapped within Taiyi's five fingers, it could not move at all.

"Your strength is decent," Taiyi commented. "Too bad you haven't trained it properly."

He twisted his wrist.

Crack.

A sharp snap of breaking bone. The burly man screamed as his entire arm was twisted into a spiral and hung limply at his side.

"Chief!"

"Fight him!"

Only then did the other Witches react, charging forward with furious howls. Some wielded stone axes, some swung bone clubs, and one untied a beast-tendon whip from his waist and lashed it down at Taiyi.

Taiyi released the burly man and flickered through the crowd like a ghost.

He did not strike to kill—there was no need. He had come today to provoke them, not to start a war. So every move was measured, wounding without killing.

One punch struck a Witch's chest, breaking three ribs; one kick hit another's knee, forcing him to drop to one knee; he snatched the beast-tendon whip with a backhand, snapped his wrist, and the whip tip cracked through the air with a sonic boom, flaying the remaining few until they were bloody and torn.

Less than ten breaths had passed.

More than twenty Witches lay scattered across the ground, their groans rising and falling. Only the burly leader remained standing—or rather, barely standing. He supported his broken right arm with his left hand, cold sweat streaming down his forehead as he glared at Taiyi as though he wanted to devour him alive.

"You... what exactly do you want?" the burly man asked, panting heavily.

"Didn't I tell you?" Taiyi tossed aside the whip and bent down to pull the pair of tusks from the mountain boar's corpse. They felt heavy in his hands, their surfaces gleaming with the warm luster of ivory. "I want these."

He weighed them, then nodded in satisfaction. "Good quality. Thanks."

With that, he turned and left, as though the conflict just now had merely been an afterthought.

"Stop!" the burly man roared behind him. "Eastern Emperor Taiyi! My Houtu Tribe will remember this debt! Just wait! Lord Ancestral Witch will definitely—"

"Definitely what?" Taiyi stopped and looked back at him, a cold smile curling at his lips. "Have your Houtu come find me? Fine. I'll be waiting."

He did not linger. Leaping into the air, he transformed into a golden rainbow and shot into the sky. Fei Lian flew from the treetops and followed close behind.

The two vanished over the horizon in the blink of an eye.

Only the groaning Witches and the mountain boar corpse stripped of its tusks remained in the forest clearing. Blood slowly seeped into the fallen leaves, and the scent of blood in the air grew stronger.

The burly man stared in the direction Taiyi had vanished, his teeth grinding loudly. He lowered his gaze to his broken arm, then looked at the stone knife embedded in the tree. Finally, his eyes settled on the place where the missing tusks had been.

"Eastern Emperor... Taiyi..." he muttered the name, each word squeezed through his teeth. "This... isn't over."

High in the sky, above the clouds.

Taiyi slowed down and flew side by side with Fei Lian. He still carried the pair of tusks in his hand, occasionally turning them to watch their warm sheen refract beneath the sunlight.

"Your Majesty," Fei Lian finally could not hold back any longer, "was that... a little too much?"

"Too much?" Taiyi asked.

"We came to investigate, after all. After making such a scene, the Witch Race will definitely be on guard. Further investigation may be..."

"I want them on guard." Taiyi cut him off. "If we didn't make some noise, how would we know how fast they react? How would we know how many forces the Houtu Tribe has stationed around Buzhou Mountain?"

Fei Lian froze.

"Do you think I really care about these tusks?" Taiyi weighed them in his hand. "I wanted to tell the Witch Race—I'm here. I'm wandering around right outside your doorstep. Not only am I wandering around, I dare to snatch your things. If you have the guts, come after me. Come fight me. If you don't... then stay curled up and watch me wander around."

As he spoke, a cold light flashed in his eyes.

"Now, we'll see what they choose."

Fei Lian fell silent. He suddenly understood—investigation had been secondary on this trip. Provocation was the real purpose. His Majesty wanted to anger the Witch Race, force them to move, force them to reveal their weaknesses.

"So what do we do now..." Fei Lian asked.

"Return to camp," Taiyi said. "And wait."

"Wait for what?"

"Wait for guests to come knocking." Taiyi looked toward the depths of Buzhou Mountain, where clouds and mist swirled and the outlines of more Witch camps could vaguely be seen. "We beat up the young ones. The old ones should be coming out now. I just wonder... who will come."

He smiled. There was anticipation in that smile, along with a trace of ruthlessness.

"Hopefully, it's Di Jiang."

"If he comes, then this trip won't have been wasted."

The two said nothing more and accelerated toward camp. Behind them, Buzhou Mountain stood silently like a colossal, silent god, overlooking this land that was about to erupt into turmoil.

Meanwhile, in the forest at the mountain's foot, the injured Witches were helping one another to their feet. The burly leader pulled the stone knife from the tree with his left hand, gritted his teeth, and walked toward the tribe.

Every step landed heavily, as though he wanted to stamp the rage in his chest into the earth.

The news would spread very soon.