Heaven Dou Empire.
Cloud Recesses.
Of course, the clouds here had been gone for a long time. All that remained were bare, towering peaks and a cluster of buildings atop the highest one.
Inside an ancient, imposing castle, two burly men sat at the front of the great hall, drinking the strong liquor before them with gloomy faces.
"Big Brother, it's been almost a year. What exactly happened in the Divine Realm?" Tai Tan drained the liquor in his enormous bowl in one gulp, then hurled it to the floor with a crack, smashing it to pieces.
Listening to the frustration in Tai Tan's complaints, Niu Tian merely drank in silence. Compared to the simple-minded, musclebound Titan Giant Ape, the Sky Azure Bull Python undoubtedly had the advantage when it came to brains.
Although apes represented intelligence in the natural world, Tai Tan really did embody the stereotype of a muscleheaded dumbass.
Thus, unlike Tai Tan's inexplicable frustration, the somewhat more intelligent Niu Tian could sense more clearly that faint, inexplicable feeling of danger that had appeared ever since the clouds of immortal mist surrounding Clear Sky Castle dispersed. He had not felt anything like it in nearly ten thousand years.
When had he last felt such a warning?
Was it when he was still weak, struggling to survive in Star Dou Great Forest, or during all those battles to the death as he grew stronger, or when Bibi Dong and the Spirit Hall experts she led had hunted him until he had no path to heaven and no door into the earth?
Niu Tian could no longer remember.
Ever since Tang San had revived his and Tai Tan's souls with divine power ten thousand years ago, he seemed to have forgotten many things. Even his habits and way of