Deep in the Ten Thousand Miasma Valley, inside the Black Bone Hall.
Poison-Wing Eagle King was drinking heavily, while the Azure-Scaled Jiao Lord coiled around a jade pillar, his gaze sinister as he flicked his tongue.
Thousand-Tangle Fairy, dressed in a gown of emerald vines, her nails long and scarlet, was meticulously tasting a still-beating heart.
Besides them, dozens of prominent great demons of the Southern Region sat below, yet the hall was deathly silent.
The atmosphere... was awkward.
The banquet was set, the wine and food were served, and even the hundreds of human-livestock intended for entertainment were waiting outside.
However, the guest of honor—the legendary master of the Bone Temple—had yet to arrive.
"Crash!"
Poison-Wing Eagle King slammed his skull goblet to the floor, flames instantly scorching the bone tiles black.
"Utterly outrageous!"
Poison-Wing Eagle King stood abruptly, feathers bristling as heat waves rolled off him. "The sun is high in the sky. Is this Bone Temple Master a tortoise?"
"Is he making the four of us, along with the tens of thousands of demons outside, waste our time here?"
"Even if he’s a dragon crossing the river, once he reaches the Southern Region of Gloomlight Province, he still has to coil up for me!"
"To be so dismissive—is he looking down on us, or is he looking down on the Toad Saint?"
He spoke in a rage, his eyes surreptitiously glancing at the mountain of flesh above.
He was testing the waters.
Azure-Scaled Jiao Lord gave a sinister chuckle. "Brother Poison-Wing, calm yourself. He’s the ruthless man who swallowed Thousand Isles County and even took down an envoy of Sukhavati. A bit of arrogance is to be expected."
"Hmph, arrogance?" Thousand-Tangle Fairy giggled, covering her mouth. Her dark green hair swayed, the tips ending in tiny mouths that spoke in unison.
"Could it be that his gall has burst from fear and he doesn’t dare to come?"
"What a pity. I specifically kept my stomach empty, wanting to see if this outsider’s bones are any crispier."
Azure-Scaled continued, "Accepting an invitation but failing to attend—that is disrespecting the Exalted Saint and disrespecting us."
"In my opinion, such a newcomer who doesn’t know the rules should simply be wiped out and his territory split among us."
As he spoke, he peeked at the Thousand-Eyed Toad Saint on the main seat.
Thousand-Eyed Toad Saint remained sprawled there without movement, as if asleep.
Suddenly, panicked crawling sounds came from outside the hall.
"Report—!!"
"Disaster! Exalted Saint! Disaster has struck!"
A black snake stumbled into the hall, ignoring etiquette and collapsing onto the floor, shouting in terror.
"What are you panicking for, you useless thing?" Azure-Scaled Jiao Lord barked. "Straighten your tongue and tell us what happened."
The black snake prostrated, trembling. "The... the Bone Temple... they’ve gone on a killing spree!"
"What?" The demons were stunned.
"Chaiwang City is gone! Lord Chaiwang was decapitated and put on display! Every demon in the city... is dead!"
"The Thousand-Silk Forest was burned! The entire family of the Thousand-Silk Demon Envoy was charred to cinders—not even an egg was left!"
"That Bone Temple Master is killing his way here! Wherever he passes, neither chicken nor dog is spared!"
"What—!"
The hall erupted at these words.
The previously quiet hall was instantly thrown into chaos.
The demons looked at each other, their eyes filled with disbelief.
This wasn't coming to a meeting; this was coming to crash the party!
And he had killed three demon envoys right from the start?
Those were the Exalted Saint’s right-hand men!
"Bastard!"
Poison-Wing Eagle King roared, poison flames erupting and burning through the bone beams above.
He exchanged a glance with his sister, Poison Pheasant Fairy.
Urgency flashed in both their eyes.
Killing spree? No one spared?
Didn't that mean the human-livestock caravans still on the road were in danger?
"This is too much! Simply too much!"
Poison-Wing Eagle King strode down the steps, murderous. "Exalted Saint, this Bone Temple Master is so ungrateful. Slaughtering our Southern Region colleagues is a direct insult to us!"
"I’ll go meet him myself! I’ll dismantle his bones one by one and steep them in wine!"
He flared his cloak and prepared to rush out.
Poison Pheasant Fairy followed quickly, acting as if they shared the same enemy. "Brother, I’m coming too!"
"I know the Thousand-Silk Forest well, and Sister Thousand-Silk was my friend. I can’t sit idly by. I’ll go with you to see if we can intercept this wretch!"
The siblings played along with each other, on the verge of rushing out of the hall.
Poison-Wing Eagle King was calculating quickly. By leaving under the guise of rage, he could maintain his bloodthirsty persona while intercepting the Bone Temple Master first.
At the same time, he could divert the conflict away, preventing it from affecting the hidden blood food in Poison Flame Mountain.
"Halt."
Two words.
Spoken softly, without a hint of anger.
Yet they felt like two mountains pressing onto the backs of Poison-Wing and Poison Pheasant.
Poison-Wing Eagle King’s footsteps froze. In that moment, he felt as though he was being stared down by an ancient beast from the abyss.
That fear didn't come from a suppression of power levels, but from a tremor at the biological level.
He stiffened and turned his head.
On the main seat, the thousands of eyes on Thousand-Eyed Toad Saint had opened simultaneously.
No light.
Those eyes were filled with the ashen color of death.
A faint gray aura radiated from the Exalted Saint. Wherever it touched, the miasma in the air vanished, and the bone tiles beneath him began to weather and decay.
Was that... death qi?
"Did I give you permission to leave?" the Toad Saint asked slowly.
Poison-Wing Eagle King felt his throat go dry and his heart race. Cold sweat poured down his forehead.
He remembered the rumors. Once, the four kings were equals in the Southern Region. While the Toad Saint was stronger, it was only by a limited margin. They could still call each other brothers.
But in the last hundred years, this old toad had advanced rapidly through some unknown fortune.
Especially in the last decade, he had rarely appeared in public, and the death qi on him had grown heavier.
There were rumors that he had already touched the threshold of that realm.
Symbiosis...
Looking at him now, those rumors were certainly not baseless!
Under this pressure, Thousand-Tangle Fairy and Azure-Scaled Jiao Lord didn't even dare to breathe, lowering their heads deeply in submission.
Poison-Wing Eagle King’s heart tightened: Could it be... that this old toad discovered his schemes regarding the blood food?
He forced down his fear and tried to keep his voice sounding like the usual irritable king.
"Exalted Saint, that fellow has killed his way to our doorstep. It’s a slap to the face of our Demon Alliance! I simply cannot swallow this!"
Poison Pheasant Fairy reacted quickly, stepping in front of her brother and bowing respectfully.
"Exalted Saint, please calm your anger. My brother only wishes to uphold your dignity. He is impulsive. This small matter of receiving a guest... why let my brother go? Why not let me go?"
The hall was deathly silent.
After a long while, the eyes on the Toad Saint's back closed one by one, and the suffocating pressure dissipated.
"The Ten Thousand Miasma Valley is my territory."
The Toad Saint’s voice echoed through the hall.
"The visitor is a guest. When a guest arrives, how can the host flip the table before even speaking?"
"The guest kills a few dogs on the road to liven things up. If the host makes a fuss over such trifles, wouldn't we seem narrow-minded?"
His voice was slow, and every word carried an echo.
"Sit down."
Poison-Wing and Poison Pheasant felt as if they had been granted a reprieve, slinking back to their seats with their backs soaked in sweat.
"Black-Scaled," the Toad Saint called.
The black snake looked up. He was the younger brother of Azure-Scaled Jiao Lord and the last surviving demon envoy, the Black-Scaled Snake Envoy.
"Your... your subordinate is here," Black-Scaled said, nearly on the verge of tears.
All three of his colleagues were dead. Being called now certainly meant nothing good!
"Go and receive our guest."
The Toad Saint said calmly, "Tell him, if he doesn't know the way, I can show him a clear path."
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