The instant Dou Yuemei pressed both hands to the ground, the entire tide of ravening, shrieking beasts—like waves crashing back against a cliff—came to a dead halt.
Every beast that flew through the air, including that flock of shrieking Yin-Yang Twin-Headed Eagles, went careening headlong like flies without their heads, or else simply turned tail and fled in panic.
Every beast that could not fly crouched low against the earth, trembling without cease.
It was the fear born of the deepest instinct of life itself. Even though beasts of prey possessed no true intelligence, they were utterly powerless to resist it.
Because... the mountain shook, and the ground trembled!
The whole of Jade Scales Peak towered into the clouds. Though it was no towering peak under heaven, it was vast enough in its own right.
And now this high mountain—from its halfway point up; to be more precise, from the very spot where Dou Yuemei's hands met the rock—began to quake!
Boulders tumbled, beasts wailed.
"Ah... yah!"
Dou Yuemei's slender brows slanted in fury as her boundless Dao essence erupted.
Crack! Crack! Rumble-rumble-rumble!
From her half-crouched stance she slowly rose to her feet, and with it she wrenched Jade Scales Peak free—splitting it in two from its halfway point up!
Measured against Jade Scales Peak, she was smaller than an ant.
Yet a woman soft and frail as this had torn a mighty mountain from the ground with pure strength, like a god descending to earth.
A scene so staggering must surely etch itself into the memory of every soul who witnessed it, and burn there forever.
...
"Sigh."
Abruptly, a hoary sigh rang out. One light exhalation, and it seemed to fall into the very heart of every person present.
"End it here."
The voice spoke these words.
Boom!
Dou Yuemei's hands sprang apart. The earth heaved, and the two halves of the mountain slammed back together!
Face full of shock, she looked up toward the summit of Jade Scales Peak—the direction from which the voice had come.
That peak, which towered into the clouds and was overrun with beasts of prey, had someone upon it!
And such an unfathomable, such a dreadful, formidable one at that!
"I never expected that you could, on your own strength, come this far."
The voice repeated itself: "But let that be the end of it."
There was no doubt that this was a fearful expert. It had not yet even shown itself, and already it had stopped Dou Yuemei from tearing the mountain apart—proof enough that it could not be defeated.
But then.
"Just what bloody nonsense are you spouting!" Dou Yuemei shook off her initial shock. Both fists clenched, the seed of divine power within her fifth prefecture spun madly. "Who the hell do you think you are? That we go when you tell us to go, and stop when you tell us to stop?"
Sun Xiaoman, carrying the Mountain-Shaking Hammer, walked up behind Dou Yuemei.
Li Jianqiu, Peach Branch held reversed in his hand, walked up behind Dou Yuemei.
Zhao Tiehe, limping on one leg, walked up behind Dou Yuemei.
Yang Xingyong, Shen Nanqi, Huang Azhan, the cultivators of the Sanshan City Dao Academy, the Daoist soldiers of the Sanshan city garrison, even those cultivators who had only flocked here for the bounty on offer...
The living, the ones who could still fight, all silently gathered behind Dou Yuemei.
Though the mysterious figure atop the peak had shown itself to be so powerful, so utterly unbeatable.
It was a silent, wordless... declaration of stance!
"Sigh!"
That hoary voice sighed once more: "There are those who spend their entire lives and still cannot touch so much as a hair's breadth of the divine power."
It lamented: "You have only swum halfway through the sea of your torso, and already you have a premonition of your seed of divine power. You have more potential than Sun Heng ever had. What a pity..."
By its words, of all the many cultivators on this peak, the only one worthy of its notice was Dou Yuemei alone.
None could see this person, nor know what it had done. But that seed of divine power spinning away within Dou Yuemei's fifth prefecture—quite without sound or signal—fell still.
Dou Yuemei marshalled every shred of her strength against that formless pressure: "What could a wretch like you, who hides atop a mountain, keeps company with beasts of prey, sits idly by while they plague a whole region—nay, even shelters them—possibly understand?
You have no idea how strong he was!
No matter how strong you are, in my eyes you are only the weak one. You... old coot!"
The mountain wind howled, scattering the echoes far and wide.
The voice fell silent for a while before speaking once more.
"There are some things you do not understand, and I do not blame you for them. Withdraw now; entanglement serves no one."
"I don't wish to entangle myself with you!" Dou Yuemei shouted in fury: "But the countless cultivators of Sanshan City who died in battle, the countless common folk who were devoured... they will not agree!"
"This concerns a secret; you do not yet have the qualification to know."
"I have no qualification?" Dou Yuemei, in her indignation, laughed despite herself: "I am the Lord of the Sanshan City domain! The Jade Writ sealed in the sovereign's own hand, the command seal made by the Zhuang court itself, the master of these mountains and rivers, the head of every household of Sanshan City's common folk!
And now you tell me that within this Sanshan domain, there is a secret I have no qualification to know?"
"The Zhuang Kingdom has three commanderies, and Qinghe Commandery holds thirteen cities. You are merely — the temporary steward of one of those thirteen cities, not its head of household, still less its master! These three thousand li of mountains and rivers belong to a single master, and that is his majesty the Sovereign! Say no more—accept the decree, and be done with it!"
These words revealed a great deal. The most vital point was this: the pack of beasts that dwelt upon Jade Scales Peak existed with the tacit approval of the Sovereign of the Zhuang Kingdom.
Or perhaps it was not mere tacit approval.
"Ha ha ha ha ha!"
Dou Yuemei broke out laughing—laughed long and hard, laughed until tears streamed down her cheeks.
"My husband died here. My elder brother died here.
My disciples died here. My friends died here. The one I loved, and the one who loved me, all died here.
My daughter is barely fifteen, my son barely thirteen, and the both of them marched to the front lines to fight for Sanshan City!
And now you tell me Sanshan City does not belong to me, but to some damned sovereign who cares nothing for whether this place lives or dies, who hides away in some deep palace where no one ever sees his face, perched up there in his lofty heights doing heaven knows what?"
"How dare you!" It seemed the master of that hoary voice had been pressed into true fury. A dreadful pressure of authority descended from the summit, and in that instant dozens of beasts burst open, blood spilling from every limb as they died on the spot.
It kept itself in restraint. The pressure halted just before it reached Dou Yuemei.
But the whole of Jade Scales Peak, with that single shout of rage, fell into an extreme silence.
In that silence, which set the heart racing with unease, only Dou Yuemei's voice rang out, desolate beyond measure: "From the day my man died, I have lost whatever right I might have had to be afraid."
There had been a time when she, too, was a timid, weak-willed woman.
She had known fear when she met a powerful foe. She had shrunk back when hardship came her way. There were even times when the mere sight of a mouse would send her shrieking as she hid in her husband's arms.
But after that man fell in battle, she could never again.
She had to raise a son and a daughter, and she had to shoulder the weight of an entire Sanshan City.
Did she think she wanted to stand at the front line clenching her fists? Did she think she wanted her voice to grow hoarse, her waist to thicken?
Who the hell doesn't long for the quiet years, for tending flowers and trimming hedges?
But could she afford to?
Dou Yuemei clenched her fists, ground her teeth, and ceaselessly hurled herself against the shackles that bound her. Not for a single breath did she relent.
This time, the hoary voice was silent for a very long while. Until at last it said: "Come up, then."
Under the gazes of the surviving cultivators, Dou Yuemei walked alone toward the summit.
The pack of beasts, pressed down by some power, parted soundlessly to form a path, and she made her way forward along it.
The heavy clouds at the edge of the sky had, at some unknown moment, been parted, revealing a sliver of crescent moon. But before long, they closed over it once more.
The night is always dark.
While waiting, time seems to stretch endlessly long.
When Dou Yuemei's figure came into view, every eye turned upon her.
People hoped and longed for it; they also dreaded it, and fretted over it.
She walked all the way to the midpoint of the mountain, to the very spot where she had once torn it in two, and only then did she seem to notice the crowd awaiting her answer.
She lifted her eyes, swept the others a glance, and without another word headed back down the mountain.
"Go home, all of you," she said.
And Sun Xiaoman, all of a sudden, felt a burning need to weep. For she suddenly realized that her beautiful, fiery-tempered mother—the one who seemed she would never grow old—this time, really did seem old.