"Yes, my Lord!"
Di Tian's back snapped straight in an instant.
Clutching his face—now swollen like an over-steamed bun—he let tears stream down uncontrollably. His voice trembled with grievance, yet was filled with solemn resolve, as if he were pledging his life upon a battlefield.
"For my Lord! For the future of our Soul Beast Clan!" he cried hoarsely. "Even if my divine soul is shattered and my existence erased, I, Di Tian, will never bow my head!"
He thumped his chest with exaggerated fervor, then immediately winced in pain, tears pouring even harder.
"My Lord, you didn't see it! I was beaten miserably! Just one slap—one single slap—and my head rang like thunder for days!"
His words were impassioned, his tone heroic, as though he had just survived a legendary battle against a supreme foe.
However—
What greeted this impassioned declaration was not praise.
Nor comfort.
But a gigantic silver dragon claw, wreathed in barely restrained fury.
The Silver Dragon King had finally reached her limit.
"ARE YOU STUPID?!"
Her roar shook the entire subspace like a collapsing sky.
BOOM—!!!
The colossal dragon claw came crashing down without the slightest mercy, smashing Di Tian—who had just been standing tall with righteous indignation—straight back into the ground!
The impact echoed like thunder.
When the dust settled, a perfectly human-shaped pit had appeared beneath the Silver Dragon King's feet.
Di Tian was once again firmly embedded in the stone.
"If that Divinity could forcibly tear open the space I was hiding in and pinpoint my exact location," she thundered, her voice filled with cold rage, "why would he need to interrogate an idiot like you about my whereabouts?!"
Her massive dragon body trembled slightly, silver scales shimmering as her anger surged.
"And!" she continued, fury rising with every word, "if he truly wanted to deal with me—if he truly wanted to wipe out our Soul Beast Clan—do you think he would waste time beating up a secondary figure like you and then send you back alive and intact?!"
"Would he really just scold me a few times, slam the door, and leave?!"
The more she spoke, the more absurd it all seemed.
Her anger burned hotter.
"Is that dragon head of yours—one that's lived for hundreds of thousands of years—filled entirely with water from the Lake of Life?!"
At that moment, she finally understood why that mysterious Divinity had cursed so freely.
If it were her—
She would have already slapped this good-for-nothing into minced meat.
Thinking about it carefully, that Divinity had merely beaten Di Tian up and tossed him back here to complain a little.
Compared to what he could have done, his temper was not just restrained.
It was astonishingly good.
Down in the pit, Di Tian lay stunned.
His muddled mind—already battered senseless by Lin Feng—finally regained a shred of clarity after undergoing repeated "physical therapy" from both Lin Feng and the Silver Dragon King.
…Wait.
What my Lord just said…
It actually makes sense.
That God could directly rip open space and find my Lord. So why would he need to question me?
Could it be… he really was just asking why I was chasing that human called Dugu Bo?
The realization hit him like another slap.
His face burned even hotter than when Lin Feng had struck him earlier.
Meanwhile, the Silver Dragon King, having vented her rage, slowly calmed down.
Her enormous purple dragon eyes grew distant and contemplative.
That God…
What exactly is he trying to do?
The hypocritical Divinities of the God Realm had always suppressed the Soul Beast Clan, wishing nothing more than to hunt them to extinction.
Yet this newly emerged God—whose power clearly surpassed that of ordinary Divinities by an unfathomable margin—showed no hostility toward soul beasts at all.
If anything…
He seemed almost too lazy to bother with racial conflicts.
A bold, unprecedented thought suddenly surfaced in the Silver Dragon King's heart.
This God is a variable.
A massive, uncontrollable variable—one that stands outside the God Realm's authority and beyond the rules of the entire Douluo Continent.
And this variable…
Might very well be the hope the Soul Beast Clan has been waiting for.
The hope to finally break free from the fate of being hunted and suppressed.
At this thought, the Silver Dragon King's eyes flared with dazzling brilliance, like galaxies igniting within them.
No.
She forced herself to calm down.
She couldn't be impulsive.
Even if the other party showed no ill intent, a God's thoughts were impossible to predict. No one could guarantee he wouldn't change his mind in the next instant.
Approaching him personally was too dangerous.
The safest course was still to send someone to probe first—to test the waters, to observe, and to understand his true purpose.
Having reached her decision, the Silver Dragon King's massive dragon body erupted in countless rays of silver light.
Within that radiance, her colossal form—mountainous and awe-inspiring—began to shrink at a visible pace.
From a towering dragon…
To the size of a pavilion.
Then further, until it matched the proportions of a human.
When the silver light finally dissipated, the majestic Silver Dragon King was gone.
Standing there instead was a peerlessly beautiful young woman.
Her long silver hair flowed smoothly down her back like liquid moonlight. Her skin was snow-white, flawless. Her features were exquisitely sculpted, as though painted by the heavens themselves.
Her purple eyes were deep and mysterious, like crystalline gems containing endless stars.
Noble. Aloof. Majestic.
A presence that compelled reverence while irresistibly drawing the eye.
This was her human form—
Gu Yuena.
(The woman rumored to be the most beautiful in all of Douluo.)
Gu Yuena lowered her gaze to the still-smoking human-shaped pit at her feet, her brows knitting tightly.
She felt as though her mind had been stirred by Di Tian's stupidity—sticky, chaotic, and aching.
With a soft sigh, she bent down, clearly resigned.
Her fair, slender hand reached out and grasped Di Tian by his tattered collar.
Like pulling out a crooked radish from a vegetable patch—
Pop.
She forcibly yanked the Beast God Di Tian out of the stone, leaving him dangling awkwardly in midair, battered and utterly undignified.
"Useless."
Her red lips parted slightly, uttering two icy words filled with unconcealed disdain.
She casually flung Di Tian aside.
No longer sparing him a glance, Gu Yuena raised her delicate hand and lightly swiped through the space before her.
The air rippled like water.
A silver portal silently opened.
On the other side lay the Lake of Life—a place she knew better than any other.
Xiong Jun lay sprawled nearby, snoring thunderously, saliva hanging from the corner of his mouth.
Bi Ji slept soundly with her head tucked beneath her wings.
The Scarlet King's three grotesque heads ground their teeth rhythmically in their sleep.
Looking at these capable subordinates—
Then recalling the pig-headed Di Tian behind her—
Gu Yuena felt her blood pressure surge again.
She stepped forward decisively into the silver portal without looking back.
"Follow me."
Di Tian, his face still swollen into a bright red pig head, said nothing.
Like a wronged little wife, he trudged after her and stepped into the portal.
Having escaped that devilish man's territory and returned to the familiar core area, Di Tian should have felt relief.
Instead, imagining how he would appear before his peers in his current state, he desperately wished the ground would split open and swallow him whole.
Before he could even adjust his mindset, a vulgar, unfiltered stream of curses rang out nearby.
"If you've got the guts, let your Grandpa Tianmeng out!"
"Grandpa here can take on all of you! I'll beat the living shit out of you!"
The source of the noise was a chubby white grub—Tianmeng Bingcan—bound by invisible chains at the center of the lake.
The fat little fellow wriggled furiously, cursing with boundless passion.
But the moment it saw Di Tian appear—
Its curses cut off abruptly.
Its plump body stiffened.
Silence fell.