Shortly before Little Gray and the others descended to the planet and met up with Guo Luo, the generals of the World Tree clan were having a meeting in their headquarters on the planet. A tall and verdant tree that should not be on the planet served as their headquarter, various rooms carved directly into the trunk of the tree and connected through branches and tunnels.

A large and sturdy metal mansion had been constructed amidst the crown of the tree, serving as both the meeting area as well as the final defensive shelter should things go bad. The various leaders were sitting around an oval table in the room, 9 of them in total, with Leylan, Arthurius, Diana, and Gilberd making up almost half of the leaders. One of the other leaders, someone who looked like a humanoid cockroach, was currently talking and pointing at several jade orbs that were projecting various numbers.

"...That's the state of the northern front, the southern front is a bit better off and the western front still remains within the number of acceptable casualties. The eastern front is a different story, our losses there have been rather severe, we've already lost 9 Earthly Deities and close to 200 000 other cultivators in these few minutes. If the losses continue like this there is a chance that the eastern front will be breached and allow the enemy army to march a bit closer. I suggest we send over two of our Heavenly Deities to push back the enemy army over there before they have a chance to send over their own Heavenly Deities and cement their position."

The jade orbs stopped projecting the numbers when the woman finished her report and sat down. With such a large battlefield, there were countless things happening each minute that they had to pay attention to, hundreds of defensive lines to keep in mind, they had lost almost 400 000 people in just these last five minutes, stretching some of their defensive lines thin.

The eyes of the people around the table were instinctively drawn towards Arthurius, who was occasionally glancing westward while still paying attention to the meeting. Not only was Arthurius a Heavenly Deity, but he also carried two fragments of the Supreme Law of Destruction, he was the strongest person currently present. Arthurius stopped glancing west and nodded at the woman, giving a quick order.

"Only send Yan Xu, he should be able to escape no matter what they try to pull. They won't be bothering much with the southern front, it's location is too poor for them, they'll probably push the northern front a bit, but it shouldn't be too much to worry about. As for the western front, I'll personally keep an eye on it, that place seems to be a rather special congregation place right now."

Arthurius didn't specify what he was talking about, resulting in the other people around looking at him with somewhat confused expressions. Arthurius remained silent even after half a minute had passed, so Gilberd jabbed him in the waist with his elbow, prodding him to finally speak up.

"I can't really explain it too well, you wouldn't understand. But on the western front, there are four people who give me the same feeling like someone I met in the past. You've probably heard of him, he's now referred to as Yao Jun, King of Demonic Deities. I'm uncertain whether or not these four people have any ties to him, but looking at how freakish Yao Jun ended up being, I consider it wise to keep an eye on the western front."

Arthurius still remembered how his fragments trembled when in Yao Jun's presence, it was far worse than it had ever been with anyone else who carried a Supreme Law Fragment. If there were more people like Yao Jun out there, he had to at least learn what he could about them, just in case they ended up being their enemies.

--

Yao Jun was currently resting at the foot of a tall mountain that had been carved to look like an ascending serpentine dragon. Godborne mountain, the place where the two final parts of the competition would take place. Now that he had killed Luosho Li, he guessed that the competition might be sped up somewhat, so he figured that he might as well quietly cultivate and wait at the foot of the mountain.

He could sense quite a few people and Demonic beasts hiding around in the surroundings, but none of them dared to get close to him, so he couldn't be bothered to do anything against them. But just as he was getting absorbed into his cultivation, he received a message from Little Gray.

"My Lord, we've found the Mistress and the others! They're currently taking part in the war with the World Tre..."

Little Gray's message got cut off before Yao Jun could hear all of it, something he didn't even think was possible since Little Gray was contacting him through the God Gate. But that thought was quickly shoved to the back of his mind, they had found Guo Luo, he finally knew where to find her.

Yao Jun quickly tried to reach out to Little Gray and the others, but he found himself unable to contact a single one of his Demonic beasts. He then tried to open an entrance to his God Gate right by Little Gray, but he wasn't even able to do that, it almost felt like Little Gray and the others had been nearly perfectly cut off from his God Gate.

A sense of unease assaulted Yao Jun as he quickly stood up, space around him warping as he teleported away. He had only entered this competition because one of the rewards was an item that could regenerate Guo Luo's lost eye, but that didn't matter to him right now. If he stayed within the competition and something happened to Guo Luo and the others as a result, he would never forgive himself.

Yao Jun teleported away as fast as he could, giving no regard to how much energy he spent or how many pills he had to pop to keep himself going. And thanks to that, he reached his target in record time, a triangular floating island with a single tree sprouting at the center. Located not far from the tree was his reason for coming here, the distortion in space that was the connecting point of this half-finished universe and his own one.

Since he couldn't use his God Gate to move directly to Little Gray and the others, he could only leave this half-finished universe and travel to them using the normal way. This meant that he would be abandoning the competition, but something as small as that meant nothing to him. Yao Jun stopped once he stepped onto the floating island, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the gray-eyed and brown-haired person sitting on the ground in front of the spatial distortion.

"Ren Shuren, move."

The person sitting in front of the spatial distortion was Ren Shuren, the person sent here by the Sebettu race so that they could show off a little of their strength. The two had signed a contract last time they met, stating that Ren Shuren was forbidden from helping Luosho Li and that Yao Jun could not attack Ren Shuren's wife and child unprovoked. Ren Shuren's mouth twitched and distorted slightly as he looked at Yao Jun, his expression turning extremely bitter as he stood up and stretched out his arm, holding it in front of the spatial distortion.

"Fuck man, are you kidding me? look, can I just ask you to turn around and leave? Our plans changed a little, partly because you killed Luosho Li so grandly. I've been ordered to stand guard here and prevent anyone from leaving, and since I really don't want to fight you, can I just ask you to walk away and wait for the competition to end? I can even swear an oath that you can leave peacefully once the competition ends, fuck, I'll even give you resources if you can just fuck off for now."

Ren Shuren scratched the back of his head as he spoke somewhat awkwardly. Yao Jun's eyes roamed over the surroundings for a bit, he couldn't see Avaritia anywhere, but he guessed that she was hiding somewhere nearby, probably enjoying the spectacle. Ren Shuren felt that he gave Yao Jun a very good deal, but he sadly didn't understand Yao Jun's current situation. Yao Jun's eyes narrowed sharply as his sword appeared within his grasp, his expression leaving no room for discussion.

"Move."