Beyond the Jade Lock Pass of Youdu, a torn and battered banner flew. The yin wind plucked at it, flap, flap, and it shivered. The banner was ancient, and it had plainly been to war: it bore the marks left by divine powers, and scorch marks left by fire. Its cloth was still stained with rust-colored blood. Planting this great pole was a four-armed demon-god a hundred zhang tall, four enormously thick arms locked tight about the shaft, his gaze sharp and resolute, fixed dead upon the gates of Jade Lock Pass. With a rip, the great banner was torn open by the savage yin wind, and a long strip of cloth went tumbling away backward through the dark. Where the strips of the banner drifted, rank upon rank of towering demon-gods stood in perfect order, clad in ruined armor, gripping broken godly and demonic weapons, standing silent behind the great flag. Too many demon-gods to count, an army without end. And at the center of that host, a canopy whose dome was pierced with several great holes shaded a stretch of some tens of li; beneath it stood pillars thick as columns, and beside them a throne coiled of dragon bone. The wind was fierce. The towering being seated upon the throne shook out his crimson cloak, lest the yin wind carry it off. His face was somewhat pale, and he coughed heavily several times. "Has the Crimson Emperor still not recovered from the wound the Divine Son of Youdu gave him last time?" A woman with a serpent's head on a human body swam up before him, though the voice from her mouth was a man's. She asked it smiling. The Crimson Emperor's expression turned somewhat ugly. He said indifferently, "The Crimson Emperor? I am already dead. I am unworthy of that name. The Crimson Emperor of today is that little wench Qi Xiayu. Call me Yan Qianzhong." Lu Li laughed coquettishly: "In the last years of Shanghuang, the Crimson Emperor fought Qi Xiayu and was honored in defeat. The Crimson Emperor died, true, but Qi Xiayu had no choice but to surrender..." Yan Qianzhong was greatly displeased: "Get lost." "Yes." Wreathed in smiles, Lu Li walked off toward another camp. That endless army of demon-gods was not the whole of the force come to hunt him down this time; it was only the demon-god host under Yan Qianzhong's command. Yan Qianzhong had once been the Crimson Emperor of the Southern Heavens in the Old Heavenly Court. In the last years of the Shanghuang era, when the Old Heavenly Court moved to destroy the Shanghuang Heavenly Court, the Crimson Emperor Yan Qianzhong faced Qi Xiayu. The two Imperial Throne sovereigns were monstrously strong, but Qi Xiayu was a notch above, and she slew Yan Qianzhong. Yet Qi Xiayu was gravely wounded in turn and taken by the Old Heavenly Court, and with no choice left her she surrendered and became the new Crimson Emperor of the Southern Heavens. That was the tale Lu Li had just raised. Yan Qianzhong, once the Crimson Emperor, had fallen after death into Youdu to serve as a ghost emperor — only he was far now from the gaudy world of the living. As a ghost he had lost his six senses: nothing he ate had taste, no flower gave him fragrance. He could play the tyrant and lord it over others, yes, but he still had to answer to the Old Heavenly Court, and the thought soured him. Lu Li's raking up of that old business soured him further. Lu Li came to the camp beside it, where a god of immense stature stood, his whole body like bedrock, and she smiled: "Crown Prince Jiuxi, son of the Earth Mother Sovereign, how are your injuries healing?" "Over these years I have swallowed more dead souls than I can count, and at last I am restored." The stone giant Yan Jiuxi bared his teeth in a grin. "In today's battle, the Divine Son of Youdu will surely yield up his head!" The demon-gods under his command were plainly all demigods — a demigod overlord of the Longhan era. Lu Li smiled: "Crown Prince Jiuxi, this time we are not to kill the Divine Son of Youdu, but to seize his fortune and take his flesh." Yan Jiuxi snorted, his voice like thunder: "Lu Li, don't imagine I don't know what you are scheming. Last time you invited all the gods of Youdu far and wide to make war on the Divine Son of Youdu, and you lost soldiers and generals, and took grave hurt yourself. Later you gathered our strength to forge the God-Suppressing Chaos-Heaven Net, saying you would capture the Divine Son of Youdu and hand him over to us for disposal. But once the God-Suppressing Chaos-Heaven Net was forged, you kept delaying and never struck. Ambitious as you are, you want nothing more than to be another Tu Bo!" Lu Li was all meekness and submission: "In the world of the living I have never once had the chance. Nor is the God-Suppressing Chaos-Heaven Net certain to finish him." Then she went on to yet another camp and smiled: "Lady Xuan Wuji!" Lady Wuji glanced at her and said flatly: "There is no need for words. The Divine Son of Youdu and I are enemies down to the bone; we cannot live beneath the same sky. But you, Lu Li, are no good person either. Had you not been unable to beat the Divine Son of Youdu, and begged my son to go lend you a hand, would my son have been eaten by him?" Lu Li said gravely: "The Divine Son of Youdu is drenched in sin, the chief villain of Youdu. Your ladyship, as His Majesty's consort of war, famed for the art of battle, has sworn to repay the Heavenly Court and to die only when that debt is paid. Lu Li has always revered you. How could I have sent the prince to his death on purpose?" She came to another camp, bowed, and said: "Great Sun Star Lord." That was a three-hun primordial spirit, born divine; the ancient gods had no seven po, only three hun. The Great Sun Star Lord of the Heavenly Court had been a power of the Shanghuang era, but this primordial spirit of Youdu was the true Great Sun Star Lord. Like a great bird it was, standing on three legs, wings folded close against its body without a single feather out of place, and it said: "Rest easy, Military Commissioner. In this battle, the Divine Son of Youdu will not escape us again." "The Great Sun Star Lord's speed is unmatched under heaven. He will surely leave him no road to the sky and no door into the earth." Lu Li walked on, paying her respects to one magnate of Youdu after another; some had even turned their own flesh into heavenly palaces, seating themselves upon the imperial thrones within, majestic and martial. These magnates were all powers of the Imperial Throne and Lingxiao realms who had died in battle over the past million years; some demigods had died earlier still, of old age, before the divine storehouse cultivation system and the heavenly palace cultivation system had ever appeared. Yet their fighting strength was terrifying. Though they had no realm to speak of, their cultivation was not much inferior to that of powers in the Lingxiao and Imperial Throne realms. Lu Li paid her respects all the way down the line, to a hundred and ten magnates, before she came at last to her own demon-god encampment. In that camp there were but a hundred-odd Youdu demon-gods, and a few thousand monsters. In the last assault on Fengdu, the old Yin Envoy had slipped away in the blink of an eye, forcing her to abandon her army and flee back to Youdu in a panic, so that her subordinates were all but slaughtered. Juehuang, Xuanming, and Hanlei came up to meet her. These hundred-odd demon-gods and several thousand monsters were the entire strength of the four Military Commissioners. Xuanming was full of worry. He frowned and said: "Last time there were just as many powers gathered, and did he not still cut them down till they flung away their armor? Can we take him this time?" Lu Li was full of confidence. She smiled: "This time is different. Last time those magnates were all cocksure, each certain he could beat him, and mostly they fought him one to one, seldom ganging up on him. So they came off badly. The Divine Son of Youdu fought and fled as he went, and found it all the easier