“Hand over the Grass‑Mud Horse, and I’ll spare your life!”

Up in the sky, Ouyang looked down, swagger blazing like a hawk riding storm-black lightning. Under that black thunder, the man had nowhere to hide; even slipping into space was a rabbit flushed from a bush.

None of this was just showing off; it was for that one beast. Ouyang smelled a Grass‑Mud Horse’s trail on the guy, the scent like wild sage after rain. A divine beast shouldn’t be stolen under Ouyang’s eyelids, so he and Mapleleaf had moved against this crew.

Not long ago, Senyue’s group hadn’t been bullied much. But facing this lot, Ouyang flipped straight to red, like a blade tasting blood. That meant these people had crossed his bottom line.

“Grass‑Mud Horse?”

Dragged out by black lightning, the man’s fog cloak peeled off like wet gauze. His grass‑green hair hung in ragged strands, a windblown thicket. His look was a mess, and his heart was worse, a drumbeat off-tempo.

What had he run into today? Three Realm Gods, like three mountains shouldering the horizon. Mapleleaf’s unfathomable strength stood beyond that, a peak behind cloud. Lingwen was weak, yet her pulse read Realm God. And Ouyang, too, wore that weight. Three Realm Gods in one day—his luck was a storm tide.

And he still didn’t get it. Hand over a Grass‑Mud Horse? What even was that?

“So you plan to resist to the bitter end, huh?” Ouyang rushed in and threw a straight punch, a tiger out of bamboo.

Aupu blanked out, stunned like a deer in lantern light. Resist? He had no idea what Ouyang wanted. He hadn’t even said no.

Hit for no reason, Aupu’s temper flared—flint to tinder. He, too, was a Realm God. A Creator God, a forge blazing stars.

“For the likes of you, unreasonable and headstrong, I, Aupu, won’t bow. Even if I shatter the Genesis Crown, I’ll fight to the end!” Rainbow haze rose off his body like stained glass at dawn. Strange sigils hung in the void, moths circling fire.

Aupu spread his arms, lifted his face to the sky, and shut his eyes. The diagram under his feet lit like a tablet carved with a thousand curses.

“Damn, certified idiot.” Ouyang almost laughed, a wolfish curl at the lip. Big move charging? In a real fight, who gifts you time to cast? Aupu’s posture screamed he was underestimating him.

Bang. Ouyang’s fist crashed into Aupu’s face, clean as a hammer on iron. The endless rainbow shattered like glass, and Aupu cratered into the earth. In the ruined city, the ground caved, a bowl gouged from stone.

“Cough… you… you unreasonable…”

Aupu started to rise, but clamped his mouth shut. Overhead, a massive sphere of black lightning fell like a night sun. His face turned a page of shock; fighting Ouyang felt suffocating, a bell jar over breath.

First, he didn’t even know Ouyang’s motive. Hand over a Grass‑Mud Horse? Second, Ouyang struck while he was weaving a technique, which felt like tossing out duel etiquette. Shouldn’t both sides brew their ultimate moves, then settle life and death in one stroke?

World-shadows unfurled, frame after frame circling Aupu like a film reel. They caught the black lightning ball, a shield of moving stories. The land buckled into a basin, a dry lake under new moon. The city’s ruins broke to dust, only a barren bowl left, bones of earth exposed.

“Hey, you—yeah, you. Be reasonable. Hand over a Grass‑Mud Horse? What is that? If I had one, I’d give it to you. I don’t even want it!”

Borrowing his world’s strength, Aupu lived, and he knew the gap now—a cliff he couldn’t climb. He couldn’t win. This was his first same-tier opponent, iron meeting iron.

From birth, he had stood in a dead starfield and made a world, a smith of sun and moon. He was a Creator God, a father who had never met a peer. Then one day, a black corridor cut into his world like a wound. He entered this lost civilization and learned there were other gods. Creator Gods weren’t the only stars.

A Creator God without battle scars couldn’t beat cheat-coded Ouyang. Soon, surrender felt like the only shore.

In the barren basin, a line of people stood neat as bamboo, hands bound behind them. Senyang, Senyue, Lingwen, Aupu, Kairis…

Kairis wasn’t dead. Mapleleaf had shattered his body, but hadn’t pushed the blade. Aupu used the Genesis Crown to rebuild their forms, flesh smithed anew.

“Yeah, this egg. Hell yes—found the Divine Beast Grass‑Mud Horse at last. Set it in the Rebirth Pool, and it’ll hatch a Void Smuggler Beast.”

Just as Ouyang guessed, Aupu’s luck was a comet’s streak. He’d actually found the Void Smuggler Beast’s egg.

“Hey, girl, know who’s boss yet?” Ouyang palmed the egg in one hand and pinched Lingwen’s chin with the other, a fox testing a cub. He had his reasons—trust his baseline. He wasn’t the type to mess with good folk for nothing.

Right after Aupu revived his people, Ouyang and Mapleleaf went to study the egg. Then Lingwen and Aupu teamed up and tried to jump Ouyang. Dammit—he’d spared those two, and they tried to rebel, wolves baring teeth.

So Ouyang forged chains out of black lightning, shackling their hands like night vines. To gods, hands weren’t everything, there were a hundred ways to make trouble. Those chains didn’t just bind; they sealed their divine power, a frost over a river.

Pinched, Lingwen blushed, a peach lit from inside, then snorted cold, a winter sparrow refusing crumbs.

Seeing that look, Ouyang lost interest, like tasting flat tea. He walked to Aupu, grabbed a fistful of that grass‑green hair, and gave it a yank. “Kid, say it. Who’s the boss?”

Aupu snorted hard, a bull digging hooves, and ignored him.

Feeling his pride scuffed, Ouyang stepped to Senyang and tapped his head, a knuckle on a gourd. “Moron, tell me—who’s the boss?”

Senyang blinked. No resentment crossed his face, a clear pond under wind. “Boss? You, of course. You caught us. If we could beat you, we wouldn’t be tied up.”

Ouyang patted his head in reward, a master gifting a sugar haw.

“See? Even a fool reads the field better than you lot. Two Creator Gods, one realm‑forger clown—each already beaten. And you think dragging in a low‑combat Create‑Matter weakling can beat me?”

A Realm God’s minor ranks split like stepping stones: Create‑Matter, Create‑Soul, Create‑Realm. First, Create‑Matter—rocks and flowers bloom from thought, but no beasts, because there’s no soul. Second, Create‑Soul—work at the soul level, grant breath to the lifeless, weave spirits from mist. Third, Create‑Realm—only a Creator God who fuses matter and soul can raise a living world, full and whole. A true world needs rules, rivers flowing downhill, sun setting in the west. A Realm God who can lay those laws is Create‑Realm tier.

Aupu was born with Create‑Matter. In his ignorance, he cast sun and moon, drew the world’s cone. Time taught him Create‑Soul. When life ran green across the earth and the world moved in steady rhythm, he stood as a Create‑Realm Realm God.

They all hung their heads, reeds in a hard wind, saying with silence, do what you will.

Then Senyang piped up, bright as a cricket at dusk. “Hey, boss, can I join you?”

In a breath, every gaze speared him, knives lined on a rack.

“Join me? Ha, sure. Kid, you’ve got guts. I like that.” Ouyang loosened Senyang’s bindings at once. Free, Senyang practically bounced, a sparrow finding grain. “Haha, boss, you’re great! Strong and good to your own.”

His words thickened the killing intent around them, a storm ready to break. If heart-voices had sound, Ouyang knew they’d be in unison: we’ve bred a traitor.

“Kid, what’s your name?”

“Reporting, boss, I’m Senyang!”

“Senyang? Good. For your nerve, I appoint you World Steward. Their world’s yours to manage.” Ouyang jerked his chin at Aupu and the rest, the meaning sharp as a knife. He’d caught that world’s Creator God; who managed it now was his call.

“Manage a world… Boss, sounds fun.”

Senyang looked eager, a fox eyeing an open coop. Aupu couldn’t sit still. If someone else managed his world, maybe. But letting Senyang, a brain that shorted at odd hours, take the wheel? Heaven knew what wreck he’d make.

“No.”

Aupu opposed at once, a bell struck sharp.

“Oh?” Ouyang watched him, eyes like a cat’s in lamplight. He tossed the egg up and caught it, then tossed it again, lazy as a juggler in a tea stall.

Under that gaze, Aupu’s heart crawled, a beetle under ash. He had no choice. “Boss… can I keep managing my world?”

He yielded. A Create‑Realm Creator God bowed his head, like an old pine bending in snow. That world was built stone by stone, his sweat in its soil. The lives in it were his children. Handing his children to someone unreliable—how could he rest easy?