How Do You Know It’s Me Who Is the Weak One

The atmosphere in the council hall was even more suffocating than outside.

The demon lord's pitch-black, vortex-like eyes locked onto Wang Hao. The two whirlpools of darkness within them roiled violently, like a storm-tossed sea.

"Forty martial gods, eight hundred Voidwalkers, and their leader is a half-step Sage. What do you plan to do?"

Wang Hao didn't answer. Instead, he turned to Yue Ji and Feng Wanli: "What about you two? What do you plan to do?"

Yue Ji was silent for a moment, a flicker of something complex flashing through her ashen-gray eyes. "Your Majesty, the covenant was just signed, but you've seen it too—those forty outside are beyond what Dark City can handle."

Feng Wanli said nothing, but his silence was itself a reply.

Wang Hao looked at them and suddenly smiled.

"You want to flip sides?"

Three words, like three daggers, pierced the air.

Yue Ji and Feng Wanli did not speak. They lowered their heads, but they did not deny it.

Wang Hao's smile grew even brighter.

"Fine. I understand." He leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and swept his gaze across everyone present.

"I've fought all my life, and I never force anyone's hand. If you want to flip sides, I won't stop you. But I have one question for you—"

He stood up, walked over to Yue Ji, bent down to her ear, and whispered a few words.

No one heard what he said.

But everyone saw the change in Yue Ji's expression—from pale to deathly white, from deathly white to a sickly gray-green, as if someone had stabbed a blade into her deepest fear.

Wang Hao straightened up, patted Yue Ji on the shoulder, and smiled as if comforting a frightened child. "Don't be afraid. I'm just giving you a heads up. The choice is yours."

Then he turned and strode toward the main door, tossing back a final line without looking: "Three days. Take your time considering. I'm in no hurry."

On the watchtower, Wang Hao once again looked up at the forty martial gods in the sky.

His smile was still radiant, but the hand gripping the Sovereign's Sword tightened once more.

Just then, the communication jade slip within his sleeve hummed—it was an encrypted channel used by the demonic beast clans.

He infused a thread of astral energy into it, and the voice of the Azure Dragon Sacred King came through.

"Your Majesty, the Ten Thousand Beast Hall has concluded an emergency council in resolution—the Demon Realm will not intervene in the conflict between the Eastern Wasteland and the Central Continent. The fifty thousand elites of the Azure Dragon Tribe are withdrawing to the Southern Frontier immediately."

"Your Majesty, I—"

A long pause. Then the Sacred King breathed out three words.

"Forgive me."

The jade slip's light died.

The fingers of Wang Hao's hand, still clutching the jade slip, whitened at the knuckles.

"Fine," he said softly. There was no emotion in his voice, but every word seemed gnashed between his teeth. "So even you're playing me for a fool."

He turned, looking again at the forty oppressive silhouettes on the eastern horizon, then at the eight gang leaders in the council hall who were now murmuring among themselves.

And then he smiled.

It was still a radiant smile, but now it held a vein of cold, sharp madness.

"Sovereign's Sword."

"I am here."

"You're right. If I don't cut down a few ancient bastards, these people really think I'm easy prey."

"Long overdue." The sword's voice brimmed with eager excitement. "Who do we kill first?"

Wang Hao did not answer.

Instead, he walked back into the council hall and, under the startled gazes of those present, plopped down once more onto his stone seat.

"My lords." His voice was calm, but within that calm lay a suffocating pressure. "I have changed my mind. Three days is too long. I will give you your answer tonight."

He raised one finger, pointing at the dome above, at the forty martial god figures beyond it.

"You want to switch sides? Fine. I will go out tonight and confront those forty old bastards head-on. The eight of you stay here and watch—watch how I fight this battle."

"If I win, you continue to honor the agreement and serve me loyally as my subjects."

"If I lose, I won't wait for them to say it. I will withdraw from the Dark City myself. The agreement becomes null and void, and you are free to do as you please."

He rose to his feet, sweeping his sleeves. The Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Tower blazed with blinding silver-white lightning, serpents of electricity writhing and hissing along its surface.

"But if I die at Li Cangming's hands—"

He turned his head to look at Moon Ji and the Demon Lord, a smile curling on his lips that sent a chill down their spines.

"Then the eight of you had best sleep with one eye open for the rest of your days. Even dead, I am the kind of man who will crawl out of his coffin to collect his debts."

With these words, he strode toward the observation platform.

The Emperor's Sword was drawn from its sheath, golden light laced with threads of silver-white thunder playing across the blade.

The moment the blade cleared the scabbard, a sharp ringing cry pierced the entire Dark City—a cry filled with the heady excitement of one eager for the fray.

"Forty-eight auras of martial gods. Wang Hao, I can feel their heartbeats," the Emperor's Sword spoke in his mind, its tone as delighted as a diner about to feast.

"Forty outside, eight in the hall. Which do we kill first: the outer ones or the inner ones?"

"Kill the outer ones first," Wang Hao replied, tilting his head up toward the forty oppressive figures glowing on the eastern horizon, a cold sneer spreading across his face.

"Keep the inner ones alive. Let them see—what a true emperor looks like."

The Emperor's Sword hummed with anticipation as lightning and gold interwove across its surface, casting flickering shadows over Wang Hao's face.

That smile was brilliant, arrogant, carrying a wildness like a storm about to break.

In the night sky, the presence of forty martial gods loomed like forty volcanoes suspended in the heavens.

Li Cangming stood upon the void, blood-red flames spinning slowly in his pupils. He had seen countless prodigies rise and countless prodigies fall to dust. In his eyes, Wang Hao was just another reckless youth who, by some stroke of fortune, had broken through to martial god status and now fancied himself a match for the Sixteen Holy Lands of the Central Plains.

Such youths, he had killed many.

"He does have some nerve," Li Cangming said, watching Wang Hao ascend from the observation platform into the air. "A pity that those with too much nerve tend to die the fastest."

Behind him, the thirty-nine martial gods released their pressure simultaneously. Forty auras condensed into a single force, like an invisible hand crushing down from the sky.

Beyond the Dark City's outer walls, the ground sank once more. The eternal night canopy flickered with ghostly green runes, and the city's protective array groaned under the strain.

On the observation platform, the Demon Lord and Moon Ji stood side by side, gazing up at that golden figure soaring into the sky.

"He actually dared to go out," Moon Ji said softly. For the first time, a complex emotion flickered in her dead gray eyes. Having lived for a thousand years, she had never seen anyone like him.

“He has to go out.” The Demon Lord’s vortex-like black eyes narrowed slightly.

“One step back and it’s the abyss. The Sacred Order isn’t something you reason with—it’s a decree of annihilation. If he fights out there, at least there’s a chance. But if he cowers behind the Evernight Canopy and waits for forty Martial Gods to break the city-defense formation together, Dark City will truly become a tomb.”

“Do you think he can win?”

The Demon Lord did not answer.

But his silence itself was the answer.

Midair, Wang Hao halted a hundred zhang from the forty Martial Gods. It was a delicate distance—one step closer and he’d be within Li Cangming’s certain kill range; one step farther and he’d seem timid.

He hovered at that exact spot, his imperial robe snapping in the night wind, the Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Tower slowly revolving above his head, the golden sword-light of the Celestial Emperor’s Sword flickering in his hand.

“Elder Li,” Wang Hao said, cupping his hands with a grin so bright he might have been arriving at a banquet.

“I’ve been thinking—what you said earlier isn’t quite right.”

Li Cangming’s blood-red flame eyes narrowed. “Oh?”

“You said the strong prey on the weak, as it always has been. Because I’m weak, I deserve to die.” Wang Hao held the Celestial Emperor’s Sword across his chest, its golden light illuminating his face. There was a sharp edge beneath his smile.

“But how do you know—that I’m the one who’s weak?”

The moment the words fell, at least ten of the forty Martial Gods let out contemptuous sneers.

A newly promoted Martial God, telling one half-step Transcendent and thirty-nine Martial Gods, “How do you know I’m the weak one?”—that wasn’t courage; it was madness.

But Li Cangming noticed something: when Wang Hao came out, he came alone. The eight Martial Gods in Dark City had not followed him out.

What did that mean?

Two possibilities: either Dark City had abandoned Wang Hao, or Wang Hao simply didn’t need them.

A man who would face forty Martial Gods alone, without needing the help of eight, was either insane or utterly undaunted.

Li Cangming had seen madmen before. He had also seen those with hidden trump cards.

But Wang Hao fit neither category—he seemed more like a gambler, betting everything on the hole card in his hand.

“Young man, I’ll give you one final chance,” Li Cangming said, each word carrying crushing force.

“Renounce Dark City now, seal your own cultivation, and come to the Central Region with me to beg for mercy. I may yet spare your life.”

“Spare my life?” Wang Hao raised an eyebrow.

“And what of my Eastern Wastes? What of my people? What of my spirit stone mines?”

“Great Xia shall become a vassal state of the Central Plains. Its people will be slaves, and its mines will fall under the jurisdiction of the Sacred Land.” Li Cangming’s voice was as flat as if he were stating an obvious fact.

Wang Hao nodded. “So I get it—you want everything I have and want me to kneel and hand it over to you.”

He tightened his grip on the Celestial Emperor’s Sword, and the vital energy within him began to surge wildly.

The Martial God foundation burst into blinding golden light. The power of the nation and the power of fortune together flooded his dantian. The esoteric patterns of Annihilation boiled through his meridians, staining the golden aura with a translucent white.

“Then I’ll give you one chance too.” He lifted the Celestial Emperor’s Sword and pointed its blade at Li Cangming.

“Leave now with your men, and from now on, steer clear of Great Xia’s Black Dragon Flag. I won’t hold today’s offense against you.”

The forty Martial Gods were stunned for a moment.

Then laughter exploded through the air.

“Ha ha ha ha——” Li Yunshan, another Supreme Elder of the Crimson Sky Sacred Land, laughed until tears nearly fell from his eyes. “You want us to go around? A newly ascended Martial God, ordering forty of us Martial Gods to step aside? Little Emperor, have you damaged your brain from training too hard?”

“A newborn calf fears no tigers, but alas, a calf is still just a calf.” Jian Wuchen, the Supreme Elder of Celestial Sword Mountain, shook his head.

“Why waste so many words?” Chilian Xianzi, the female Martial God of the Cinnabar Cloud Sacred Land, spoke up. Her lifebound Mysterious Artifact was a three-legged alchemy cauldron, its surface ablaze with seven-colored flames. She made no effort to hide the murderous intent in her eyes. “Just take him down, rip out his soul, and see if he dares to be arrogant then!”

Faced with the mockery of forty Martial Gods, Wang Hao did not get angry.

He merely turned to the Celestial Sword and said one sentence: “Sword-man, they are laughing at you.”

The Celestial Sword gave no reply.

It answered with action.