Against the Gods

On this day, an intimidating-looking invitation card was delivered throughout the still-shaking Northern Divine Region, stirring up even bigger waves in the region.

These invitation cards were personally delivered by people from one of three king realms and they were sent to all the realm kings and core sects of the upper and middle star realms. There were even a few invitation cards sent to the most important lower star realms.

Moreover, an invitation card from a king realm had never merely been just an invitation. It was, in reality, an imperial decree that could not be defied!

If they refused an invitation from another star realm, it would, at worst, mean that they were not showing them any face. But none of them would dare to reject an “invitation” sent to them by one of the king realms, unless they were tired of living of course.

It was quite common for a king realm of the Northern Divine Region to send out so many invitations. They would do so every time a new emperor was being crowned.

However, this invitation card had been sent out in the name of all three king realms!

The words “We invite all kings to come and greet our new ruler” contained a transcendent might that shook them to the core.

The meaning contained behind those words was even more shocking than the might that emanated from them. They caused huge waves to crash about in the hearts of all the realm kings of the Northern Divine Region.

The three king realms were jointly declaring that they had a “new ruler”?

The three king realms were jointly appointing a new ruler?

A new ruler who stood above the three king realms!?

This was something unprecedented in the Northern Divine Region, a notion that had never crossed any of their minds.

Yun Che. This name had swiftly spread through the upper echelons of the Northern Divine Region ever since he had appeared in the Heavenly Sovereign Assembly hosted by the Imperial Heaven Realm.

The Burning Moon Realm had fallen within the span of a single day. The news that Yun Che had inherited the legacy of a Devil Emperor and could release the power of a True God shot through the Northern Divine Region like a bolt of heavenly lightning… and Chi Wuyao was naturally also the one who was orchestrating everything behind the scenes.

Chi Wuyao had already started campaigning for Yun Che from the very beginning, causing his “name”, which was quite new to the Northern Divine Region, to crash into the minds of all the powerhouses of the Northern Divine Region. But this “invitation” and “grand ceremony” were still far too sudden, far too shocking. So much so that all of these wise and experienced overlords were left dumbfounded by the news.

Amidst their shock, all of these rulers began to sense that something incredible was afoot.

The event was to be held a month from now. The location? The Soul Stealing Realm Sacred Region.

————

The Burning Moon Realm had initially submitted for three reasons. The divine might Yun Che had displayed when he had obliterated Fen Daojun in a single instant, the devilish and seductive words of Chi Wuyao, and the transformation of the Witches.

But there was no doubt that this intimidation and Chi Wuyao’s persuasion would slowly erode with the passage of time, so she would have to continue to suppress any dangerous ideas the Burning Moon Realm might have.

However, once the Burning Moon Realm saw that the Yama Realm had capitulated as well, they lost all desire to rebel.

Furthermore, once Yun Che had bestowed his dark blessing upon them, the remaining Moon Eaters felt their bodies go through a miraculous transformation, one that they had never dared to dream of. All of them were filled with wild joy and were overflowing with gratitude.

There was no such thing as unearned loyalty in this world. It was just like the concepts behind “the carrot and the stick”... He had shown enough of his stick and he had given them many bites of the carrot. In fact, even their legacies and lifelines were held in his hands—whether it was the Burning Moon or the Yama Realm.

Yun Che’s grand coronation ceremony was already being prepared with much fanfare within the Soul Stealing Sacred Region. The Yama Realm and the Burning Moon Realm were also involved. When Yun Che had selected the Soul Stealing Sacred Region as the venue, it had sent a loud and clear signal to the other two realms.

During these turbulent times for the Northern Divine Region, ironically, the man responsible for it all was currently unoccupied and relaxed.

Qianye Ying’er’s strength had not been the only thing that had been greatly boosted by the second Untamed World Pellet. Her fusion with the Devil Emperor blood had also progressed greatly. To Yun Che, she had now become an even more excellent dual cultivation incubator.

After he had pulled Qianye Ying’er into the Bone Sea of Eternal Darkness, he borrowed the primordial devil energy to tirelessly dual cultivate with her day and night. In the short span of half a month, Qianye Ying’er’s profound strength, which had undergone a complete transformation, was much more solid and stable. Yun Che’s mastery of the Eternal Calamity of Darkness had also taken a great leap forward during this time.

Even though he still remained in the middle stages of mastering it, his ability to control and use it had gone up several markers.

In the past, he would still need to concentrate a little when he was helping the dark profound practitioners undergo their dark rebirth. If an external force or internal resistance interfered with the process, it would cause him to fail.

But he could basically perform this dark blessing with a single thought now. However, the most important thing… was that it was much easier for him to transform large amounts of people.

The Bone Sea of Eternal Darkness was undoubtedly the best place for both Yun Che and Qianye Ying’er to cultivate. The level of the primordial yin energy in that place was extremely high and the energy itself was extremely dense. No other place in this universe could compare to it.

Within the Soul Stealing Realm’s sacred region, on the Soul Sky.

Yun Che sat on the ground cross-legged. His eyes were closed and no auras radiated from his body.

He had been spending the last few weeks dual cultivating with Qianye Ying’er inside the Bone Sea of Eternal Darkness, so his cultivation and his mastery of the Eternal Calamity of Darkness had grown by leaps and bounds. Even so, no matter how hard he tried, he was not able to access the next level of the Law of Nothingness.

It seemed like he had really reached the limit at this point in time, and perhaps, this would be as much as he would ever comprehend the law… Because with the departure of the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor, there was no way that a complete World-Defying Heaven Manual would appear in the universe.

However, though he could only access and manipulate the weakest form of the Law of Nothingness, it was still a bizarre power that easily transcended all the knowledge of this universe.

Qianye Ying’er stood at the borders of the Soul Sky. Her hair and skirt fluttered in the air as a gentle breeze brushed past her and she looked like an immortal that transcended the mortal realm.

Yun Che would normally spend hours in this state, so she had grown used to it.

“The three king realms have united under one banner and the coronation ceremony is near at hand. This took far less time than we had originally expected. Furthermore, the whole thing went unimaginably smoothly.”

Qianye Ying’er seemed to be talking to Yun Che, but she also looked like she was also talking to herself.

“Should we say that the Heretic God’s power and the Eternal Calamity of Darkness are simply far too powerful, or… has everything gone according to the will of the heavens?”

It was true. Everything had happened too fast, too easily.

Qianye Ying’er was deeply aware of just how strong a king realm was.

They definitely had to start by forming an alliance with the Soul Stealing Realm, but this alliance had happened much too smoothly.

After that...

The Yama Realm had originally been the biggest and hardest obstacle for them to overcome. How could their reputation as the king realm who had risen to the peak of the Northern Divine Region for the last eight hundred thousand years be a lie? Even if they managed to easily conquer the Burning Moon Realm first, conquering the Yama Realm would have been a long and bitter struggle.

However, in the cruelest of ironies, it was precisely because of the existence of the Bone Sea of Eternal Darkness, a big reason for their ascendance in the first place, that they were forced to surrender without a fight. Their strongest guardians had even become three powerful and loyal dogs who served Yun Che as their master.

The Burning Moon Realm was the weakest king realm, but its deep resources and powerful core of strength were not to be underestimated. if Fen Daojun had chosen to fight to the bitter end, they would have paid a terrible price to defeat the Burning Moon Realm.

However, in a fit of rage, Yun Che had shattered their strongest Moon Eater with a single strike of his palm and had obliterated the Burning Moon God Emperor with a single stroke of his sword… The imperious might he had displayed, a power that belonged in the domain of the gods, had toppled the convictions and beliefs of the Burning Moon Realm in a single instant. They had submitted without a single shot needing to be fired.

As for the Soul Stealing Realm...

If Chi Wuyao had not been his master and they were in a relationship of mutual benefit, she might have become the most terrifying enemy they had to deal with out of the three god emperors.

This was a breathtakingly grand undertaking, something that had never been accomplished in the history of the Northern Divine Region, but in reality… not even a single desperate battle had taken place.

Yun Che opened his eyes and spoke in a low voice, “Back in the God Realm, I moved as if I was walking on thin ice and I brushed shoulders with death countless times. The world only heard of my ever-growing fame, my increasingly brilliant halo, no one knew about the life and death struggles I had to go through to get to where I was.”

“...” Qianye Ying’er’s golden eyes quietly turned toward Yun Che… the biggest “life and death struggle” he had to go through in the God Realm was a situation that she had plunged him into.

The closest he had ever been to death and the greatest torture he had ever experienced in his life had both come from her.

“I was grateful for all the blessings that life has given me so I took saving the world as a duty and mission I had to fulfil. I thought that I was the messiah that the heavens had chosen. I had even asked Wuxin this exceedingly arrogant question. ‘Don’t you want your father to become the hero who saved the world?’... Hah!”

Yun Che slowly lifted his head towards the sky. Black clouds roiled in the heavens above as he spoke, “The Northern Divine Region. In this barren and vicious land of darkness, I thought that only boundless trials and malice awaited me. However… even though the road to becoming the messiah was fraught with peril and death, the journey to devildom, this descent into darkness, seems to have been guided by the very hand of destiny.”

His gaze started to grow cold and sinister as he said in an even deeper voice, “As it turns out, I have always been mistaken about my raison d'etre, my own identity. I was never supposed to be some sort of saint who would save the world! I was always destined to be a devil lord who would bring calamity!”

“But right now, what I really want to know is…” He started chuckling and his lips curved into a cold and wicked smile. The devilish light in his eyes grew even more sinister as he said, “Who in the three divine regions is going to be the ‘hero’ who finally slays me and saves the world in the end?”

“Heh.” Qianye Ying’er snorted at those words contemptuously. “A devil lord who brings calamity? Even if you saved the world ten times over, there would still be countless men in the God Realm who would drool at the thought of cutting you to pieces. Just because you slept with both the Dragon Queen and Goddess!”

“...” Yun Che shot a glance toward her. The cold wind had pressed her clothes against her body, revealing her enchantingly beautiful curves. He chuckled mockingly. “You were the ones who presented yourselves to me, yet I am the great sinner here? What a joke!”

“Then you deserve to be ripped apart all the mo…” Qianye Ying’er’s voice halted and her golden eyes swivelled towards him. “So Shen Xi also presented herself to you?”

Yun Che, “...”

“Hahahahahaha…” Qianye Ying’er bent forward and her luxurious bosom heaved as she started laughing unrestrainedly. “Just as expected! The more pure and noble a woman looks, the more lewd and unrestrained she actually is. Hahahahaha!”

“Shut your mouth,” Yun Che rebuked her coldly. “I’ll say this for the last time… You are not to say a single bad thing about her!”

“Bad thing?” Qianye Ying’er rolled her beautiful eyes insouciantly. “When you use those words to describe me, you call it high praise. But when it comes to her, it becomes something unpleasant?”

“...” Yun Che was stunned by that riposte.

“Aiyah, it looks like this queen has come at the wrong time.”

A cottony and devilish voice that could melt bone rang out in the air. Chi Wuyao descended from the sky and no black mist covered her body this time, fully revealing her beautiful face and devilish figure. The small smile that played across her lips was so enthralling that it could bewitch a man a thousand times over and her exquisite body seemed to have been carved by the universe’s most skilled and lascivious sculptor.

Her arrival caused Yun Che to scramble to his feet as if by instinct.

“...” Qianye Ying’er’s brow crinkled.

“Yun Qianying.” Chi Wuyao’s brows arched into crescents as she giggled. “Can I borrow Yun Che for a second?”

Chi Wuyao had only taken a single graceful step forward, but her ample bosom already started to jiggle in an alluring and provocative fashion… Qianye Ying’er’s brows twitched violently as she swiveled her head toward Chi Wuyao. She said with a cold snort, “I’m not lending him to you!”

A bewitching and delicate fragrance assaulted their nostrils as Chi Wuyao appeared at Yun Che’s side. She gave him a flirtatious smile as she said, “You clearly said that you wanted to make this queen Yun Che’s empress, but you’re stuck to him twenty-four seven. You’re not even willing to give this queen a little bit of him. The nine children beside me, and even this queen herself, keep grumbling about the situation as we anxiously wait for a resolution on your end.”

“...” Her warm and gentle breath caressed Yun Che’s neck. Yun Che did not flinch but he felt his body heating up quickly as his blood started to boil uncontrollably.

To Yun Che, Chi Wuyao’s most frightening aspect was not her Devil Emperor soul. Rather… it was the demonic seductiveness she exuded with every breath she took, something that the heavens had blessed her with from the very beginning.

Back then, she had used Mu Xuanyin’s icy and beautiful face, and her goddess-like body, a cold beauty which resembled a proud and lofty ice lotus, to push him over the edge. The effect was only amplified now that she approached him as the bewitching Devil Queen.

Chi Wuyao’s words made Qianye Ying’er swivel in her direction. As she stared at those devilish curves which even caused a woman’s heart to flutter, a bland smile crossed her face as she said, “Chi Wuyao, I keep endorsing you to be made Yun Che’s empress and this is also one of the conditions of our alliance and sincerity toward each other. However, the only person who can sleep with him is me. Those are two seperate things. Do you get what I’m saying?”

Yun Che: “...???”

“Pffft…” Chi Wuyao giggled seductively. A multitude of enchanting ripples danced in her eyes and even Qianye Ying’er was forced to swiftly avert her gaze.

“How can I help you?” Yun Che asked as he quietly exhaled.

Even though he was doing his best to control his actions, he still tried to avoid her gaze in a rather unnatural manner.

He still hadn’t truly figured out how he should interact with Chi Wuyao.

“There are two things on the agenda.” Chi Wuyao’s bewitchingly beautiful eyes slanted towards Yun Che as she smiled at him. “The first matter we have to deal with is this. Your grand coronation ceremony will be held in seven days and all of the heroes of the Northern Divine Region will have gathered to witness it, but you still haven’t decided on your title as god emperor.”

“As the very first ‘Devil Master’ of the Northern Divine Region, your imperial title happens to be very important indeed.”