DDT - Chapter 178

Chapter 178: Grand Finale (God Realm 1)

Ascending to the God Realm was the greatest desire of every cultivator in the cultivation world, bar none. Now, under the protection of the majestic and powerful divine beast behind her, Immortal Venerable Qingyun had easily stepped onto the path of ascension. If she were a native of the Nine Nether Profound Sky, she would surely be overjoyed at this moment.

But she was not.

With every bit of distance she put between herself and the world behind her, another memory surfaced in the depths of Immortal Venerable Qingyun's mind. She had once struggled to survive in an apocalypse, once reigned as an emperor in ancient times, once charged onto battlefields in an era of war, and had also spent happy days with the woman who appeared before her time and time again.

The golden light forming the passage gradually dimmed. Her feet touched solid ground, and she finally recovered her own name. Immersed in her memories, she could almost hear the gentle voice of her lover calling her Shuhan.

The vast golden array beneath their feet slowly faded. They were standing in an ancient, magnificent plaza before a towering palace—if one ignored the cracks spreading across the palace walls and the black scorch marks that looked as if they had been seared by fire.

Dozens of hundred-meter-tall divine beast statues stood around the plaza, creating a powerful visual impact. Like the palace walls, these statues were also missing limbs; some were even headless. The divine beasts of various clans, who had returned to their world with joyous hearts, had not expected to find their home looking as if it had been completely ransacked. Some divine beasts immediately roared in anger. If the Main God were not right in front of them, they might have rushed off to investigate who had been so audacious as to cause trouble on the Main God's territory!

That's right. Chi Junluo had used her divine power to set the destination of the ascension passage directly to the plaza of her own divine hall. She looked it over; the exterior of the hall wasn't as bad as she had imagined a ruin would be. She stomped her hind foot, signaling for the divine beasts to wait in the plaza, then used her divine power to bind the nearly unconscious demon cultivator and led her heroine into the hall.

The interior of the divine hall was a complete mess, clearly having been plundered multiple times. The decorations, which had been contributed by various gods or personally crafted since the hall's construction, had been stripped clean, not even a single luminous pearl left behind. The floor tiles, inlaid with divine stones, had been pried up in a chaotic jumble. The scene reminded Yi Shuhan, whose memories were rapidly returning, of the burning of the Old Summer Palace. The massive influx of memories left her mind in a daze. The Nine-Tailed Cat divine beast walking ahead of her was clearly angered by the sight.

Perhaps sensing its master's return, the entire divine hall began to tremble as if it had come alive. A brilliant white light flashed, and the hall was instantly restored to a clean and tidy state. However, the lack of decorations made it look even more vast and empty than before.

Yi Shuhan followed Chi Junluo's unhurried steps around a few corners, and her view opened up. This was clearly the main hall of the divine palace. With her excellent vision, Yi Shuhan saw the dark-gold, ancient, and majestic divine throne at the far end of the hall. A single distant glance sent an overwhelming pressure crashing down on her, forcing her to look away. A sense of sacred inviolability welled up from the bottom of her heart. When Yi Shuhan realized this, her heart couldn't help but panic.

Her steps grew heavier. She was clearly following right behind her lover, yet with every step she took, she felt the distance between them grow.

Chi Junluo had already recovered all her memories back in the lower realm. Now, returning to the God Realm in her capacity as the Main God, she couldn't avoid the massive mess she had to clean up. She could only settle Yi Shuhan in a side hall for the time being. After instructing Yi Shuhan not to wander around, she hastily departed, dragging the unconscious demon cultivator from the lower realm with her.

Although the side hall wasn't as exaggeratedly large as the main hall, it was still enormous. Fortunately, in her last life, Yi Shuhan had been a cultivator for a thousand years, a peak master, and a sect elder. Faced with such a bewildering situation, she was not so panicked as to lose her ability to think. She sat cross-legged beside one of the pillars in the side hall, planning to carefully sort through her newly recovered memories.

Meanwhile, Chi Junluo, dragging the rope binding the demon cultivator with her tail, hurried to the Soul Nourishing Hall behind the main palace.

According to the gods, the Soul Nourishing Hall was not actually a palace that could be built at will; it was a Main God-level artifact. Only a deity possessing the Main God's godhead could command it. After the Main God disappeared, countless gods had fought fiercely at the divine hall. They coveted not only the Main God's rich collection but also the one and only Main God-level artifact in the entire God Realm—the Soul Nourishing Hall.

Possessing the Soul Nourishing Hall meant possessing the qualification to create gods. Although the gods didn't know how the former Main God had used it, the new batch of gods after her advent had all emerged from the Soul Nourishing Hall. The Main God had also once used it to save an ancient god who had accidentally lost his divine power and was on the verge of his soul dissipating.

The gods fought to the death, and the divine hall changed hands time and again, yet not a single god could step through the gates of the Soul Nourishing Hall. Even after expending nearly all their divine power, they couldn't budge the heavy doors in the slightest. Instead, their depleted divine power left them vulnerable, allowing other gods to lie in wait and seize their godheads.

Some gods who had formed alliances came in groups, attempting to use their combined divine power to force their way into the Soul Nourishing Hall, but all ended in failure. The gods eventually shifted their battlegrounds to their rivals' territories. They were in no hurry to claim this tough old bone of a divine hall; it was simply too much trouble for too little reward.

With a single thought from Chi Junluo, the great doors of the Soul Nourishing Hall slowly swung open.

An unusual light flickered within the hall. The imposing, pitch-black Nine-Tailed Cat divine beast stepped inside, and the doors slammed shut behind it.

This was what the lackeys who had been secretly watching the divine hall immediately reported to their respective god-lords.

Soon, news that the Main God's divine beast had returned to the God Realm spread throughout the entire realm. Hearing that the Nine-Tailed Cat divine beast could freely enter and exit the Soul Nourishing Hall made the gods bubble with jealousy!

Some warlike gods quickly led their subordinates, swarming toward the divine hall like a dark cloud. That was the Main God's divine beast! Even scavenging a couple of corpses would be immensely beneficial!

Fortunately, the divine beast clans were accustomed to being vigilant. They quickly sensed the ill intentions of the various god-lords and successfully repelled the first wave of enemies. The clan leaders led their people to set up defensive formations, then gathered together with grim expressions.

Good heavens! In the time they were away from the God Realm, the gods had all rebelled!

The Soul Nourishing Hall lived up to its name—it could nurture ten thousand souls. The divine beast clans, the Soul Nourishing Hall, and the Main God all shared the same origin. Even if their souls were shattered to dust, they could be reformed in the Soul Nourishing Hall. Not to mention, the souls of the Nine-Tailed Cat Clan, which had been annihilated back then, had actually been absorbed in a dormant state by this unlucky demon cultivator. The demon cultivator thought he had refined the souls of the so-called ancient divine beasts, but in reality, he was merely being used as a vessel to store and protect the souls of the Nine-Tailed Cat Clan.

No matter how powerful a forbidden curse from a lower plane was, it could not harm a divine beast from the God Realm that shared its origin with the Main God.

Inside the Soul Nourishing Hall, a gentle, homonymous power attracted the many slumbering divine beast souls. Soon, under the call of Chi Junluo's divine power, the souls awakened one by one. The sheer force of their awakening instantly dissolved the now-useless vessel, leaving not even a speck of dust behind.

Colorful light surged within the Soul Nourishing Hall. In a few days, the Nine-Tailed Cat Clan would be able to return to the God Realm.

The strange activity at the divine hall caught the attention of the god-lords who had gathered to get a piece of the pie. The fiercely raging battlefield instantly fell silent.

The doors of the Soul Nourishing Hall opened a crack, and a dazzling golden divine light flew out. Without giving the group of troublemaking warmongers so much as a glance, it flew straight into the main hall.

The divine beasts also retracted their defensive formations and poured into the main hall like a tide, leaving behind a crowd of god-lords frozen outside, their faces showing a rare expression of terror.

The god-lords who dared to rush to the Main God's hall to get a share of the spoils right after the divine beasts' return were naturally the ones who had become extremely powerful after the reshuffling of the God Realm during the Main God's absence. They were the current rulers of the major factions in the God Realm.

They had devoured the godheads of many weaker gods, and their own strength had increased again and again. The unprecedented power had gone to their heads. They carved up the God Realm, and the surging power within them made them arrogant enough to believe that even if the Main God returned one day, she would be defeated by their hands. They never expected that before their daydream could finish, they would see the Main God fly out of the Soul Nourishing Hall. In that brief moment of encounter, the fear and reverence etched deep in their memories shocked them into paralysis.

The god-lords quickly recovered. They exchanged glances, seeing the same disbelief in each other's eyes. The Main God had really returned!

There was no escaping the crime of throwing the God Realm into chaos. In just a few short years, more than half of the god-lords in the realm had perished. The entire God Realm was filled with the smoke of war and littered with corpses. They had violated the rules set by the Main God and turned the realm into a cesspool. Even kneeling before the Main God to repent and beg for mercy might not grant them a chance to live. Besides, having tasted the pinnacle of power, how could they be willing to bow and scrape, begging for their lives?!

It was death either way, so they might as well risk it all in one last fight!

A ruthless glint shot from the eyes of the god-lords.

They pushed their divine power to its absolute limit, the godhead marks on their bodies expanding several times over. Ready to make their final stand, the god-lords shot toward the main hall like a bolt of lightning wrapped in a gale.

She was just a recently born Main God, after all. If they, the gods who stood at the pinnacle of the God Realm, joined forces, they could surely drag the Main God down from her lofty altar and carve her up for themselves!

Chi Junluo had separated from her original Nine-Tailed Cat body, leaving it to slowly recover with its kin in the Soul Nourishing Hall. At this moment, she sat quietly on the divine throne in the main hall, feeling the surging divine power as the golden light gradually coalesced into a human form.

Watching the god-lords storm into the hall like a tempest, Chi Junluo's azure eyes were completely devoid of emotion.

The Heavenly Dao E Feng, who had followed her at some point and now stood behind her in the form of a young man, narrowed his eyes coldly.

He scoffed inwardly: What a bunch of overconfident fools.

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