Against the Gods

Buzz—

At that moment, over half of the Heaven Breaker Kingdom of God citizens felt their space shaking.

The profound practitioners in the central area immediately froze in place. The rest of the divine region felt as if someone had dropped an invisible pot on top of their heads, suffocating them and choking the air from their lungs.

Hua Fuchen’s hair and clothes began to billow wildly. He had completely lost control of his True God power, and the entire sword pavilion felt as if it had plunged into an abyss of fury. Every wisp of air had turned into a cold blade infused with infinite anger and bloodthirst.

“Bas… tard…”

The Heart Painter Divine Regent possessed a handsome, warm, and gentle countenance, but right now, they were contorted as if the lines were threatening to break free from his face. It did not look human.

BOOM—

Hua Fucheng rushed toward the entrance, the sheer power behind the sonic boom tearing even space itself to shreds. But right before he would reach it, three blue sword beams manifested in front of him and blocked his path, their light piercing through his eyes.

Hua Fuchen abruptly stopped in his tracks, the light of the sword beams seemingly ripped away the rage in his eyes and returned some clarity to his mind.

“Haven’t you learned enough from the mistakes you made when you were young?”

Hua Qingying’s cold voice came from behind, and it washed away the rest of his blind rage like an icy rain.

Hua Fuchen’s chest heaved up and down like they would burst apart at any moment. It took him a good few breaths before he finally turned around to face her. “And how… do you expect me to stay calm after hearing that?!”

Just because he was a god didn’t mean he was perfectly rational at all times.

If there existed a god who could boast that, that simply meant that that god’s reverse scale wasn’t prodded yet.

Hua Qingying met his eyes and asked with soul-piercing sword intent in her voice, “Don’t you want to know the whole story?”

Some of his rationality returned, and Hua Fuchen finally recalled that Hua Qingying had been accompanying Hua Caili throughout her trial.

So how did this happen?

In the end, Hua Fuchen managed to restrain his desire to exit the sword pavilion and turn a certain bastard into a smear on the floor. After forcing down the devilish fury screaming inside his chest, he slowly walked back to Hua Qingying’s side and said, “Okay… speak.”

The sword intent in Hua Qingying’s eyes disappeared, and she replied indifferently, “To tell you the truth, I was the one who facilitated Caili and Yun Che’s relationship.”

Hua Fuchen’s eyebrows furrowed deeply at that, but he did not say anything. He continued to listen with a dark storm brewing on his face.

“Their first encounter was at an independent Land of the Living near the Endless Fog. It is called the Qilin Abyss Realm…”

Hua Qingying began talking about their encounter, their surprise reunion at the Endless Fog, Yun Che’s saving of Hua Caili, his choice to leave her, only to somehow run into her again in the Endless Fog…

Finally, Hua Fuchen asked, “You said… you’re the one who asked Caili to accompany him. Is that true?”

“Yes.” Hua Qingying slowly closed her eyes. It was that decision that caused everything.

She didn’t know—she wouldn’t have believed even if she had known—that it wasn’t really her fault, of course. It was Yun Che who had been subtly nudging her into making this decision all this time.

“But why?” Hua Fuchen slowly shook his head in confusion. “Qingying, I know you better than anyone. You are emotionally devoted to the sword and sentimentally devoted toward Caili. Besides that, there is nothing that can draw your attention, so why… why…”

Hua Qingying replied slowly, “Because he presented things that I cannot understand again and again.”

All humans, or rather, all living beings were born with natural curiosity, and many times, the power of curiosity was stronger than anything.

It was an effect no one was immune to.

“Things… you cannot understand?”

It was just four words, and yet Hua Fuchen was staring at Hua Qingying like he didn’t know her.

Hua Qingying might not be a True God, but her knowledge and experience weren’t inferior to anyone in the Six Kingdoms of God. How could a mere level three Divine Master confound her so?

“I’ve already promised Caili to keep his secret, so forgive me if I can’t tell you about them. There is one thing I should share with you though, as much as it will bend my oath to them.”

“Yun Che, he…” Hua Qingying slowed down and said something that would have shattered anyone’s common sense in the Abyss, much less Hua Fuchen. “He can use light profound energy.”

The reason she shared this and only this secret with Hua Fuchen was obvious.

A user of light profound energy must possess a perfectly pure and clean body and soul.

It was precisely because Yun Che had “unknowingly” exposed his light profound energy that she subconsciously lowered her guard around him.

“What? Light profound energy?” For the first time, Hua Fuchen’s shock was great enough that it pierced through the boiling anger trapped within his chest.

Hua Qingying shot him a look. “I knew that you would be enraged when you learned about Caili and Yun Che’s relationship, and it was inevitable that, in your rage, you would view Yun Che as evil no matter what. That is why I decided to bend the oath and reveal this secret to you. I hope that it will prevent you from being… overly emotional when you make your judgments.”

Hua Fuchen remained silent for a long time. Finally, he said, “What happens next?”

……

“Big brother Yun, this is my sword pavilion. Father gave it to me as a gift when I was seven. I would normally practice the sword here… Look! These are all the swords I’ve used since I was a child. Aunt would not allow anyone to lay a finger on a sword that I’ve already used.”

“That formation giving off strange sword lights is called a ‘Myriad Sword Heart Tempering Formation’. It is a place to study sword intent… ah, that other light? That is a great dimensional formation Uncle Abyssal Monarch set up himself. Every Kingdom of God has one. It is connected to the Six Kingdoms of God and the Pure Land, though each activation expends a tremendous amount of energy. That is why it is only used during major events.”

Hua Caili was escorting Yun Che and introducing him to the place she grew up with painstaking detail. She only wished she could manifest every trace of her life in front of Yun Che and mold them into his.

“And this is my bedroom!”

“Ah—elder sister!” Hua Lianzhi let out a cry of shock, but she could do nothing as Hua Caili pulled Yun Che into her bedroom.

Why was she so shocked? Because no man had ever entered Hua Caili’s bedroom. Not even her own Father.

At this point, not even Hua Lianzhi’s disbelief could blind her to the obvious.

“Uwah!” Hua Caili fell on top of her soft, fluffy bed and took in a deep breath of incense. “It’s so comfortable. This is easily the thing I missed the most during my year outside.”

Yun Che was shaking his head with a helpless smile on his face, “You’re aware that you’re giving your Sister Lianzhi a heart attack, right?”

Hua Caili got up and hugged him tightly. She said softly, “Out of all my sisters, Lianzhi and Biyi are my closest. I’m sure they won’t say anything.”

“Now that I think about it, I suddenly recall that no man has ever entered my bedroom. You’re the first one, big brother Yun.” Hua Caili beamed at him. “And you’ll be the last.”

“Hmm? What about your Father? Surely he has entered your room before?” Yun Che exclaimed in surprise.

“No, he hasn’t.” Hua Caili lifted her nose a little. “Father may be smiling all day and night as if he doesn’t care about anything, but he’s really an old, old fogey. When I was ten, he taught me that, ‘a good daughter should stay a respectful distance from her father’, and, ‘Men and women should not touch hands when they give or receive things’. Ten! What was he thinking? There are countless girls who are over ten years old and still riding on their fathers’ backs in the divine region!”

Yun Che’s heart skipped a beat.

This was not good news to him because it meant that Heart Painter Divine Regent—in his bones—was a man who observed etiquette with grave seriousness. If he learned that he had slept with Hua Caili… the chance that he would kill him on the spot was as high as 99%.

Thank goodness that Hua Qingying was here. She might have been his biggest problem before, but now, she was his greatest supporter.

“…”

Outside the bedroom, Hua Lianzhi felt her heart beating like a drum just listening to the muffled conversation.

Elder sister… she couldn’t have… she couldn’t have, right?!

What… what should I do…

If Father learns about this, he’s going to be so angry.

It has to be my imagination… it just has to…

But… I’ve never seen elder sister smiling so happily either…

Hua Lianzhi was still panicking when Hua Caili grabbed Yun Che’s hand and pulled him toward a different location. “I’ll show you my garden. I’m sure you’ll like it.”

Pure white Rainbow Cloud Branches joined together to form a sea of clouds. Even in this Kingdom of God where the abyssal dust was weakened to the extreme, it looked almost as gorgeous as an immortal realm.

That lasted until Hua Caili entered the sea of clouds. Now, it was a true immortal realm.

“Rainbow Cloud Branch… Rainbow and Cloud, Caili and Yun Che,” Hua Caili whispered to herself before summoning the Glazed Cloud Sword to her palm. “The Glazed Cloud Sword… is also Caili and Yun Che.”

Her smile was brighter than an infinite cloud of rainbow and flowers. “See? Everything around me is telling me that big brother Yun is my fated person!”

Hua Lianzhi had just arrived when she heard this audacious statement and froze on the spot. She proceeded to back away and guard the garden like her life depended on it.

……

“You’re saying… that Caili had just escaped danger when they encountered an abyssal dragon, and that dragon just happened to be a horned dragon…”

“And when the horned dragon’s blood invaded Caili’s body, she just happened to be in a state where her condition wasn’t yet terminal, but she has no resistance toward the horned dragon poison, and her condition was dangerous enough that you were unable to expel the poison by force?”

It hadn’t been long before Hua Fuchen took his seat before he shot up again. “How can such a coincidence possibly happen in this world? It’s just horned dragon’s blood! An aphrodisiac poison that isn’t worth mentioning due to how weak it is!”

“I know. And yet it happened.” Hua Qingying sighed. “Or, if you look at it from another perspective… it felt like the whims of fate itself.”

“Ludicrous! Absolutely ludicrous!”

Hua Fuchen sucked in a long, deep breath, his heart felt so heavy that he could not say anything. It was at this moment he remembered something and said harshly, “Caili possesses perfect divine essence, and her body has been refined by countless pills and divine herbs. Even considering her state, her body could have detoxified the horned dragon’s blood on her own.”

Hua Qingying shot him a cold look. “A horned dragon’s breath is deadly poisonous, and its blood most exciting. While it would certainly not take her life, it may have damaged her heart and soul and warped her permanently into a ‘fallen woman.’ If it was you who was in my position, would you have taken that risk?”

“…” Hua Fuchen could not answer that.

“I know you’re angry. I know exactly why you’re frustrated. But more than anything else, you need to get one thing straight.”

“Yun Che. Saved. Caili’s. Life.” Hua Qingying punctuated every word with icy intent. “Considering the circumstances, if he hadn’t defended her with his life, Caili would’ve died a hundred times out of a hundred. You wouldn’t even have the chance to be furious right now.”

Hua Fuchen sank powerlessly back into his seat. It wasn’t until a long time later that he finally muttered, “That so-called ‘Fog Monarch’ and the bizarre appearance of that Ancestral Qilin God… did you look into it?”

Hua Qingying shook her head. “Caili nearly died. After the incident, I did not dare to leave her side even half a step, much less go away and investigate it.”

Hua Fuchen looked up and closed his eyes. He said slowly, “Are you aware that I would not believe even half a word of what you said if it hadn’t come from your mouth?”

“I understand,” Hua Qingying replied. “If I haven’t witnessed and experienced all this myself, I wouldn’t believe half a word of what I said either…”

“…”

“Say, don’t you feel like they are fated to be together?”

“Heh. Fated…” Hua Fuchen cracked a sorrowful smile. “‘Fate’ is a beautiful word until reality shatters it with ruthless efficiency.”

Hua Qingying: “…”

“Qingying,” Hua Fuchen said. It looked as if he had calmed down since the sword beams in his eyes were no longer rampaging. “You indulged their whims after the fact not because the boy saved Caili’s life, didn’t you? It’s because… you held regrets toward what happened back then.”

“Yes.” Hua Qingying did not deny his accusation. “Wanxin’s ending is the heart demon that will plague me for the rest of my life. Perhaps I do selfishly want to see her daughter, a poor soul who is mired in a similar fate, obtain a different ending—the ending that she desired, but ultimately could not achieve.”

A long silence followed after her answer. The atmosphere became impossibly oppressive for a time.

“Qingying,” Hua Fuchen finally spoke up again, “you know best why I engaged Caili and Dian Jiuzhi.”

“Yes,” Hua Qingying replied simply.

“Then you should know that he is the most suitable partner for Caili.”

His words sounded so helpless as he said them.

“I… cannot deny that.” Hua Qingying began, “His background, talent, status, and appearance are most compatible with Caili. Most importantly, his feelings for Caili are a mix of love, yearning, and gratitude. His sincerity is such that there exists no one who isn’t moved by it.”

“It’s not just you or I either. The Pure Land, the Six Kingdoms of God, everyone in the entire Abyss believes that he is the man best suited for Caili.”

“Everyone… except Caili herself.”

Hua Fuchen’s voice grew a little hoarse. “Honestly, it doesn’t really matter if they’re compatible with each other. Are you aware… what kind of consequences would be born from Caili and Yun Che’s matter once the world learns about this?”

Hua Qingying did not answer.

“Dian Rahu is a man whose temperament is as tough as a rock and as violent as fire. Above all else, he values honor and trust. If he makes a promise, he will fulfill it even if it costs him his life. If someone makes him a promise… they too will keep his promise to him, or else.”

“It’s bad enough to be an oathbreaker, but to humiliate his Boundless Divine Son like this? It is no different from humiliating the entire Boundless Kingdom of God.”

“So?” Hua Qingying asked, “What will you do for the sake of your daughter?”

Hua Fuchen rose to his feet, his seemingly calm face revealing none of his true emotions. “Now, I should meet the boy.”

“No, you will not.”

Hua Qingying stopped him, however. As she slowly walked out of the sword pavilion, she said in a steely voice that would not accept no as an answer. “Tomorrow. When you are sufficiently calm, then I will bring him to meet you myself.”