Against the Gods (Web Novel)

“Jasmine…”

Yun Che tightly hugged the girl who was wailing in his chest. He and Jasmine had lived together for so many years, they had shared a body and their souls were entangled together. They used to be able feel each other’s existence at every moment, yet they had never embraced each other tightly like they did now.

Yun Che raised his head and closed his eyes, his heart filled with an incomparable warmth and satisfaction. It felt to him as if his heart and soul, which had lost and was missing something, had finally made a complete recovery. When he felt the trails of tears which spread across his chest, he felt as if all of the effort he had put in, and the experiences he had gone through over the past three years were all worth it.

Caizhi’s lips opened wide as she dazedly stared at the two people who were tightly hugging one another…

She had clearly been full of wrath just moments ago. But the moment she saw him, her emotions and her tears simultaneously burst like a dam.

Caizhi had thought that she was the person who best understood her big sister in the entire world, but she had never known that she could cry to such an extent that it seemed like the world was falling apart…

“Big… Sister…” She softly muttered, her small hand held over her lips. For some odd reason, her vision was gradually becoming blurry.

She turned around and quietly left. Even when she had flown a great distance away, she could still hear Jasmine’s wailing ringing in her ears… Even though there was a small mournful feeling in her heart, at the same time, there was also a deep happiness.

“Big Sister, this is simply too great,” Caizhi softly mumbled. She wiped away the tears that had gathered at the corners of her eyes. After that, she increased her speed even more and left the Star God Palace.

She wanted to understand what exactly had happened in the period of time when she had to “reflect upon her mistakes”. Yun Che placed first in the Conferred God Battle and had even been personally brought back to the Star God Realm by the Star God Emperor himself. Then wouldn’t that mean that there was a possibility that the “gulf” that lay between him and her sister could be closed…

“Why did you come looking for me?”

Jasmine’s face was still streaked by tears and her starry eyes had clearly reddened. She looked at Yun Che as she asked a very silly question.

Yun Che thought about it for a while before answering, “The Illusory Demon Realm’s Golden Crow Spirit told me that if I could not meet you within five years, then I would never be able to meet you again in this lifetime, so…”

“...So if the Golden Crow Spirit had not told you that, you wouldn’t have come?” Jasmine asked softly, “When I saw you at the Conferred God Stage that day, I was shaken and afraid, yet the only thing I did not feel was great shock. Because deep down in my heart I knew that you would come for me one day. I just did not expect that day to come so quickly and I did not expect you to appear in the Eternal Heaven Realm.”

“As for what the Golden Crow Spirit said, that’s merely an excuse you used to convince yourself, that’s all.”

Jasmine was undoubtedly the person who understood Yun Che the most. As for the Golden Crow Spirit… she also understood why it had said what it did.

Spirits could communicate with each other using their soul voices, so even though that Golden Crow Spirit existed in the Illusory Demon Realm, he could still know the many things that were happening in the God Realm via the Golden Crow Spirit that existed in the Flame God Realm. That rumor in addition to the primordial memories only the Golden Crow Spirit would possess was sufficient to allow it to discover things which other people would not know about.

“Mn.” Yun Che did not even attempt to deny it. Even if the Golden Crow Spirit had not said what it did, the moment he met Mu Bingyun, he would definitely have chosen to follow her to the God Realm.

“However, what exactly did the Golden Crow Spirit mean when it had said such a thing? Why did it say that if I did not meet you in five years then I would never be able to see you ever again?”

As he voiced those words, Yun Che’s voice became filled with urgency and nervousness.

Jasmine gave a very calm snort in response to that question, “In order to become a complete Star God, one has to enter a special secret realm and experience many trials after one has inherited that power. When I met you, I had just inherited my divine power and I had not yet gone through the necessary trials. So when I returned to the Star God Realm, naturally I had to complete this ‘ceremony’. Furthermore, not only are these trials extremely hard, they also take an extremely long period of time and it’s possible for the entire process to take a few centuries or even a few millennia. Even though this amount of time is very short in the God Realm, it’s considered extremely long in the lower realms. In fact, it’s long enough to forget anything, so perhaps that’s why it said what it said.”

Jasmine’s voice and tone were extremely calm and serene, she was not willing to show any gaps or weaknesses.

“...I see.” The corner of Yun Che’s eyebrow twitched and he did not know whether to believe those words or not.

“During the period that I ordered you to leave, you told me that you had found the Darkness Seed left behind by the Evil God and it had completely removed the devil curse that had afflicted your body… Is that true?” Jasmine asked as she changed the subject.

“Of course it is!” Yun Che opened his palm as a cluster of darkness profound energy rose up from the center of his palm before vanishing in the next instant. He showed Jasmine that he could control darkness profound energy just like he could control flames and ice. He could basically manipulate it in any way he wanted to.

Jasmine’s brows tightened as she said in a solemn voice, “When we were still in the Profound Sky Continent all those years ago, I told you that darkness profound energy was a heresy that the heavens and earth would not tolerate. You personally witnessed the fate of that devil known as ‘Wei Hen’ and the attitude that everyone displayed towards him. You must never ever expose your darkness profound energy in front of anyone else! If not, anyone will be allowed to kill you in this entire divine region.”

“I know.” Yun Che said as he nodded his head, “You don’t need to worry, as long as the Evil God’s power is around, unless I will it to appear, it will never ever be exposed.”

“Why did you decide to go to the bottom of Cloud’s End Cliff? And how did you end up finding this Darkness Seed?” Jasmine’s starry eyes swivelled around, “To cause you to not hesitate to violate the oath that I forced you to swear… it must have been because of some woman, huh!”

“Eh…” Yun Che let out an embarrassed laugh before he said, “It was… because of Ling’er.”

“Hmph, I knew it,” Jasmine said as she gave a cold snort.

“As for that Darkness Seed, I found it in the dark abyss below. It was an extremely strange and fantastical little girl who gave it to me.”

“...A little girl? Jasmine’s head jerked around as she said in an astounded voice, “How could anyone live in such a place?”

“It really was very hard to believe.” Yun Che unhurriedly continued his story, “Her hair was a very unique silver color and her eyes contained four different colors. What was even weirder was that I had never ever seen her in my life, yet she seemed to treat me in a very… intimate fashion? In fact, she was the one who took the initiative to give me that Darkness Seed. Oh right, she did not have a body and she seemed to be comprised of pure spirit. The place where she was located was amidst a sea of Netherworld Udumbara Flowers and it also seemed as if she had never left that sea of flowers before.”

Jasmine frowned as she said, “Within that dreadful environment of darkness, having your spirit devoured is something that is unavoidable. All those years ago, I also did not dare to appear within the Moon Slaughter Devil Nest with just my pure spirit body. That place was the same as well. However, she only had a spirit body, yet she was able to exist in that place and she even seemed to be dependent on that sea of Netherworld Udumbara Flowers… and she even had the Evil God’s Darkness Seed with her…”

Jasmine descended into deep thought…

Unless… that was a devil spirit!

A pure devil spirit!

Could that girl actually be a devil that has existed from the Ancient Era… until now?

Furthermore, she possessed the Darkness Seed belonging to the Evil God…

“Ha… haha… ha... Do you… really think that the… Evil God… was truly… a god.."

The words the Moon Slaughter Devil Sovereign had said before he fell suddenly echoed in Jasmine’s head, causing her eyebrows to suddenly sink.

“Right, that Udumbara Flower you destroyed the other day, it was given by her.” Yun Che said as a mischievous look crept up on his face.

Jasmine turned her face away and gave a light snort, “You clearly know that I didn’t destroy it.”

“Haha…” Yun Che laughed, “and that’s why I didn’t believe a single word of what you said to me the other day and what you said to me when you left all those years ago. We shared a body and soul for so many years, so how could I not be able to tell when you are lying and when you are telling the truth.”

“...” Jasmine’s breathing became slightly disordered but after that she spoke in a very soft voice, “Your body has far too many secrets that other people are absolutely not allowed to discover, yet you still chose to appear in the one place in the Eastern Divine Region where it is most likely that these secrets would get exposed. So, the only thing I could do that day was to use all my might to chase you away. Every moment you lingered merely increased the danger to yourself. But I never thought that it would actually bring about a completely opposite result.”

“I know.” Yun Che nodded his head, “Actually, as long as I was able to meet you that day, you wouldn’t have needed to say a single thing. I would have abandoned the fight myself and left the Eternal Heaven Realm. Or perhaps if you had sent a sound transmission to me to wait in a more suitable location, I would definitely not have hesitated either. But… the words you said that day were simply too resolute, so even if I did not believe them, I was still very afraid. Afraid that if I did not give my all to obtain the first place in the Conferred God Battle, I really wouldn’t be able to see you again after this.”

Jasmine looked away, so that Yun Che would not see the distress that flashed in the depths of her eyes. She softly replied, “So, since you have met me, will you really leave just like this and never return to the God Realm again… You won’t.”

“...” Yun Che’s chest rose and fell, “This time, are you going to chase me away yet again?”

Jasmine shook her head, “The situation is completely different from before. Right now the one thing that you shouldn’t do is to return home.”

“The current you is simply too dazzling. Before you appeared, the two most dazzling people of your generation in the Eastern Divine Region were the Holy Eaves Realm’s Luo Changsheng and the Glazed Light Realm’s Shui Meiyin. The reason why they were dazzling was that one was born with a body that defied the norm and the other possessed the Divine Stainless Soul. Moreover, they had the powerful Holy Eaves and Glazed Light Realms as their backers.

“But the brilliance that you now radiate is something that far surpasses them. Yet you do not possess the strength to protect yourself nor are you backed by a power that has the strength to protect you. You are literally a valuable pearl that has no owner, and you will definitely attract countless people who either envy you or who want to steal you away. Furthermore the most terrifying part is that your body contains far too many things that even the king realms are unable to understand. Even though the title ‘child of the heavens’ has barely managed to explain the various oddities that occurred in your body, the ‘True God prophecy’ is something that can cause the king realms to do crazy things that are far beyond your imagination for the sake of obtaining you…”

“You simply aren’t able to comprehend what the two words ‘True God’ truly mean to the king realms.”

Yun Che, “...”

“Right now, everyone wants to know where you came from and to discover what secrets that place is hiding that allowed it to birth a ‘child of the heavens’ like yourself. If they do find out that you were born on the ‘Blue Pole Star’, then countless gazes will be directed towards that planet. After that, they will definitely discover the traces of the Phoenix, Golden Crow and Dragon God legacies that were left there and it will convince them even more that this tiny little planet was definitely hiding some enormous secret… To the Blue Pole Star, to the people residing there… especially the people who are related to you, the results will undoubtedly be so disastrous that they will not be able to recover from them.”

And all of this would have happened because of me… Jasmine softly chanted in her heart.

“All of these things that you have said are things that I am aware of,” Yun Che replied.

“So you still did what you did despite being aware of everything!” Jasmine struggled to contain her emotions as her voice rose by several octaves. But following that, pain and bewilderment appeared in her eyes yet again as she spoke in such a soft voice that it seemed like she was muttering to herself, “You’re always like this… You’ve always been like this…”

“Yun Che, you definitely won’t abandon things that you care about… However this is also the greatest weakness that you have in your character.” Jasmine shut her eyes, “You massacred the Burning Heaven Clan because of Lingxi, you collided head-on with Duke Huai for the sake of the Yun Family, you gambled with your very life to obtain that damaged Netherworld Udumbara Flower for me… So how could you possibly be willing to give up everything that you possessed on the Blue Pole Star.”

“But just how is the current you supposed to be able to return now…”

“I’ve… actually already thought of a plan.” Yun Che said rather hesitantly.

Jasmine instantly raised her eyebrows as she replied, “What plan?”

Yun Che extended his hand and retrieved the Void Illusion Stone that had been placed inside the Sky Poison Pearl, “I’ll use this.”

“A Void Illusion Stone? The one that Caizhi gave you?”

“Eh… It was only today that I discovered that this was something that Little… Caizhi left for me deliberately.” As for the fact that “Little Jasmine” was actually really Jasmine’s little sister, Yun Che still had a hard time wrapping his head around it, “A Void Illusion Stone can be used to initiate an instantaneous teleportation no matter what space it is in. Furthermore, it won’t leave behind any traces that can be tracked.”

Yun Che continued his train of thought, “One month from now, I will enter the Eternal Heaven Pearl’s Eternal Heaven Divine Realm along with the other ‘heaven chosen children’. Since that is the divine realm that is contained within the Eternal Heaven Pearl, it naturally won’t be able to be scryed by anyone else and once we enter, we will also not be able to leave by ourselves. So, after I enter the Eternal Heaven Divine Realm, I am prepared to fake my death and leave a body behind. After that, I’ll use this Void Illusion Stone to leave the Eternal Heaven Divine Realm and return to the Blue Pole Star.”

Jasmine, “...”

“As such, the illusion that I died in the Eternal Heaven Divine Realm plus the fact that I did not emerge from the Eternal Heaven Divine Realm will undoubtedly cause the people of the God Realm to believe that I have definitely died.”

After Yun Che had finished speaking, he continued rather apprehensively, “This should… be able to succeed?”

“You’re simply far too naive!” Jasmine shook her head, “The selection for the Profound God Convention was done via projecting your image into the Eternal Heaven Pearl. It set the rules and decided the outcome, so one can well imagine how high its intelligence actually is! Even if you can successfully trick the eyes of everyone else, you will definitely not be able to trick the Eternal Heaven Pearl! Even though the current Eternal Heaven pearl is a masterless object, in the end, it is still willing to be used by the Eternal Heaven Realm. Are you absolutely convinced that it will not inform the Eternal Heaven Realm of what you have done?”

“...In the end, the Eternal Heaven Pearl is still a Heavenly Profound Treasure. Something that is on its level shouldn’t bother itself with small and mundane things such as making reports, right?” Yun Che said in a rather unconfident tone.

“Fine, even if that is true.” Jasmine’s long and delicate brows tensed up and sank, “After you return to the Blue Pole Star, will you really not try to look for me again? Will you truly forever abandon everything that you have in the God Realm?”

“...” Yun Che’s mouth opened slightly as both his hands fiercely tightened. There was no way he had not thought about such a thing but the nine stage lightning tribulation that had suddenly descended upon him caused his name to shake the heavens and the earth. Yet at the same time, it had forced him into a “desperate situation” that he had never imagined he would be in. So this was the only plan he could come up with.

“Moreover, do you truly think you will be content and at ease after you return to the Blue Pole Star? Xia Qinyue and Xia Yuanba’s mother is someone who clearly belongs to the God Realm. After she recovered her memories and her powers, why then did she choose to leave and never come back again?”

“You’ve been in the God Realm for a few years, so you should have heard of this fact. When it comes to hiding one’s aura, there is no one in the known universe who is better than I am. Yet because of that moment of carelessness all those years ago, I was still detected by Moonflower.”

“Right now, your profound strength has already entered the divine way, and that is something that is extremely noticeable in the lower realms. Moreover, after this Conferred God Battle, every powerful individual who stands at the peak of the Eastern Divine Region has etched your aura into their memory. So unless you cripple your own profound strength, once an ‘accident’ happens, it will definitely bring about the most dreadful result. And even if it really doesn’t happen, you will live the rest of your life in fear and trembling. Is that truly something you’re willing to do?”

Every single word proceeding from Jasmine’s mouth were not mere words of warning, they were the most honest and merciless truth.

After Yun Che’s nine stage tribulation had shocked the world, Jasmine had given much thought to his future. She was far more clear on all the things that Yun Che would face from now on than even Yun Che himself.

What happened to the Blue Pole Star meant nothing to her personally. She would not bat a single eye even if the entire planet was destroyed. But she very clearly understood what this meant to Yun Che.

“Jasmine, are you… trying to tell me something?” Yun Che asked.

Jasmine looked at him, her words solemn and heavy, “If you want to protect yourself, and protect the Blue Pole Star. Then the thing you must do, in fact the only thing you must do, is to become strong enough! Strong enough that all the living creatures in the God Realm will respect you, envy you, and fear you. Strong enough that only you can control the destinies of others and not the other way around… Just like how you were in the Profound Sky Continent and the Illusory Demon Realm!”