Against the Gods

Split in… two halves?

The Ice Phoenix girl was saying something that he couldn’t understand at all again.

“What do you mean by split in two halves?” asked Yun Che in astonishment.

The Ice Phoenix girl replied, “The offspring between the Evil God and the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor is a girl. Since she inherited both the Evil God’s divine power and the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor’s darkness devilish power, she is undoubtedly a half-man and half devil who is unaccepted by the god race or the devil race.”

“Although Lord Mo E had beaten the Evil God, my guess is that Lord Mo E knew that it was an unfair battle, and that he had no face to wipe the daughter of the Evil God and the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor from existence completely. That is why he had suggested a middle ground instead.”

“His request to the Evil God was to wipe out the ‘devilish’ part of her and leave the ‘non-devilish’ part of her untouched. That way, she’d be able to stay with the god race.”

Yun Che, “...”

“The Evil God had no other choice. This was the best and only path that was left for him. Therefore, he destroyed his daughter’s body and split her soul in half… separating the ‘devil soul’ from the ‘divine soul’. I know that the notion of remaking a divine soul’s body may sound unbelievable to you, but it is something a Creation God can achieve easily.”

“The splitting of one’s soul meant that the soul’s original memories would fade away completely. This means that the divine soul who was reborn in a new body would become a completely new existence. In fact, that wasn’t Lord Mo E’s only request. He may have allowed her divine soul to remain with the god race, but no one was allowed to know that she was the daughter of the Evil God and the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor. The Evil God was forbidden from meeting her for the rest of his life too.”

Yun Che frowned deeply and clenched his fists without realizing it. From the standpoint of the gods and devils, Lord Mo E’s request was perfectly normal. But from the standpoint of a father, he understood just how cruel a request it was to the Evil God.

He just couldn’t imagine himself being unable to see Wuxin, and Wuxin not realizing that she had him as a father, for eternity.

“After that, the Evil God entrusted his daughter’s ‘divine soul’ to the god he trusted the most to remake his daughter’s divine body, and she stayed with the clan of that god after she was reborn... Maybe the Evil God himself was completely disappointed, disheartened, or guilt-ridden by everything that had happened to his daughter, but some time later he abandoned his former title as the Creation God of Elements and called himself the ‘Evil God’. After that, he hid himself from the world and never concerned himself with the god race or the god he had entrusted his daughter to ever again.”

He abandoned his supreme title as a Creation God and called himself the Evil God...

The title “Evil God” was a divine title that was highly respected and admired by all living things… and yet Yun Che could clearly pick up a deep sense of sorrow from it.

“The god the Evil God had entrusted his daughter’s divine soul to was a clan leader, and this clan leader made preparations so that the Evil God’s daughter would appear to be his daughter to everyone. At the same time, he gave her the best treatment and protection he could afford… The reason he treated her so well was because his clan owed the Evil God a great favor. That was why he was willing to spend everything he had to protect his daughter and guard this secret for eternity.”

“As for the Evil God daughter’s ‘devil soul’... the Evil God couldn’t find it in his heart to wipe her out no matter how he tried, so he used an unknown method to fool Lord Mo E’s senses and hid her in a secret place he had created at the last moment. He transformed it into a world of darkness that was suited for her, and he populated the world with many dark creatures because he was afraid that she would be too lonely.”

The Ice Phoenix girl’s story ended here. The story was obviously a combination of rumors from ancient times and the Ice Phoenix Girl’s own assumptions, but for some reason it felt almost… familiar to him? Déjà vu?

“Ice Phoenix Spirit, what does this have to do with the ‘trump card’ that will help me persuade the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor better than even the Evil God’s will you mentioned?” asked Yun Che.

The Ice Phoenix girl said slowly, “The daughter of the Evil God and the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor… is still alive.”

“What!?” Yun Che exclaimed.

“That terrible battle directly led to the destruction of the gods and the devils and the Evil Infant calamity, but due to the clan doing everything they could to protect the girl with the divine soul, she was miraculously able to survive the calamities in a profound ark imprinted with the World Piercer’s power… As for the one with the devil soul, she was completely unaffected by the calamities because she had been hidden in a pocket world in the lower realms. She too continues to exist to this day.”

Yun Che, “...” (That strange feeling of familiarity and déjà vu is growing stronger.)

“None of this is knowledge that I’d learned during the ancient times. It all comes from you, the very first person to know that the daughter of the Evil God is still alive in this day and age.”

The Ice Phoenix girl’s words completely stupefied Yun Che. “Me? You mean I saw her… them, before?”

The Ice Phoenix girl gave Yun Che an obvious hint. “The God Clan the Evil God had entrusted his daughter’s divine soul to was called… the Sword Spirit God Clan!”

“This God Clan possessed a certain profound ark that was famous since the Era of Gods! The interior of this profound ark is an individual world of its own. It is a gift from the Evil God to the Sword Spirit God Clan while he was still the Creation God of Elements, and it possesses incredible space traveling abilities because the Evil God had engraved its power of space with the World Piercer itself!”

“This profound ark is none other than the Primordial Profound Ark in your memories!”

“……”

“………”

“……！！”

Yun Che’s eyes widened bit by bit. His mind turned blank like he was struck by thunder, and it wasn’t until a long time later that he opened his mouth and spat out a certain girl’s name with great difficulty, “Hong… er!??”

“Her real name is ‘Ling Wanhu’, and in public she is known as the daughter of the chief of the Sword Spirit God Clan, ‘Ling Zhen’. I even met her in person back then.” The Ice Phoenix girl said, “Of course, I could never have imagined that she was the daughter of the Evil God back then.”

“...” Yun Che’s mouth was wide agape. He just couldn’t close it no matter what.

A long time ago, Jasmine had told him that there was a clan called the Sword Spirit God Clan among the ancient gods who could transform into swords...

Given enough spirit energy, the Primordial Profound Ark supposedly could travel to any space…

And finally, the profound, meaningful words that dying soul had said to him before he entrusted Hong’er to him…

“I am only a guardian… my little mistress.. and my race… has long been forgotten by the world… there is no need to mention them anymore… my little mistress… her body has been inflicted with a terrible devilish poison… within all the realms… only the Sky Poison Pearl can cure her… in order to stem the invasion of this devilish poison… our little mistress was sealed into the Coffin of Eternity….”

“Chaotic turmoil… the terrible battle of Gods and Devils… the overturning of the sky… the weeping of the Gods and the Heavens… I brought my little mistress with me into the ark to flee…. The ‘Coffin of Eternity’ sealed her body and soul… allowed her presence to disappear into the chaotic space… and allowed her to escape that heaven-destroying calamity… if one day the Sky Poison Pearl can cleanse the devilish poison from her body… and she can once again awaken… then my bitter life will finally come to a happy end….”

Everything matched up to the Ice Phoenix Spirit’s words perfectly!

Even the sword Hong’er could transform to… was called the Heaven Smiting Devil Slayer Sword…

Heaven Smiting…

The Heaven Smiting Devil Clan!

Was Hong’er really… the daughter of the Evil God and the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor!?

“In that age, the younger daughter of the Sword Spirit God Clan Chief, ‘Wanhu’ was known to everyone because she was the most pampered child in the entire Sword Spirit Clan. The clan chief and his wife loved her more than any of their offspring, and absolutely no one suspected that she wasn’t actually the Sword Spirit God Clan Chief’s true daughter.”

“Later on, after Lord Mo E, the Heaven Punishing God Emperor had passed away, and the Heaven Punishing Ancestral Sword had become masterless, the grudge that had been accumulating between the gods and the devils since forever finally erupted in full force. The Sword Spirit Clan was blessed Lord Li Suo’s light divine energy, and the sword they transformed into was the ‘Devil Slayer Sword’, a great bane against any devil. That was why the devil race had spared no effort in attacking them and wiping them out before any other races of the gods.”

“It is said that the devil race had despicably used a terrifying devil poison that not even Lord Li Suo could purify before it kills its victims. Countless sword spirits including the chief and his wife passed away because of the poison…”

“However, it was later discovered that the body of the sword spirit little princess, Wanhu was nowhere to be found. The Sword Spirit God Clan’s main profound ark, the Spirit World of Heaven and Earth was missing as well.”

The Spirit World of Heaven and Earth… was the Primordial Profound Ark currently in Yun Che’s possession right now!

“At the time, the gods thought that the sword spirit little princess had died in both spirit and body, and that the devils had claimed the Spirit World of Heaven and Earth for themselves. In reality, the Spirit World of Heaven and Earth had concealed their presence completely and slipped into a spatial rift… I’m sure that even the Evil God thought that she had died as well, since he couldn’t verify her whereabouts without the World Piercer.”

“After passing through countless space and time, fate finally arranged her to meet you, the owner of the Sky Poison Pearl.”

“...” Right now, Yun Che was feeling completely dizzy. It was because the Ice Phoenix girl’s story was just too… extraordinary!

Hong’er had come to him as a complete “accident”. She was a naughty, hyperreactive, gluttonous, sleepy, eccentric, undisciplined, and queer little monster who was even more monstrous than your usual monster…

But now the Ice Phoenix Spirit was telling him that she… was the Evil God’s d-d-d-d-daughter!?!?

Yun Che’s brain and heart shook uncontrollably...

The f*ck...

“I’m guessing that the Sword Spirit God Clan Chief himself was the one who remade her body after the Evil God had entrusted his daughter to him. However, her divine soul was ultimately incomplete because it had been split in half, so in order to complete her soul and convince everyone that she really was her daughter, he gave up his own divine power and divine soul so that her divine soul could ‘grow’ into completion. After that, she became Ling Wanhu and… Hong’er. Thanks to the Sword Spirit God Clan Chief, she possessed both the divine powers and the characteristics of a Sword Spirit God. She had light divine energy and the divine aura of a Sword Spirit God, and the sword she transformed into possessed the ‘devil slaying’ attribute as well.”

“However, she wasn’t just a Devil Slayer Sword!”

“Heaven Smiting… Devil Slayer Sword.” Yun Che whispered, “Did the ‘heaven smiting’ part of her title… come from the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor herself?”

“That is correct,” said the Ice Phoenix girl. “Even with the devil half in her separated from her soul, her ‘essence’ was still the same because nothing could change the fact that she was the daughter of the Evil God and the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor. Even if Hong’er didn’t have the Sword Spirit God Clan Chief’s divine power and soul in her, she still would’ve had the ability to transform into a sword because the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor herself and her race, the Heaven Smiting Devil Clan, was a race that could transform into swords in the first place.”

“...” Yun Che nodded numbly in response. When he had “picked up” Hong’er at the Primordial Profound Ark, Jasmine had told him that there was a race each among the god race and the devil race that could transform into swords. One was called the Sword Spirit God Clan, and the other the Heaven Smiting Devil Clan.

When Hong’er had transformed into a sword for the first time, Jasmine had had a strange reaction when she saw the words engraved onto the body of the sword, “Heaven Smiting” and “Devil Slayer”. There were several times Jasmine had looked like she wanted to say something when he asked her about them… but in the end, she simply said “it’s not possible” and left things there.

“The sword a member of the Sword Spirit God Clan transforms into is called the Devil Slayer Sword. It is the bane of all devils. On the other hand, the sword a member of the Heaven Smiting Devil Clan transforms into is called the ‘Heaven Smiting Devil God Sword’. It is the bane of all light profound energy.”

The name “Heaven Smiting Devil God Sword” caused a shiver in Yun Che’s heart… It was because he recalled what the Moon Slaughter Devil Sovereign had shouted during the battle when he was summoning Hong’er. The Moon Slaughter Devil Sovereign had cried out the name “Devil Slayer Sword” first, followed by an even more surprised shout, “Heaven Smiting Devil God Sword”.

“As the devil emperor of the Heaven Smiting Devil Clan and one of the four devil emperors that of the devil race, the sword the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor transforms into is the ultimate form of the Heaven Smiting Devil God Sword, the ‘Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor Sword’.”

“However, the sword Hong’er transforms into is incredibly strange. It is a ‘Heaven Smiting Devil Slayer Sword’ that contains the characteristics of both the Devil Slayer Sword and the Heaven Smiting Devil God Sword, and something like this has never appeared even during the ancient times. She is an existence that defies all common sense, and her future and her limits are both unpredictable and unimaginable.”

“So… which one of the two sword spirit clans eat swords to increase their powers?” asked Yun Che.

“The answer is none of them. I am not talking about just the Sword Spirit God Clan or the Heaven Smiting Devil Clan either, I’d never heard of a race in the past or now who can consume swords to increase their strength… not to my knowledge at least.”

Yun Che, “...”

“The only explanation I can give is that Hong’er’s… extraordinary background and tragic fate have caused her to undergo some sort of unusual change that is beyond even my understanding. After all, she is the daughter of the Evil God and the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor, a first in the history of the Primal Chaos and the only proof that gods and devils have ever bonded with one another. Moreover, Hong’er is an existence at the level of a Creation God, so she is beyond the understanding of a normal divine spirit like me.”

Hong’er… her somewhat abnormal behavior aside, she was just a simple girl to him. She was so simple that the only thing she cared about in her life was feeding and sleeping, and nothing ever seemed to worry her in the slightest.

Her vermillion-colored eyes especially looked like they were eternally pure and clean.

To think that something like this would be hidden beneath her simple appearance and behavior...

Suddenly, a thought struck Yun Che’s mind like thunder. He looked up abruptly and asked, “You mentioned that the devil half of her soul is still alive. Could… could it be that you’re referring to…?”