The Demon God's physical body was no match for his demonic form. The divine artifact conjured by the "Gate of the Yellow Springs"—a blade akin to a sword piercing the heavens and earth—felt like a thousand cuts to him.
With a world-shattering roar, a colossal divine power that changed the very colors of the universe descended.
After his death, his soul, which had fortunately been exposed, had no time to flee. Gu Junshi calmly captured it with the "Soul Locking Chain."
He was now like a dead dog, his transparent soul flickering weakly and utterly exhausted, with only his mouth remaining defiant.
"Slaying a god is a grave sin. As we are of the same divine status, without the decree of a Primordial Saint, you cannot kill me..."
Hearing his words, Gu Junshi's sword blade glinted with cold light, its sharpness reflected in her pale, cool pupils. "Die? Is it that simple? Rather than death, being unable to live and unable to die seems more fitting for you. In the Underworld, eighteen levels of hell await you, with ten thousand vengeful spirits and asuras to play with. In the Avici Hell, tongues are ripped out, fields are plowed, intestines are pulled and minced, molten copper is poured... Rest assured, day, night, and every passing second from now on, you will only beg me to grant you death."
The Demon God's soul shivered as if thrown into an ice cave upon hearing Gu Junshi's chilling and venomous revenge.
No, it couldn't be. He was a Demon God; his future should not be one of escaping a cage only to enter hell again!
"No—"
But no matter how frenzied, angry, or terrified the Demon God became, he could not change the future of suffering that Gu Junshi had meticulously planned for him.
With a swish, Gu Junshi tightened the "Soul Locking Chain." The Demon God's soul was dragged into the "Gate of the Yellow Springs." With a click, the great gate closed, then gradually faded into invisibility in the sky.
Gu Junshi, holding the "Soul Locking Chain," paused for a moment after dealing with the Demon God.
...Just now, within the "Soul Locking Chain," she seemed to have sensed a trace of soul power.
It was very weak, but undeniably present.
A guess immediately formed in her mind.
"Ghost Infant..."
She called out softly.
The soul fragments, confined within the "Soul Locking Chain," gained a little energy under her incantation, gradually forming a soul. A transparent, hazy figure suddenly appeared, but then vanished like smoke in an instant, turning to nothing.
However, Gu Junshi had obtained the answer she desired.
At this moment, her heart felt a little complex, but she couldn't deny that she was happy to know the Ghost Infant hadn't completely vanished.
She extended her hand and retrieved a small ball of white soul light from the "Soul Locking Chain." Compared to a normal deceased soul, it appeared exceptionally weak, yet it persisted, surviving stubbornly.
"Only one soul and one spirit remain..."
Sensing the incompleteness of the soul white light, she placed it into the soul artifact used for nurturing souls.
"If the King of Hell decrees one shall die at the third watch, who can save them until the fifth? But if the King of Hell wishes someone not to die, then they most certainly will not die."
Now, with only one soul and one spirit remaining of the Ghost Infant's three souls and seven spirits, while reforming a complete soul might be as difficult as climbing to heaven for others, for Gu Junshi, who had become a god, it was merely a matter of time.
Thinking this, she suddenly remembered another urgent matter.
With a gentle wave of her hand, the space immediately changed. It was as if ripples spread across a calm water surface, with yin and yang indistinctly divided. Before her eyes, the souls of the underworld drifted, scattered and lost.
Using her divine sense to meticulously distinguish and identify each one in this vast world of souls, she soon found the soul fragment she was looking for.
She sighed inwardly, "Nourishing one soul is the same as nourishing two."
This soul fragment belonged to the Human Emperor.
With one soul fragment, she could use it to locate other scattered or lost soul fragments.
Gu Junshi possessed the memory inheritance of the Underworld King. She knew that powerful ghost kings like the Human Emperor, whose three souls were integrated, were not as fragile as humans. Even if he sacrificed his evil soul, his other two souls would strive to preserve his life.
Therefore, by taking a piece from each of his three souls, he would still have a sliver of life remaining.
After she finished these tasks, those below, who had been too shocked to react, finally stirred. They erupted like a surging tide, their voices rising in unison.
"Congratulations to the Underworld King on becoming a god!"
"Congratulations to the God of the Underworld for defeating the Demon God and restoring peace and tranquility to our realms!"
The ghosts and monsters of the Underworld were overjoyed, prostrating themselves and kneeling in congratulation. These monstrous underworld beings were all bound by the contract imprints Gu Junshi had placed upon them; they were also pawns she had arranged and deployed at critical moments.
Her plan from the very beginning was not merely to become an immortal. Immortality could not shake the Demon God; she was not foolish enough to pit a pebble against a mountain. Therefore, the height she truly aimed for was godhood.
Only a god could oppose a god.
And becoming a god was, for her, and indeed for everyone, an extremely difficult feat that might take millions of years to achieve.
Even with millions of years, it was not guaranteed.
Yet, she was determined to accomplish this purpose during the shortest and most arduous of times. Naturally, she could not take the conventional path; she had to tread a more unconventional one.
Reaching this stage of godhood was the result of her diligent experience, meticulously planned steps, and a gamble of everything she possessed.
But she was not yet a god, and there were times when she felt helpless, and times when painful accidents occurred... For instance, the Demon God's attempt to use his demonic eyes to create illusions to stimulate, provoke, and harm her.
That's right, the twin children and the nine-tailed fox that the Demon God had killed earlier were fake, a lie he had woven. At the time, Gu Junshi was too anxious and flustered, and was thus deceived by him, believing it to be true.
As for people, she hid them within her divine consciousness space. This space was created through seven cycles of reincarnation and continuous cultivation of her divine consciousness. No person or object could easily intrude.
Although the Demon God possessed the ability to do so, she would have detected some abnormality during the process.
The moment she achieved godhood, her mind was incredibly clear and calm, and her divine consciousness reached an unprecedented breadth. At that time, she realized she had been blinded by the Demon God. Her children were still sleeping peacefully within her divine consciousness space.
Gu Junshi finally felt at ease. Now that she had become a god, she had a wider and more expansive space before her. This small world no longer belonged to her.
She... was about to leave.
But before leaving, there were a few things she needed to do. These were things Gu Junshi wished to do, and also the duty of the God of Judgment, the Underworld God.
Strangely enough, Gu Junshi did not consider herself a person who upheld fairness. Yet, her divine attribute was "Judgment." Whether this was inherited from the Underworld King or because she had always been an autocratic person, it resulted in a divine attribute that limited her arbitrary actions.
"I am about to ascend to the God Realm. Before I do, I can grant you three wishes."
The others, still dazed and influenced by the atmosphere, also knelt down, paying homage to the High God.
They had won?
They had truly won?
To be honest, it all happened as swiftly as a tornado. Before they were mentally prepared, everything had undergone a complete reversal.
At this moment, mere joy was insufficient to express their feelings. It was like farmers experiencing rain after a long drought, or fishermen seeing a lighthouse in a foggy sea, a resurgence from a desperate situation.
However, their joyous and excited emotions turned heavy when they inadvertently saw the ground littered with corpses, the Spirit Realm scarred and dilapidated, everything broken, all things withered, spiritual energy depleted. This small world was already unrecognizable.
Their hearts became heavy again, filled with worry for the future.
Three wishes, for a god to grant three wishes for them, mere mortals, made them unsure whether to be flattered or terrified.
But the desires in their hearts, it seemed, could only be fulfilled by a god, not by anyone else.
As she posed her question, her words, like laws, resonated in the minds of all intelligent beings in every small world. Her believers and followers actively responded to her question.
Gu Junshi quietly listened to the inner voices from various realms and races, finally categorizing and making judgments.
The news of the Demon God's defeat in his world-destroying war was sensed by the demon race first. They found it difficult to believe such an outcome. When the Demon God descended prematurely, he had absorbed most of the demon race's combat strength into himself, thus causing them to lose most of their fighting power.
However, they were not panicked, remaining confident that their Demon God would not lose and would make their demon race the only existing race in the realms thereafter.
But the reality shattered all their ambitions and fantasies.
At this moment, the demon race felt as if the sky had fallen.
Gu Junshi captured all the demon race without exception and publicly meted out their due punishment.
"The demon race aided the wicked and inflicted suffering on living beings; their hearts are deserving of death. Those who participated will atone with their lives. The remaining surviving demons will have their demonic roots abolished and will be imprisoned in the endless abyss."
The demon race listened to the Underworld God's pronouncement, their faces turning pale.
The demons who participated in the battle panicked and tried to escape to avoid punishment. But a colossal divine light pierced their bodies, and billowing smoke erupted from within them, followed by a abruptly cut-off wail.
Then, a dark spatial rift opened beneath the feet of the other demons. They screamed in pain and fell into the endless abyss, to be eternally imprisoned in the cold and hungry depths of the ocean, in perpetual darkness.
This was the first wish.
The source of the disaster and its accomplices were resolved.
"Those who sacrificed themselves to protect all living beings shall enter the cycle of reincarnation in the Underworld and be reborn. As a reward, they will receive a significant life opportunity in the future."
The passage to the Underworld reopened. After death, intelligent life within the six realms would no longer wander the worlds, eventually dissipating into spiritual energy and fading into heaven and earth. Instead, they would have a next life.
A future to look forward to was a cause for immense joy.
This was the second wish.
After Gu Junshi completed these two tasks, the entire twenty-eight heavens began to tremble with a deafening roar. Boundless divine light transformed into wind, rain, dew, overturning mountains and steep cliffs, rivers flowed backward, greenery spread, and all things were reborn.
The broken or nearly broken spiritual barriers and realm boundaries of the Spirit Realm were restored to completeness, and the spiritual energy belonging to the Spirit Realm once again filled the heavens and earth.
The cultivators were the first to feel these changes. They saw astonishing white light flash before their eyes, and an invisible force completed the repair of the small world's wounds inflicted by the Demon God. Everything seemed to have returned to its original state.
This was the third wish.
"I have fully returned this small world to you. However, I would like to offer a personal piece of advice: you must protect what is yours with your own strength. Even if you face a god, though small, united in purpose and consistent in belief, your unwavering strength can still shake the divine throne and protect your homeland."
Her words were like a ray of sunshine piercing their hearts, dispelling the heavy shadow that weighed on them.
At the same time, as she returned a brand new world to them, fulfilling their deepest desires, the sense of gratitude was like a gust of wind, sweeping away the complexities and disturbances of the world. The rainbow arching across the sky after the storm brought tears to their eyes.
It was over.
It was truly over.
This time, everyone sincerely thanked the Underworld King, no, the Underworld God now.
"We will surely remember the instructions of the God of the Underworld and are infinitely grateful."
"Oh, God of the Underworld, I've truly made something of myself! To witness a god in my lifetime is something I never dared to dream of."
"Indeed. The same person has realized all our imaginations of immortals and gods. Although she killed her husband to achieve enlightenment, with her immense power, she naturally has no need to put men in her eyes."
"Her husband also pleaded for the people and sacrificed himself for them. To have such a wife, this is also his honor."
"That's right, that's right. Gu Shen sacrificed her husband for the sake of all beings, enduring the pain. Such righteousness, it would be too wrong for us to misunderstand it."
The beings of the twenty-eight heavens looked up at the same sky. Space seemed to no longer be a problem. They all gazed at the radiant figure of the savior god born from their world. The tide of opinion had completely turned. Many had essentially become fanatical followers of Gu Junshi.
The filtering effect of a god was immense.
Gu Junshi, this name, would forever be engraved in their hearts, becoming a myth they would endlessly recount and believe in.
Dan Ya and Gu Er, listening to the enthusiastic praise around them, both tilted their heads back and looked at the vast expanse above, at that figure too dazzling to be directly gazed upon.
She was now so distant from them, one in heaven, one on earth.
"I am leaving."
They were momentarily unable to react to whom these words were addressed.
But Gu Er felt Gu Junshi's divine consciousness fall upon him. As if by some unspoken understanding, he suddenly trembled. The blood in his entire body surged towards his heart like flames, and he blurted out, "I, I will always follow your footsteps. If you become an immortal, I will ascend. If you become a god, I will also pursue you without regard for time... Sister, do you still recognize me?"
Now that she had become a god, he worried she would disdain having such an unimpressive younger brother.
In the last sentence, he asked with apprehension, a hint of grievance and sadness in his voice.
He was waiting for an answer.
And Gu Junshi did not make him wait long.
"I will wait for you."
These three simple words somehow smoothed out all the wrinkles and anxieties in Gu Er's heart.
Gu Er's dejected and dispirited expression vanished from his face. He became radiant, as if he had taken a powerful tonic.
Dan Ya, standing closest to him, clearly felt the change in Gu Er's expression during this process and had thoughts of his own.
He had also heard Gu Junshi say she was leaving, but afterward, she had said nothing to him. Instead, Gu Er seemed to have had a private conversation with her.
Had she told him something, which caused him to become so excited, wagging his tail as if he could even go and kill a few Demon Gods?
But to him... she had given no instructions.
Intense resentment and jealousy made his heart feel as if it were being cruelly squeezed. He felt a tightness in his chest, a bitter sourness.
"Gu Junshi, because of that moment of misguided judgment back then, you have always held a prejudice against me. No matter what I do or say afterward, you treat me as if I don't exist... But Gu Junshi, I will not give up. I, Dan Ya, have always been a stubborn and persistent person. Once I set my mind on someone, unless I die, no one can make me give up."
"It's time to go."
The empty voice of the Heavenly Dao sounded.
"Mhm."
The vast void rippled like water waves. From all directions, auspicious energy, like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea, projected onto Gu Junshi. Amidst the yellow light, golden radiance thinly sprinkled from the sky, forming a winding staircase.
Gu Junshi stepped onto the staircase. Instantly, the divine light within her grew stronger. Guided by the God Realm, she gazed into the infinite expanse of the sky, her figure transforming into countless stars and ascending to the upper realm.
—
The God Realm
Upon arriving in the God Realm, before Gu Junshi could even examine anything, she first saw an old acquaintance waiting for her within the cosmic river.
The wind blew gently, and his clean monk's robe was immaculate, imbued with the colors of Zen tranquility.
"You have arrived."
Upon seeing him, Gu Junshi was momentarily lost in thought.
Until the corners of his mouth curved slightly upward, and he smiled at her, like a lotus in a dream, pure and luminous, or like a Bodhisattva adorned in colorful robes, with a pure heart from the beginning, of inherent clarity.
She came back to her senses and returned a smile, teasing, "So, this is what Buddha looks like."