Against the Gods

NEW NOVEL: First and foremost, I'm delighted to announce that our long-time veteran translator littleshanks has finally launched his new novel, Rise!  Rise is a novel about the esports scene in Shanghai, the competitive gaming capital of China. It follows the story of Lin Feng, a boy who has just moved to the city for his last year of high school. He's a passionate gamer and dreams of being the best professional League of Legends player in the world. The twist? He almost achieved his dream, but failed at the...

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“Hehehehe…”

A chuckle that melted into one’s bones suddenly came down from above. The dark clouds parted, and Devil Queen Chi Wuyao slowly descended to the ground.

She was followed by two white figures.

“You really are the man this queen has chosen, Yun Che. All it took was a little show, and my cute children were awed into obedience.”

Her feet hit the ground lightly. The smile behind the black fog was as bewitching as it was demonic.

The six Witches bowed toward the Devil Queen in deference the moment she arrived.

While they were doing so, Yun Che looked at the white figures standing behind the Devil Queen.

A presence that far exceeded either one of the six Witches who were already present, an aura that put Qianye Ying’er on high alert instantly, and a pair of faces that were exactly identical. The pair of white figures hadn’t said a word, but their appearance alone was a declaration of their identity.

Two level ten Divine Masters!

The leader of the Nine Witches, the Great Witch Jie Xin and Jie Ling!

Witches never showed their faces to anyone. At the very least, all the Witches Yun Che and Qianye Ying’er had encountered so far had masked their faces one way or another.

However, it looked like the rule didn’t apply to the two Witches standing behind Chi Wuyao.

The Great Witch was dressed in plain white robes. Their clothes were completely devoid of any patterns, and they weren’t wearing any jewelry. However, they were so beautiful that just by standing there, they turned that particular corner of the world into an exquisite painting.

Their eyes were devoid of any emotion, but it wasn’t frigidness that rejected all human contact. It was a kind of indifference toward everything and anything that exists in the world.

Chi Wuyao was the one and only exception. It was as if she was the only person in the world who was reflected in their eyes and hearts.

Twin sisters weren’t rare, but no matter how identical they were to each other, there were always some differences to be found. Normally, an expert could identify those differences immediately with their spiritual perception.

Moreover, even if their appearances were exactly identical, it was only natural that their cultivation levels and auras would differ in some ways as they grew up. Anyone with enough spiritual perception should be able to differentiate between twins with ease.

But not only did Jie Xin and Jie Ling share the exact same appearance, clothes, and eyes, their life force and aura were identical as well!

Even their footsteps and breathing were perfectly in sync.

It was as if they were a living mirror of each other.

Qianye Ying’er watched them for a long time with a deep frown on her face. She had seen plenty of twins in her life, and until today she had thought that the rumor of “the indistinguishable Witches” was nothing but a joke. As it turned out, the world was bigger than she had imagined.

Yun Che removed his gaze from Jie Xin and Jie Ling, and gave a cold snort at Chi Wuyao. “Must you wait until now to appear?”

Qianye Ying’er narrowed her eyes. The six Witches looked surprised as well. The meaning behind Yun Che’s words was clear: he knew that Chi Wuyao was somewhere in the area all along.

Chi Wuyao smiled. His discovery of her presence hadn’t surprised her at all. “Curiosity is a woman’s nature. Not even I am immune to it.”

“I’m not going to waste my breath.” Yun Che avoided her gaze and did his utmost to chase her devilish voice out of his soul. “You know why I’m here, so stop wasting my time and get to the point. I’m warning you, my patience is a lot shorter than you think!”

Yun Che’s words disturbed and angered the Witches a bit.

No one had ever dared to speak to the Devil Queen this way… no one!

But Chi Wuyao simply looked at him and chuckled. “Hehehe, what an impatient man you are.”

The anger on the Witches’ faces turned to astonishment.

Not only did Chi Wuyao accept Yun Che’s terrible attitude like it was nothing, everyone could sense the emotion behind her smile and voice despite fog covering her face. It was almost as if she was trying to… 

Seduce him??

For an instant, they felt as if the ground was splitting apart beneath their feet.

But Chi Wuyao’s smile eventually faded away into an invisible, dominant presence. Once again, she looked like the unparalleled devil everyone in the world thought her to be.

Yun Che’s desire for revenge was desperate and intense, and she hadn’t tried to challenge his patience any longer. She said seriously, “You wish to bathe the three divine regions in blood, and this queen wishes to visit all of them. You have an art that defies the natural order, and this queen possesses the perfect medium for you to execute it. Neither of us will find a more perfect collaborator than each other.”

The Witches turned toward their queen in alarm after hearing her declaration.

They could already see the dark storms coming their way in the very near future.

“The Northern Divine Region is ruled by three king realms, and out of the three the Burning Moon Realm and the Yama Realm have no plans of changing the current status quo. If I were to attack the three divine regions, not only would they not support or acknowledge my efforts, they would do everything in their power to stop me and save their own hides.”

“Therefore, if you and I want to unite all the power in the Northern Divine Region, we must start by taking over the Burning Moon Realm and the Yama Realm.”

Although the Witches were aware of the Devil Queen’s biggest desire since long ago, her words still shook them greatly.

Ye Li and Yao Die turned around and created a gigantic sound isolation barrier together.

This was the Soul Sky, a private world none dared to get close without permission. But it was better to be safe than sorry considering that this was just the beginning of the Devil Queen’s controversial statements.

“Of course, the Soul Stealing Realm must first have enough power to crush both realms before we take action.” Chi Wuyao smiled again as she looked at Yun Che. “In fact, you’ve proven that you’ve the ability to do that, and with incredible ease no less… Lord Devil Emperor’s Eternal Calamity of Darkness definitely deserves its name.”

“...” Yun Che wasn’t too surprised to hear the art’s name from Chi Wuyao.

“Eternal Calamity of… Darkness?” Yu Wu whispered. The name sounded incredibly familiar, but the memory kept eluding her for some reason… she wasn’t exactly wrong. Her subconscious was preventing her from reaching that impossible answer.

“Wait!” Ye Li exclaimed in shock in disbelief. “Master, are you talking about that ultimate devil art you told us about, the one that belonged only to the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor… the Eternal Calamity of Darkness?”

“Oh? Why are you so surprised?” Chi Wuyao looked at her and smiled slightly. “Haven’t you witnessed its ability just now? What else besides the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor’s Eternal Calamity of Darkness can transform Chanyi so thoroughly and so miraculously in just a few breaths?”

“Ah!” All six Witches cried out involuntarily in realization.

Chi Wuyao continued, “Moreover, Yun Che was able to kill Yan Sangeng in one hit despite only being a level seven Divine Sovereign. He may be the Heretic God’s inheritor, but without the profound veins and power the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor gifted to him—her origin blood and her origin power no less—it would’ve been an impossible task… how enviable.” 

The four Devil Emperors were the highest existences of the devil lineage since the beginning of Primal Chaos. Although they only existed in legends and historical records these days, they were worshipped higher than religion in the Northern Divine Region.

It was no wonder that the Witches reacted the way they did when they heard that the legendary Yun Che, the Heretic God inheritor also inherited the power of the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor.

They finally understood why he was able to perform that miraculous transformation on Chanyi in just a couple of breaths… it was because he was using the Devil Emperor’s ability!

“I will give them all perfect mastery over darkness profound energy,” Yun Che said indifferently.

“Not just them.” Chi Wuyao picked up immediately where he left off. “The core that forms the strength of the Soul Stealing Realm is the Nine Witches, the Twenty-seven Soul Spirits and Three Thousand Six Hundred Soul Attendants. At the minimum, this is the amount of people you need to ‘transmute’ during the next period of time.”

This time, even Jie Xin and Jie Ling looked visibly moved.

In the eyes of the Witches, Chanyi’s transformation was a miracle through and through.

But the Devil Queen was planning to refine the powers of every Witch, every Soul Spirit, and every Soul Attendant as well!

Could this impossible miracle… truly be replicated more than three thousand times!?

“Acceptable.” To their shock, Yun Che nodded barely without any hesitation whatsoever. It almost looked like he was talking about a small and insignificant thing.

“You know the Northern Divine Region far better than I do, so I will do my best to cooperate with you in this regard. However…” Yun Che changed his tone suddenly. “I will be the one who decides when to devour the Burning Moon Realm and Yama Realm!”

“Tell me,” Chi Wuyao said.

Yun Che knitted his eyebrows and lifted three fingers.

“Three… three thousand years?” Yu Wu subconsciously muttered.

The Burning Moon Realm and Yama Realm were superpowers that had stood strong in the Northern Divine Region for hundreds of thousands of years. It was already shocking and unreal enough to claim to be the one to topple them, much less do it in three thousand years. Was it really possible to pull off such a feat in three thousand years, even if their core were completely transformed?

“Okay.” Chi Wuyao nodded and accepted the proposal without hesitation. “Three years it is.”

“Three… three years!?”

Ye Li, Yao Die, Qing Ying, Lan Ting, Yu Wu, Chanyi and even Jie Xin and Jie Ling couldn’t believe their ears at all.

This was the Burning Moon and Yama realms they were talking about!

No one was denying the power of the Eternal Calamity of Darkness. Given enough time, the increase in cultivation speed and power ceiling alone would snowball the Soul Stealing Realm’s power to the point where it could easily crush the other two king realms.

However, that was assuming that they had several thousand years or more for the process to take place.

Three years? That was nothing more than a pipe dream.

Instead of explaining herself to the Witches, Chi Wuyao suddenly changed the subject and said, “When I was reading through the ancient records, I noticed something that was quite interesting. The Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor was definitely not the strongest of the four great Devil Emperors. But surprisingly, she was the most respected… Right, the word ‘respect’ was used again and again across multiple records when the relationships between the Devil Emperors were described. All three Devil Emperors respected the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor.”

“After the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor fell to the plot of the gods and went missing, fury washed over the other three Devil Emperors, no, the entire devil race. It was one of the major fuses that started the great war between the gods and the devils.”

Yun Che: “...”

“The Heaven Smiting Devil Race led by the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor possessed the strange ability to transform into ‘Devil God Swords’. But if we were to ignore this special ability, their strength was in fact much poorer than the devils led by the other Devil Emperors.”

“If they were to leave the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor’s side, they weren’t even that much stronger than a normal devil.”

“But the opposite was equally true. If the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor was close to them, they could slaughter the three Devil Emperors’ great devils without breaking a sweat.”

“Legend says that it was caused by a special power called ‘Calamity and Misfortune’.”

Chi Wuyao’s voice turned unusually soft and seductive as she stared at Yun Che. “I wonder, if this part of the records is true… or false?”

Yun Che frowned a little as something dark flashed across his eyes. This woman was much scarier than he had initially imagined.

It was fortunate that she was a collaborator, not an enemy… at least not now.

He said seriously, “I wouldn’t show myself to you so soon if I didn’t have something up my sleeve.”

“Very good.” Chi Wuyao’s smile grew wider after she got what she wanted. “It looks like our cooperation will be a pleasant one.”

Qianye Ying’er frowned. She had never heard of this “Calamity and Misfortune”, and Yun Che definitely hadn’t mentioned it to her.

However, his reaction to the eerie-sounding name was silent admission!

“You seem to know far more than you let on!” Qianye Ying’er said coldly before sneaking a glare at Yun Che.

“This is the Northern Divine Region. It’s only natural that we have more records about the ancient devils than the Eastern Divine Region, isn’t it?” Chi Wuyao was smiling cheerfully when suddenly she turned toward the southwest. “Oh? It seems that we have some guests.”

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