Chapter 222.1: The Heavenly Demon
“Whoa!”
Cheng Qisheng, who had been watching the battle all along, slowly stood up when she saw the enormous turtle.
This creature looked like a sea turtle, and just the surface area of its shell alone was probably a full square kilometer.
Blue Sea Safe City was certainly enormous too, with a total area of over a hundred thousand square kilometers. But there was a fundamental difference between a large city and a living creature of such immense size. The feeling they inspired was completely different.
Only now did Cheng Qisheng finally begin to feel that Blue Sea really had entered the set of some mythological production.
This Black Tortoise’s cultivation level was approximately at the Mountain-Suppressing Realm, equivalent to Rank 6 in the Fallen Heaven system and ability user Tier 8.
The Blue Sea residents soared into the air, unleashing all kinds of attacks against the enormous turtle. Yet not a single attack had the slightest effect on it.
On the other hand, the giant turtle merely opened its mouth and exhaled a freezing mist that stretched for a thousand li. Large numbers of Blue Sea residents had no choice but to retreat in a hurry, because the moment they came into contact with the mist, the divine power within their bodies began disappearing at an astonishing rate.
—And all that divine power had been painstakingly pooled together from the contributions of other residents!
Divine power was extremely important if they wanted to complete the mission their God had entrusted to them in this world. The Blue Sea residents naturally treasured every bit of the divine power they possessed.
The giant turtle under the demons’ control showed no intention of pursuing them and continuing the attack. Judging by its shell, which remained completely unaffected no matter what kind of weapon struck it, its role was clearly that of a defensive unit.
The giant turtle hovered in midair. Its enormous eyes, just as terrifyingly large as the rest of its body, were milky white, indicating that it had been dead for many days. Yet its shell remained as sturdy as ever.
It continued exhaling freezing mist as it tried to break through the gods’ encirclement and fly into the distance.
Clearly, no matter how terrifying this giant turtle looked, being surrounded by over a hundred million gods was even more frightening.
The demons controlling it had intended from the very beginning to hide beneath its sturdy shell and use it to escape, rather than deploy it for combat.
Cheng Qisheng had no intention of letting them get away.
From the moment that demon had started making threats, she had already decided that she needed to capture at least one of them alive and question it.
However, if they wanted to capture someone alive for questioning, they still had to be selective about their target.
If they were going to interrogate someone, they should interrogate a high-ranking figure.
And high-ranking figures traditionally appeared last. Otherwise, if the commander suddenly got taken out while the foot soldiers were still fighting on the front lines, wouldn’t that just be handing the enemy a free kill?
Even in Blue Sea, where everyone loved fighting, the three top leaders might be itching to head out and fight personally, but in most cases, they would still restrain that impulse and conscientiously remain at headquarters to oversee the situation.
Clearly, the demons on Fallen Heaven Star had the same idea.
To that end, they had even managed to obtain this giant turtle, whose defensive capabilities were maxed out, from who knew where. It was specifically meant to ensure that they could make a leisurely escape no matter what happened.
However, the demons of Fallen Heaven Star, who were living in an ancient world, had probably never imagined that one day, aliens would arrive on their planet.
Cheng Qisheng mobilized her mental power, diverting almost a third of it and pouring all of it into the evil-looking giant eye above Song Xi’s head.
Remember Song Xi’s supernatural ability?
Gu Insects. As long as the target was sufficiently powerful, she could control any non-intelligent life form.
Clearly, this giant turtle had already died and was now being controlled. In a world where even creatures of this size were generally expected to possess intelligence, it could no longer be considered an intelligent life form.
And Fallen Heaven Star was a world exceptionally friendly toward Cheng Qisheng. It had practically already acknowledged her as the one acting in place of the Heavenly Dao. As long as she wished, it could continuously help her believers increase their strength.
—The Hu Xuan Sect’s sea vessel had arrived at the scene.
“Divine Lord! Honored Divine Lords… The Black Tortoise’s weakness is very likely…”
The Hu Xuan Sect cultivators, who had already prepared themselves to die, couldn’t fly. All they could do was shout toward the sky from the surface of the sea.
But before they could finish, they saw a deity emerge into the air and confront the Black Tortoise alone.
The deity gently raised a hand, and a gigantic palm made of divine power appeared in the sky.
The entire palm radiated golden divine power as it descended directly toward the Black Tortoise’s shell.
The few demons hiding inside the shell let out a disdainful chuckle, assuming this was simply some kind of attack.
“Kill her!”
“No, don’t provoke them. They may not be able to do anything to us, but if we kill one of their people, having them hound us relentlessly afterward would be a real nuisance.”
“Where exactly did all these gods come from? Are there really this many gods in the world?”
One of the demons, which had abandoned its physical body and transformed into a mass of black mist, burst out laughing within the fog.
“Isn’t this a good thing?”
“If there are this many gods, that means there’s an enormous amount of power waiting for us to absorb.”
The only troublesome part was that these gods weren’t fighting individually. They had actually gathered together.
Swallowing them would probably be much more difficult than devouring the scattered, solitary gods elsewhere.
“No rush. We’ll take our time. We may not be able to defeat them today, but once we’ve absorbed enough power, we can simply come back.”
Song Xi had no idea that the demons inside the turtle’s shell were cheerfully discussing their future plans.
She concentrated her attention. Large numbers of plump, white Gu insects began hopping onto the turtle’s shell like fleas. They crawled along its wayward surface and slipped inside through its milky-white pupils.
Normally, controlling an empty body that had lost its consciousness should have been very easy for her.
However, Song Xi soon sensed resistance through her Gu insects. Within the sea turtle’s body, a force was struggling furiously against her.
Strictly speaking, what it was resisting was the demonic energy controlling the turtle. Song Xi’s Gu insects were merely caught in the crossfire.
Song Xi closed her eyes and carefully tried to sense what exactly was happening.
“Get out!!! Get OUT!!!”
A scene suddenly seemed to flash before her eyes. A gigantic turtle, baring its claws and teeth, was trapped in a mass of black demonic mist, roaring furiously.
It seemed to have suddenly sensed the presence of the Gu insects. It abruptly wheeled around with a thunderous movement and roared at them:
“You get out too!!!”
The roar struck directly at her soul. Caught completely off guard, Song Xi suddenly began coughing violently.
“Cough, cough, cough…”
She spat out a mouthful of blood, and more than half of the hundred-plus Gu insects she had sent out perished.
The moment her body sustained damage, Song Xi’s mind immediately snapped to attention.
Even though her current body was a divine body, it didn’t affect her ability to go through the entire sequence of getting injured → encountering a powerful enemy → getting excited → concentrating every fiber of her being → I’m going to beat the crap out of this thing!
The more than thirty surviving Gu insects seemed to have suddenly gained an extra burst of motivation. They worked even harder, busily burrowing into the giant turtle’s brain.
Although most of its brain had already been devoured by demonic energy, that didn’t matter. The Gu insects could serve as its brain instead!
Amid the hazy black mist, the giant turtle also discovered that it could actually eliminate these “new things.” Although, for some reason, they seemed to become more determined the more setbacks they encountered, that didn’t stop it from immediately preparing to roar at the Gu insects again.
It was just about to open its mouth when it suddenly froze in place.
Above the dozens of Gu insects, a gigantic eye was quietly gazing down at it.
To Song Xi, this meant that her God was watching over her. She felt a sense of warmth and reassurance.
But to the soul trapped inside the Black Tortoise’s body, it was as if it were facing the collapse of heaven and earth, as though an entire world were pressing down upon it.
Although it was already dead, it had a premonition that if it continued destroying more of those insects, it would die all over again.
The Black Tortoise silently turned around, ignoring the white Gu insects behind it as they continued digging through its already empty brain. It resumed roaring at the black mist swirling around it.
“GET OUT!!!!”
Normally, this trick wasn’t particularly effective. Although demonic energy could be dispersed, it would soon regenerate endlessly, disturbing its soul and keeping it trapped within.
But for some reason, after this particular roar, the demonic energy that had been driven away failed to return.
This left the Black Tortoise’s soul stunned. Tentatively, it roared at the demonic energy on the other side.
“Get out?”
After that patch of demonic energy retreated, it also failed to return.
The Black Tortoise was about to try again when it suddenly realized that its thoughts, which had been muddled and hazy all this time, were gradually becoming clear.
Moreover, the demonic energy that had surrounded it in every direction, seemingly endless and inexhaustible, was now rapidly retreating.
It was as though some terrifying overlord had established dominion over this entire region.
Outside, Song Xi opened her eyes and wiped the divine blood from the corner of her mouth. A smile appeared on her face.
“I’m grateful for Your divine grace, my God! I did it!”
In the sky, the Black Tortoise’s body, which had been trying to break through the encirclement and escape, suddenly came to a halt.
Its body shuddered violently, forcibly shaking the several demons inside out of its shell.
The demons had only just sensed that something was wrong when, the very next moment, they were abruptly expelled from the turtle’s shell.
They had barely managed to steady themselves in midair using their demonic energy when they looked up and found themselves facing over a hundred million gods.
The gods had surrounded the entire stretch of sky, inside and out, layer upon layer, forming a towering formation with their own bodies.
All of them grinned at the demons in unison, then raised their hands and brandished all kinds of weapons shimmering with divine light.
The demons: “…”
The Hu Xuan Sect cultivators below: “…”
From their perspective, only one deity had stepped forward. Yet in the span of just a few breaths, that deity had seized control of the Black Tortoise’s body.
“Gods above!”
The Hu Xuan Sect cultivators could rack their brains all they wanted, but they could never have imagined that a deity possessing such boundless power existed in this world.
And this deity was merely one among all the gods present.
Just how enormous was this divine pantheon?
Why had they never revealed themselves before?
Could it be that the world had fallen into chaos and demons were running rampant, prompting all those gods in the sky to finally make themselves known to mortals?
Cheng Qisheng also noticed the cultivators below. However, after roughly assessing their combat strength and confirming that they posed no threat to the Old Eighths, she simply stopped paying attention to them.
The great Creator God of Blue Sea delivered a divine revelation exclusively to her own believers:
“Leave one alive. Question them about what that demon said earlier. What did it mean?”
When it came to combat, the residents of Blue Sea had never disappointed their God.
In barely any time at all, the demons were bound with divine power and suspended in midair, dangling like kites on strings.
The reason demons were called demons was that they were formed from the negative emotions of all living beings in the world. Naturally, these negative emotions included the fear of death.
The demons hardly hesitated before spilling the truth.
“I’ll talk! I’ll talk! We’re subordinates of the Heavenly Demon! It was the Heavenly Demon who ordered us to do this!”
The divine official in charge of the interrogation carefully searched through the memories in his mind.
“What is the Heavenly Demon?”
“We don’t know either. We only know that it’s incredibly powerful. It can crush us to death as easily as snapping its fingers. It has countless demons under its command, and we wouldn’t dare disobey its orders.”
The Blue Sea residents listened, inwardly clicking their tongues in amazement.
These few demons were all at Fallen Heaven Tier 5. On Fallen Heaven Star, they were already considered major demonic figures. And yet, they were merely carrying out someone else’s orders.
The demon answering their questions kept trying to distance itself from the whole affair.
“The Black Tortoise had nothing to do with us! It was Lord Heavenly Demon… No, that old Heavenly Demon bastard who controlled it and handed it over to us, ordering us to take the lives of the Dragon Clan!”
The two dragons, Black and White, had watched the entire affair unfold. Their attitude had gone from ‘There’s no way out of this, so if the gods are inviting us, we might as well join them to Oh, Heavenly Dao! They’re so powerful! We’ve truly found ourselves a mighty backer this time!’
After seeing the battle come to an end, they had also soared into the sky to watch.
Hearing those words, however, made both of them furious.
“What did we ever do to you?! Why are you trying to take the lives of our Dragon Clan?!!”
The White Dragon was equally indignant and added:
“Exactly! Why?!”
The demon glanced at the dragons.
“Because you possess such powerful strength. What else would you expect?”
The Black and White Dragons were utterly bewildered by this logic.
Shouldn’t possessing great power make other people less likely to provoke them, rather than more likely?
