Ascending the Heavens as an Evil God

When Gu Nan first debuted—more accurately, when he first gained fame in the Myriad Heavens—some people speculated that he was the reincarnation of a Nine Abyss Heavenly Demon.

It wasn’t impossible for a Heavenly Demon to reincarnate into a human. Let alone humans, they could even reincarnate into monsters, ghosts, etc.

For example, the Heavenly Demon that Milky Way Heaven was rumored to be hiding was reincarnated as a zombie and then cultivated all the way to his current level.

However, the level that Heavenly Demon ultimately reached was far inferior to Gu Nan's current level.

After hearing Xue Ren's words, Immortal Empress Taisheng compared the series of strange happenings surrounding Gu Nan and felt that this conjecture was very possible.

Because before that Heavenly Demon returned to his previous life’s cultivation realm, his strength also advanced at an alarming rate. It was only because he exhibited the characteristics of a Heavenly Demon very early on that his identity was discovered, and he was finally forced to hide in Milky Way Heaven.

If Gu Nan was an even more powerful Heavenly Demon in his past life—perhaps even a Unified Dao Realm Heavenly Demon—then wouldn't this explain everything?

The only difference was that Gu Nan’s upper limit of strength was a little higher, and his identity would also be exposed much later than the other Heavenly Demon.

Xue Ren paused slightly when he heard the words "Nine Abyss Heavenly Demon", seemingly also recalling the similarities between the two, but then shook his head.

"He gives me the feeling of an ancient evil… but not a Heavenly Demon," Xue Ren said with certainty.

It wasn’t like he’d never seen a Nine Abyss Heavenly Demon before. The difference between the two was so large that he wouldn’t mistake one for the other.

Immortal Empress Taisheng fell silent again. She believed in Xue Ren's judgment. After all, he was the only one who met Gu Nan in person after his advancement.

Zhuangxuan chimed in from the side, "Since Senior Gu Nan comes from the World of Gods, might he be that side’s equivalent of a Heavenly Demon?"

His words silenced the room, and Xue Ren suddenly turned to look at him. "That’s very possible!"

"So this is his biggest secret. No wonder he made a special trip to hunt gods; no wonder he was able to write a hunting manual on gods." Zi Luo Elder sighed, as if all his suspicions were answered at this moment.

They all knew the nature of Heavenly Demons, creatures whose cultivation path was inherently opposed to that of cultivators.

If Gu Nan was the equivalent of that in the World of Gods, then that explained why he would hunt gods. The existence of the God Hunting Manual must come from his experience in his previous life.

"Maybe if we investigate the history of the World of Gods, we can find the identity of Senior Gu Nan’s past life," Zhuangxuan withdrew his gaze and suggested in a soft voice.

"Of course we need to investigate," Zi Luo Elder replied, then looked at Xue Ren. "How are your injuries?"

"I won’t die." Xue Ren smiled wryly and pointed to his chest. "But now I really must enter isolated cultivation and not come out until Unified Dao."

"A silver lining," Zi Luo Elder remarked with a smile.

Xue Ren was obsessed with the new branch of swordsmanship, but he slacked off a little in his own cultivation—or rather, he could never calm his heart enough to wholeheartedly cultivate. Now that he suffered such heavy injuries, perhaps he could calm down and cultivate in earnest.

Gu Nan's punch came so fast that Zi Luo Elder didn’t even have time to intervene. And after seeing that Xue Ren's life wasn’t in danger, he didn't want to waste his limited opportunity to attack.

Back when he re-ascended to Unified Dao, he suffered a blow from Song Fei’s ruler. Although he did forcibly break through to Unified Dao in the end, he could only last for ten years at most. Every time he attacked, he had to exhaust some strength, which was equivalent to shortening his already short lifespan.

Zhuangxuan stood up. "Since Senior Xue Ren still needs to rest, this humble Daoist won't disturb you."

"Are you going to find Gu Nan?" Immortal Empress Taisheng saw through Zhuangxuan's intention at a glance and choked. "He just wounded Xue Ren, yet you’re already approaching him so impatiently. Aren't you a little too eager?"

Zhuangxuan slowly turned his head to look directly at her. "Besides the three of us, no one else knows about that previous fight. My trip will not affect the organization’s dignity. As for this humble Daoist’s personal dignity… it matters not."

……

In fact, what Zhuangxuan said about no one else knowing about the battle between Gu Nan and Xue Ren wasn’t entirely accurate.

Someone had been paying attention to Gu Nan's Divine Kingdom recently and was powerful enough to see all this, and he happened to witness that scene.

"He's become stronger again." Long Ling'er blinked. She said this calmly, without any emotional fluctuation in her eyes.

At first, Gu Nan was still on the same level as her and even had to expend a lot of effort to deal with her, but in the blink of an eye, he was already able to injure Xue Ren.

Lu Wen lightly tapped his finger on the table, deep in thought.

"He's still one step short." After a long time, Lu Wen finally spoke, "Fang Chaoyun is about to attack Gu Nan, but he hasn’t completely lost his rationality yet… Go help him."

"Okay," Long Ling'er responded. Her figure instantly rose into the sky, turning into a giant dragon that gave a loud roar, then disappeared into the void in the blink of an eye.

……

Ever since he learned that Graceful Heaven was the target of the blood sacrifice, Gu Nan immediately started preparations.

There were some differences between a blood sacrifice and earning points. Using divine servants to kill people will always result in a few survivors escaping; it’s impossible to kill all inhabitants.

In other words, there were only so many divine servants, and it was impossible to search every nook and cranny of an astral world. The enemies weren’t fools who’d just stand there waiting to be killed.

Therefore, to blood sacrifice an entire plane, one must rely on the legendary Blood Sacrifice Formation.

It would take a while to collect the items and materials required to set up the formation. Some of them needed to be manufactured by Gu Nan through the Divine Kingdom's structures, while others needed to be collected from outside.

The Divine Kingdom part was easy. Anyhow, he still had a lot of extra points left after capturing Imperial Glory Heaven, which was enough to rebuild the divine servant army.

But while Red Tail’s staff exhausted their efforts to find some of the materials that needed to be collected from outside, Gu Nan still wasn’t satisfied with their efficiency.

This situation lasted for nearly half a month, and then, as if someone gifted him a pillow right when he fell asleep, Zhuangxuan visited the Divine Kingdom.

"This humble Daoist came to invite Senior back to the Heaven-God Alliance…" Zhuangxuan sat before Gu Nan, still following Daoist Lingyang’s style of address and calling himself the junior.

Gu Nan cut straight to the chase, "I need a batch of materials. Can the Heaven-God Alliance provide them?"

Zhuangxuan didn't even ask what materials he wanted and immediately agreed, "As long as Senior rejoins and the materials can be found in the organization, they will naturally be provided to Senior as soon as possible."

Gu Nan patted him on the shoulder with a smile. "Young’un, what are you talking about? When did I ever leave the organization? I’ve always been a member of the Heaven-God Alliance!"

Zhuangxuan had already seen Gu Nan's utter lack of a bottom line, or maybe he was naturally expressionless, so he calmly responded, "Senior, please provide me with a list of materials. This humble Daoist will definitely do my best to gather them."

Gu Nan naturally already had a list and directly gave a copy to Zhuangxuan. However, after remembering there was still a Heaven-God Alliance he could use, he had other thoughts.

Blood sacrificing the entire Graceful Heaven wasn’t something that could be accomplished overnight. Just the early stages’ preparation alone contained a lot of tedious work.

Now that there was free labor, was there any reason not to use it?

So Gu Nan added, "Provide me with another group of people?"

Zhuangxuan readily agreed and even took the initiative to help with planning, "Will Senior wage another war against an astral world? If it’s a normal astral world, we—"

"I want to attack Graceful Heaven."

Zhuangxuan, who’d always looked expressionless, finally stopped talking this time and stared at Gu Nan speechlessly for a long time.