Against the Gods (Web Novel)

A purple flash appeared next to Mu Xuanyin. Xia Qingyue looked towards the departing Shui Qianheng and Shui Meiyin with a half-smile on her face. “Yun Che’s luck with women is exceptional be it in the lower realms or the God Realm.”

“This girl is a strange one alright. Her fame currently surpasses even Luo Changsheng, and there is no one in the entire world who deserves her. But for some reason, she has allowed herself to succumb to the effects of a soul imprint and fall for another person… It is just incomprehensible.” It was impossible to tell if Mu Xuanyin was praising or criticizing Shui Meiyin.

“The Little Glazed Light Princess’ Divine Stainless Soul and my mother’s Divine Stainless Body are both products of the now dying primordial energy. It is at the same level as a ‘divine miracle,'” Xia Qingyue said. “Therefore, it wouldn’t be strange if her soul sense is different from ours. It may even exceed our understanding.”

Mu Xuanyin, “...”

“According to the memories of the previous Moon God Emperors, all Divine Stainless Soul owners have the ability to see through one’s heart and unveil their ‘essence’ or ‘truth’. Perhaps that is why she was irresistibly attracted to some of the ‘qualities’ that Yun Che possesses.” Xia Qingyue smiled before continuing, “Perhaps this is the main reason, not the ‘soul imprint’.”

“The ability to see through one’s… heart?” Mu Xuanyin frowned slightly.

“Mn.” Xia Qingyue said, “Maybe she could catch glimpses of our real thoughts when she was close to us.”

Mu Xuanyin, “...”

“There’s another person that I’m more curious about than the Little Glazed Light Princess though.” Xia Qingyue turned and looked at one side of Mu Xuanyin’s exquisite countenance, “Why are you treating Yun Che so well, Senior Mu?”

“He is my disciple!” Mu Xuanyin replied coldly, “He is Mu Xuanyin’s direct disciple, and it is only right that I defend him. Anything less would be an affront to my face.”

Xia Qingyue turned away and stared at the world of infinite ice and snow in front of her. It wasn’t clear who her mutter was meant for, Mu Xuanyin or herself. “Is that all?”

Mu Xuanyin’s reply had been too swift. So swift… that she had her answer already.

“He does have an uncanny ability to win any woman’s favor,” Xia Qingyue said quietly. “Even someone who has willingly shunned the mortal coil forever such as Senior Shen Xi decided to teach him light profound energy. Whatever the reason behind her action might be, it does give him an extra layer of protection. If he can cure the Eternal Heaven God Emperor of the devilish energy, naturally the Eternal Heaven God Emperor will do his best to protect him as well. And with you in the mix, Senior Mu… not even Qianye Ying’er, the person who vies for Yun Che’s biggest secret will be able to act carelessly against him.”

Right now Yun Che was a first level Divine King. His strength was unrivaled by any one of his peers, and his title as the strongest profound practitioner of the Conferred God Battle was something no one could forget. However, that was only within to the young generation.

After his return, Yun Che had attracted the attention of the highest existences in the Eastern Divine Region.

This alone was something no one else in the entire world could achieve.

“You’ve missed his biggest reliance.” Mu Xuanyin looked at Xia Qingyue.

Xia Qingyue shook her head but didn’t give her an explanation. Instead, she said, “The other reason you revealed your trump card is to intimidate Qianye, isn’t it?”

“...” Mu Xuanyin nodded slowly.

“You don’t really have to worry too much about her, Senior Mu.” Xia Qingyue said, “For now, Qianye will definitely not set foot in the Snow Song Realm.”

“Oh?” Mu Xuanyin’s eyebrows moved slightly before a thoughtful look entered her features. “Did you chase her away before you came here? You must have paid a big price to do that, am I right?”

“It’s just a small trick. It really doesn’t qualify as a price per se.” Xia Qingyue made light of the matter. “Anyway, now that everything is over, I should be returning to the Moon God Realm.”

Xia Qingyue had almost never smiled as far as Yun Che could remember. Although she seemed to have picked up the technique after becoming the Moon God Emperor, it wasn’t the kind of smile Yun Che was hoping to see.

“Wait.” Mu Xuanyin called out to her, “You won’t be coming here often, will you? Don’t you want to speak with him for a bit?”

“That isn’t necessary,” Xia Qingyue closed her eyes and said, “You are by his side, and that is enough. He and I are no longer husband and wife, and to do what I’m planning to do I need to stay as far away from him as possible… Even my trip today is already a mistake.”

“Don’t you wish to know how he had died back then? How he has been for the past few years? Or why he has returned?” Mu Xuanyin said slowly, “You are not a saint. It isn’t a sin to leave yourself some private time.”

Xia Qingyue, “...”

“I can tell you that he returned to the planet the two of you were born in for the past three years. Moreover, disasters have been happening frequently on that planet. It wasn’t peaceful. It is the biggest reason why he has decided to return.”

“...” Xia Qingyue’s mask finally crumbled slightly.

Mu Xuanyin continued, “However, he himself had been enjoying quite the comfortable life for the past few years. He had even found his own daughter. If that planet wasn’t currently in danger, I doubt he’d ever want to return.”

“Daughter?” Xia Qingyue’s eyes widened with surprise. What shook her even more was the word Mu Xuanyin had used, “found”. She turned around and asked, “The mother of the daughter is…”

“It’s Chu Yuechan.” Mu Xuanyin answered.

“...” Xia Qingyue looked up while holding in a myriad of complicated emotions. She whispered, “I see. Thank goodness that is one less big regret in his life.”

Her show of emotion only lasted for a brief instant before it returned back to normal, however. She whispered, “Thank you for telling me this, Senior Mu. However, Qingyue has already stayed in the Snow Song Realm for too long. It is time for me to return… we will meet again at Eternal Heaven.”

Mu Xuanyin furrowed her brows and looked at her with obvious puzzlement, “What on earth are you thinking?”

Xia Qingyue, “...”

“Four years ago, you cut off your familial ties with Yun Che in order to remove the Brahma Soul Death-Wishing Mark. He had to stay in the Forbidden Land of Samsara for fifty years, and you did it because you were worried that he would be dragged into your revenge against Qianye in case you failed or died during the attempt. But what about now?”

Mu Xuanyin stood in front of Xia Qingyue and stared straight into her eyes. “But he left the Forbidden Land of Samsara earlier than planned, and now he has returned to the Eastern Divine Region. Your war against Qianye hasn’t even officially begun yet. Yun Che has my protection, the Little Glazed Light Princess' protection, Dragon Queen Shen Xi's protection, and very possibly the Eternal Heaven God Realm's as well… Whatever reason you might have had in the past, they are all obsolete now. You yourself have become the Moon God Emperor and solidified your rule, but you are still intentionally trying to keep away from him even in speech…”

Xia Qingyue, “...”

“I don’t believe that that is your true intention. You wouldn’t have come here otherwise.” Mu Xuanyin’s frown turned even deeper. “What on earth are you thinking? Could there be a special reason that’s driving your actions?”

“...” Xia Qingyue’s eyes didn’t waver in the slightest even though Mu Xuanyin was staring her in the eye.

Xia Qingyue finally spoke up after a long silence, but what came out of her mouth was something Mu Xuanyin wasn’t expecting. “Senior Mu, has Yun Che spoken to you about a special “duty” that he carries on his person?”

The question caught Mu Xuanyin by astonishment. She nodded and replied, “He did just yesterday… Has he told you about it?”

“...No.”

“Then how did you know about that?”

Xia Qingyue didn’t reply her directly. Instead, she looked towards the distance and said in a soft, distant voice, “Yun Che carries the Evil God’s divine power in him, and it is a Creation God power that this world has never seen. Besides that, he hides many secrets that are epoch making and completely extraordinary.”

“As for me, I am the first person in the world who possess both the ‘Heart of Snow Glazed Glass’ and the ‘Nine Profound Exquisite Body’. I am also an existence that defies both common sense and history.”

“...” Mu Xuanyin didn’t know why she had spoken of this all of a sudden. She kept quiet and stayed a good listener.

“You know that Yun Che and I are born on the same planet and the same continent, but what you may not know is that he and I also came from the same city. Not only do we share the exact same age, we were even betrothed at birth… meaning that our fates were tied since the day we were born.”

Mu Xuanyin, “...”

“Later on, I learned that his parents aren’t original denizens of that continent. My mother doesn’t belong in the lower realms either. Frankly speaking, neither Yun Che nor I were people who should be born or raised on that continent, but that didn’t change the fact that we lived inside the same city until we were sixteen, and got married in that year.”

“Later on, he and I stepped into different worlds and became separated. I’d thought that we would never cross each other’s paths again. However, not only did we meet each other again in less than a year’s time… he had somehow managed to join my sect, a sect that had never accepted any male disciples up until that point… Even later, my sect was in danger, and to save me I was sent all the way to the God Realm. But somehow, we met each other again in the Moon God Realm, even though the distance between us had been like heaven and earth.”

“Since birth, he and I seemed to be connected by an invisible string of fate. No matter how drastically our lives turned, no matter how far apart we were away from each other, we were always able to return to each other… It sounds very strange, doesn’t it?”

“...” Mu Xuanyin’s eyebrows shook slightly at Xia Qingyue’s story.

They shared the same age, the same birthplace, the same unusual backgrounds, the same impossible talents, and they were always reunited with one another no matter how far apart they were before… Independently, any one of these coincidences were just that, a coincidence. But together… it was strange to say the least.

This unusual coincidence was especially obvious considering the fact that they both possessed unusual talents unlike anyone had ever seen, even in the God Realm. And yet somehow, they’d both appeared in the same lower realm and the same city...

“What… are you trying to say?” Mu Xuanyin asked.

“In the past, I never thought that this was strange or unusual. More accurately, you can say that I never cared, until one day…” She paused for a moment before asking a question suddenly, “Have you heard of the rumor that all Heart of Snow Glazed Glass owners are also called the ‘Daughter of the Heavens’, Senior Mu?”

“This title is known by all since the Great Ancestor of Eternal Heaven,” Mu Xuanyin said.

“The theory about the heavens is baseless and illusory. I’ve never been able to believe in its existence fully even though my foster father, the former Moon God Emperor has failed to escape the Heavenly Mystery Realm fatal prophecy for all his strength. My skepticism lasted until three years ago when I inherited my foster father Zi Que’s divine power, and my Heart of Snow Glazed Glass awoke… There were a couple of several instances when I had caught a glimpse of some blurry images.”

“... ?” Mu Xuanyin asked after a moment of confusion, “What images?”

“I cannot say.” Xia Qingyue shook her head slightly. “It’s these images that made me realize just how bizarre it is for our fates to intersect the way they did since the moment we were born… it is to the point where I would even consider using the word ‘eerie’.”

Mu Xuanyin frowned deeply. “What does all this have to do with my question?”

“His special power is accompanied by a special ‘duty’. I am the same. However, unlike him what burdens me is probably not ‘duty’, but ‘fate’.” Xia Qingyue’s eyes grew even deeper. No one could understand the things that were hidden behind her gaze. “I wish to feign ignorance and believe that everything I saw was just a phantom illusion… but what is the point of lying to oneself and pretending that something that I saw doesn’t exist?”

“Moreover, I wasn’t really surprised when I heard that Yun Che was alive. In fact, I had a strange feeling that that is the way it should’ve been. It almost feels like that feeling has proven something… and I dislike it very much.”

“...??” Mu Xuanyin had failed to understand Xia Qingyue’s words at all. However, she could sense that the latter wasn’t talking nonsense either.

“This is all I can say.” She closed her eyes. “I’m honestly surprised that I would tell you this. Maybe it’s because everything I’ve seen and heard has told me that you would never hurt him.”

“But I didn’t understand a word of what you just said, and I still don’t know what it has to do with my question.” Mu Xuanyin stared at her.

Xia Qingyue turned away and floated slowly into the air. Then, she said so softly it was almost missable, “Perhaps one day you’ll understand… perhaps one day no one will ever understand… But ‘that day’... is very close now.”

Then, Xia Qingyue pushed a glowing purple jade into Mu Xuanyin’s hands and said, “You may call me with this if the Snow Song Realm is faced with an unsolvable crisis. Qingyue will do her best to help you… Also, please don’t tell Yun Che about what I told you earlier.”

Xia Qingyue flew away and vanished before Mu Xuanyin’s eyes just like that.

Mu Xuanyin stayed where she was, her brows remaining furrowed until a long time later. “What… in the world was she saying?”

She had asked a simple question that puzzled her, but the answer she had gotten in return was even more puzzling.