Wu Gui, the Buddha of Ten Thousand Samsara, didn't actually hold a deep grudge against Gu Nan, but their relationship was also far from good.
She was originally the reincarnation of an ancient powerhouse who wanted to become a true Buddha by experiencing ten thousand reincarnations, but the Heavenly Mystery Dao Lord cut that plan short, forcibly awakening her after only nine thousand lifetimes.
As a result, she couldn't regain her true body as a Buddha that she possessed in her previous lives, and even her gender changed from male to female—everything about her became fixed in this lifetime.
Of course, gender had long become irrelevant for people at this level.
Later, she wanted to use Zuo Zuo's Dao inheritance to fuse her conflicting Buddhist and demonic intent together, but Gu Nan ruined her plan yet again. This was the start of the bad blood between them.
"What are you looking at? Wanna fight?" Faced with Wu Gui's gaze, Gu Nan glared back without hesitation.
Anyhow, the crescent blade Ying Ge was still in his possession, so he wasn't afraid of falling out with them.
But to his surprise, the young girl Wu Gui calmly withdrew her gaze. "Since that one personally appointed you to protect the current Blood Ancestor, you naturally have your value."
Wu Gui's words made Gu Nan raise his brow slightly. It was clear from her reaction that she also knew about Red's existence, as well as her identity.
"Let's set off." Zi Dian said, "The more valuable planes in the Myriad Heavens Starry Road all require at least four people."
His last sentence seemed to be explaining to Gu Nan why they had to bring Wu Gui along as well.
Gu Wen laughed involuntarily when he heard this. This was clearly the multiplayer dungeon setting in the game!
In addition to maps designed by players themselves, most of the game's official dungeon maps required at least four players, and four people was also the minimum standard for completing those missions.
For example, Gu Nan's personal dungeon from earlier—Splendid World—required four people to enter.
Ying Ge nodded lightly and stepped forward. She warned with a serious expression, "Stand beside me and don't resist; just accept the beam of light."
Gu Nan and the others stood following her instructions, only to see Ying Ge close her eyes slightly as an indescribable radiance shone from her, gradually enveloping the party.
Gu Nan only felt a light mysteriously and inexorably arrive from an endlessly distant place, and he began to float involuntarily.
This wasn't a misperception. His body really was moving, not just his soul.
"Myriad Heavens Starry Road, so it's actually not in this space?" Gu Nan stared at the crack gradually opening in the void and had a sudden flash of realization.
"It's in the Inner World." Zi Dian explained from the side, "The person who discovered it called it the 'Inner World,' so we followed suit."
...
Inner World.
This was the first time Gu Nan entered here with his real body, but the scenery was no different from before—there were balls of light and bright dots.
The balls of light represent the planes inside the Myriad Heavens Universe, and the dots… Now that he thought about it, those might all be Star Rulers.
The dots were densely packed together, and there were at least tens of thousands of them. Thinking about it like this, it really was a terrifying thought.
Gu Nan and the others couldn't move. They were entirely carried forward by Ying Ge and soon entered a ball of light. Sight once again returned to everyone.
This was a strange plane. The size of this entire plane was pitifully small, roughly no bigger than a city, and it was clearly divided into two sides.
Each side had a base. Two lanes—one white and one black—connected the two bases.
"Champions World," Ying Ge said as soon as she entered this plane.
"The number is 652. It's one of the lower-ranking ones. Looks like our luck isn't bad." Zi Dian glanced at the gates of the base and smiled. There was a number on the gates.
Wu Gui frowned at this. Obviously, this was her first visit to such a plane.
She and Gu Nan were considered novices here, so Zi Dian added, "There are about 2,000 planes in Champions World in total. Planes that rank after 500 are less competitive."
"Weren't you two sealed for a long time? You guys even know about this?" Gu Nan looked at the two strangely.
Wu Gui responded when she heard that, "Time is nothing to Star Rulers. Ten thousand years are nothing more than a snap of our fingers… If you want to go further, you'd better get used to this."
She used to be one of the true powerhouses. To be honest, Gu Nan's current strength didn't mean much to her at all.
Gu Nan, however, shrugged. "You can go snap your fingers and see if you're still powerful enough to stand on equal ground with me when you return."
Gu Nan, who'd only started his cultivation journey a few years ago, was fully qualified to say this.
"Alright, alright." Zi Dian reluctantly came out to smooth things over when Wu Gui started glaring. "Champions World is a mission that requires us to fight against other Star Rulers. Its difficulty level isn't low, so let's stop fighting amongst ourselves."
As if to prove Zi Dian's words, a curtain of blood began to descend in the sky, just like in Splendid World last time.
｢Mission Objective: Destroy the enemy base's crystal｣
It was such a simple sentence without any other clues, while Zi Dian, their "senior," was still trying his best to explain the rules to Gu Nan and Wu Gui.
"Champions World is a special kind of world. As you can see, the ultimate goal is to destroy the enemy base's crystal. But in this process, we should try our best to kill the enemy champions…"
"Wait a minute… champions?"
"Yes. We're called 'champions' here, and the enemy will also be four champions from other places. This is the origin of the name Champions World."
Gu Nan stared at him with an odd look, then glanced at the bases on either side, as well as the two lanes.
"We're at the lowest strength right now. We can level up from deaths of nearby enemies. We can get money if we personally kill enemies… Isn't that right?" Gu Nan asked, his words lightning-fast, looking like he was an old hand at this.
"How do you…" Zi Dian truly was a bit stunned this time. Although there were many planes in Champions World, that by no means meant that everybody had visited it before.
'Even Wu Gui has never been here before, so how can Gu Nan know about this? Don't tell me he's also the reincarnation of a powerhouse?'
Seeing Zi Dian's reaction, Gu Nan knew his guess wasn't wrong… 'What Champions World? It's just a MOBA-type map!'
MOBA games were very popular at one time, so these sorts of maps were also quite common in his previous life's game, but due to various reasons, not many people played those maps.
After all, considering how to balance the two teams was much harder than simply designing a mission map.
"What about equipment? What about skills?" After confirming the map, Gu Nan began to hurriedly ask.
To have a good MOBA game, the most important thing was naturally to understand the skills of both allies and enemies, as well as what equipment they could choose—looking at the two lanes which weren't connected at all, it was clear that there wouldn't be much in the way of tactics there.
As long as it was a game, Gu Nan, who was a top player, had never been afraid of anyone.
Let alone competitive games, even if it was whack-a-mole, he could still play much better than the average person.
"Wait, what in the world is going on?" Wu Gui finally couldn't stop herself from asking. She didn't want to participate in a battle she didn't understand and be the person who drags the entire team down.
Ying Ge put away the crescent blade Gu Nan returned to her and explained from the side, "Champions World gives everyone two days to prepare before the war officially starts, which is enough for you guys to familiarize yourselves with this place. But before that…"
"We'll go out for a stroll first and see if we can catch some restless children," Zi Dian finished for her.
"What do you mean?" Wu Gui was even more confused, but Ying Ge and Zi Dian's figures had already disappeared.
Gu Nan, however, answered, "What they mean is, they're going to fight a level 1 team fight."