"It's starting," Wu Gui's voice was calm, yet it was also somewhat melancholy.
Clearly, not even she got to witness the collapse of a "Heaven" Level astral world very often.
At her side, the space fractured by her fight with Gu Nan didn't show any signs of automatically repairing itself. Instead, it cracked apart even further.
A faint scene seemed to be projected into the sky of Nirvana Heaven. It was the scene currently happening inside Red's palace.
It's just that people in this world could only see Zuo Zuo's "first person perspective." It seemed that he had indeed reached the most critical juncture and nearly fused with his astral world.
...
"Who are you?"
"What are you afraid of?"
"Do you really believe… that no one knows?"
One question after another constantly popped out of Ying Ge's mouth. Zuo Zuo's expression distorted more and more, and even his body began to twist and warp.
His voice, however, remained that of a middle-aged man, "Know? Who knows this? As long as I kill you…"
A sneer appeared on Ying Ge's face. "Listen carefully to your voice right now! You may be able to fool the world, but can you fool us? My dear… Father?"
As Ying Ge's voice fell, Zuo Zuo's movements suddenly jerked, and then he roared like he'd gone crazy, "Kill! Kill you! I'm Zuo Zuo, I'm the lord of Nirvana Heaven. I… Where's my power?!"
Zi Yi and Zi Dian, the mother-and-son pair watching this from a corner of Zi Luo Heaven, sighed at the same time when they saw this. "So it really is him."
Only Red looked unruffled. She just stood up calmly and spoke indifferently.
"That year, when the fusion experiment reached the final step, you were fatally injured and dying. You couldn't even preserve your soul."
"So you cut your son and daughter apart and fused their respective halves together, after which you poured your own soul into the new vessel, living as a parasite on your son's main soul."
"But you never could've imagined that the experiment you held such high hopes for was still stuck at the final step even now, trapping you in this half-human half-ghost state for ten thousand years."
"What you also didn't expect was that the other halves of the son and daughter you abandoned back then spontaneously combined and even fused together perfectly, without any signs of rejection."
Red seemed like she was narrating something completely unrelated to herself, exposing Zuo Zuo's past deeds to the public bit by bit, but this was akin to plunging the tip of the sharpest blade into Zuo Zuo's body.
Red walked up to Ying Ge's side and stroked her long blood-colored hair. "I gave her the Blood Ancestor's origin and had her cleanse herself of your influence from generation to generation. Finally, she was able to completely rid herself of the part that belongs to you guys…"
...
Inside Nirvana Heaven, Wu Gui revealed a look of sudden realization. "So Zuo Zuo has always been two people. No wonder…"
After all, she wasn't personally involved in that past incident, so her understanding of Zuo Zuo wasn't as deep as those involved. It wasn't until she heard Red's narrative that she gradually understood.
Zuo Zuo was indeed the one from back then, but his body contained two souls—father and son. The son was the main soul and the father was the secondary soul, so Zuo Zuo would often behave abnormally.
Wu Gui set aside all kinds of thoughts, only to find Gu Nan studying his surroundings, looking entirely unsurprised.
"You're not surprised? You knew this a long time ago?" Her eyes narrowed slightly. If Gu Nan knew about it in advance, then maybe he…
"Know what?" Gu Nan gave her a confused look and immediately realized, "Oh, you're talking about Zuo Zuo… Not interested."
Gu Nan used a firm "Not interested" to block all of Wu Gui's suspicions at the bottom of her heart.
Of course Gu Nan wasn't interested in this kind of cutscene CG. He was busy observing the situation in Nirvana Heaven. If this place really collapsed, then it wasn't a bad idea to collect it as a personal dungeon.
Players were able to do more in the Divine Kingdom stage, and conquering other dungeons was of course one of them.
But just then, the sky above the two gradually cracked again, and a ray of golden light slowly shone through.
...
Ying Ge forced Zuo Zuo into a corner as soon as she appeared and even exposed his origins to the public. It could be seen that his urgent need to kill Ying Ge earlier was absolutely the correct decision.
But on the other hand, Zuo Zuo was still a powerful Star Ruler. He wasn't so weak as to allow the entire situation to completely collapse because of a sentence from Ying Ge.
In fact, even now, the initiative was still in his hands. As long as he could overcome his heart demon of ten thousand years, he could still get back his own power.
"My… My power…" Zuo Zuo's two voices were constantly intertwined, sometimes young and sometimes mature.
At that moment, he suddenly raised a hand and stabbed it directly into his chest!
In his thoracic cavity, under the complex web of blood vessels, a red and blue heart was beating. At this moment, the red part was completely stripped away.
Ying Ge's expression turned grave. She also didn't expect for the other party to actually destroy his own core so as to obtain a temporary peace.
This was burning his own lifeboat!
The energy surging around Zuo Zuo gradually subsided, and his eyes slowly calmed down as well. He stared at Ying Ge icily. "You have people in Nirvana Heaven."
He could clearly sense the power coming from his astral world weakening at an extremely fast rate, and even his connection to it became erratic.
"It's all thanks to you." Ying Ge sneered. "If you hadn't stayed here for several years, Wu Gui wouldn't have been able to arrange everything so calmly inside Nirvana Heaven."
Although Zuo Zuo's presence in Star Realm suppressed Red completely, it also caused him to neglect Nirvana Heaven.
"So it was her." Zuo Zuo nodded. He gently opened his palm and instantly destroyed the red and blue heart.
Ying Ge and Red froze at the same time. They thought that Zuo Zuo would become hysterical, would bite back like a cornered cat, or would destroy indiscriminately, but it never occurred to them that he might do this.
This is… suicide?
Unlike other powerhouses, Zuo Zuo's vessel was fused together from two bodies. He would fall apart immediately once his core was destroyed.
However, just as they were staring blankly, an inexplicable law fluctuation suddenly appeared behind Red.
Red, who'd been deadlocked with Zuo Zuo for several years, was already a spent force. She was instantly pierced by this law, leaving a bloody hole in her chest.
Ying Ge whirled around in alarm. Zuo Zuo's original body had already disappeared upon being destroyed, but behind Red, there were two halves of a body.
The two halves each only had one side, as if someone had made a clean cut down the middle with a sharp knife.
"What kind of law is this…" Dumbstruck, Ying Ge stared at this scene. With her ten thousand years of knowledge, she actually didn't recognize the root law behind this eerie scene.
Until finally, a cold voice arrived belatedly:
"Life and death, left and right."
The voice seemed to ring out of thin air, but Ying Ge suddenly turned around, because she clearly recognized that the timbre was from Zuo Zuo's female half!
"There was a third soul… Who are you?!" Ying Ge finally realized that something was wrong. Everything before had gone too smoothly, so smoothly that it was unbelievable.
Since Zuo Zuo already knew about her existence, would he not have a backup plan?
The woman who obtained half of Zuo Zuo's body didn't answer her. She just minded her own business and tried moving her new hand and foot.
Zuo Zuo looked down at Red and finally revealed a victorious smile. "That little fellow isn't the only genius to appear in such a good place like Star Realm… You missed too many."
Of course Red was also surprised, but the situation felt more comical to her. "You gave her half of your body. Do you think you can still take it back?"
But Zuo Zuo laughed. "I still have Nirvana Heaven. What can she use to fight against me? Do you think that you can completely destroy my astral world with just a Buddha of Ten Thousand Samsara… Huh?"
Even if he only had a weak connection with Nirvana Heaven, Zuo Zuo still sensed an astonishing law descend upon his astral world with alarming clarity.
...
Nirvana Heaven.
Gu Nan and Wu Gui looked up at the same time. A huge golden figure appeared at the junction of the black and white sky.