Gu Nan was also facing a dilemma.
Sooner or later, invasions of other planes would give rise to a collective resistance towards the end; this was inevitable. It was impossible for the Star Rulers to not understand the principle of "if the rabbit dies, the fox will also grieve," as any of them could become the target of the next invasion.
But someone like Fang Chaoyun, who made it clear that he wanted to oppose Gu Nan under the excuse of righteousness, was still a bit troublesome.
This old man had strength, connections, and a strong backing, so he really was pretty much invulnerable. It was almost impossible to find any weaknesses of his.
However, it wasn't just once or twice that Gu Nan encountered high-difficulty missions, so of course he wouldn't just give up like this. He already swung a fist at Fang Chaoyun without another word.
A familiar "suppress" character appeared, easily blocking Gu Nan.
"Weaker than last time, but not much weaker…" Gu Nan wasn't in a hurry to follow up with another attack after his first blow was ineffective, instead analyzing the enemy's situation.
Normally, it would take Fang Chaoyun at least a hundred years to recover from the injuries he sustained last time, but now it looked like even though he was still injured, it was no longer as serious.
This was undoubtedly Song Fei's doing.
Even more unexpectedly, nearly ten Star Rulers appeared simultaneously in the blink of an eye, entering Star Realm from various places and targeting the divine servants who were in the midst of slaughter.
Gu Nan frowned slightly, giving up the plan of killing the enemies by sacrificing a large number of divine servants, and decisively sent an order to his Divine Kingdom.
"Full retreat. Save as many divine servants as possible."
His voice rang out simultaneously in the hearts of all apostles, so the army of divine servants that entered Star Realm instantly changed formation, fleeing inside Gu Nan's Divine Kingdom in unison.
Of course, losses were inevitable with the intervention of Star Rulers. A Star Ruler was still too powerful for most of the divine servants under Tier 4.
Divine servants obeyed orders unconditionally, and there was no such thing as distance when traveling through the void, so the retreat was extremely fast.
Fang Chaoyun's senses were similarly scanning the whole Star Realm. He made no move to stop Gu Nan's troops from withdrawing en masse, instead making a lot of posturing before speaking.
"It's not too late to recognize your mistakes and reform yourself." Fang Chaoyun stroked his beard and laughed. "I hope that you'll be able to restrain yourself after this, or else I don't mind taking further disciplinary action."
After announcing that, he actually turned and returned to his own astral world without waiting for Gu Nan's response.
This was probably the cultured person's version of a threat. And at the same time Fang Chaoyun disappeared, those individual Star Rulers also cleanly vanished in the blink of an eye, as if afraid Gu Nan would catch them.
"How interesting." Gu Nan revealed an odd smile.
...
"That wasn't a wise decision," Lu Wen said bluntly while sitting across from Duan Wenqi inside Clockwork Heaven.
But Duan Wenqi wasn't angry. He knew that he often couldn't see things as clearly as his old friend did, so he didn't mind listening to Lu Wen's opinion.
Lu Wen didn't even give Duan Wenqi a chance to open his mouth and continued straightforwardly, "It's fine to incite those two idiots to find trouble for Gu Nan—that's just a trivial matter. But cooperating with Fang Chaoyun…"
Towards the end, Lu Wen couldn't help letting out a deep sigh. "Everyone else is trying to avoid getting dragged into the fight between Zi Luo and Song Fei at all costs, so why did you voluntarily stick your nose into that mess?"
That's right. The fact that Fang Chaoyun would personally oppose Gu Nan and even enlist the help of over ten Star Rulers was largely due to Duan Wenqi.
He was the first to bring up Gu Nan's wanton behavior and gain Fang Chaoyun's approval, and he was also the one who personally went out and contacted the Star Rulers connected to Academic Heaven to join forces against Gu Nan in Fang Chaoyun's name.
It could be said that after this incident, Duan Wenqi had completely taken Song Fei's side.
Duan Wenqi's status and strength weren't low, so the fact that he was in such a hurry to pick a side was what Lu Wen found incomprehensible.
Faced with Lu Wen's question, Duan Wenqi just smiled. "As long as you choose the right side, you can gain more benefits than if you don't help either side, isn't that right?"
Lu Wen frowned slightly, but in the end, he didn't try to persuade him any further and could only let out a helpless sigh.
...
Inside the Divine Kingdom, Gu Nan was already sitting in the Evil God Temple, waiting for the results of this tally.
"How are the losses?"
"We lost over 80% of divine servants, and 10 apostles died in battle, all of whom ended up dying at the hands of Star Rulers." Red Tail's expression was grave, even a little gloomy.
She couldn't see the existence of points, but she was well aware of how much time Gu Nan had spent preparing for the sake of this batch of divine servants, and she hadn't expected to lose over half of them in the blink of an eye.
Simultaneous attacks from over ten Star Rulers was a little too strong. Every single one of them seemed to be here to kill and maim the army. They struck mercilessly without any regard to protecting Star Realm.
The apostle side was still alright. Although the losses weren't small either, at least no important figures were killed in action.
And after this setback, Red Tail, who originally planned to teach Ren Dongzhan a lesson, was no longer in the mood.
Gu Nan merely nodded lightly, not as worried as Red Tail. The first batch of divine servants took a long time to manufacture largely due to having to construct and upgrade structures. It didn't actually take many points to manufacture divine servants.
On the other hand, although this invasion wasn't perfect, the harvest was still good.
They only conquered roughly 70% of Star Realm, but the points gained were quite substantial. It wasn't far from reaching the point requirement for Tier 8, and it was entirely possible to make up the remaining points by farming dungeons. At most, it would take a few months in real time.
But on the flip side, if he could take down Star Realm in one fell swoop, Gu Nan's points could completely explode in an instant, so Fang Chaoyun and his group still caused significant losses.
"Teacher, a secret message from the Heaven-God Alliance." At this moment, Yan Xiaoxiao's figure appeared.
Gu Nan accepted the secret message with a nod, unsurprised. Fang Chaoyun was targeting him, and if one was to claim that Song Fei and Zi Luo Elder's feud didn't play a role in this, not even Gu Nan himself would believe that.
Of course the Heaven-God Alliance would respond in this situation.
Unsurprisingly, the secret message explained the cause of this matter in detail, naturally focusing on the person who convinced over ten Star Rulers to strike at the same time.
The letter didn't contain any suggestions on how to respond to this matter, but instead, it invited him to visit Clear Profundity Realm to catch up.
The inscription was the new ruler of Clear Profundity Realm, Daoist Zhuangxuan.
"Duan Wenqi," Gu Nan softly recited the name.
From his memory, the conflict between him and this Astral Gate elder wasn't really that big. He didn't expect for this side quest that he hadn't freed up time to resolve to lead to a much larger side quest.
In any case, the Tier 10 Fang Chaoyun was not someone he could deal with for the time being. Gu Nan's plan had changed to waiting for enough points to accumulate, traveling to the World of Gods to harvest Evil Value, and advancing to Tier 8 before doing anything about this.
He had to lay low when it was necessary to lay low. Brainless brute force was not wise. At least he would no longer fear Fang Chaoyun in direct combat after reaching Tier 8, so it wasn't as if he didn't have a way to deal with this group of people by then.
He also needed to make a trip to Clear Profundity Realm to see the Heaven-God Alliance's internal stance on this matter, since its essence was still a fight between Zi Luo Elder and Song Fei.
But before that…
"Duan Wenqi," Gu Nan repeated the name once more, a cold smile on his face as a transparent crystal orb appeared in his hand, "you think Lu Wen can protect you?"
Divine Kingdom Treasure Orb.