Gu Nan was no longer interested in knowing what kind of story would happen when Daoist Heir Qin Ning met Daoist Lingyang and what this Daoist Heir would do in response.
For him, successfully hunting the God of Love and harvesting nearly three 3,000 Evil Value was the most important thing.
The God of Love was worth more than the Mirror God. Even though she looked a bit weaker and was actually also a bit weaker, how much Evil Value a god was worth wasn't entirely determined by strength.
Just as monsters didn't necessarily give more EXP the harder they were to fight, there were always other factors involved.
The first thing that determined a god's value was, of course, their level. Gu Nan needed to collect another 10,000 Evil Value to advance to Tier 8, and killing one Tier 9 god was perfectly sufficient.
However, if it was Tier 8 gods, it could be anywhere from three to four. This range was due to the different Evil Values each god was worth.
The god's level determined the order of magnitude, while the amount of faith the god amassed within their Divine Kingdom determined the specific gain from slaughtering that god.
A god like the Mirror God who'd been slumbering for countless years and even needed to rebuild his Divine Kingdom was naturally unlikely to be worth too much Evil Value.
Likewise, the God of Love rarely appeared in public, so the amount of faith she could gain was by no means high, and it wasn't even close to the average level of a Tier 8 god.
'Not bad. At this rate, we'll reach the requirement after two more kills.' Gu Nan roughly estimated in his mind the average level of a god in this period.
There was actually quite a big difference between killing three gods and killing four.
The most convenient place to hunt gods was naturally main planes. If he had to run to a god's Divine Kingdom to kill them, neither the difficulty level nor the success rate would look too favorable.
However, gods weren't fools, and if there were consecutive incidents of gods dying in main planes, no one would casually descend here anymore.
This was also why Gu Nan enveloped the entire battlefield in the power of shadows, doing his best to conceal the battle.
"Qin Ning has agreed," on this day, Daoist Lingyang came to Gu Nan's residence, and this was the first thing he said.
"Oh, that's nice." Gu Nan casually replied, "Did you tell him the consequences?"
"Of course… Did you think everyone is like you and likes to screw over their own people?" Daoist Lingyang cast him a disdainful glance. "He's going back to the Myriad Heavens soon, so the impact won't be as great."
Gu Nan nodded. It was true that Qin Ning wouldn't be too afraid of backlash from the laws of the world if he returned to the Myriad Heavens, since there was no God of Love over there.
However, Elise would be busy taking charge of the previous Love God's inheritance, so she probably wouldn't be able to go with him. The young couple was destined to be separated.
"By the way, Qin Ning would like to pay you a visit," Daoist Lingyang added.
...
This was Gu Nan's first meeting with Qin Ning, although Gu Nan's name wasn't unfamiliar to the latter. After all, Gu Nan was too famous right now.
Daoist Heir Qin Ning had a very good excuse for the visit. Naturally, it was to apologize to Gu Nan for the earlier offense of his underling Guardians.
Speaking of which, the whole matter was quite ironic.
Originally, Elise ran away by herself because she didn't want to marry Daoist Heir Qin Ning and ended up meeting Gu Nan, yet she still ended up going down this path.
However, she was unwilling to marry back then because she didn't want to harm Qin Ning, but that might not necessarily be the case anymore. Just from outward appearance alone, this Daoist Heir Qin Ning was still quite good, and his speech and demeanor were flawless.
More importantly, he wasn't a Void Cutter, but a Star Ruler.
Of course Void Grotto Heaven, one of the Thirteen Heavens, would never cultivate dozens of Void Cutter Realm successors—even if Yu Lian was willing to step down, what qualifications would they have to ascend to the heavens in one fell swoop?
Therefore, although there were nearly a hundred Daoist Heirs in Void Grotto Heaven, there were currently less than ten Daoist Heirs who had already broken through to Star Ruler Realm and were therefore qualified to compete for the inheritance.
Qin Ning was one of them. He was already ahead of many others, but he wasn't satisfied; he wanted to be ahead of everyone.
Having a god as his wife would make certain matters much easier. As long as he could withstand the consequences, this deal was worth it.
"Lord Gu Nan." Daoist Heir Qin Ning respectfully sat in front of Gu Nan, humbling his demeanor as much as possible. "In addition to apologizing, this subordinate actually came here for another matter."
Gu Nan knew that this was the other party's true intention, so he said flatly, "Speak."
Qin Ning straightened his expression and said solemnly, "Recently, some in Void Grotto Heaven have voiced concerns… about His Excellency Xue Ren."
The relationship between Void Grotto Heaven and Extreme Sword Heaven had always been very good thanks to the excellent personal relationship between the two planes' Star Rulers.
But now that Xue Ren had become a high-ranking member of the Heaven-God Alliance, would the relationship between him and Zi Luo Elder be even closer than that of Void Grotto Heaven?
If Xue Ren ascended to Unified Dao one day and Void Grotto Heaven became enemies with the Heaven-God Alliance, which side would he favor?
As long as this kind of suspicion exists, it would inevitably affect Void Grotto Heaven's attitude—unless Xue Ren made a public statement.
After all, Void Grotto Heaven was not completely Yu Lian's, as she had gotten it by inheritance, not by her own power.
Gu Nan understood the root cause of all this, but he wasn't very interested in it and just smiled. "You should talk to Lingyang or Xue Ren himself about something like this. There's no use telling me."
"No, My Lord." Qin Ning, however, said firmly, "You are the only one left who can help His Excellency Xue Ren right now."
Without waiting for Gu Nan to respond, he continued, "As long as you're willing to stand up and declare His Excellency Xue Ren's position on his behalf, the Sect Leader will be able to easily suppress the voices of dissent. This is also the best opportunity for the Heaven-God Alliance and Void Grotto Heaven to make direct contact!"
Daoist Heir Qin Ning's face was filled with excitement when he said this.
In a sense, this was the real reason why Daoist Heir Qin Ning traveled all the way to the World of Gods and now requested a meeting with Gu Nan.
If he didn't want to directly connect Void Grotto Heaven with the Heaven-God Alliance, he could've simply found a way to join the Heaven-God Alliance in the Myriad Heavens. Why would he need to run all the way here?
In the end, he needed someone with great weight inside the Heaven-God Alliance and who also had a close relationship with Xue Ren to come forward and make a stand for Xue Ren.
This way, not only could the suspicions between the two sides be resolved, but with the Heaven-God Alliance and Void Grotto Heaven being in direct contact, the contact points on both sides would undoubtedly gain great benefits.
These two contact points were naturally Gu Nan and Qin Ning himself.
Qin Ning didn't explicitly spell this out, but he believed that Gu Nan could understand and that it was a win-win situation the latter had absolutely no reason to refuse.
Even if Xue Ren really wanted to alienate himself from Void Grotto Heaven, that still wouldn't prevent Gu Nan from taking action.
The calculations and speculations about the human heart involved were extraordinarily delicate and tedious, and Qin Ning had also spent a long time planning this before finally standing in front of Gu Nan.
That was why he was confident in himself.
"Why?" Gu Nan asked with a puzzled expression.
Qin Ning's heart full of schemes froze on his face, and he could only force himself to say, "My Lord, if this matter comes to fruition, it will be good for all parties. Whether it's the Heaven-God Alliance or Void Grotto Heaven, or you yourself…"
"Oh, you can talk to Zhuangxuan about these kinds of matters." Gu Nan waved his hand dismissively and added, "The disciple of that old man outside, you can find him in Clear Profundity Realm."