After Song Fei stormed off, the two greater gods from the World of Gods quickly entered a state of "self-investigation" and invited Song Fei to supervise and check their progress to show they weren't hiding anything.
But what surprised them was that Song Fei declined such an invitation and instead asked Zou Jiming to come out and supervise.
"Perhaps he's too sad to face reality?" Zou Jiming found an excuse so bad that it couldn't possibly be any worse, glossing everything over with the other party.
He was all too eager to lead the negotiations—anyhow, the blame was already pinned on Song Fei, so no matter what was promised down the line, when the time came, he would just shrug it all off as promises Song Fei made.
It wasn't that hard to find out the cause of Shi Yeyan's death.
After all, all of his tracks after arriving at the World of Gods were clearly visible, and the greater gods didn't have to make much effort to trace the clues all the way to the end.
Finding Sophia, learning Lu Jialiang was taken away for killing Brook, and disappearing in the process of chasing Andy and his group.
And the location where Shi Yeyan died was also found. It was in the depths of the void, where the Gluttony Divine Kingdom was located…
"Did Freidman do it?" Eugene asked in a heavy voice as his gaze landed on the depths of the void. Even though it was a question, there was a bit of certainty in his tone.
After all, Shi Yeyan's soul was chopped up—this trait was just too obvious.
Furthermore, Shi Yeyan himself was equivalent to a Tier 9 god, so besides Freidman—whose Divine Kingdom was nearby—who else would be able to kill him?
"It's possible." The Ruler of Nightmares didn't hide anything in Zou Jiming's presence and nodded. "But if it's not Freidman, then… this matter will be much more complicated."
All the parties involved were already dead. There simply wasn't enough information to determine whether the truth was as it appeared, or whether there was another mastermind behind the scenes.
Speaking of a mastermind… there was indeed such a possibility. After all, the whole matter looked way too coincidental, but there was also no evidence to prove this.
Without any evidence, could they really just give a mere conjecture as their "explanation" to Song Fei?
The existing evidence all pointed to Freidman, but in the end, that wasn't conclusive evidence either, so capturing one of their own Tier 9 gods based on this was also not justifiable.
Both Eugene and Kenneth felt this was a thorny problem.
"Let's find Freidman first and see what he has to say for himself." Kenneth rubbed his temples, nursing a headache, while Eugene also expressed agreement.
Instead, it was Zou Jiming who waited confidently with crossed arms for the two greater gods to state their position. Even though his ultimate stance was also to not go to war, basic negotiation skills were still required.
But none of the three expected for someone to have already made the choice for them.
Just as the three stepped into the Gluttony Divine Kingdom, this plane suddenly started to collapse without warning. The originally azure sky was quickly dyed red, the stars began to fall, and the earth cracked.
"Could this be…?" Zou Jiming's knowledge of Divine Kingdoms wasn't exactly deep, but such extremely obvious signs still allowed him to understand something.
"Freidman is dead!" The Ruler of Nightmares said heavily, taking a step into the deepest part of the Gluttony Divine Kingdom, and sure enough, he saw Freidman's corpse silently laying there.
The next second, his expression suddenly changed, and he abruptly turned to look at Zou Jiming.
Zou Jiming was a step behind him. He still didn't understand what happened yet—not until he saw a ruler embedded in the heart of the corpse on the ground.
That was Song Fei's ruler.
The corners of Zou Jiming's mouth twitched slightly while he immediately tried to retreat, but his will fell into a trance for a split second, and the power of the dream realm had already descended upon him.
Before he was swept inside the dream realm, Zou Jiming's last thought was:
'Song Fei screwed me over!'
...
Three days later, news spread throughout the two worlds.
Song Fei, who had gone to the World of Gods to negotiate, found his favored disciple Shi Yeyan killed by the God of Gluttony, and in a fit of rage, he personally took action and killed Freidman to vent his anger and purposely left behind his own ruler as proof of his identity.
This was also in line with Song Fei's style. He'd always acted openly and never covered anything up. If he was the murderer, he would never deny it.
But from that day onwards, negotiations between the two sides officially broke down, and war between the two worlds was imminent.
"Song Fei got to vent, but Zou Jiming probably got screwed over miserably," Daoist Lingyang couldn't help laughing involuntarily after hearing this and said to Gu Nan.
Daoist Lingyang was in charge of Clear Profundity Realm for many years and had been the Heaven-God Alliance's head manager for so long, so he naturally knew the Thirteen Heavens quite well.
Song Fei clearly wanted Zou Jiming to distract the greater gods while he himself decisively chose to go to war, which was tantamount to selling Zou Jiming out.
Facing the greater gods who were all hostile to him… Weapon Martial Heaven's Star Ruler might not necessarily die, but the severity of injuries he'd suffer would depend on how many greater gods appeared to fight him.
"If war breaks out, Zou Jiming will be dissatisfied no matter what, so it's better to have him nurse his injuries for a few thousand years instead." Daoist Lingyang seemed to have a unique understanding of the relationships among the Thirteen Heavens.
Gu Nan was standing next to him, staring at him with a faint smile. "Why don't you stop talking about the Thirteen Heavens and talk about how much longer you can last?"
The two of them were now in an obscure small plane. It was deserted and had no native civilizations, it was a completely remote and desolate area.
The blue light that surrounded Daoist Lingyang's body was already far dimmer than it had been initially and even wavered slightly.
Ever since Gu Nan took him away from the depths of the void, Daoist Lingyang hadn't been given the slightest opportunity to escape, always being watched by Gu Nan until the talisman's power was about to run out.
If Daoist Lingyang was given enough time to prepare, he could even kill a Tier 10 powerhouse with this talisman, but unfortunately, Gu Nan didn't give him any time, and he had to use all of the talisman's power for defense.
"What would you gain from killing me?" Daoist Lingyang stared at Gu Nan calmly, as if the conversation wasn't about killing him.
Gu Nan didn't answer but just looked at the talisman in his hand.
Daoist Lingyang seemed to understand something and shook his head with a faint smile before violently slapping his palm on his forehead.
With this strike, the blue light suddenly disappeared, while Daoist Lingyang's body simultaneously froze, then turned into fine powder and scattered with a gust of wind.
Gu Nan frowned slightly and slowly stepped forward, only to find that all of Daoist Lingyang's clothing and belongings—along with the talisman—had all disappeared without a trace. They seemed to have similarly dissipated, scattering into dust.
"Golden cicada shedding its shell to escape?" Gu Nan revealed a thoughtful expression. Daoist Lingyang wasn't a simple person—this was something he'd always known. He just didn't expect this person to have so many trump cards.
However, he also wasn't worried.
He wanted to kill Daoist Lingyang only because he wanted to take a look at that talisman. Now that war between the two sides was inevitable, whether Daoist Lingyang escaped or not had long become irrelevant.
He also didn't think Daoist Lingyang would try to expose him. To put it bluntly, there was no evidence for this, and it was also too late to talk about this now.
"Gotta hurry back," Gu Nan muttered.
Once the war started, it wouldn't be so easy for him to travel through the dimensional barrier again. After all, the ideal situation was naturally taking advantage of the war to harvest a wave of gods before turning his blade on friendly forces.After Song Fei stormed off, the two greater gods from the World of Gods quickly entered a state of "self-investigation" and invited Song Fei to supervise and check their progress to show they weren't hiding anything.
But what surprised them was that Song Fei declined such an invitation and instead asked Zou Jiming to come out and supervise.
"Perhaps he's too sad to face reality?" Zou Jiming found an excuse so bad that it couldn't possibly be any worse, glossing everything over with the other party.
He was all too eager to lead the negotiations—anyhow, the blame was already pinned on Song Fei, so no matter what was promised down the line, when the time came, he would just shrug it all off as promises Song Fei made.
It wasn't that hard to find out the cause of Shi Yeyan's death.
After all, all of his tracks after arriving at the World of Gods were clearly visible, and the greater gods didn't have to make much effort to trace the clues all the way to the end.
Finding Sophia, learning Lu Jialiang was taken away for killing Brook, and disappearing in the process of chasing Andy and his group.
And the location where Shi Yeyan died was also found. It was in the depths of the void, where the Gluttony Divine Kingdom was located…
"Did Freidman do it?" Eugene asked in a heavy voice as his gaze landed on the depths of the void. Even though it was a question, there was a bit of certainty in his tone.
After all, Shi Yeyan's soul was chopped up—this trait was just too obvious.
Furthermore, Shi Yeyan himself was equivalent to a Tier 9 god, so besides Freidman—whose Divine Kingdom was nearby—who else would be able to kill him?
"It's possible." The Ruler of Nightmares didn't hide anything in Zou Jiming's presence and nodded. "But if it's not Freidman, then… this matter will be much more complicated."
All the parties involved were already dead. There simply wasn't enough information to determine whether the truth was as it appeared, or whether there was another mastermind behind the scenes.
Speaking of a mastermind… there was indeed such a possibility. After all, the whole matter looked way too coincidental, but there was also no evidence to prove this.
Without any evidence, could they really just give a mere conjecture as their "explanation" to Song Fei?
The existing evidence all pointed to Freidman, but in the end, that wasn't conclusive evidence either, so capturing one of their own Tier 9 gods based on this was also not justifiable.
Both Eugene and Kenneth felt this was a thorny problem.
"Let's find Freidman first and see what he has to say for himself." Kenneth rubbed his temples, nursing a headache, while Eugene also expressed agreement.
Instead, it was Zou Jiming who waited confidently with crossed arms for the two greater gods to state their position. Even though his ultimate stance was also to not go to war, basic negotiation skills were still required.
But none of the three expected for someone to have already made the choice for them.
Just as the three stepped into the Gluttony Divine Kingdom, this plane suddenly started to collapse without warning. The originally azure sky was quickly dyed red, the stars began to fall, and the earth cracked.
"Could this be…?" Zou Jiming's knowledge of Divine Kingdoms wasn't exactly deep, but such extremely obvious signs still allowed him to understand something.
"Freidman is dead!" The Ruler of Nightmares said heavily, taking a step into the deepest part of the Gluttony Divine Kingdom, and sure enough, he saw Freidman's corpse silently laying there.
The next second, his expression suddenly changed, and he abruptly turned to look at Zou Jiming.
Zou Jiming was a step behind him. He still didn't understand what happened yet—not until he saw a ruler embedded in the heart of the corpse on the ground.
That was Song Fei's ruler.
The corners of Zou Jiming's mouth twitched slightly while he immediately tried to retreat, but his will fell into a trance for a split second, and the power of the dream realm had already descended upon him.
Before he was swept inside the dream realm, Zou Jiming's last thought was:
'Song Fei screwed me over!'
...
Three days later, news spread throughout the two worlds.
Song Fei, who had gone to the World of Gods to negotiate, found his favored disciple Shi Yeyan killed by the God of Gluttony, and in a fit of rage, he personally took action and killed Freidman to vent his anger and purposely left behind his own ruler as proof of his identity.
This was also in line with Song Fei's style. He'd always acted openly and never covered anything up. If he was the murderer, he would never deny it.
But from that day onwards, negotiations between the two sides officially broke down, and war between the two worlds was imminent.
"Song Fei got to vent, but Zou Jiming probably got screwed over miserably," Daoist Lingyang couldn't help laughing involuntarily after hearing this and said to Gu Nan.
Daoist Lingyang was in charge of Clear Profundity Realm for many years and had been the Heaven-God Alliance's head manager for so long, so he naturally knew the Thirteen Heavens quite well.
Song Fei clearly wanted Zou Jiming to distract the greater gods while he himself decisively chose to go to war, which was tantamount to selling Zou Jiming out.
Facing the greater gods who were all hostile to him… Weapon Martial Heaven's Star Ruler might not necessarily die, but the severity of injuries he'd suffer would depend on how many greater gods appeared to fight him.
"If war breaks out, Zou Jiming will be dissatisfied no matter what, so it's better to have him nurse his injuries for a few thousand years instead." Daoist Lingyang seemed to have a unique understanding of the relationships among the Thirteen Heavens.
Gu Nan was standing next to him, staring at him with a faint smile. "Why don't you stop talking about the Thirteen Heavens and talk about how much longer you can last?"
The two of them were now in an obscure small plane. It was deserted and had no native civilizations, it was a completely remote and desolate area.
The blue light that surrounded Daoist Lingyang's body was already far dimmer than it had been initially and even wavered slightly.
Ever since Gu Nan took him away from the depths of the void, Daoist Lingyang hadn't been given the slightest opportunity to escape, always being watched by Gu Nan until the talisman's power was about to run out.
If Daoist Lingyang was given enough time to prepare, he could even kill a Tier 10 powerhouse with this talisman, but unfortunately, Gu Nan didn't give him any time, and he had to use all of the talisman's power for defense.
"What would you gain from killing me?" Daoist Lingyang stared at Gu Nan calmly, as if the conversation wasn't about killing him.
Gu Nan didn't answer but just looked at the talisman in his hand.
Daoist Lingyang seemed to understand something and shook his head with a faint smile before violently slapping his palm on his forehead.
With this strike, the blue light suddenly disappeared, while Daoist Lingyang's body simultaneously froze, then turned into fine powder and scattered with a gust of wind.
Gu Nan frowned slightly and slowly stepped forward, only to find that all of Daoist Lingyang's clothing and belongings—along with the talisman—had all disappeared without a trace. They seemed to have similarly dissipated, scattering into dust.
"Golden cicada shedding its shell to escape?" Gu Nan revealed a thoughtful expression. Daoist Lingyang wasn't a simple person—this was something he'd always known. He just didn't expect this person to have so many trump cards.
However, he also wasn't worried.
He wanted to kill Daoist Lingyang only because he wanted to take a look at that talisman. Now that war between the two sides was inevitable, whether Daoist Lingyang escaped or not had long become irrelevant.
He also didn't think Daoist Lingyang would try to expose him. To put it bluntly, there was no evidence for this, and it was also too late to talk about this now.
"Gotta hurry back," Gu Nan muttered.
Once the war started, it wouldn't be so easy for him to travel through the dimensional barrier again. After all, the ideal situation was naturally taking advantage of the war to harvest a wave of gods before turning his blade on friendly forces.