Against the Gods

Chapter 2019 - Li Suo

“Li… Suo?”

“The Creation Goddess of Life… that Li Suo?”

Yun Che stared at the white figure in front of him, shellshocked.

“Yes.” The white figure softly replied, “Your surprise and disbelief is quite normal, because to the world, the Creation Goddess of Life has long ago passed away.”

Li Suo, the name of the Creation Goddess of Life from the god race’s four Creation Gods!

The most respected and revered Creation God beloved by all.

The Ice Phoenix spirit inside the Heavenly Netherfrost Lake who had once served in the Divine Palace of Life considered that to be the greatest honor of its life.

She had created numerous creatures and races… and the first race she made was the wood spirit race.

The “Divine Miracle of Life” she developed was a true miracle that once saved an untold number of lives from harm.

Records of her existence all left an eternal reputation of kindness, holiness, mightiness, utmost purity, and an incomparably holy beauty.

As the only female Creation God, she was the origin and the pinnacle of the word “beautiful” for the fairer sex.

The Dragon God Realm’s Ancient Records of the Dragon God once described Li Suo’s divine appearance:

[The Creation God who bore the power of realm creation, life creation, and light divine energy. She was a kind, merciful and compassionate soul who possessed the holy power that could save all living and nonliving things in the world, and an outer and inner beauty that transcended the limits of the immortal realm of creation itself.]

[So great was her beauty that it was said that the Ancestral God had bestowed three-tenths of the concept of beauty to the world, and the rest to Li Suo when creating the universe.]

[Stars and moons were but as bright as withered dust before her divine presence.]

The words themselves were unrefined and hardly believable but the emotional “tragedy” of the Heaven Punishing Divine Emperor, the Creation God of the Elements, and the Creation Goddess of Life revealed Li Suo’s magnificence.

The two strongest Creation Gods were formerly infatuated with her.

When the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor returned and learned about the demise of the Creation Goddess of Life, even though it had already been several hundreds of thousands of years since then, whenever she mentioned the name “Li Suo”, her tone still overflowed with a rancid taste of jealousy that left Yun Che shaking in his boots.

Since it was “jealousy” and not “disdain”, it was obvious that Devil Emperor Jie Yuan had a subconscious inferiority complex toward the magnificent Li Suo.

It was precisely the most holy Creation God out of the four great Creation Gods, the one who was the first to fall at the beginning of the war between gods and devils, that appeared before his very eyes, softly uttering her dream-like name.

“To your knowledge, the Goddess of Life fell to the devilish poison of the Nine Fiend Devil Emperor, her burial the starting point of the war. But according to ancient records, no one found her remains, nor has anyone truly found her Primordial Seal of Life and Death.”

The voice of the white figure was as faint as a dim moon. She was clearly talking about herself, but still talked in third person.

It was as if her life and soul had been reborn and reconstructed, as if the fragments of her former knowledge and memories became clearer when they imperceptibly connected but were still foreign occurrences for her. It was as if they were not her own memories and life.

The white figure’s voice had also stirred Yun Che’s soul sea, making him recall another record about the Creation Goddess of Life:

[All the realms wept and raged at the death of the Creation Goddess of Life. However, the body of the deceased Li Suo was never found… perhaps it was because her body gave off light divine aura, and the Nine Fiend devil race destroyed it out of fear…]

[...The Primordial Seal of Life and Death vanished after the Creation Goddess of Life had passed away, and it was rumored that the Heavenly Profound Treasure had fallen into the Nine Fiend devil race’s hands… it was a complete tragedy.]

“You…” Yun Che still stared at her blankly, finding it difficult to gather his words. What he knew and everything he knew made it impossible to accept reality.

This was a Creation God!

In the distant ancient era, it was a god above gods!

How could a Creation God still exist in the current era!?

The white figure was unruffled by Yun Che’s disbelief. She slowly retrieved her finger, instantly causing this dusky world to lose its only source of endlessly luxurious pure white light.

“I believe when the Creation Goddess of Life was schemed upon by the Nine Fiend Devil Emperor that year and the Nine Fiend Devil Poison was at its peak, she did not die immediately. At the final juncture, she stripped off the ‘part’ of her that had not been poisoned, escaped into the Primordial Seal of Life and Death, and sealed it with the last ounce of her strength.”

“Afterwards, she underwent a long period of sleep. Due to the destruction of gods and devils however, the aura within the Primal Chaos became thinner and thinner and primordial energy gradually ceased to exist in the Primal Chaos. As a result, she was unable to awaken because she was unable to sense primordial energy and the seal she placed upon the Primordial Seal of Life and Death had also steadily loosened.”

These were all conclusions she reached after piecing together Yun Che’s knowledge which also gradually overlapped with the fragments of her memory that were slowly getting clearer.

She felt like she had slept for far too many years. It had been so long that she felt like her last soul had completely separated from herself.

“Then one day, the Primordial Seal of Life and Death met you and also met that wood spirit ‘He Ling’.”

A sharp pain stabbed Yun Che’s soul upon hearing the name He Ling. He finally blurted out a question, “Was it He Ling’s life aura that awakened you?”

“Yes, and no.” The white figure gave him an elusive answer. “He Ling’s life aura was extremely pure, as if it came from the same origin as my own life aura. When her aura touched me, it was like finding sweet nectar that replenished my life and consciousness, waking it from its slumber.”

“Once I pieced together my knowledge… I knew that I was the Creation Goddess of Life, that wood spirits were pure spirits I created using my life source. So yes, our life origins were the same. Her being able to awaken me can be considered to be quite normal.”

“Then, it was only after following your experiences that I realized that the one who had truly awakened and gradually ‘completed’ me was you, and not her.”

“It was because of the divine aura of the Ancestral God on you.”

“...” Yun Che slowly grew serious.

This self-proclaimed “Li Suo” had always been inside the Primordial Seal of Life and Death!? Qianye Ying’er was the one who had given it to him and he had never been able to successfully activate it. Finding records about the seal was also few and far between so he gradually gave up and forgot about it. The Primordial Seal of Life and Death had been quietly sitting inside a corner of the Sky Poison Peal for a very, very long time.

If she had already awakened the moment he obtained the Primordial Seal of Life and Death, then she had also experienced everything he had gone through afterwards.

Including his conversation with the ancestral will!

He suddenly recalled the illusory voice he thought he had heard when he had first obtained the Primordial Seal of Life and Death.

“Did you say the name ‘Ni Xuan’ when you woke up?” he asked.

“Yes.” She gave him a straightforward response. “I was like a newborn infant when I first woke from my slumber. There were countless numbers of drifting fragments… and your aura stirred the fragment named ‘Ni Xuan’, causing me to unconsciously say those words.”

“It was an instinctive call from my consciousness. At that time, I didn't even know who Ni Xuan was, nor did I know who I myself was.”

The white figure continued her recollection. “My early consciousness was only able to distinguish a few names…”

“Mo E, Ni Xuan, Xi Ke, Li Suo… Heaven Smiting… Nine Fiend… Original Darkness… Nirvana…”

“And two names that brought the greatest peace to my mind… It was only later that they gradually became clear… Of the two, one was my disciple and the other my foster daughter…”

“My disciple… ‘Longshen Xi’. My foster daughter… ‘Ling Wanhu’.”

Whoosh!

A red glow flew out from Yun Che’s body, transforming into the figure of a lovable girl. “Who’s calling Wanhu?” Hong’er was obviously still drowsy and had just woken up. Her vermilion starry eyes blinked with amazement as she looked at the white figure before her. “?? Big white sister, how did you know that my other name is Wanhu? Only big sister Shen Xi should know this secret.”

“...” The white figure quietly looked at the girl and the immensely pure white light seemed to have become a bit warmer.

Yun Che looked at Hong’er, then looked at the white figure… and suddenly thought about Jie Yuan’s unusual behavior and soft voice when she saw Hong’er.

The divine soul Hong’er that had been “replenished” with the sword transforming attribute of “Devil Slayer” after the darkness “component” was taken away... was it the Creation Goddess of Life who had given her that?!

“It is exactly as you think.” The white figure seemed to have read his mind. “When Mo E and Ni Xuan fought back then, Ni Xuan lost, but Mo E knew that there was no honor in an unfair battle so he gave some leeway. Instead of annihilating the daughter of Ni Xuan and Jie Yuan, he decided to remove her darkness component.”

“As the daughter of a Creation God and Devil Emperor, the level of her life and soul were incomparably high. The only one who could reconstruct a complete body and soul after the separation was the Goddess of Life.”

“...” Yun Che silently listened. From the white figure’s current tone of voice, he was able to hear that the words being spoken were not merely conjectures but the cold hard truth from a memory fragment.

“The Goddess of Life reconstructed Ni Xuan’s incomplete daughter into a complete life and took her in as her foster daughter. Wanhu flowers bloomed at that time in the Divine Palace of Life and thus she was named Wanhu. In the end, she was entrusted to the Sword Spirit God Clan in accordance with Ni Xuan’s wishes. After becoming a sword soul, she took the surname Ling and became the princess of the Sword Spirit God Clan.”

“In the memory fragment, as if he had indeed made a promise, he had never gone to see his daughter and had also never appeared in the Goddess of Life’s later memories.”

“It was just whether it was Mo E or the Goddess of Life, neither one of them knew that the darkness “part” of her had not been killed. He had instead been hiding her from the entire world.”

There was no doubt that she was talking about You’er.

“You’re… really the Creation Goddess of Life, Li Suo?”

It wasn’t just Yun Che. No one in the current era would dare believe her, not even the other Creation Gods if they still lived.

The white figure gently answered, “Although my Divine Miracle of Life falls short of what it was in the past, it still is proof enough. At this point, you know full well who I am in your heart.”

Yun Che had already started to subconsciously believe her because everything she said, whether it was within or beyond his current knowledge, meshed all too well with the identity of “the Creation Goddess of Life”.

The words “Creation God” were just too lofty and out of reach. The impact it gave Yun Che was second only to the “Ancestral God” that also existed in this world.

Li Suo aside, from the group of Creation Gods and Devil Emperors, only Mo E who died of old age and the banished Jie Yuan did not perish from the “Myriad Tribulations” released by the Sky Poison Pearl stolen by the Evil Infant’s Wheel of Myriad Tribulations.

All life was equal under Myriad Tribulations, only death awaited. But Li Suo had contracted the Nine Fiend Devil Poison.

She had escaped Myriad Tribulations and once more appeared in the world after a long slumber? And even coexisted with him!

In him lived Hong’er and You’er, and He Ling did as well too…

Never in his dreams would he have imagined that there was a Creation God with him too!

“Apart from the name Li Suo and the title Goddess of Life, I can’t find another identity that fits within my incomplete self.” While she said all that, her eyes calmly gazed at Hong’er the entire time. Vermilion eyes, vermilion long hair, an elf-like appearance, an indescribably intimate aura… It warmed her soul. She believed that her former self truly loved and was close to this girl.

“You are the Creation Goddess Li Suo…” Yun Che murmured. He breathed chaotically for a long time before settling down. “If you’ve been awake for this long, why didn’t you appear until now?”

“Because I couldn’t. My life was on a thread when I first woke up. If I appeared then, my life origin would’ve instinctively absorbed He Ling’s life origin in order to recover. The difference in level would’ve made this outcome inevitable. It would have been unstoppable.”

“This was why I couldn’t allow myself to appear in the space she existed in.”

“Until your battle with Mo Beichen, when she sacrificed her own life.”

This was the Creation Goddess of Life… This was a supreme being who even at her weakest would never be willing to take another’s life.

Recalling the Blue Dragon Emperor’s bizarre resurrection and the rapid recovery of both times he was injured… this all happened after He Ling’s sacrifice.

“I… see.”

Upon mention of He Ling, the heaviness in his heart smothered his shock. He smiled bitterly. “No wonder… no wonder…”

“You could instantly heal the Blue Dragon Emperor’s fatal injuries… But I couldn’t… Shen Xi couldn’t either… Only you…”

Even with her soul in a weakened state, the Divine Miracle of Life she could control was not something the current Yun Che or Shen Xi could possibly strive for.

“With how powerful you are, imagine how great it would be if you were able to save He Ling…” He muttered soulessly.

The white figure… No, the Creation Goddess of Life Li Suo softly spoke, “With me still here, how could I possibly allow her to disappear.”

Those sweet words made Yun Che feel like he had been sent into a dream.

He was stunned for three breaths before he suddenly rose to his feet. He stumbled and fell on one knee. The thought of adjusting his posture was thrown out of his mind as he growled uncontrollably, “What? What did you just say!?”

――――PS: For the name Longshen Xi, the surname is Longshen, name is Xi.