Worlds’ Apocalypse Online

The center of the battlefield.

The God of Life and Soul Shrieker were roaring with all their might.

Having lived for countless years, both of them were naturally no stranger to battle.

That was why even as they desperately fought, they kept their eyes on any new descending coffins.

--------if they noticed any coffin that contained a presence that was too powerful, they would immediately lash out, sparing no efforts in destroying that coffin right away.

By doing that, the coffin would fade away and temporarily vanish.

However, as time went by, those coffins would reappear and descend together with the new wave of black coffins, like an ever-growing tidal wave, causing the two Deities to be unable to keep up.

The Deity corpses from the coffins had begun to encircle them.

The Soul Shrieker and God of Life couldn't help but stand back-to-back, helping one another to barely maintain the balance of the battle.

------in a situation of life and death, any conflict could easily be temporarily disregarded.

Not to mention, they had both realized that they were deceived by a third party altogether.

Even so.

They didn't have much time left.

At this point, Gu Qing Shan and Boss arrived at the border of the battlefield under the black umbrella.

Boss scowled, staring closely at the Deity corpses, and muttered: "I wasn't mistaken, there are more than just Deities from the Inner Plane among these corpses, some of them I don't recognize at all…"

Gu Qing Shan asked: "Do you know many Inner Plane Deities?"

"I recognize all 80,000 True Deities" Boss confirmed it.

"What's above a Deity?" Gu Qing Shan asked.

"A Deific King------- one of the coffins gave off the presence of a Deific King just now, but was destroyed by the reckless attacks of those two and temporarily disappeared. I'm guessing it'll show up again later" Boss answered him.

Gu Qing Shan commented: "Which means, the question is where did all the Deities you don't recognize come from"

He silently came closer, approached an opened coffin, and carefully observed it.

"These coffins seem to be manifested by a technique"

Gu Qing Shan commented.

As soon as he stated that, he froze.

A technique.

What kind of technique would be able to take control of hundreds of Deities and Demigods?

Not to mention a Deific King!

What a ridiculous thought.

Gu Qing Shan shook his head and was about to dismiss his own thought, but Boss commented: "You're right, I also feel like this is a kind of technique. Take a look at those Deity corpses-------"

Gu Qing Shan followed the direction that Boss pointed to and extended his inner sight.

The coffin closest to them had opened, where half the body of a Deity emerged.

"Take a closer look" Boss muttered.

"Hm"

Gu Qing Shan replied.

He sensed it with his inner sight.

There were several miniscule threads attached to this Deity corpse, through which the corpse's arms and legs were being made to move.

Through careful observation, one could see that these weren't true threads, but rather a strange series of runes that had manifested and solidified through some sort of dark light.

Indeed, this was a technique!

Gu Qing Shan and Boss exchanged glances, only to see the look of utter shock in each other's eyes.

One of them was an expert who had saved numerous worlds, the Devil King of Huang Quan, the Earth God of the Four Elemental Pillars; the other was the Greatest Above the Star Crown, the Abyssal King, the Lord of Infinite Origin; both of which were highly knowledgeable people who had witnessed many things.

And yet neither of them had ever heard of a technique that could manifest and control over a hundred Deity corpses and thousands of Demigod corpses.

Boss appeared confused: "What kind of technique can actually summon the Deities from their tomb? I really have no clue at all"

Gu Qing Shan was silent for a brief moment before asking: "Calming Soul Country… was this place really just a shelter for descendants of Deities?"

Boss asked: "What did you think of?"

Gu Qing Shan replied: "The God of Life clearly knew about this beforehand, coupled with how it had insisted on remaining within Calming Soul Country, I think it might have something to do with this technique"

Boss appeared reminiscent and replied: "At the moment of the Inner Plane's destruction, it spat out countless corpses of those who fell in battle into the space vortex"

"The seven surviving Deities collected these corpses and formed a tomb within the space vortex, to which the God of Life was responsible for looking after"

"Later on, the God of Life decided to arrange her own descendants in the vicinity of the tomb, creating a world that later became known as Calming Soul Country"

Gu Qing Shan was surprised.

No wonder it was called Calming Soul Country, so this place was originally next to the resting place of Deities that fell in battle.

Gu Qing Shan couldn't help just question: "Exactly what kind of world was the Inner Plane? And why was it destroyed?"

Seeing how seriously he was asking, Boss answered him: "The Inner Plane was a place that existed to ensure that parallel worlds would never meet, a unique location that allowed the void to separate parallel worlds from one another"

"During the countless nodes of history, different worlds might take drastically different historical turns, in turn becoming parallel worlds to one another"

"But there is only ever a single Inner Plane"

"Once the Inner Plane is destroyed, both the parallel worlds and the space vortex will slowly become chaotic, causing numerous issues"

Gu Qing Shan asked: "Just like how a parallel world continued its retaliation against the Apocalypse and ended up falling into the Eternal Abyss?"

Boss sighed: "Exactly, since the Inner Plane has already been destroyed, the infinite parallel worlds have begun to fall into turmoil"

Gu Qing Shan fell into thought again.

"The Inner Plane shouldn't have been completely wiped out; I remember that Returnees exist…" Gu Qing Shan commented.

"Indeed, but it is highly dangerous for any soul to reincarnate within the space vortex, where danger exists at every corner. Only Deific Kings would have this kind of ability"

Boss continued: "There is only 1 Deific King for every 10,000 Deities, and since the Inner Plane had a total of 80,000 Deities, there are only a total of 8 Deific King. The one who rules above the 8 Deific Kings is the Grand Empress of the Pantheon who ruled the entirety of the Inner Plane"

"When the Inner Plane was destroyed, the Grand Empress was no match for the Apocalypse and vanished together with her injury. Among the 8 Deific Kings, 2 fell in battle while the remaining 6 knew that they were no match, so they reincarnated and fled"

Gu Qing Shan was completely taken aback by such a revelation, so he forced himself to regain his thoughts: "Right now, we should probably focus on what exactly this technique is"

Boss mused: "To cause the God of Life such fear, it would surely not just be a simple technique, it might be related to something that she personally did"

"For countless years, she had hidden herself within Calming Soul Country" Gu Qing Shan calmly analyzed: "So we can confirm one thing------ first of all, to her, Calming Soul Country was safe, which means that whatever she did was unrelated to Calming Soul Country"

"Whatever caused her fear must have originated from outside Calming Soul Country"

"If she had hidden within Calming Soul Country all this time, what exactly did she do that was related to the outside world?"

The two of them thought for a brief moment.

"It wasn't the [Order] Card" Gu Qing Shan drew this conclusion, "There are no issues with the Card, I can prove this"

"Then, there's only one other thing" Boss followed up.

The two of them turned to the God of Life.

Its current body was that of a black snake, the head of which was covered in hard purple scales, the body grew black arms, and the tail could split into countless tentacles.

-------indeed, the only possible issue was this monster.

The fact that the God of Life took his monster's body as her own.

It was quite strange, if the 7 Deities combined couldn't kill this monster, how exactly did the God of Life manage to take over its body?

The more they thought about it, the more they felt it inappropriate.

While they were coming up with conjectures, the situation on the battlefield gradually grew more dangerous.

The God of Life and Soul Shrieker were now both riddled with wounds.

Another series of coffins descended.

Five more Deity corpses emerged from inside.

The Soul Shrieker finally couldn't restrain itself any longer and shouted: 『「 Show yourself, Gu Qing Shan! 』」

Gu Qing Shan and Boss were both surprised.

How did that guy know we're here?

The Soul Shrieker continued to roar: 『「 I know you are around here somewhere, take a look at this-------! 』」

Oom!!!

Endless light suddenly erupted from its body, gradually focusing on its knuckles to form a bright mass of light.

This was essentially all of its power.

Boss commented in a grim voice: "What intense power of Retribution"

Gu Qing Shan lightly nodded in response.

This cluster of Retribution was completely incomparable to the Holy Retribution he faced before.

While evading the attacks of Deity corpses, the Soul Shrieker loudly continued:

「『 I know of your deep connections with the Bramble Bird Kingdom 」』

『「 I give you until the count of three. If you won't use that concealment technique to save me, I will unleash this Deific Retribution and ground the Bramble Bird Kingdom to dust! 』」

「『 I know you can borrow my power, but I can unleash the same attack many times consecutively------ I refuse to believe that you can actually continue to borrow the power of my Retribution without limit! 」』

Gu Qing Shan was surprised.

This monster is truly treacherous, grasping a hold of my weakness like that.

Laura had done everything in her power to help me, so I can't simply watch as her country gets destroyed.

Boss worriedly glanced at him.

Gu Qing Shan shook his head and expressed that there were no issues.

He calmly looked at the Soul Shrieker.

The Earth sword silently manifested in his hand.

「 Your Soul Points aren't enough to slay it 」the Earth sword's mountainous heavy voice resounded.

"I know, we're just going to use [Sanctuary]" Gu Qing Shan casually replied.

He added: "Full power"

「 That's doable 」the Earth sword stopped talking after confirming that.

At this point, the Soul Shrieker could no longer resist the Deity corpses' attack and loudly called out:

『「 Three 』」

『「 Two 』」

『「 One 』」

It angrily roared and swung its fist.

Gu Qing Shan moved.

Divine Skill, [Shadow Shift]!

In that split second, they switched places with the God of Life.

Holding the umbrella in one hand, he swung the Earth sword with the other.

Convergence Realm!

Boom---------

The Earth sword heavily struck the Soul Shrieker's body, causing it to lose its balance and nearly faltered.

All of a sudden, countless images appeared from the void of space to keep the Soul Shrieker stationary.

It had actually made ample preparations!

However, a strike that was 1001 times its own weight combined with Gu Qing Shan's full might had caused the Deific Retribution in the Soul Shrieker's hand to veer off-course and move upwards in the space vortex.

After his swing, Gu Qing Shan activated [Shadow Shift] again without hesitation!

The God of Life was instantly switched back in place.

At the same time, the Soul Shrieker managed to react and swung towards its back with all its power.

Before the God of Life managed to understand what had happened, it had been struck and sent flying into a group of Demigods.

『 Aaaaaa! Despicable scum! 』the God of Life furiously roared.

Suddenly, all sounds ceased.

Whether it was Gu Qing Shan, the God of Life, or the Soul Shrieker, none of them had the leisure to speak at all.

They all looked above.

The Deific Retribution shot to the void above and abruptly exploded, scattering the unfathomable darkness to reveal something inside.

An unimaginably huge green-furred face was looking down from above.

The face had its mouth opened wide.

The countless coffins were coming out from inside its mouth.

A short moment later.

The power of the Deific Retribution faded.

The darkness that obscured the sky above the battlefield had gathered once again, concealing the green-furred face.