After Princess Qianqian laid out her theory, everyone fell silent.

It had to be said, her theory—bold as it was—did carry a certain feasibility. The problem was how everyone was to put it into practice and turn it into reality.

At last—

—everyone turned their eyes to Yue Yang.

They hoped he’d make the call; at a single word from him, whatever the outcome, they would all do their utmost to help.

But at that moment Yue Yang was rather torn, and mused quietly for a long while before letting a faint, wry smile show. “Don’t look at me like that—I can’t see through it either. All I can say is, we give it our best shot. Whether it’ll work, I’ve got no bottom in my heart either; the idea really is too crazy. If the Fourth Lady, His Majesty, the Night Empress, and the Supreme were here, that’d be something—they’d surely be able to give us good counsel. But alas… Failing that, let me ask Pandora. Perhaps she’s got some deeply buried memory that could help us solve this ‘god-making’ problem.”

Having woken the slumbering Pandora from within Xiao Nu’s body—

—they laid the whole matter out for her.

But Pandora gave a negative answer.

She shook her head almost without a moment’s thought. “Qianqian’s theory carries a certain feasibility, but in practice there isn’t so much as a one-in-ten-thousand chance of success. To step into the divine realm, it isn’t enough merely to possess divine power, divine consciousness, a divine body, and the like—one must also possess a divine will, divine intent, divine majesty, and so on. Most important of all is a divine nature.”

“A divine nature is the core in which a god’s talent, domain, and the manifold expressions of divine will—divine power, divine consciousness, divine will, divine intent, divine majesty—are all embodied. It is the inner and outer incarnation that displays a god’s realm, power, wisdom, and supernatural arts. For a divine-tier life, he or she extends, from this core point of the divine nature, an infinite and independent godhood that no mundane force in all the world could ever move or alter. For the lives of the mortal world, the divine nature is the twin crystallization of a god’s will and the laws that god ordains—an existence that can never be challenged or defied.” Pandora explained softly to them all. “I believe that, with your efforts and your theory, and the various treasures you hold, building a powerful ‘god’ is no problem. But not one of you could bestow upon that manufactured thing a divine nature—and without a ‘divine nature,’ the ‘god’ you build cannot be called a god. It would be a half-god, or you might say, a false god!”

“To build a god without a divine nature is a truly terrifying thing. Such a ‘false god,’ lacking a divine nature, having no unique divine consciousness of its own, no basic divine will, possessing only divine power and a divine body—it would be absolutely evil. The moment it gained mighty power and became a false god, it would use that power to break free of its master and turn, with all its strength, to devour the very one who made it.”

“A god absolutely cannot be manufactured by human hands!”

“If it can be done at all, then it must be a father-god, or a mother-god, birthing a divine child directly through divine power.”

“Or else a higher, ancient primordial god, who through divine intent bestows a divine nature directly upon some life, transforming it into a true ‘god.’ Lastly—I well understand your notion of building a powerful god to stand against Human Valley’s evil god, but I do not agree that you should attempt it. Because such an attempt has a one hundred percent chance of failure, and its chance of success is forever zero—not even a possibility of one in hundreds of millions. However feasible it may be in theory, it is nothing but flowers in a mirror, the moon in water!”

Pandora had made her stance plain, and spelled out clearly that the consequences of this matter were exceedingly grave.

So grave that no one wished to see them.

Nor could they accept them.

Hearing this, Princess Qianqian gave a shudder.

The dire consequences Pandora had just described had frightened her badly. Qianqian had never once imagined that building a “god” could bring on the calamity of the maker being devoured by his own creation! Were Pandora not still here, Yue Yang might very well have gone ahead and tried it—and then the consequences would have been unthinkable indeed.

Hearing this, some even began to wonder: that evil god sealed within Human Valley—

—could it be that it, too, had been built by those who came before?

Could it be precisely because it was a “false god” made by human hands that it was so evil, that it had become an evil god?

“If this road is closed, what other way is there?” Fengxian looked to Pandora. If the road of building a god would meet with the maker being devoured, then was there any other path to take? The evil god was no ordinary warrior; it was a god, possessed of immeasurable, colossal divine power, not something human strength could oppose. And here in Human Valley, this place of the Law’s restrictions where no one could use force, that was snow heaped upon frost.

“There is none.” Pandora shook her head; she couldn’t think of a good method either.

“Ah—failing that, let’s see if we can lend Sister Wuxia a hand, help her ascend to the divine realm, and then have her stand against the evil god. How about that?” Inan put forward what seemed a workable idea.

“Wuxia did indeed wake for a time before, but by my estimate it will still be a good while before she fully fuses her divine power—and as for birthing a divine nature all her own, that’s beyond imagining. And in the end, even if Wuxia did birth a divine nature, how much of her strength could she bring to bear out in Human Valley? Newly ascended to the divine realm, she’d need a good long stretch to feel her way and learn before she could grasp how to use her divine power, open up her divine will, embody her divine majesty… She has a long, long road yet to walk! Even with sufficient opportunity, strength, and wisdom, becoming a true god still requires ceaseless learning and ceaseless progress!” Pandora affirmed Xue Wuxia’s potential, but felt her help now would be slight—that even forced out into the field, she’d be no match for the evil god.

“Pandora, do you think Little Third could ascend straight to the divine realm?” Yue Yu always held the greatest hope and confidence for her younger brother.

“That’s right. It’d be best of all if he could stand directly against the evil god.” Luohua nodded in agreement too.

“If one were to forcibly open up a portion of the potential he hasn’t yet comprehended, then there’s no question he’d reach the divine realm.” Pandora shook her head. “But none of your elders has ever done such a thing. To do so would be a foolish act of grasping for quick gains and rushing for results—pulling up the sprouts to help them grow. Why do you think those two young ladies, the Night Empress and the Supreme, feigned ignorance? Back during the collective comprehension at the World Tree, they already knew all of this—yet they said nothing, only waited quietly for Yue Yang to grow. The reason was precisely that they did not wish to interfere too much and thereby affect his growth… What realm he’ll grow to in the future, I cannot see, but it will surely be an existence beyond imagining. To reach so high a realm requires more time and more comprehension—which is to say, more tempering and more trials. This is nothing but one small trial along the road of growth, and Yue Yang must cross it… If his potential were forcibly opened now, then in the future he might be frozen fast at some realm, achieving not a ten-thousandth of the true height that awaited him. In that case, even if he defeated the evil god, what would be the meaning of it? And the last thing I would say is this: if Yue Yang ascends to the divine realm, then perhaps he could no longer remain in the mortal world—he would, within a short time, soar up to the Heaven Realm, or to some world of a higher tier still… Once he’s gone, what will the rest of you do?”

“Then let’s not discuss this any further—let’s think of some other way!” Seeing that everyone had been frightened pale by Pandora, the Sick Beauty hurried to change the subject.

“If all else fails, I’ll invite Her Majesty Empress Vivienne out.” Yue Yang, for his part, still had a trump card up his sleeve.

But if Empress Vivienne came out—

—then her world of ice and snow would likely have reached its limit, unable to expand any further.

The black-hole sealing space and the world of ice and snow were now joined into one, and Empress Vivienne’s will was the bridge between them; through her supreme will, the sealing power was, ever so slowly, converting into the world of ice and snow.

The moment Empress Vivienne departed, the sealing power of the black-hole space would surely disperse.

Or else re-seal, mutate.

The outcome was hard to predict.

Most important of all, once Empress Vivienne came out into Human Valley, which of the two—she or the evil god—would win, and which lose, was likewise impossible to gauge… What if the evil god, seeing Empress Vivienne appear, refused the fight, hid itself away again, and slumbered for another ten or twenty thousand years, only to emerge once Empress Vivienne and Yue Yang had left? Wouldn’t all their efforts then be thrown away? Empress Vivienne’s situation now bore a certain resemblance to Xue Wuxia’s—she too was steadily progressing—and to bring her out like this before the very last moment, wasting so fine an opportunity, would truly be a pity.

“There’s no need at all for that. This is still only Human Valley—ahead lie the harder Earth Valley and Heaven Valley. We can wake Empress Vivienne and Wuxia when we reach that point; it won’t be too late!” Fengxian suddenly fished a small object out from on Yue Yang’s person. Her enchanting little face wore a look of earnestness it had never worn before as she said, “Perhaps you could try opening this!”

“What is it?” At a glance, everyone crowded around in curiosity.

“Hm?” Yue Yang, for his part, recognized the little object.

It was a little white jade casket.

It was the very dowry item that the Succubus Queen had secretly slipped him that day, when Yue Yang went to the Succubus Palace to receive Fengxian as his bride.

She’d said this little casket concealed the truth of Fengxian’s origins, that it held an earth-shattering secret. At the time, Yue Yang had thought this little thing held some clue for tracking down the Supreme. Only later did he discover that this little white jade casket possessed a special sealing power, bearing a certain resemblance to the black jade necklace—and that once opened, it might bring unforeseen consequences. So he’d never dared to open it lightly.

If there turned out to be, inside the little white jade casket, another senior of Empress Vivienne’s caliber, that would make his head spin.

Or else, the moment the little white jade casket was opened—

—it might teleport him to some secret realm, to face all manner of unpredictable things… If it teleported him somewhere else, well and good; but if it teleported him to the Ruins of the Gods, Yue Yang truly wasn’t prepared for that!

“This was brought out of the Ruins of the Gods by our earliest ancestor. There are two of them in all, and they’ve always been the tokens passed down generation to generation in our clan. In our generation, they belong to me and my elder sister respectively.” Fengxian, in a rare sight, colored her powdered cheeks with shyness and shot Yue Yang a reproachful glance, as though to stop him from telling everyone what had happened that day. Then she turned her face to explain to the group. “My sister, fearing I might use it to walk an evil path, deposited it in the hands of the Succubus clan’s Queen, and later the Queen gave it to him… I remember my sister saying, when I was small, that if I ever met with a difficulty in life that I couldn’t solve by exhausting every means, I could open it. As for what’s inside this little casket, I don’t know either…”

What on earth was inside this little white jade casket?

Was it truly as the Supreme had said—that opening it could solve every difficulty in the world?

Yue Yang looked at Fengxian, then swept his gaze over everyone, and seeing that every face was full of expectation, at last he drew a deep, deep breath and made his decision. Since even the Supreme had said as much, then he’d trust her, and open this little white jade casket that had come as Fengxian’s dowry to take a look inside…

Perhaps a miracle really would appear!

(End of Chapter)