Chapter 85: Divine Torture

                    

The war between immortals and gods that spanned five thousand years began here.

At first, the heavenly gods held absolute advantage. Cultivators suffered heavy losses and quickly submitted. The gods ceased their punishments.

But as humanity multiplied endlessly, cultivators grew in number, and fear of the gods bred resistance. Divine punishment became confrontation, confrontation became war.

Spiritual energy dwindled. Vegetation withered, all things desolate. Gods themselves required spiritual energy to exist, and so the struggle for it made the war impossible to end.

Though the gods seemed dominant, the balance shifted as the Divine Platform ceased birthing new deities. Heaven and earth lacked the energy to nurture them. Humanity, however, continued to prosper. Extraordinary individuals arose.

By the fourth millennium, gods fell in mounting numbers. Tens of thousands of cultivators conspired to trap Lord Tianling, exhausting his divine power until he perished. The cold divine lord entered the “cycle of all things” he had once spoken of.

His fall revived spiritual energy. Cultivators seized it, breaking through bottlenecks, emboldened to slay gods.

News of Tianling’s death plunged the divine realm into grief.

Mu Sui knelt before the empty monument on the Divine Platform for seven days and nights. Within his body, Meng Ruji felt his grief, unwillingness, and hatred. His divine body carried emotions like a human’s.

When the ceremony ended, Mu Sui descended to the lower realm. He brought down his first divine punishment, killing dozens of cultivators—the very victors who had slain Tianling and stolen his energy.

Standing among mountains and rivers, Mu Sui watched their spiritual energy drift from corpses. He should have absorbed it, but instead guided it into soil, lakes, and forests. Trees revived, lakes cleared, tender shoots sprouted.

Yet he knelt before the new life, weeping uncontrollably.

Meng Ruji thought: if she had been there, she would have embraced this sorrowful deity. But if she had truly been there, they would have fought to the death.

After his descent, the title of God of Catastrophic Destruction spread once more.

Lord Changning dragged him back, confining him. Heavenly gods required centuries to mature; Mu Sui was still in divine childhood. He was forbidden to punish, forbidden to descend, forbidden to leave.

The day he was imprisoned, he told Lord Changning calmly:
“I am the God of Catastrophic Destruction. Having me bring punishment to the human race is most appropriate.”

Changning rejected coldly:
“You have not matured. One punishment has already damaged your divine status. The pain of ten thousand ants gnawing bone seems not to have taught you.”

“I don’t care.”

Changning faltered, guilt flickering in his eyes.
“With Tianling’s fall, I know you’re heartbroken. I am too. Every deity is precious now. Don’t disregard yourself for revenge. These matters are ours to handle.”

“I can too! I should, too!” Mu Sui gripped the cage, agitated. “This started because of me—I should go!”

“Xinghuo…” Changning sighed. “Why don’t you understand? Even if it weren’t you, other deities would be feared. This war decides who rules the world.”

Years passed in confinement. Mu Sui read, cultivated, grew.

Then heavenly light broke through darkness. Meng Ruji saw through his eyes—the divine realm burned flame‑red.

A goddess, robes bloodstained, rushed to him. She was the one who had welcomed him at birth. She freed him, grabbed his hand, and fled.

“What happened?” Mu Sui asked. “Where is Lord Changning?”

Tears filled her eyes.
“Xinghuo, the heavenly gods have been defeated. Among the cultivators, someone killed Changning and ascended to godhood.”

Mu Sui froze. Meng Ruji’s consciousness froze with him. She recalled Mo Yi’s past—Madam Lin’s courtyard, the dying deity she killed. It was Changning.

Now she understood Mu Sui’s sorrow. She regretted not holding his hand tighter.

“The human race has their deity,” the goddess said. “We’re losing ground. The human deity proposed peace, but cultivators ambushed us. We can’t leave. But you still can.”

She dragged him forward.
“You haven’t matured. Your divine status was damaged. We’ll strip it away, send you to the lower realm. We’ll perish in heavenly fire. No one will know your whereabouts. From then on, there will be no more heavenly gods.”

She pushed him onto the ruined Divine Platform. Gods stood on cloud stairs, fewer now, dust‑stained, firelight dyeing the sky red.

“Xinghuo.” Tears filled her eyes. “You must live.”

Light bound him. Incantations rose. Ice needles pierced his flesh, scraping golden threads from his marrow. Pain flayed him alive.

Meng Ruji felt every agony. She heard gods chanting, their voices twisted with hatred:
“Kill them!”
“Kill them!”
“Kill them all!”

Hatred burned, abyssal.

In the whirlpool of pain, Meng Ruji floated free, facing Mu Sui’s blood‑soaked body. She saw his divine status stripped, his fall from the Divine Platform, his plunge through shattered stars.

He became no longer a compassionate god, but a human filled with hatred.

He fell into the ice lake.

For millennia he slept, wounds healing slowly, body petrifying, malicious energy reviving him.

Until one day, divine light pierced the frozen surface. A woman’s figure cast spells above—saving someone. Saving… herself.

Mu Sui rose. Meng Ruji was pulled with him.

Breaking through the ice, he stepped onto mortal land. She too emerged.

“Splash!”

Scenes receded. Darkness lifted.

Meng Ruji opened her eyes beneath the night sky. The Nai River flowed upward beside her. She had emerged from memory.

Mu Sui sat beside her, breath rapid.

“Mu Sui.” Her voice was hoarse, barely audible.

He turned, and before he could focus, she tackled him, embracing him, trembling.

His chest was cold from river water, but her tears scalded it warm.

She held him tightly, silently shedding all the tears he had never cried.

His hands hovered, then pressed her shoulders, gently pushing her away.

She sat up, calming herself. He sat too, but the warmth of her tears left his chest colder.

“I’m sorry…” she whispered. “I was presumptuous. The love I can give cannot fill this sea of blood and hatred.”

Mu Sui nodded.
“Hide Xinghuo in Qianshan, follow the gods’ last will. From the day I left the ice lake, this is the only thing I must do.”

Meng Ruji nodded too.
“Bearing all that, if I were you, I would make the same choice. Perhaps today… you shouldn’t have come to the Nai River to save me.”

“I know.”

“But you still came to save me.”

Mu Sui smiled faintly, self‑mocking.
“Same as last time.”

Meng Ruji understood. That time with Zhan Ye, when he revealed himself to save her. He shouldn’t have, but he did.

“I don’t know why either. When I came to my senses, I was already by your side.”

This time was the same.

Under the night sky, Meng Ruji felt their closeness, their attraction. They could die for each other… yet could not live for each other.

The divide had stretched between them millions of years ago.

“I have revenge to seek.”
“I have people to protect.”

Meanings of life they could not abandon.

Next