On the northern side of the beach, a figure crouched low and stealthily made his way toward the dense forest on shore.
It was none other than Chen Chao, the leader of the rebel army.
Clutching his still-bleeding shoulder, he had even lost one of his boots. His bare foot struck the sharp shards of rock, and he staggered as he ran, not daring to stop for even a moment.
He had personally witnessed the Goddess emerging from the sea atop a giant fish. With a casual wave of her hand, she had frozen a sea beast into an ice sculpture, then used that sculpture to crush Zhu Huairen to death on the shore. Chen Chao had long since been scared witless. He had never imagined that a Great Illusionist’s illusions could be so terrifying.
It was all Zhu Huairen’s fault. He had sworn up and down that he knew how to break a Great Illusionist’s illusion. He could break nothing!
At that moment, Chen Chao only wanted to use the cover of night and the scattered rocks to escape the beach and save his own life.
Pei Du’s eyes sharpened as he raised a hand and gave the order.
The creak of bowstrings being drawn rang out in unison. More than a dozen arrows pointed at the fleeing figure.
Just as Pei Du was about to order the archers to fire, Chen Chao suddenly slammed into an invisible wall.
With a muffled thud, he was sent flying backward and crashed heavily onto the sand.
“What… What’s going on?”
He scrambled to his feet and charged at it again, refusing to believe what had happened. He desperately pounded at the invisible wall.
“Let me out! Let me out!”
Fear gradually overwhelmed his mind. He turned toward the giant fish and the Goddess on the sea, putting on a brave front as he shouted, “You must be behind this! Stop pretending to be some kind of god. There’s no such thing as immortal arts in this world. It’s all a scam!”
“How dare you show such disrespect to the Divine Lady!”
This time, Pei Du truly wanted Chen Chao dead.
Yao Sanyi hesitated.
Truthfully, he was only half-convinced that the Goddess was real.
The phenomena in Wuling City—the thousands of sheets of paper transforming at once and a voice reaching a thousand households—had originally begun to make him believe that the Goddess truly existed.
But after witnessing Zhu Huairen control an octopus with the sound of his flute and transform it into a terrifying sea beast, he had realized that, in the art of illusion, there would always be someone greater. There was always another heaven beyond the heavens.
This Goddess might very well be a Great Illusionist.
But none of that mattered.
What mattered was that he had seen a noble sense of justice in the Goddess’s followers.
One could infer much from the smallest details. If all the Goddess’s followers possessed such righteousness, how could the Goddess they worshipped possibly be evil?
When he had first learned the art of illusion, his master had taught him a saying:
Illusions are both real and false. If you believe, they are real; if you do not, they are false.
If everyone believed that her illusions were real, then what difference would they have from immortal arts?
Meanwhile, two soldiers had pinned Chen Chao to the ground. His face was swollen like a pig’s head.
“Military Advisor Pei, what should we do with this man?”
Pei Du’s gaze rested on Chen Chao for a moment. After a brief pause, he said in a low voice, “Don’t let him die. The Divine Lady stopped him herself. Perhaps she has something to ask him.”
The instant his words fell, the transparent wall suddenly gave a faint, brittle crack, like ice splitting apart.
Everyone turned toward the sound.
Countless spiderweb-like cracks had appeared on the nearby wall of light, spreading rapidly from the center toward the edges. A ghostly blue radiance seeped from every crack.
Pei Du frowned. “Fall back.”
The moment everyone had retreated a hundred meters, the wall of light shattered.
Tens of thousands of fragments hovered in midair, their luminous glow flowing across their surfaces.
“Military Advisor Pei, this…”
Before the soldier could finish speaking, the fragments of the wall of light began to move on their own. Before everyone’s eyes, they flew together and gradually reassembled into a massive outline.
A doorway slowly emerged from the void.
It stood more than ten zhang tall, entirely black, its surface carved with densely packed runes that were obscure and impossible to decipher.
At the very center of the door was a gigantic beast’s head. Its eyes were as large as bronze bells, and it held a dark-gold ring between its jaws.
The next moment, the door descended onto the rocky beach.
When it struck the ground with a thunderous boom, sand and dust billowed into the sky.
Everyone instinctively raised their hands to shield their eyes.
Dust swirled everywhere, blocking out the moonlight. For a moment, the entire world seemed to contain nothing but that enormous black door standing before them.
When the dust finally settled, the door swung open, and the Goddess stepped out.
She wore a black-and-gold, wide-sleeved robe, its collar and cuffs embroidered with golden cloud patterns. It was breathtakingly magnificent.
Twelve strands of beads hung from the imperial crown upon her head, swaying lightly with every step and radiating an overwhelming sense of authority.
The moment she appeared, everyone instinctively fell to their knees, utterly afraid to look directly at her.
Yao Sanyi knelt among them as well. Cold sweat continued to roll down his forehead and splatter onto the sand.
Could a Great Illusionist truly possess such oppressive power?
For a moment, he began to deeply doubt his earlier conclusion, and his mind descended into utter confusion.
The Goddess lowered her eyes and swept her gaze over the people kneeling on the beach. Her features were indistinct beneath the beaded curtain of her crown.
She spoke, her voice as cold as frost.
“Those who are guilty shall enter the Infinite Hell.”
As soon as she spoke, black mist roiled endlessly within the sinister, terrifying door behind her.
Then countless pale, emaciated hands with twisted knuckles reached out from the darkness.
Heads followed.
One skeletal demon after another crawled out of the black mist within the door, their bodies wrapped in dark, swirling vapor.
The Northern Garrison soldiers witnessed the scene.
Their curiosity outweighed their fear.
Some even wondered whether the Divine Lady had taken pity on the innocent people murdered by Chen Chao and the others, allowing them to return from the Infinite Hell and seek revenge in the mortal world.
The civilians from Wuling, huddled inside their tents, had never seen anything like this. Screams immediately rang across the entire rocky beach.
“Ghosts! There are ghosts!”
“Help!”
Seeing this, Pei Du hurriedly ordered the soldiers to calm the people and prevent them from running about and causing a stampede.
The first person targeted by the demons was Chen Chao.
He suddenly felt a chill run across his shoulder. When he looked down, he saw several gray-black, withered claws already resting on his shoulders and back.
Screaming, he was dragged away by the demons.
After some time, the civilians in the camp began to realize something.
“Those demons only seem to be taking the wicked. They aren’t touching us.”
“That’s right! I saw it happen. The great bully from our village was dragged away too. It’s karma!”
No one knew how long passed.
After the demons dragged the last guilty person through the door, they vanished together with it.
The Goddess then walked slowly toward the camp.
As she moved, the black-and-gold wide-sleeved robe she wore silently transformed into a moon-white gown.
“Evil shall be repaid with evil, and good shall be rewarded with good.”
She waved her delicate hand.
At that same moment, every soldier in the Northern Garrison, every Wuling civilian hiding in the tents, and even Zhu Jingzhe, who stood by the shore, along with Pei Du, Yao Sanyi, and the others, found a steaming bowl of white rice porridge suddenly appearing in their hands.
“Is… Is this real?”
The Wuling civilians stared at the porridge in their hands in disbelief.
“This can’t be an illusion!”
Holding his bowl of porridge, Yao Sanyi murmured to himself,
“She really is a goddess…”
While everyone was still stunned by the appearance of the porridge, the Little Fox, hidden as it perched on Yun Shu’s shoulder, told her something.
“Host, I discovered that Shen Yu and the others are leading several large ships here by water, transporting grain to Wuling Prefecture.”
