While Gu Nan was killing Cliff, he intentionally emitted the Blade of Night’s aura.
On one hand, it was to hide himself and prevent his identity from being seen through by Cliff at a glance, and on the other hand, it was a deliberate ploy to alert Diana and the others to the commotion here.
Gu Nan glanced at Cliff's corpse at his feet, a faint smile appearing on his face. Unlike Luke, Cliff's corpse hadn't been destroyed by him and only had a bloody gash in his chest.
The blame was ready, now he just had to pin it on Goro’s head.
Gu Nan's figure quickly disappeared before the other gods arrived, rushing back to Atalante.
……
This was the scene that greeted Diana and her group of gods by the time they arrived—Cliff's corpse was lying quietly inside the Sky Temple, with the law of night still lingering all over his body.
"Was it Goro?" Marshall gazed at the ground incredulously. Cliff's corpse made him feel a stab of pain.
Cliff was very strong, so much so that even Marshall believed Cliff to be the strongest god in this group. If even Cliff could be killed, then wasn't everyone else—including himself—also in danger?
Diana's expression was also extremely ugly. In any case, Cliff had been killed while helping her, and it made her feel very bad inside.
"It's possible that it's Goro… but how the hell did he do it?"
"Even Cliff died at his hands. As expected of a fellow who grew stronger alongside his main plane…"
“…Wait!" Sylvia snapped back from the shock of Cliff's death. "Why hasn't Gu Nan come over yet? Luke hasn't either!"
Accompanied by this cry of shock from Sylvia, the gods who arrived from all directions realized that there were two members missing among them.
As if she understood something, Diana blurted out, "Quick! Let's head to Atalante!"
……
Atalante.
Gu Nan returned to the palace inside Ian City, where Natasha was still being held captive by him; Goro didn’t even have the time to hide himself yet.
In fact, Gu Nan's round trip didn't take much time. His god-slaying journey moved very quickly. Goro had just finished placating his wife when Gu Nan returned.
Of course, it wasn't as if Goro hadn't tried to break Gu Nan's restraints on Natasha during this period, but with his mere Tier 6 power, he couldn't do such a thing yet.
As soon as he realized Gu Nan had shown up, Goro quickly stood up and glanced at him warily.
Gu Nan, however, merely smiled, casually tossing aside the Blade of Night before lifting the restraints on Natasha.
"What do you want? Are you letting us go?" The vigilance on Goro's face didn't diminish. He didn't even bother to pick up Blade of Night, shielding Natasha protectively behind him in the process.
"That's right." Gu Nan said calmly, "I'll add on a piece of advice as well: take this blade with you and get out of here as soon as possible."
Gu Nan's figure instantly vanished after saying that, as if he’d never been there in the first place.
The palace turned quiet again. Goro slowly walked forward and picked up the Blade of Night. The law of night within it was still strong and didn’t seem to have suffered any damage to the weapon itself.
"He must’ve done something evil with this blade and pinned it on your head," Natasha couldn't help speaking up as she watched Goro's movements.
She grew up in the palace and assisted her father the emperor with political affairs when she was young, so she was all too familiar with such tactics.
It was also because Gu Nan made it very obvious, not bothering to hide it from the two at all.
Goro took a deep breath and put the Blade of Night back in its sheath. "Even if I know that’s the case… I still have to accept this blade."
Natasha was stunned. "Is it really that valuable?"
She wasn't a god, so of course she couldn't tell the Blade of Night's exact value at a glance. She just felt that since Gu Nan had gone to such lengths to make Goro the scapegoat, the blame he was pinning on Goro would definitely be heavy.
"The fact that this is a valuable weapon is one factor…" Goro said helplessly, "More importantly, this blade is something I stole from someone. Would anyone believe me if I went out now and told them someone else stole it from me?"
……
Diana also didn’t believe it. Nobody who could become a god was stupid… Well, except for Karina.
After searching Atalante thoroughly, there was still no sign of Gu Nan and Luke, which was enough for the crowd to understand what had happened.
Goro suddenly gained a great deal of strength or temporarily gained some other kind of leverage and killed two of Atalante's searchers—this leverage, of course, was most likely the Blade of Night.
Then he ran to Sanctuary Continent and killed Cliff inside the Sky Temple, but because the latter was already prepared, Goro had to bring out all the power hidden inside the Blade of Night, alerting the other gods in the vicinity and causing him to flee in a hurry.
The most typical evidence was, of course, that Cliff's corpse hadn't been disposed of in time and was left behind as evidence.
Granted, although gods didn’t trust people easily, this was already the most likely scenario based on the evidence they found so far.
In order to disprove this claim or argue for other possibilities, the first step was to find Goro—so the question arose again: Who still dared to stay in the main plane after all this?
One Tier 8 god had already fallen and two other gods were missing, so who dared to claim that they were infallible?
Even Diana herself was too embarrassed to open her mouth and ask the crowd to venture forward to search for Goro.
"I’ve troubled everyone this time." With a helpless smile, Diana urged everyone to leave, as long as they could occasionally keep an eye out for Goro.
Of course, if they could find Gu Nan or Luke, she also requested the gods to help ask those two what happened to them.
One by one, the gods left helplessly, except for Sylvia, who left deep in thought—she didn't have much evidence, but intuition didn't need evidence.
……
"What? You're saying Gu Nan hasn't returned?" Sylvia looked at Daoist Lingyang in surprise, as if the answer was quite unexpected.
She, who originally thought that Gu Nan would return secretly, couldn’t help feeling a little more worried. "Could it be that… Gu Nan really met with an accident?"
Sylvia wasn't actually very concerned about Gu Nan. Rather, since she was the one who asked the other party for help, she more or less shared some responsibility if Gu Nan died at Goro’s hands.
"What happened?" Daoist Lingyang couldn't help asking.
Sylvia didn't hide anything and recounted what happened after they started searching for Goro.
After understanding the entire matter, Daoist Lingyang revealed a strange smile and said, "So that’s it… You don't have to worry about him. Gu Nan has great fortune, so he’ll be fine."
"Do you know something?" Sylvia sized up the other party with a skeptical gaze and asked suspiciously.
Daoist Lingyang, however, just shook his head in silence. After a long time, he replied, "If you want to confirm Gu Nan's status, wouldn't it be better to take a look yourself?"
"Take a look how?"
"His astral world is still in the Myriad Heavens…" Daoist Lingyang said matter-of-factly.
Sylvia’s eyes instantly lit up.
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