A plain-looking woman stood there.
Yet there was a strange aura about her that drew the eyes without warning.
She stood quietly behind the bookshelf, gaze calm as she looked at Ye Yu.
She said nothing, as if waiting for him to speak first.
A sudden intuition rose in Ye Yu: this woman was Bai Hong.
She was the master of the Divine Alliance in Tongtian Pavilion.
Only she was worthy of the name Bai Hong.
So Ye Yu couldn’t help but test her. “Are you Bai Hong?”
A smile appeared on the woman’s face at once.
“Yes. I am Bai Hong. It’s been a long time since anyone called me that. Hearing it now feels almost unfamiliar.”
Ye Yu glanced around on instinct. Space showed no sign of warping.
That stirred doubt in his heart.
Why did speaking that name near Luo Shu and Liu Yuenong twist space, while now it did not?
As if reading his mind, Bai Hong slowly stepped out from behind the shelf and walked toward him.
“You’re wondering why saying my name right now doesn’t cause spatial distortion,” she said softly. “I can tell you this: inside this secret realm, I am indeed a taboo.”
“Someone is deliberately trying to erase my traces.”
“When everyone forgets I exist, I will disappear completely.”
“And this secret realm will shatter with me.”
“If not for your arrival, I likely would not exist anymore.”
“Because you still remember my name—Bai Hong.”
“So I can appear before you and suppress the force that twists space.”
Hearing this, Ye Yu frowned slightly. “What exactly is going on?”
By now, Bai Hong was standing before him.
Then, in a low voice, she told him the whole story.
Beneath Tongtian Pavilion, a terrifying being is sealed.
It is the incarnation of Luo Shu’s evil thought.
Know this: he is the Guardian Great Saint of the Demon Realm—no empty title.
He was truly born in response to fate, favored by heaven and earth.
Step by step he grew into the three-headed hound that can stand for the Demon Realm itself.
Legend says it devoured countless demon kings; their bones rose into three mountains at the edge of the Demon Realm.
Hence the title: Guardian Great Saint.
Though those demon kings’ bodies were dissolved, their resentments remained.
When that resentment reached a dreadful magnitude,
it gave birth to the incarnation of Luo Shu’s evil thought—
bloodthirsty, cruel, cold, and solitary.
When he shattered the void and stepped into the God Realm, his soul had not yet stabilized.
That gave the evil-thought incarnation its chance.
It launched a sneak attack on Bai Hong, intending to swallow her as nourishment.
Fortunately, Bai Hong reacted fast and denied it its prize.
Later, when Luo Shu—restrained—soon regained clarity, he asked Bai Hong why she was injured.
Had she been attacked?
To keep him from guilt and the heart-devil it breeds, Bai Hong did not mention the evil-thought incarnation.
She brushed it off with a casual excuse.
Afterward she searched for a way to remove the evil-thought incarnation from Luo Shu.
Only later did she learn the incarnation was also part of the body itself; if excised, the consequences would be dire—at best a stalled cultivation, at worst instant death.
With no other choice, Bai Hong knocked Luo Shu unconscious, drew out the evil-thought incarnation, and sealed it beneath Tongtian Pavilion.
She split off a strand of divine soul into an artifact to suppress it.
At the same time, she used the power of the Divine Alliance grand formation as support to ensure nothing could go wrong.
She thought that would settle it.
But fate turns. At the height of its glory, Tongtian Pavilion fell from its pedestal.
First Luo Shu was gravely wounded, then Bai Hong perished.
Tongtian Pavilion slid into ruin.
Fortunately, the divine soul Bai Hong left within the artifact did not disperse and still suppresses Luo Shu’s evil thought.
But as time passed,
the Divine Alliance grand formation lacked the energy to continue and gradually ceased operating.
Meanwhile the evil-thought incarnation kept growing stronger, reaching the peak of the Divine Lord realm.
Just as it was about to break the seal, Liu Yuenong returned.
Back when Bai Hong fell, she told this disciple about the evil-thought incarnation.
So Liu Yuenong has been searching for a way to deepen the seal.
Sadly, she found nothing.
Even so, Liu Yuenong did not retreat.
She took the initiative to return to Tongtian Pavilion, pulled the Divine Alliance into a secret realm with great magic, and planned to use this method to seal Luo Shu’s evil-thought incarnation forever.
But the idea was still too simple.
The evil-thought incarnation had long since mastered a way to break the secret realm.
All it needed was to ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) extinguish the artifact that bears Bai Hong’s soul-strand—the Undying Heart Lamp.
Doing that is easy: make everyone forget Bai Hong, and the Undying Heart Lamp will naturally go out.
After that, the evil-thought incarnation could smash the secret realm and regain its freedom.
Then the entire God Realm would face a great calamity.
After Bai Hong finished, Ye Yu lifted a brow. “So the spatial distortion and the rule that your name can’t be spoken before others—those were set by Luo Shu’s evil-thought incarnation? What should I do?”
“Simple. Make more than half the people of Tongtian Pavilion remember my name again. Any method will do—”
Before she could finish, the doors of the Archive Pavilion swung open, and her figure vanished in the same instant—as if she had never been there.
The newcomer was none other than Liu Yuenong.
Breathing hard, she stared at Ye Yu for a long moment, then said in a low voice, “Dong Hongzhuo has fallen on Bygone Mountain. The Guardian Great Saint summons you to the side hall.”
Ye Yu turned to where Bai Hong had just appeared and narrowed his eyes.
Soon, led by Liu Yuenong, Ye Yu returned to the side hall.
This time, the Guardian Great Saint Luo Shu was not seated on the dragon throne; he stood, solemn, before a map.
The map marked the locations of the Divine Alliances and the terrain of the God Realm.
A large cross was drawn over Bygone Mountain.
Luo Shu seemed exhausted. In a quiet voice he said, “Kid, you may have been right. I tried to defy fate—ordered Dong Hongzhuo, who was out traveling, to return to Tongtian Pavilion and warned him again and again to avoid Bygone Mountain.”
“But against all expectation, he encountered the Boundless Sea Alliance’s god-race in the Eastern Sun Range.”
“The battle was fierce, stretching for ten thousand miles.”
“In the end, on Bygone Mountain, Dong Hongzhuo was killed.”
“So fate cannot be reversed after all, can it?”
