Butcher, Grandpa Blind, and the Mute Smith, along with the others, crowded around with a clatter, their eyes bright and focused as they stared at his third eye, watching it closely.
Suddenly, with a thunderous boom, Crippled Joe had already dashed a hundred miles away. Looking back, he saw Butcher and the others crowding around Quinn Shepherd, and even with his famously thick skin, his old face flushed red with embarrassment before he ran back.
Everyone knew he was timid, but they didn’t mock him; instead, they continued to carefully study Quinn’s eye.
Quinn’s eyes darted around nervously. He stammered, “Granny, grandpas, what are you all looking at?”
Granny Sue scrutinized him closely but found nothing unusual in his third eye. All she could see was that its pupil was patterned like butterfly wings, with textures clearly different from a normal human’s eye—structured like the wings of a butterfly, and these patterns kept shifting and changing.
“Quinn, do you really not remember what just happened?” Granny Sue asked.
Quinn racked his brain, then suddenly his eyes lit up. “I remember now!”
Everyone tensed up unconsciously. Quinn grinned, “I activated the Overlord Three-Core Art and, following Grandpa Blind’s improved Divine Eye method, ran it through my third eye. I felt an incredibly vast power surge up, as if I could do anything. And then...”
He frowned, falling back into deep thought. The rest of his memory was blank; it was as if he’d lost a chunk of time.
And this wasn’t the first time it had happened. Back in Nether City, when Lord Hades sealed his Jade Pendant, it happened once. Later, when Furylo sealed the pendant, it happened again.
This time, it had nothing to do with the pendant—yet another chunk of memory was missing.
“The pendant... Where’s my pendant?”
Suddenly Quinn’s scalp tingled. He jumped to his feet, frantically searching everywhere, hands cold and trembling. “My ancestral pendant is gone—wait, not ancestral, it’s the Jade Pendant Tu Bo made to suppress my demonic nature! Granny, Grandpa Blind, did you see my pendant... Crippled Joe, it was you, wasn’t it? Stop playing around, it’ll trigger a curse! Hurry and give it back!”
Crippled Joe shook his head. “I didn’t steal your pendant. But the curse did break out.”
Quinn’s whole body shuddered. He stood there in a daze, staring at the enormous pit ahead.
Before him, the old City of No-Regrets had vanished, replaced by a colossal abyss, vast beyond measure, filled with roiling magma and a sea of fire.
It really was a sea of magma, so broad it was terrifying.
“The power of this curse is unbelievably huge—hundreds of times scarier than when Furylo had my pendant...” Quinn muttered.
“Quinn, just now Tu Bo appeared and put your pendant into your third eye.”
Granny Sue came over and instructed, “Clear your head first. The rest of us are going over there to talk things through.”
Lady Lurien sensed the terrifying energy unleashed when Quinn's third eye opened, distorting space. She murmured, "This is the true might of a Netherworld divine child! I can help you seize control of High-Emperor Heaven, but you must help me capture him! If I can obtain him, what unimaginable power would I wield?"
Furylo gazed in the direction of the City of No-Regrets, his expression grave. He too had felt the shocking disturbance when Quinn lost control. "Fire Tura is dead? Could that also be his doing? And Sky Gale, you'd better not let me down..."
[Irrelevant meta-text omitted]
Meanwhile, up ahead, an army of Netherworld demon gods led countless Netherworld fiends in a mighty march toward Departure City. The instant Quinn lost control, the Demon Ancestors froze, staring in terror toward the source of Quinn's aura.
The horde of Netherworld fiends grew restless and panicked, abandoning their advance. Instead, they turned as one and surged back like a tide, trampling each other in their terror, unwilling to take another step forward.
In the chaos, countless Netherworld fiends were trampled to death. Some, frustrated with their slower companions, even turned on each other, slaughtering their own kind. The demon army descended into utter chaos.
Even the Demon Ancestors turned and fled, scattering in all directions, desperate to escape back into the depths of the Netherworld.
They felt a deep, instinctive terror at the aura Quinn unleashed. Even with their muddled minds and little intelligence, they could never forget the time that giant infant rampaged through the Netherworld, slaughtering and devouring them.
Suddenly, Lady Lurien shrieked, her voice echoing in the eerie Netherworld Tongue. Gradually, the Demon Ancestors calmed, ceased their flight, and began to corral the fiends, hunting down any who tried to run.
Not long after, Tu Bo's magma avatar appeared, resealing Quinn. The terrifying aura vanished, and only then did the Netherworld fiends stop fleeing, regrouping into an army and continuing their march eastward.
In the demon realm, the Woodcutter Sage and the twenty-four other gods from the Great Ruins all looked up, sensing the disturbance from High-Emperor Heaven even here in Luofu Heaven.
"It's the demonic nature sealed by the jade pendant erupting."
The Woodcutter Sage exhaled heavily and said in a low voice, "Good thing I didn't break the seal on the pendant back then. When I heard he was born in the Netherworld, I knew there was something strange about it..."
A god asked, "Who is the Celestial Teacher talking about?"
The Woodcutter Sage rubbed his temples and sighed, "My little disciple... Let's not talk about him. Back to work."
The twenty-five gods resumed their tasks, constructing colossal golden sacrificial altars in Luofu Heaven.
In Departure City, Brightfall City, and elsewhere, the Everpeace Imperial Preceptor and God Pang Yu were interrogating Sky Gale. They too sensed the terrifying disturbance, flying into the air to look toward its source, hearts full of dread.
"It seems to be coming from the City of No-Regrets! From the watch-post!"
God Sang Ye exclaimed, "This is bad! Cult Master Quinn and those strange companions are still there!"
Meanwhile, at the World Bridge, light flashed in the passage as a youth and a three-legged, winged god stepped out. They immediately sensed Quinn's berserk aura and were stunned.
"Why is Quinn losing control now? If he starts a massacre here, it'll be hard to lure him into Everpeace..."
Young Master Cyrus Qi's eyes flickered. Just then, Quinn's berserk aura vanished, and he let out a sigh of relief, smiling, "That's more like it."
Suddenly, Lord Sunstar exclaimed, "Young Master, I can sense my hand!"
He raised his right arm—only to reveal that his right hand was missing!
"The Heaven Saber who cut off my right hand is in High-Emperor Heaven too! He actually survived!"
Lord Sunstar's expression darkened. He sneered, "I split him in two, and yet he still lived!"
Beside the abyss near the City of No-Regrets, Butcher suddenly felt a stirring and squeezed his Glutton Dragon Pouch at his waist. His pouch was a bit smaller than Quinn's, not top-grade, but it could still hold many things.
Inside his Glutton Dragon Pouch, a skeletal hand was quivering, leaping about, as if it wanted to fly out and return to its master.
Behind Butcher, the Heaven Saber vibrated and let out a ringing sound.
"I'm heading out," Butcher said.
Butcher tightened his robe and declared, "An old friend has arrived. Today, it's time to settle old scores. Bashan, don't follow me—stay here."
Bashan's tiger eyes lit up. He scoffed, "Teacher, you want to ditch me again? Is it that god who split you in half? Back then, you were cut at the waist and crawled all the way to the Great Ruins. I spent years searching for you, crying over you! Now you want to face him alone again? At least let me come along to pick up your corpse! Even if he cuts you in two again, I want to see you breathe your last before I give up!"
Butcher's hand trembled, barely restraining the urge to split his own disciple with a saber.
Quinn quickly interjected, "Grandpa Butcher, you're whole now, but your old friend is missing a hand, right? So you didn't lose out—he did. Even if you don't go looking for him, he'll come for you. Why not sit tight and let him come to you instead?"
[Irrelevant author note omitted]