The demon god was locked in a fierce duel with the Great Ruins deity guarding the altar. Though he kept his senses sharp, his opponent’s strength forced him to focus all his attention on the fight. When Granny Sue’s cursed shirt flew toward him, he sensed no threat and didn’t defend. By the time he realized something was wrong, the garment had already landed on him—far too late to react.
The moment the shirt landed, it shrank rapidly, clamping around his chest and squeezing his ribcage tight. His ribs creaked and popped under the crushing pressure.
It was as if the shirt were covered in countless needles that stabbed deep into his flesh, sending waves of searing pain through his body—pain so intense it was almost unbearable.
The demon god couldn’t catch his breath and hurriedly shrank his body—after all, as a demon god, altering his size was trivial. Coincidentally, his opponent’s sword swept by just as he shrank, and he narrowly dodged the blow.
But no matter how much he shrank, the cursed shirt shrank with him, never loosening its grip.
“Break!” he roared.
He tried to expand his body to burst free, but the shirt didn’t budge. Instead, he heard the sickening crack of his own ribs breaking!
Not only his ribs—even his internal organs were being crushed, on the verge of bursting apart.
His chest was constricted to the thickness of a thumb, the shirt’s inner lining bristling with silver needles that pierced his body, destroying his physical functions. Trying to expand now was truly courting death.
In that instant, as his body swelled, the Great Ruins deity seized the opening, driving a sword straight through his skull and nailing his Primordial Spirit in place.
The demon god stared wide-eyed, blood gushing from his mouth. In a hoarse voice, he rasped, "If you hadn't put that little shirt on me, you wouldn't have beaten me..." With that, he died.
The cursed shirt slid off his corpse, flew back to Granny Sue, and unraveled itself into strips of rag, which returned to her basket.
Quinn glanced at the strips of cloth in the basket and ventured, "Granny, your tailoring skills have gotten even more impressive. Where did these strips come from, and how can they bind a demon god's body so tightly?"
"The strips are woven from demon sinews, with a few dragon tendons I picked up in the Great Ruins. There weren't enough, so I could only make them into cloth strips."
Granny Sue chuckled, "But the real key is the Grand Fostering Heavenly Demon Sutra. It lets me sew these rags together into something even a demon god can't break free from."
"I can also make a couple pairs of little shoes. I still have enough demon god hide to sew thousand-layer soles—plenty to make two pairs of cloth shoes."
Granny Sue pulled out two shoe soles, winked, and grinned. "Anyone who puts on my little shoes won't be able to live or die, and they'll never get them off. Quinn, do you want to try a pair of Granny's little shoes?"
"No way! You made me wear too many of those when I was little—my feet are still stunted from it!"
As they spoke, the Great Ruins deity guarding the altar called out from afar, "Fellow Daoists, please come up and join me!"
Quinn and Granny Sue climbed the altar. The deity was tall and handsome—so much so that when he saw Granny Sue's beauty, he nearly lost his composure before quickly steadying himself. He bowed and thanked them, saying, "So it's Cult Master Quinn. And is this friend from Taihuang Heaven? Thank you both for your help!"
"You know me, senior?" Quinn asked in surprise.
The deity smiled. "The Celestial Teacher has mentioned you before, Cult Master."
"Where is the Celestial Teacher now?" Quinn asked quickly.
"Over there!"
The deity pointed into the distance. "The sixth altar is where the Celestial Teacher is stationed. I must remain here to guard this altar and can't escort you two further. Forgive me!"
Quinn and Granny Sue took their leave and headed in the direction he indicated. Along the way, they saw other altars under attack—some besieged by demon armies surging like tides, others contested by lone demon gods fighting for control.
They helped where they could; where they couldn't, they circled around.
One altar had already fallen to the demons, its godly guardian likely slain—a tragic but inevitable outcome. The Woodcutter Sage had seized the demon race's lifeline, threatening Luofu Heaven itself, leaving the demons no choice but to fight desperately to regain bargaining chips for future negotiations.
"Luofu Heaven is this dangerous, and yet demons still live here!" Granny Sue remarked.
Quinn and Granny Sue saw the skeletal remains of many demon gods towering over forbidden zones, surrounded by uneven stone steles carved with demon script—likely wards against the disasters here.
The demons lived within the Divine Treasuries of these fallen demon gods. After each calamity, some demon gods must have sacrificed their bodies so their clans could survive.
"Granny, why does this demon world suffer such disasters? Where do they come from?" Quinn asked, puzzled, looking up at the colossal shattered planet moving across the sky, stirring up more disasters and unleashing earth, water, wind, and fire.
Fragments of stars streaked down from the sky like fiery serpents, crashing who knows where.
Granny Sue shook her head. "How should I know? Maybe these are genuine natural disasters, or maybe gods and demons moved planets here with great magic to bring down tribulation. Only existences like Furylo might know the truth."
At last, they reached the sixth altar.
From a distance, Quinn and Granny Sue saw the altar shrouded in black and white divine energies, swirling above it like two giant fish biting each other's tails.
"Furylo is here!" Granny Sue exclaimed.
Quinn tensed. "I wonder if Lucius Li is here too? If he is, then the Woodcutter Sage is in real danger!"
He peered up at the altar and saw many different Divine Treasuries, but atop the altar itself, only the Woodcutter Sage and Furylo possessed god-palace-level treasuries. He saw no sign of anyone who had entered the Heavenly Palace or Demon Palace realm.