"A zombie?"
I silently watched the screen as Tan Tian battled the Wraithlord. Judging by his fighting style, he was indeed a zombie. I had vivid memories about zombies in my mind, but I couldn’t recall the encounters I’d had with them before.
Especially on the floating island formed from my memory fragments, I saw a village. Behind the village lay a vast area where countless coffins were buried in the ground.
By now, the fight between Tan Tian and the Wraithlord had reached a fever pitch. Although Tan Tian wounded the Wraithlord, his attacks could never deal a fatal blow. No matter how he pressed the assault, there was no real progress. As the Wraithlord grew serious, Tan Tian’s body was shattered again and again by his strikes, turning to ash each time, but would quickly reform and restore itself.
Excitement shone in the Wraithlord’s eyes. He had no idea what this creature before him truly was—not human, not ghost, nor a gift from the gods. Yet it could fight him, and most importantly, it could not be killed. The Wraithlord had shattered Tan Tian’s body countless times, but it never made any difference.
The Wraithlord, too, was wounded again and again, but those injuries meant nothing to him.
"How many times do I have to kill you?"
Finally, the Wraithlord stopped. He watched as a yellow, viscous substance—like mud—gathered in the air and reformed. Tan Tian appeared before him, but now the smile on his face had grown stiff.
"I can’t kill you, and you can’t kill me either. But no matter how long this goes on, one of us will fall eventually."
The battle resumed. Yet at that moment, Mother Goddess Nuwa, locked in her cage, seemed to understand something. A strange light flickered in her eyes.
"Back then, I made up my mind to end all of this."
I stared in astonishment at Mother Goddess Nuwa beside me. The Wraithlord’s three children were still next to the cage. Their expressions were all different; contrary to what the Wraithlord claimed, not all of their emotions had been taken away. Some remained.
"You three must choose—this world, or your father."
For a moment, hesitation filled their faces. At last, Sylvia Yan spoke.
"If we let Father continue like this, everything will come to an end."
The Wraithlord, who had noticed what was happening, immediately turned to stop them. But the three children still freed Mother Goddess Nuwa from the cage.
"What are you trying to do? Betray me?"
The Wraithlord’s eyes widened. Meanwhile, at the Unreal Covenant, the gods descended once again. After so long with the Wraithlord, Mother Goddess Nuwa seemed to have found a way. Tan Tian threw himself into holding the Wraithlord back.
Now the Wraithlord sensed something was wrong. All his power came from Hell, but that power seemed to have been cut off by something.
Part of this world was built from the bodies of dead gods, and Hell had devoured that portion of divine power. Though the gods were dead, their power still lingered. The living gods managed to use the power devoured by Hell to temporarily sever the Wraithlord’s strength.
But such a severance couldn’t last long. Hell seemed to go berserk, surging violently. The world was swallowed by underground blackness, and within the darkness, a massive red-glowing eye appeared through a crack.
One by one, the gods died under Hell’s overwhelming power. They were determined to destroy the Wraithlord. Tan Tian’s body could no longer reform as quickly as before. In the Unreal Covenant, the villagers, led by Loraine Locke, stepped out again to resist the ghosts.
With a thunderous crash, Tan Tian finally fell, floating in the air like a pile of mud, unable to re-form. Furious, the Wraithlord charged toward the gods who were still holding Hell at bay, beginning a massacre.
"Drink my blood. You cannot kill him, but you can use the fragment of the Heaven-Mending Stone within your body to separate him."
Staring at Mother Goddess Nuwa before him, Tan Tian’s eyes widened in confusion. Nuwa glanced back at the Wraithlord, who now roared like a wild beast.
"Mother, why? For the second time, what do you want to do? I am the child you created."
Sensing the change, the Wraithlord lunged at Mother Goddess Nuwa. She slit her wrist, letting her blood drip onto Tan Tian. Instantly, Tan Tian’s body reacted, reforming and glowing with rainbow light.
With a sharp sound, Tan Tian plunged his hand into the Wraithlord’s heart. Rainbow light exploded outward, and in an instant, Tan Tian’s body was torn apart.
Golden chains shot from the gods’ hands. As the Wraithlord’s form vanished, three copies split from him. While everyone was stunned, the Wraithlord was finally subdued.
Three distinct souls—this was Mother Goddess Nuwa’s perfect solution. She forcibly separated the Wraithlord’s three souls from his ghostly essence. But this could only be done in his moment of extreme weakness, and the cost was high. Of the gods, only five remained; the rest had died at the Wraithlord’s hands.
"Are you really that cruel?"
The Wraithlord roared in fury, but Mother Goddess Nuwa remained cold and silent. The Wraithlord’s three souls had only been separated temporarily during his weakness. Meanwhile, the Eye of Hell below opened wider and wider—the gods’ barrier wouldn’t last much longer. Once Hell’s eye fully opened and broke through the barrier, the Wraithlord could kill them all in an instant.
With a crack, Mother Goddess Nuwa took part of the Heaven-Mending Stone fragment embedded in Tan Tian’s body and split it into seven pieces.
Immediately, seven differently colored fragments floated around the Wraithlord’s three souls. Nuwa held up her bleeding wrist, letting her blood drip onto the fragments. Gradually, seven rays of light—each matching a fragment—began to flow from the Wraithlord’s souls into the fragments.
Because of his intense resonance with Hell, the Wraithlord’s power was extraordinary. Now the medium of resonance—the Wraithlord’s seven emotions and six desires, his seven souls—had to be severed. Nuwa planned to seal away all seven souls. Since she created the Wraithlord, only she could truly contain him.
It worked. The Eye of Hell lost its connection to the Wraithlord and slowly closed. Now, the Wraithlord—his emotions barely lingering—regressed to a state like a crying infant, wailing for his mother.
Everything seemed to calm. Humanity survived in the end. Without the Wraithlord’s suppression, the ghosts were no longer a threat and quickly retreated. The islands severed from Hell began to sink back into the abyss.
The bodies of the dead gods began to change once more, transforming into earth and plants. Life returned to the world.
Tan Tian quietly gazed at the gloomy sky above. After a great hole was torn open, sunlight streamed down. At that moment, he had lost all emotion. In his final instant, Tan Tian smiled.
"So sunlight is this beautiful!"
Even after all this, no one could afford to be careless with the Wraithlord. He couldn’t be killed; if his three souls and seven spirits ever merged again, nothing could stop him.
But now, the challenge facing everyone was more than just one thing. These seven Ghostblood Jades required regular offerings of Mother Goddess Nuwa’s blood to maintain the Heaven-Mending Stone’s seal. As the gods restored light to this broken world, it was also time for their departure. And as humanity grew, the divine blood would only become more diluted.
"Seal his three souls first, Mother. Otherwise..."
Loraine Locke quietly watched the Wraithlord, who wailed like an infant, searching for his mother.
Mother Goddess Nuwa slowly approached the Wraithlord’s three souls—Heaven Soul, Earth Soul, and Human Soul—all gazing at her with longing. The Earth Soul was the most dangerous and powerful; the other two, though strong, were less harmful.
"Do you want my love? Then fulfill my three wishes. When you do, I’ll return and take you with me."
Mother Goddess Nuwa spoke softly, and the three souls nodded. Then, with a wave of her hand, she created a pale blue pillar of light. It would always remain a pillar. She tasked the Earth Soul with destroying it—this was the first wish.
Next, she pointed, and a maze of white paths appeared. She told the Heaven Soul that his second wish was to reach a destination that had never existed—once he did, she would come for him.
Finally, it was the Human Soul’s turn. Mother Goddess Nuwa produced a book with blank white pages—no words, no pictures. She told the Human Soul that the third wish was to understand what was on those empty pages. If all three fulfilled their wishes, she would return and love them.
I shuddered all over, staring in surprise at Mother Goddess Nuwa. These three wishes were impossible to fulfill.
"Such cruelty. If only everyone had sat down to talk, maybe another solution could have been found. Why wouldn’t you speak with him?"
Mother Goddess Nuwa looked at me quietly and shook her head.
"Zhang Qingyuan, perhaps you’re right. But it’s all over now. The conflict between humans and ghosts has never shown any sign of reconciliation since their creation. The Unreal Covenant’s oath still remains—someone must fulfill it. The oath of humans, ghosts, and gods."
I gazed at Mother Goddess Nuwa, not understanding, though something seemed to dawn on me. Soon, I could only smile bitterly.
"I still haven’t figured out my own past."