Chapter 738: Five Questions

## Chapter 731: Five Questions

Humans are so weak and indecisive; a slight scare is enough to leave them utterly bewildered.

Recalling the fear he once felt when facing a sand leopard, He Lingchuan couldn't help but shake his head. "That's a trick!"

"Say what you will," the old temple attendant panted. "Secondly, the higher the quality of the vessel, the stronger the soul tends to be, and the greater its resistance to a god. It's already incredibly difficult for a god's avatar to descend to the mortal world, achieving only a fraction of its full power. Expending more energy to suppress the original owner of the vessel and an unwilling soul would be highly troublesome."

It coughed. "That's why a mark is needed... With a divine seal mark, it's easy to suppress a mortal's soul!"

He Lingchuan gave a slight sneer. "After all that talk, it seems it's not so easy for gods to forcibly suppress a mortal's soul after all."

So, in this respect, gods weren't as powerful, nor were humans as weak, as he had thought.

Shi Nan snorted with laughter. "That's because we're blocked by the barrier between the two realms and can't display our true power! Otherwise—"

Otherwise, how could ant-like creatures even register in our minds?

He Lingchuan immediately asked, "Then, how can a divine seal mark be removed?"

Shi Nan cackled aloud. "You want to remove the mark?"

"Of course." He noticed the fellow's malicious grin. "What you've offered isn't enough again."

This wild god was incredibly greedy; it would even charge for simply speaking. Without hesitation, He Lingchuan said, "Forget it then. We'll meet again."

"Really not asking?"

He Lingchuan nodded to Dong Rui, and the two turned to leave.

"Hey, wait!" Shi Nan, perhaps having been out of business for a long time with He Lingchuan as its only "big spender" recently, suddenly became exceptionally agreeable. "How about you take this god's token? When I come across something satisfactory, or valuable information, I'll naturally tell you."

He Lingchuan refused even more directly this time. "Forget it."

Carrying Shi Nan's token would be like wearing a tracking device, likely with surveillance and eavesdropping capabilities too.

He Lingchuan had too many secrets to allow it such close proximity.

Shi Nan looked at He Lingchuan again and suddenly said, "Alright then, I'll let you ask three more questions as an advance."

"Why are you suddenly so kind?"

"Consider it an investment; I've always been a good judge of character," Shi Nan chuckled. "In return, you must bring me another used Torture Dragon Pillar within a year."

He Lingchuan smiled back. "Five questions."

"Four."

"Five, or nothing at all."

The old temple attendant held up five fingers. "Alright, five questions. Think carefully."

He Lingchuan thought carefully for a moment. "My first question is the same as before: how can a divine seal mark be removed or concealed?"

Shi Nan cackled. "I knew you'd still want to ask that... Give up. Unless the god who placed the mark withdraws it themselves, it cannot be removed or covered."

He Lingchuan's expression finally changed.

Was there really no solution?

Shi Nan couldn't see his expression but seemed to savor his panic. "Just wait patiently for Naraka's arrival; this is your destiny! Mortals, in the end, must all accept their fate."

Dong Rui said from the side, "Hey…"

Before he could utter the next word, He Lingchuan suddenly raised a hand, cutting him off.

The room fell silent. Both the human and the god watched He Lingchuan, whose face was grim as he fell into deep thought.

Shi Nan grew impatient; only four fingers remained upright. "Four questions left."

He Lingchuan took a deep breath. "How many avatars can a god send down?"

"To the mortal world?" Shi Nan replied without hesitation. "Only one at a time. That's an iron rule!"

"You..." He Lingchuan quickly rephrased his sentence to avoid wasting a question. "I've seen some gods manifest miracles in various places."

"You think divine descent is a game, that we just send down an avatar on a whim?" Shi Nan glared. "Manifesting miracles doesn't necessarily involve using an avatar."

Three questions remained.

"Can a vessel that has received a divine seal mark be lent or transferred to another god for use?"

"What kind of question is that?" Shi Nan shook its head. "No!"

With the last two questions remaining, He Lingchuan thought for a long while. "Are there any instances where a vessel successfully resisted, causing a god's descent to fail?"

The old temple attendant's eyelids drooped. After two breaths, it said, "To my knowledge, no."

The answers to these two questions were too brief; Dong Rui, listening nearby, felt it was a loss.

Only He Lingchuan understood their weight.

This would likely be the basis for his future actions; naturally, the simpler and clearer, the better!

Shi Nan urged him, "What about the last question?"

The temple attendant, old and frail, was struggling even to communicate, let alone facilitate a divine descent.

"I want all the information on the god Bilu, also known as Naraka!"

"..." This young man had saved a big one for the end.

"How can that be considered a single question?"

"Strictly speaking, all my previous questions about divine descent should only count as one," He Lingchuan said, patting the offering table, where the glazed gold still gleamed translucently in the dim light. "You're getting a huge bargain."

The old temple attendant sighed deeply. "Alright."

"Naraka was originally just the minor god Bilu, whose divine rank was similar to mine. In the divine realm, there are countless minor gods like us."

He Lingchuan listened silently. Countless? This fellow was exaggerating.

General Hong had said that the gods in the divine realm numbered no more than a hundred thousand and were divided into several ranks.

"That fellow also experienced the ancient great war but always kept a low profile; most residents of the divine realm hadn't even heard its name. We later discovered it was quite active, not in the divine realm, but in the mortal world!"

He Lingchuan's expression shifted. "How so?"

"Your questions are used up, so you can only listen," Shi Nan said unhurriedly. "It quietly built many temples in the mortal world, cultivated numerous followers, and had them collect Nightmare Qi everywhere on its behalf!"

Nightmare Qi! He Lingchuan was slightly startled. Could it be...?

"Yes, collected with the Torture Dragon Pillar," Shi Nan sighed. "One hundred sixty or seventy years ago, the Torture Dragon Pillar suddenly appeared in the mortal world. Initially, not many gods knew how to use it, but Bilu had already secretly acquired many Torture Dragon Pillars and sent followers to wander the mortal world, collecting Nightmare Qi everywhere on its behalf."

"It seized the initiative this way, relying on massive amounts of Nightmare Qi, and swiftly ascended to a true god in just over a hundred years!" Shi Nan said with a bitter smile. "By the time other gods reacted, Lingxu City and the gods superior to it had already begun strict investigations and searches for the Torture Dragon Pillars, which led to many wars."

The early birds feasted, while those who came later couldn't even get scraps; they only suffered.

It sighed. "In short, Bilu rose too quickly, and eventually, all the gods had no choice but to acknowledge its promotion to a true god. Such luck truly made other gods envious."

(End of Chapter)