Ruyi suddenly broke into a radiant smile, like a begonia flower blooming for the first time, bright and captivating.

She touched his face with her hand, nodding with satisfaction. Just as she was about to speak, she suddenly tensed up: “This is bad.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, Shen Qiyuan had already pulled her up to the third-floor terrace.

Today, Lin’an had originally been blessed with clear skies stretching for thousands of miles, but now, for some unknown reason, a layer of dark, murky fog had suddenly risen in the sky. Strange cries echoed from the distance, and birds startled from the forests, fleeing to hide under the high eaves. The air became humid and foul-smelling, as if damp hemp cloth had been piled in a dark place for dozens of days before being taken out to wipe various surfaces.

Ruyi gazed into the distance with keen eyes, faintly able to see a large group of demons heading toward Lin’an.

“Impossible.” She instinctively shook her head. “I watched them each enter seclusion to heal their wounds. They shouldn’t emerge for nearly a hundred years.”

Much less so many demons all emerging together in unison.

Shen Qiyuan looked carefully and felt somewhat puzzled: “Why have all their eyes turned red?”

Ruyi pulled him as she leaped down to the back courtyard: “Who has time to worry about red or green? Let’s go intercept them first.”

With the Demon King’s Token in hand, she felt that as long as she reached outside the city walls in time, everything would be fine.

However, when the two of them exited the city gates and saw that surging mass of demons, Ruyi’s heart grew cold.

The red-eyed Yunque flew at the very front, colliding head-on with her as she sat on horseback. She grabbed it with a swift motion, only to discover that Yunque seemed to have lost consciousness. No matter how she shook it, it wouldn’t regain awareness, only stiffly opening its mouth and straining toward her throat.

Ruyi quickly tucked it away with a reverse motion, then swiftly cooperated with Shen Qiyuan to establish a formation.

“It won’t work, there are too many.” Shen Qiyuan glanced at the ground. “You stand back.”

Dismounting with a flying leap, Ruyi retreated as instructed.

Shen Qiyuan struck down with one punch, and the ground suddenly split open with a crack. That fissure rapidly extended in both directions, the gap growing larger and larger, becoming a deep ravine in the blink of an eye. The demons charging at the front all fell into it.

With the situation somewhat alleviated, Ruyi hurriedly injected demon power into Yunque’s brow.

The red color in its eyes faded, and Yunque coughed and awakened.

“What’s happening?” she asked urgently. “Instead of enjoying incense offerings in Great Xia, what are you all doing running into Great Qian’s territory?”

“I, I don’t know either,” Yunque replied in confusion. “We were healing our wounds when suddenly red rain began falling outside, carrying a bloody scent. That smell was so enticing that I went out and pecked at two drops, and then…”

Then she lost consciousness.

Red rain? Ruyi frowned deeply, tucking Yunque into her sleeve before looking up ahead again.

The ravine could temporarily halt these demons’ assault, but there were truly too many demons surging up from behind. In another half hour, they would fill this ravine and continue charging toward Lin’an by stepping on their companions’ bodies.

“We might need to notify the heavens,” Shen Qiyuan said in a heavy voice.

If they notified the heavens and the immortals arrived on the scene, not one of these demons would survive.

She had worked so hard to convince them that they no longer ate humans and only cultivated using incense offerings. If they all died here, the remaining demons would surely riot.

“Let me try first.” Ruyi stepped forward two paces, forming hand seals to pour out her demon power, transforming it into a dark cloud that rustled down as rain.

Her demon power could restore these demons’ consciousness.

However, awakening Yunque alone had used more than a hu of demon power, much less the many demons ahead that were far larger than her in size. Even if she transformed all her demon power into rain, it probably wouldn’t be enough.

Shen Qiyuan watched her stubborn figure from behind and sighed.

He formed hand seals again, enveloping her with pure white light, wanting to help her.

Just then, a tremendous crack suddenly rang out from the sky, and the dome that Shen Qiyuan had been maintaining shattered in response.

“This is bad.” His expression changed drastically. Without thinking, he slapped a formation array onto the ground, then pushed Ruyi into it.

Ruyi didn’t even have time to speak before she was instantly transported back to the Meeting Immortals Inn.

Fine, dense cracks began appearing in the sky, more and more, denser and denser, until the entire dome crumbled to powder and burst apart with a bang. Torrential rain followed immediately after, crashing down noisily on the tile eaves.

She stood stunned, gripping the railing as she looked outside.

As far as her eyes could see, golden light like evening clouds rose in the sky outside the city. Cloud layers descended like gossamer, slowly and softly, and within the layered, overlapping thin mist, Sanskrit chanting echoed while divine shadows appeared everywhere.

This was the scene she had witnessed in her illusion – the gods of the nine heavens arrayed in all four directions. Only now, the person standing among them had become Shen Qiyuan.

She instinctively wanted to leap out.

“Senior Sister.” Yunque flew out anxiously, gripping her clothing with its beak. “Beware of heavenly lightning!”

The dome had already broken. If not for Shen Qiyuan’s quick reaction just now, heavenly lightning would already have struck both their heads.

Forcibly stopping her movement, she pressed her somewhat suffocating heart.

“Azure God, do you know your crime?”

A deep voice resonated between heaven and earth.

Shen Qiyuan looked up at the divine being in the very center. The majestic Celestial Emperor was quite different from what he had imagined. He had thought the ruler of heaven would be kind and compassionate, never expecting this person to wear golden armor and possess such an intimidating presence.

“This minor god knows not,” he answered.

The Celestial Emperor half-closed his eyes as he looked down at him, his form as massive as Mount Tai: “You were bewitched by demon spawn, destroyed human temples, already violating heavenly law, yet you also privately established a dome to deceive us, and now before all the gods you openly protect demon spawn. How dare you claim ignorance?”

Hearing these words, it was clear that Puhua had made false accusations again.

Shen Qiyuan looked up, gazing directly at the Celestial Emperor: “The human temples were not destroyed by me, but by imperial decree of the human emperor. As for why the emperor issued such a decree, why don’t you ask Divine Lord Puhua?”

Puhua was right there beside them, but he wasn’t standing – instead, he was weakly leaning against a divine beast: “Ask me a thousand or ten thousand times, I’ll say the same thing. You instructed demon spawn to bewitch the human emperor, which led to the destruction of my temples.”

Ruyi felt her blood surge with anger upon hearing this, wishing she could rush over and punch him.

But Shen Qiyuan seemed to have anticipated this long ago. Unhurriedly, he extended his hand, and a thick stack of case files flew out from the Ministry of Justice, fluttering down into the evening clouds.

“These are case files of common people who died in Lin’an – a total of one hundred twenty-seven lives. Their only common point was that they had all burned incense and made prayers at Puhua’s temple.”

The Celestial Emperor slightly lowered his gaze, and those characters floated up in the air, transforming into scene after scene.

Incense smoke curled upward as devout men and women prayed sincerely. They quickly had their wishes fulfilled, but died as thin as dry wood on the second day after their wishes came true.

All the gods were secretly shocked, turning their gazes toward Puhua.

Puhua’s eyes darted left and right as he tried to make excuses, but upon meeting the Celestial Emperor’s gaze, he still obediently knelt: “This was caused by this minor god’s mistake. This minor god accepts punishment.”

“Mistake?” Shen Qiyuan scoffed. “One person could be called a mistake, but over a hundred people are all mistakes too?”

“Your Majesty, the Celestial Emperor, please discern clearly. This minor god has also been in the nine heavens for several hundred years. If I truly cultivated by taking mortal lives, how could only these hundred-plus people have died?”