Yes, that's right, you were clearly just one step short.

But Guo ShouQue was like a Weeble, hovering on the brink of collapse and disintegration. He let the storm winds scour him; his body was ravaged, his Soul tormented, yet he never toppled.

"You must be really disappointed, huh?"

Guo ShouQue held the plate, savoring the Curse's flavor at an unhurried pace. Between the opening and closing of his lips, he slowly asked, "Anxious? Agitated? Looking forward to me falling? Wondering if I still have my wits? If I'm just putting on a show, gritting my teeth and pretending?"

As he spoke, cracks kept blooming over his shell of flesh, crisscrossing and destroying the very foundations of his balance.

Yet Guo ShouQue remained calm, utterly unmoved, eating the food on his plate without haste.

Savoring this eternal agony from Avici.

It had been so many years since he'd had such a novel and thrilling experience.

Not only the slashes and wounds on his body, but also the bitterness spreading over his tongue and that thread of illusory sweetness—he truly tasted the flavor of this Curse. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

So moving it could bring tears.

Like sweet rain falling from the heavens after a drought that lasted an age.

His withered, necrotizing sense of taste and touch once again experienced the purest joy in all the human world—the joy of eating!

He had sought out countless famous doctors, tried unnumbered methods, yet his affliction could not be treated or eased. The verdict of "no cure" had been pronounced over and over.

His senses were decaying, step by step losing the most important thing to a Chef Demon.

Yet he had never imagined that before his taste buds completely died, he would be able to savor such a moving delicacy again.

Compared to this, all future consequences were not worth mentioning!

All the more so because…

"Do you know what 'Self-digestion' is, Miss Huaizhi?"

Amid the hacking and chopping of blades and Axes, Guo ShouQue slowly put down his now-empty plate, wiped the corner of his mouth, and suddenly asked.

In the instant of silence, Huai Shi's pupils trembled slightly.

He saw with his own eyes the phenomenon known as Self-digestion.

Right beneath that riddled shell of a body, the darkness and Disasters that were almost oozing out of that frame were rapidly shrinking—

The enormous Disasters entwined and dormant inside Guo ShouQue's flesh, the Power that was prepared to rampage the moment the balance broke, was being devoured at terrifying speed.

Devoured by Guo ShouQue himself.

No different from a stomach using its own gastric acid to dissolve itself.

At this very moment, Guo ShouQue was on the inside, devouring at monstrous efficiency all these Disasters that had gone beyond his control… turning them, one and all, into his own Power.

As if, beside these horrors, Guo ShouQue was the true master here!

Even though his already abnormal condensation index began to climb again, it still did not cross that final boundary.

It was stuck, wedged tight, on the very edge of the cliff.

One more step, and it would be the Sky Gorge between two worlds.

"You've failed again, Miss Huaizhi."

Guo ShouQue smiled in pity, lifting a finger to show the tiny distance she was from success. "Just a little bit more—just a little. You'll need to work harder."

Huai Shi sneered. "But before that, you have to taste the second course of Tai Lao, right?"

"Of course."

Guo ShouQue pressed his palms together in solemn devotion and offered up a prayer to that pure and dazzling Divine Nature before him.

Then he lifted the seal and called forth the Disaster.

He presented the noble goat head enthroned in rich aroma and steam above the soup pot.

"I shall partake of what I offer: the sheep and the cattle at the right hand of Heaven. As in the rites and statutes of King Wen, pacifying the Four Directions day by day. Great is King Wen, who has already received this feast. I, from dawn to dusk, shall fear Heaven's might and thereby preserve it."

O great Heaven and God, we present cattle and sheep, following the rites of King Wen, reverent day and night, never daring to forget.

Thus he hummed a chant from the songs of Da Wu.

Guo ShouQue lowered his head, gazing at the goat head surrounded by rich broth and fragrant steam—this was the essence of the Zhou Ritual.

It was also the line that divided God and man.

Only the great existences between God and man, the former Divine Descendants, were worthy to partake of such noble Sacrificial offerings.

"The time has come to test your scope and magnanimity, Miss Huaizhi."

Guo ShouQue said, "If the special pork before represented worldly authority, then this course is the honor that only Demigods bearing the holy Sky's Command to move the Four Seas and turn the stars may receive—those who cannot establish unearthly, immortal achievements are unqualified to enjoy it."

"Sounds pretty good."

Huai Shi took a deep breath, picked up his chopsticks, and reached toward the goat head in the steaming pot before him.

In his ears, countless voices of praise and worship rose once again.

In an instant of daze, the dormant Divine Nature was awakened yet again. Through the barrier of the Soul Armor, it began a solemn Divine Operation, violently breaking through that layer of boundary.

Without any pause or obstruction.

Huai Shi grasped this immortal, world-shaping feat in his hand!

Even Tong Ji had to admit the rarity of this achievement in her Contractor. Even if he could not become one of the Sublimators, he would surely, by other paths, in another guise, through other feats, make his name endure in this world for a long, long time.

To be written into the annals of history was only natural!

But at the very instant the tender goat meat entered his mouth, Huai Shi's movement suddenly halted, freezing in place.

Because under the radiance of the Divine Nature, boundless memories surged up from the darkness, boiling over, transforming into a tidal wave that swallowed him whole—that was the heavy history produced by uncountable reincarnations and uncountable restarts of life in the All Spectrum Heaven Sphere, a force enough to crush any concept, any common sense, any habitual way of being!

The records that had been stripped away as a false book were now returned to him!

What they brought was unprecedented disarray and agony; his Soul was ignited by the Divine Nature, burning furiously, blazing light surging from his eyes like jets of scorching Sun.

Whisper upon whisper rose and fell from the depths of Huai Shi's consciousness, occupying everything.

"Just how far does a man have to walk, before he can become a real man?"

"I am the King of Ten Thousand Kings, whose unmatched deeds dare make Heaven itself bow!"

"I want to live a happy life."

"Kill them all. Leave no one alive."

In an instant, driven by the Sacrificial rites that swiftly swelled this Divine Nature, even that void-like record was restored and overlaid onto the narrow shell of Huai Shi's body. Innumerable illusory Event Branches surged into the records of the Book of Fate, almost crushing the chapter titled Huai Shi into utter ruin.

Content that could not be written out even in a hundred thousand, a million, ten million words—poured in within a single moment.

Responding to the call of this Divine Nature, it set the final limit of what deeds could be accomplished in the mortal world.

In just an instant, memories multiplied ten-thousandfold diluted the existence called Huai Shi into countless side-shadows, becoming extensions of the Divine Nature, akin to an avatar of a God walking in the human realm.

Huai Shi himself became negligible.

Yet in this painful daze, he actually produced a strange illusion.

It was as if… he could overlook everything from above.

By lifting his gaze, he could pierce through all obstructions and glimpse the world roaring in operation.

Countless colossal modules invisible to the naked eye ran like stars in motion, colliding with one another and erupting with crashes like landslides and thunder, waves surging and shrouding the entire mortal world beneath.

He understood the essence of this world with such clarity.

So close to the Truth.

So… gratified by the world ten million years from now!

All things in order, so lucid.

The three great Seals, steady as ever.

This era tranquil, unshakable.

How wonderful…

He was drawn in by the Divine Nature, unconsciously beginning to climb once more, until another voice sounded by his ear.

"You can't go any farther."

Someone affectionately hooked an arm around his neck from behind, that arm pale and slender. When her pupils lifted, mischief curled at the corners of her eyes.

"You're still young, Huai Shi. It's too early for you to learn about adult matters." She lowered her face and whispered a farewell at his ear. "So, benefits and such, we'll talk about them later—"

She raised her palm and snapped her fingers in front of the dazed Huai Shi.

Snap!

A soft crack.

In the shadow at Huai Shi's feet, the Reflection named Huaizhi Sushi opened her eyes, boundless radiance bursting from her pupils. Behind her head, a glorious halo slowly rose.

The stand-in that had been prepared and managed for so long finally came into play at this instant.

The empty void shell took Huai Shi's place and became the vessel of this Divine Nature.

Those fabricated memories and non-existent Event Branches instantly receded; all dizziness and illusions scattered without a trace.

In their stead, from behind the head of Huaizhi Sushi's 'Reflection', a solemn halo slowly took shape, a majestic and austere sight like that of a God.

This portion of Divine Nature, exceeding the limits of control, ceaselessly radiated terrifying flames of light. Through the existence of the stand-in, it inflicted upon Huai Shi's Soul the torment of being burned beneath the Sun—

The distance was far, far too close.

If not for the anchoring of his Soul Armor, his Soul would probably have been shattered in an instant like dust.

When Huai Shi finally woke from the chaotic whirlpool of memories, he saw only the empty soup pot before him—during that unconscious Gluttony, not even a drop of broth had been left behind.

Only the pale goat-headed skull remained.

And as the price for accepting the offering, the Source Substance had been almost completely burned dry. His Stigma lagged, without response; the Buried Sacred Place quivered with unrest, and the darkness thinned to an unprecedented degree.

The Steel Crows still had no idea what had happened. One by one, they lay sickly inside the Dream Cage, even their chants of Sanctus becoming jagged and uneven, weak and feeble.

Fortunately, the barrier and protection of the Dream Cage still remained. They did not possess Huai Shi's resistance against Divine Nature— even that faint trickle of overflow had almost purified and sent them on to the other side.

He could clearly sense how dangerous his current state was. If not for the stand-in Huaizhi Sushi, he would have long since lost all consciousness; when primary and secondary reversed, he would have become nothing but an extension of this Divine Nature.

Soul, Stigma, flesh, and even the entire Flock.

Right now, Huai Shi had been driven by Guo ShouQue to the edge of a cliff—only one step away from annihilation!

"You must be… very disappointed, right?"

When he raised his head again, Huai Shi looked at Guo ShouQue, smiling as he returned the exact same words.

At last, in those pitch-black eyes he made out an unprecedented shock…

The hands that were about to press together in prayer froze in midair for a moment, unable to offer devout homage to his most perfect work.

Guo ShouQue stood there, stunned.

The plan had gone awry; the outcome deviated from his predictions.

Completely different from what he had imagined.

The Small Sacrifice Domain had been shattered, and Huai Shi at this moment had officially stepped into the category of Tai Lao, with only the final trial remaining.

But no matter how he tried, he could not comprehend how Huai Shi had managed to preserve his humanity before a Tai Lao passed down for millennia. How could a Third Stage Sublimator Maintain selfhood beneath such a vast Divine Operation?

Nothing about this made sense.

It was abnormal to the extreme.

And at the same time, it drove him to the peak of excitement!

Like witnessing a Kunpeng break the Sea and rise with the winds, his exhilaration defied description.

In that instant, standing on two utterly different cliffs, the two who wrestled with each other glimpsed blazing flames burning in the other's eyes.

The final round was about to begin!