Chapter 261: Chapter 260: The Sun Is Completely Dead, Devoid of Life Force

Ji Shengyue and Zong Yajuan were completely lost, having no idea what Xiao Cangqing was talking about.

When Shiva and Brahma emerged from that resplendent Divine Hall in the White Elephant Empire, the sky above the entire nation filled with a radiant glow.

And when they fought Chu He, they displayed an unparalleled level of power.

However, Chu He was simply too strong—so strong that countless people across Blue Star were plunged into despair.

Ji Shengyue and Zong Yajuan had watched the entire battle, and they too felt a sense of hopelessness.

Faced with such a terrifying existence, how could anyone possibly fight him?

Ji Shengyue, in particular, had never imagined that Chu He’s strength could rival that of those Deities.

If she had known this beforehand, Ji Shengyue would have undoubtedly made the same decision as her father, the king:

keep Chu He in the Great Jing Empire forever as its National Guardian War God,

and grant him supreme glory, resources, and status.

But at the time, in order to secure her throne and cultivate an iron-fisted image,

Ji Shengyue had made her move against Chu He.

Besides, back then, Ji Shengyue didn’t believe Chu He was irreplaceable.

So, before she acted, she had already found replacements: those twelve women and Xiao Cangqing.

As a result, Ji Shengyue learned the hard way what it meant to take things for granted.

Both the twelve-member Time Girl Group and Xiao Cangqing had publicly humiliated Ji Shengyue before countless onlookers.

After watching the livestream, Ji Shengyue felt such intense regret for the first time.

"The so-called Deities of the White Elephant Empire—Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu—are nothing more than some Evil Spirits who found the shed skins of true Deities."

Xiao Cangqing said.

"Shed skins?" Ji Shengyue asked, her face full of confusion.

"You’ve seen a cicada in the summer, haven’t you?"

Xiao Cangqing explained patiently.

"I have," Ji Shengyue nodded.

"A cicada sheds its shell on a tree. That is its shed skin, marking the beginning of a new phase of its life."

Xiao Cangqing said.

"You mean an Evil Spirit found the skin a Deity shed in the Mortal World, put it on, and disguised itself as a god?"

Ji Shengyue was stunned. The news was simply earth-shattering.

"That’s right. Precisely.

In the Great Xia Empire, there’s a folktale called ’Painted Skin,’ also known as ’Ghostly Painted Skin.’

It’s a story from *Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio*, a collection of classical short stories written by an ancient novelist from the Great Xia Empire named Pu Songling.

The story is about a hideous ghoul who dons a human skin, painted with colored brushes,

disguising itself as a beautiful woman and using all sorts of tricks to achieve its goal of tearing open people’s bellies to rip out their hearts.

Later, the ghoul is exposed by a Daoist priest. Under the pursuit of a wooden sword, it’s forced to shed its painted skin and reveal its true form before being slain with a single strike.

But this kind of painted skin is nothing compared to the skin a Deity sheds in the Mortal World.

That skin retains the traces and power of the Deity who once wore it.

Once an Evil Spirit finds it and puts it on, it can gain a sliver of the Deity’s power, causing its own strength to increase dramatically, to an unimaginable degree.

But a fake is still a fake. Chu He’s strength is indeed immense—so immense that he can even suppress the skin shed by a Deity."

As he said this, a hint of solemnity touched Xiao Cangqing’s face.

Hearing this shocking news,

Ji Shengyue’s mind fell into turmoil, and she couldn’t quite identify what she was feeling.

The feeling of overwhelming, irredeemable regret seemed to lessen slightly, but it still clung to her like a shadow.

Regret was regret.

No matter how Ji Shengyue tried to suppress the emotion with self-deception, as she usually did,

she simply couldn’t push it down.

"Do you know why this world was suddenly invaded by Evil Spirits?

Lands everywhere are falling to a strange power.

In its heyday, Blue Star’s population reached tens of billions,

but is the remaining population even five billion now? It’s far from it."

As he spoke, Xiao Cangqing made a gesture.

Immediately, a beautiful young woman from the Vampire Clan walked out.

She held a prepared wine glass filled to the brim with scarlet blood.

The woman placed the glass in Xiao Cangqing’s hand.

Xiao Cangqing gently swirled the glass, then took a sip. The blood instantly stained his lips red.

The faint, coppery scent of blood began to fill the office,

causing many members of the Vampire Clan to swallow uncontrollably, their throats bobbing.

This was an instinctive reaction for the Vampire Clan members; upon seeing blood, they wanted to drink it.

Moreover, the blood Xiao Cangqing was drinking was of the highest quality, something most members of the Vampire Clan would never get to taste.

Seeing Xiao Cangqing slowly savoring the blood, Ji Shengyue made a face.

It wasn’t that she wanted to drink blood;

rather, her stomach was churning, and an unpleasant taste filled her mouth.

She forced herself to change the subject, following up on Xiao Cangqing’s earlier point. "Why?"

"Because the sun is already dead." Xiao Cangqing pointed a finger toward the sky.

"How can the sun die?" Ji Shengyue’s eyes widened in disbelief.

"In the concepts of the Great Xia Empire, the sun is the ultimate embodiment of pure, unadulterated yang energy. All evil spirits, demons, ghouls, and other foul things fear its power.

But a long time ago, the sun had already reached the end of its life.

A few days before the Evil Spirits appeared, the sun died completely. It lost its Life Force,

and the light it now gives off possesses less than one-ten-thousandth of the power it had when it was alive.

That’s why the Evil Spirits began to reawaken, one by one. The longer this goes on, the stronger the sun’s aura of decay will become, and the weaker the power within its light will be."

After inheriting the power of the Vampire Clan’s Ancestor, a vast amount of esoteric information had also flooded Xiao Cangqing’s mind.

However, this information quickly integrated with his own thoughts,

and from it, he had extracted a great deal of useful knowledge.

Xiao Cangqing drained the blood from his glass, walked over to Ji Shengyue, and placed a hand on her head.

Ji Shengyue suddenly felt the space around her being torn apart.

Every wisp of air, every ray of light, began a twisted and frantic dance, weaving together into a series of bizarre and fantastical images.

This wasn’t just a visual feast; it was a full-scale assault on her senses,

as if she’d been swept into a ceaseless vortex where the flow of time became both sluggish and rapid, impossible to grasp.

Her heart raced in time with the violent fluctuations of the scene around her, each beat a silent struggle against this mysterious power.

A wave of nausea washed over her, accompanied by intense vertigo. The entire world spun and collapsed before her eyes,

but Ji Shengyue, relying on her astonishing willpower, endured all the discomfort.

Furthermore, an ancient and powerful force originating from Xiao Cangqing flowed within her, helping her resist the fatal impact of the spatio-temporal distortion.

It allowed her to maintain a sliver of clarity even in the midst of this strange realm.

As her vision plunged deeper, the once-blurry and chaotic scenes began to sharpen, finally freezing on a breathtaking image.

It was a massive, boundless, blazing sphere!

Its light was so incandescent that it could eclipse everything in existence!

To compare this sphere to a burning planet would be to underestimate its vastness and terror.

Before this behemoth, Ji Shengyue felt as insignificant as a single grain of millet in a vast ocean—not even a speck of dust.

The surrounding air warped from the intense heat, and the concepts of time and space lost all meaning here.

Ji Shengyue felt as if she were in a dimension that was simultaneously ancient and futuristic, every cell in her body screaming with fear and awe of the unknown.

"This is the dead sun."

Xiao Cangqing’s voice sounded from behind her.