I Don't Agree to the Terms

Therefore, offering tributes to the Divine was meant to extract chaos and transform it into order, but it was evidently a failure, and this chaos was still growing.

"So thinking about it this way, I can really understand why there would be malice." If there was a traitor among Gu Shanhai's disciples, he would harbor such great malice too, ensuring the traitor understood what it meant to be a strict teacher producing outstanding students.

"So it needs to be dealt with quickly, it really is a hot potato."

The world didn't have a corresponding subjective consciousness, and it hadn't acted against Gu Shanhai yet—it was giving him the chance to handle the situation. If Gu Shanhai couldn't manage it, the world would take over.

Fortunately, there was no need to worry about being targeted by the world; after all, he had merits to his name and belonged to the same camp.

Gu Shanhai had managed to clear his name successfully thanks to the existing mechanism of changing his surname. This mechanism had always existed; if the Divine spirits, suppressed between illusion and reality, had given up their chaotic divine nature or cooperated with the world to eliminate it, they too could have been purified into true gods.

The idea was sound, but the problem was that during that stage, the minds of the Divine spirits were controlled by the evil formed by chaos, devoid of any spiritual intelligence. How could they possibly be willing to give up or cooperate?

This was like an animal shelter taking in an injured wild tiger. When the veterinarian wanted to treat it without effective anaesthetics and expected the tiger to cooperate, naturally, the tiger wouldn't be willing. It would act on instinct and attack, leading to a deadlock.

The relationship between the Divine spirits and the world was like this: the former unwilling, the latter wanting to heal, and the tribute mechanism acting as anesthesia but unable to fully transform, leading to a deadlock for ages unknown.

"It's about time, first..."

"Wait, why has another opportunity come?"

Gu Shanhai felt his heart leap, spontaneously hinting that an opportunity was about to present itself.

"I remember the last opportunity was the Abyssal Vortex..."

Watching the calm sea nearby begin to ripple, which then formed into a huge vortex.

"Indeed it is." Gu Shanhai felt that, in this world, there really weren't many things left that could constitute an opportunity for him.

Opportunities became rarer the stronger one was.

Only encounters that matched one's own strength counted as opportunities. Otherwise, a Mahayana Realm picking up a pill precious in the Qi Refinement Realm wasn't really an opportunity—perhaps someone in the Mahayana Realm wouldn't even bother to pick it up.

Thus, in this world, the only useful thing left for Gu Shanhai were manifestations of heaven and earth, hence the Abyssal Vortex had come.

"Is this 'luring the tiger out of the mountain'?" Gu Shanhai looked at the Abyssal Vortex, guessing its appearance was probably because of the malice from the divine spirit in his sleeve.

Letting him enter it meant finding a place to release the divine spirit, and then he could leave.

Of course, they wouldn't let Gu Shanhai do this for nothing, but would reward him, and quite generously at that.

"Going in is out of the question, but not going in would bring trouble."

The world wouldn't target him directly, but if the targeting of the divine spirit implicated him, that would be another matter.

"If it doesn't work out, set up an altar to communicate?" Gu Shanhai thought that communication between people was important, and so was communication between a person and the world.

As long as he could make the world understand that he had the capability to handle it, then this matter could be resolved easily.

Once decided, Gu Shanhai acted immediately. In the Heavenly Mechanism Flow, there were sects capable of directly communicating with the world. Though Gu Shanhai hadn't pursued that path, he derived some corresponding techniques through his own learning.

Gu Shanhai quickly shared his thoughts with the world, stating that he would consume all the Divines and then leave this world after a hundred years, but he needed the world to cooperate with his method of consumption to avoid any struggle.

In this way, the world wouldn't have to worry about the Divines re-emerging, and Gu Shanhai would also gain some benefits.

Soon after, the world gave its feedback.

The gist was that cooperation was possible, but Gu Shanhai had to deal with the Divine problem within three years, meaning that within three years Gu Shanhai must refine them into manifestations of heaven and earth and use them to breakthrough to the Divine Phase.

The world was quite decent; it didn't care about the fate of the Divines, only demanding that Gu Shanhai dispose of them quickly.

Of course, if the Divines were not successfully consumed and dealt with within three years, then Gu Shanhai would have to send the Divines back for the world to handle.

As for this, Gu Shanhai didn't haggle. Three years was a tight timeline, but it didn't matter. If worse came to worst, he could just take the Divines and run away from this world, as after three years, he would likely only have some loose ends left to tie up, and it wouldn't matter if he made his breakthrough in this world or not.

He didn't have to worry about the strange phenomena elsewhere; he could simply go to the player's city through major forces and contact them, then set a meeting with the world later, or even just meet directly in the player's city after forty years.

After getting confirmation, a large number of law fragments with blank attributes emerged, falling directly into Gu Shanhai's hands.

The number was vast, and Gu Shanhai estimated that there were at least ten million pieces, enough to form ten manifestations of heaven and earth with blank attributes.

"This is too generous." Gu Shanhai initially thought that was it, but unexpectedly, there was more to come.

This made Gu Shanhai almost feel embarrassed to take away the Deep Sea Vortex.

If the main world really didn't give anything, he could have taken the Deep Sea Vortex and still stand firm, saying, "I also work for you," but you are stingy and unwilling to give anything, so he would feel justified taking it.

Now it was different; the other party had given so much that Gu Shanhai felt the world was genuinely sincere, as sincere as the Daoist Soldier World, though flawed, the generosity made these flaws less glaring.

The Deep Sea Vortex gradually calmed down, and Gu Shanhai gathered the massive number of law fragments. With these fragments, Gu Shanhai no longer had to worry about not having enough "glue" to create manifestations of heaven and earth.

"But speaking of which, why is the world so generous?" Gu Shanhai was puzzled—logically, the world didn't necessarily have to respond to him because, based on the response, this world didn't seem to have an integrated entity like the Heavenly Dao or a World Will.

It was a rigid operating program; thus, it only acted this way if it judged that giving these law fragments to Gu Shanhai was beneficial, not because it truly made human-like calculations of weighing pros and cons and attracting people's hearts.

The world did indeed weigh pros and cons, but not of a species or a civilization, but of the world itself.

"Forget it, what's taken is taken." Gu Shanhai checked the law fragments several times, didn't find any issues, and planned to find a quiet place to further inspect them. If there really were no problems, then he would just reap the benefits first and then not care what happened to the world after everyone had left. They'd have to catch him to blame him.

And he didn't need to worry about causing trouble for Wang Qi; Wang Qi was the protagonist himself, always the one in the action. Even if Gu Shanhai was around, it would still be a life of hardship for him.

Gu Shanhai sensed again, and the world no longer harbored any malice towards him, but the malice towards the Divines still existed. Since he had opened the altar and communicated, he naturally wouldn't allow himself to be affected.

Moreover, the malice on the Divines was suppressed, although it still increased in total, it would not erupt but would do so after three years if Gu Shanhai failed to meet the agreement and didn't deliver them to the world.

The outcome then would be predictable; even Gu Shanhai would suffer, as the world could act justifiably since he had agreed but failed to fulfill, especially after unashamedly accepting the gifts.

Nevertheless, Gu Shanhai didn't care about these. Why should the world trust him? Using malice as a constraint was normal. Gu Shanhai didn't trust the world either; he still needed to further inspect the law fragments for any problems.

As long as there were no conflicts of interest or direct losses, both sides would turn a blind eye, as after all, it was a mutually exploitative trade.