Gu Yanying could not help but become serious too. Perhaps it could actually work?

  But a while later, apart from the large fish that continued to flop around stubbornly, nothing changed.

  Li Qingshan stopped chanting, and the illusion immediately vanished. The statue in the nook was just as ugly before, standing there without budging. It had not been dancing at all.

  He ground his teeth. “I knew it would be fucking useless!” He could not help but admit just how foolish his blind desperation had been.

  “That’s not what you said earlier.” Gu Yanying smiled, but she could not help but ease up as well. If he actually managed to summon a god into his body with his personality, the consequences would have been unfathomable.

  “Alright, alright, get out of here!” Li Qinghan turned around to leave, giving up on this hopeful dream of his. If he could not use the Illusionary Demon Movement Technique, then he could only stick with a regular invisibility technique and make do.

  The surroundings became extremely dim. The smoke and ash from the volcano blotted out half the sky, and orangey-yellow firelight seeped out from the burnt earth due to the magma. The rivers were dyed yellow too. The paradise-like island had now turned into something akin to a lair filled with demons.

  Rumble! A streak of lightning illuminated the sky, kicking up a great gust of black wind. Rain began to pour down.

  The deep nook in the stone wall became even darker. Only a blurry outline of the statue of Maheśvara remained. There was no ugliness left, only might and authority.

  Gu Yanying suddenly discovered that Li Qingshan’s carving skills were not actually that bad. The statue in the nook actually bore great charm. He just never bothered with working carefully and polishing out the details. Probably even he had never thought he would succeed too!

  “If asking for help from gods and buddhas worked, what’s the point of cultivating?”
He smiled and was about to turn around when the eyes of the statue of Maheśvara abruptly lit up as if it had come alive, staring deeply at Li Qingshan’s back.

  The sky became even darker. Winds and clouds surged, rain poured down, and the mountain and trees resembled great waves.

  With a crack of lightning, the colourful, large fish on the altar was immediately reduced to ash as if the god that dwelled at the top of the trichiliocosm had accepted this laughable offering.

  Gu Yanying said, “Be careful!”
“What’s wrong?” Li Qingshan sensed that something was amiss. He turned around, met the eyes of the statue, and stiffened.

  The volcano and the island, the forest, the wind and the rain, all vanished.

  In a daze, he was standing in front of a towering altar that seemed to be carved out from an entire mountain. There was a great crowd of people below, varying in attires and appearances. There were both men and women, young and old, rich and poor. Gazing out, it reached as far as the eye could see. It seemed as if all the people in the world had gathered here, all kneeling and bowing towards him.

  No, not towards him!

  On the altar at the top of the mountain stood a statue of a god even mightier than a mountain, glancing down at him from above and asking softly, “Why do you not kneel?”
Li Qingshan immediately began to fear, like when he had made a great mistake and was caught by his parents during his previous life. He lowered his head in a hurry, but he was still slightly reluctant to accept all of this inside.

  “Qingshan!” Gu Yanying saw how Li Qingshan had abruptly blanked out, standing in front of the statue of Maheśvara in a dejected manner. “Oh no, this kid is messing around and has done something again!”
She flew over to grab him, wanting to take him away, but he refused to budge as if his feet were connected to the ground. Having received the legacy of Heaven-stirring’s feather, she was extremely fast, but she came nowhere close to Li Qingshan in terms of strength.

  “Hmm?” From the top of the mountain, the divine statue let out a questioning, nasal interjection like it was rather puzzled, but it was not angry.

  Li Qingshan raised his hands and suddenly discovered that he had shrunk. All of his powers, whether demonic or divine, had vanished, just standing there as a mortal, in the form of a feeble, powerless child. He began to panic as his legs trembled slightly.

  However, everyone beneath the mountain had been angered.

  “Kneel!”
The sea of people, the billions of lives, roared furiously together, shaking the world.

  An invisible force weighed down on him. Even when he possessed the power of the demonic and divine, he would have struggled to contend against it.

  Rumble!

  In the lightning and rain, Li Qingshan stumbled, falling forwards like a tipping mountain.

  Right when his knees were about to touch the ground, his arms turned into hooves and horns grew out from his head, turning into a strong, black ox. His eyes turned red from anger, and with a moo, he kicked off his bent hind legs, smashing the altar apart with his front hooves and rushing towards the nook.

  Bang! He ran head-first into the statue of Maheśvara.

  Crack! A fracture reached through the entire mountain from the base.

  The volcano erupted violently again and lava poured down. The mist from the vapourised rain churned together with the rising black smoke and ash as lightning flashed between. It was all a bizarre sight.

  Xiao An rushed over, only to see Li Qingshan laying on the ground in the form of a black ox, gasping for air. Gu Yanying patted the ox’s back. “Are you fine?”
Li Qingshan shook his head, feeling extremely exhausted. Xiao An crouched down and stroked the ox’s head gently.

  “Did Maheśvara really descend?” Gu Yanying asked.

  Did an ugly, crude statue and the half-assed chanting of a scripture really summon a god like that? Oh right, there was a fish as well.

  “I don’t know.”
Li Qingshan shook his head. Earlier, right when he fell over, he raised his head and caught a glance. The towering statue at the top of the mountain actually had his appearance, which made him wonder whether it was the Yin Demon at work again. However, there seemed to be some other force at work, or it made no sense for it to abruptly act up.

  By now, the scalding lava had quickly flowed over. He saw from the corner of the eye that the face of Maheśvara’s statue was gradually swallowed by the lava.

  Gu Yanying waved her hand, and the winds brought over the rain, putting out all of the lava. She smiled. “I heard Maheśvara’s mount is a great white ox. With how sturdy you are, don’t tell me he’s taken a fancy to you and wants you as a mount too? That’s a fine thought. Let alone a mere true dragon, but even Demon God Qiongqi would be powerless over you.”
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  Xiao An also said, “The various schools and sects among the heretic lesser paths that worship Maheśvara all have a similar saying. On the back of every single ox is an embodiment of Maheśvara, taking him around to wander the land.”
Li Qingshan felt like his back had actually become slightly heavier, which made him shiver. He reverted to human form in a hurry and stood up, moving around his back as if he was trying to shake off the embodiment of Maheśvara.

  However, he did not actually believe in that saying. At the very least, there was a certain ox that definitely did not have something like Maheśvara on his back.

  He knew about these legends and stories in much finer detail than them. Many cults nurtured and worshipped sacred cows and oxen. Under certain circumstances when they had to destroy statues of gods, they could not smash them with their hands. Instead, they used calves to trample them, as the devoted followers believed Maheśvara would not mind being trampled by his beloved animal.

  It also made him think about the statue of Maheśvara that he had smashed earlier. Li Qingshan shook his head and cast these absurd thoughts out of his mind. He had truly bitten off more than he could chew this time, not only gaining no benefits, but almost suffering from cultivation deviation. He could not help but sigh.

  “Xiao An, you need to stay down-to-earth no matter what you do as a person. You can’t embark on a wicked path!”
“But we’re not people!”
“Erm…”
Gu Yanying comforted him. “Qingshan, you don’t need to be in such a hurry. At most, we’ll just take it slowly for now. We can just face Ao Xuan once your strength completely recovers.”
“Hmm?” Li Qingshan casually circulated the Heavenly Tome of Liberty and discovered there actually was a breakthrough before he knew it, and the effects had been quite substantial. Regardless of the reason, at least it had proven his great technique of summoning a god into the body was effective. He immediately became filled with enthusiasm. “No, I require even more sacrifices and even better statues.”
Gu Yanying said, “You…”
Xiao An only smiled.