Ascending the Heavens as an Evil God

If Demon Lord Alfred was a god, his equivalent rank would probably be somewhere between Tiers 9 and 10, and he was also an existence that similarly possessed a Godhead.

In fact, Demon Lords had an inherent advantage over normal gods. They naturally owned large territories in Hell, and all the demons inside could be developed into their followers.

Compared to ordinary gods who had to work hard to find believers after lighting their divine fire, Demon Lords simply had it easy.

Of course, these types of Demon Lords were also Gu Nan's hunting targets. However, he would not target Demon Lords under normal circumstances.

The reason for this was simple: most Demon Lords were the type with a lot of enemies, so the locations of their hiding places were very closely guarded secrets, making it hard for even Gu Nan to easily find them.

However, he didn't mind accepting this time, as the most difficult part of the process had already been done by Academic Heaven on his behalf.

……

Inside Academic Heaven, Fang Chaoyun and his eldest disciple—Lin Huan—were also discussing Gu Nan's current mission.

"Master, do you think Gu Nan will accept this mission?" Lin Huan asked without much confidence.

This time, it was precisely after he happened to learn of Alfred's identity as a member of the Heaven-God Alliance that he purposely found this Demon Lord’s hiding place and then sent the mission to Gu Nan.

Of course, this was only because Alfred really was participating in the war. Otherwise, if they did something like this, their intentions would seem too blatant and wouldn’t be in line with Academic Heaven’s open and straightforward style.

But if someone questioned them about this, they could just shrug it off by saying they didn't know Alfred’s identity.

Fang Chaoyun put down the brush in his hand and answered after some thought, "It's hard to say. I actually hope he’ll refuse."

"Alfred is an important member of the Heaven-God Alliance. If Gu Nan really goes after him, the conflict between the two sides will escalate," Lin Huan said excitedly.

Fang Chaoyun stayed silent, so Lin Huan continued, "Even if Gu Nan acts secretly and hides this matter, we’ll still have a secret we can threaten him with!"

"Enough!" Fang Chaoyun rebuked with a heavy voice, "These tactics are already close to despicable. I’ll let it go this time, but you must not use them again in the future!"

Lin Huan was frightened and quickly bowed to admit his mistake. Fortunately, Fang Chaoyun didn’t intend to investigate further and quickly dismissed this disciple of his.

Only after leaving Fang Chaoyun's study did Lin Huan let out a sigh of relief, but he actually became more determined.

His master was a righteous man, which was why that villain Gu Nan could scheme him repeatedly. However, Lin Huan’s background wasn’t purely in Confucianism, so he didn’t have so many scruples!

Lin Huan's thoughts were very clear. He knew that Academic Heaven’s greatest enemy was the Heaven-God Alliance, especially Zi Luo Elder.

Gu Nan and the Heaven-God Alliance might not necessarily be united, so it may not be impossible to find a way to divide and conquer… It would be a delight to watch two dogs bite each other to death!

With such a thought, even Lin Huan’s footsteps seemed lighter, feeling some joy from being able to plan victory from a thousand miles away.

……

Gu Nan had already returned to his Divine Kingdom by now.

His two identities of "Ghost" and "Black Robe" mainly frequented the frontlines of the war between the two worlds, so it wasn't hard for him to return to the Myriad Heavens.

The mission to hunt Demon Lord Alfred had been handed to him, but it was impossible to communicate all the details in that message, so it was necessary for Gu Nan to return to the Divine Kingdom.

Besides, Gu Nan hadn't said that he would accept this mission…

"Tell Fang Chaoyun I'll consider this matter," Gu Nan expressionlessly said to the emissary from Academic Heaven.

When he entered the Evil God Temple, Red Tail was the first to come up to Gu Nan. "My Lord, will you accept the Demon Lord mission?"

Although it was a question, there wasn't much surprise in her tone, as if she was already certain of his answer.

After all, she had long known that Gu Nan intended to invade Imperial Glory Heaven, so it didn't matter if he fell out with the Heaven-God Alliance.

"Of course I’m going to accept." Gu Nan said with a smile, "But if the order of events is different, it’ll be a completely different matter…"

Red Tail stared blankly, not understanding what he meant.

"Prepare to start the Divine Kingdom War," Gu Nan calmly ordered, having no intention of elaborating further.

So Red Tail didn't ask anything else and left with a nod. The greatest strength of this old subordinate of Gu Nan’s is that she knows what to ask and what not to ask.

Gu Nan glanced at his panel. After two and a half months of frenzied hunting, his Evil Value was already close to 80,000, which was getting closer and closer to the Tier 10 requirement.

One of the more interesting features in the game was that the Evil Value requirement during the Second Round wasn’t a fixed value but was instead related to the player's earlier gaming history.

In other words, if a player wanted to advance to Tier 10, the system would sum up all their previous experiences, ultimately giving a specific Evil Value requirement.

Due to his constant pursuit of maximum efficiency, Gu Nan’s Evil Value requirement for Tier 10 this time was around 130,000, so he roughly still needed… one and a half Tier 10 gods.

"Since Hell comes with a large swath of faith, the Evil Value from Demon Lords like Alfred should be about the same as a Tier 10 god." It wasn't like Gu Nan had never killed a Demon Lord before, so he had some experience with this.

If their locations were known, Demon Lords were indeed easy targets; the difficulty was much lower than directly looking for Tier 10 kills.

Assuming that one Alfred would give 30,000 Evil Value at most, there was still a gap of about 20,000 that needed to be filled by two Tier 9 gods…

"Two Tier 9 gods, might as well get them in one fell swoop this time!"

……

Lin Huan finally received Gu Nan's reply, and the latter's answer was undoubtedly affirmative.

"Good, good." Lin Huan couldn't help secretly sneering. He had already set the stage. As long as Gu Nan participated in Alfred’s ambush, it would be hard for him to disassociate himself from this matter any longer.

And with such a weakness in hand, this information could always be used against Gu Nan. Perhaps in the future, at a critical time, this would be an extremely important chess piece!

Lin Huan didn't delay, immediately writing something down and sending it to the frontline command center.

This was an order to command four high-ranking Star Rulers to join forces to ambush a Demon Lord. Despite his own lack of strength, being able to command high-ranked Star Rulers like this gave Lin Huan the illusion of having power.

……

Zhang Xuyan of Lyrical Heaven, Ye Xing of Literature Heaven, and an old acquaintance of Gu Nan's, White Bones Realm's Daoist White Bones—these three were Gu Nan's teammates this time.

The first two were both from Academic Heaven, martial brothers in the truest sense of the word, while Daoist White Bones was a powerful Star Ruler invited by Academic Heaven at great cost to help deal with high-ranked gods.

Of course, now that the Great War between the two sides had developed to this extent, there was no longer anyone who could truly stay out of it. After all, they also had family and friends who were affected, and Daoist White Bones was no exception.

It could be said that Academic Heaven had used most of its trump cards this time in order to deal with the Demon Lord.

Putting aside these two Heaven Level Star Rulers, the next time Academic Heaven's powerhouses struck, it would probably be Fang Chaoyun himself.