The divine palace of Fate.

​​

The three statues of the Deities of Fate had been broken into pieces.

Even though a casual attack by the current Reneedol was powerful, Lachesis had left behind defensive techniques on the statues, so they were only broken into fragments by the attack instead of thoroughly crumbling into dust.

Gu Qing Shan released his inner sight throughout the entire divine palace.

He had a complete grasp of the situation in a mere single breath's worth of time.

For a cultivator at his level, it was as easy as turning his palm to fix a couple of broken statues.

Gu Qing Shan casually formed a hand seal.

The small fragments flew into the air and gathered at the center of the divine palace.

Following Gu Qing Shan's will, the fragments reformed into the shape of the three statues.

Gu Qing Shan used a technique to temporarily hold the fragments together and made sure that they wouldn't abruptly collapse.

After that was all done, he approached it and began to carefully examine the statues.

-------but these statues were just carved out of rock, there was nothing suspicious about them at all.

15 minutes later.

He still couldn't find anything.

Gu Qing Shan sighed, then waved his hand.

Three swords appeared behind him.

"Take a look for me if you can see any issues with these statues" he said.

The swords flew out and circled around the statue a few times.

The Chao Yin sword was the first to return, loudly vibrating with an embarrassed tone.

Gu Qing Shan consoled it: "Ah, it's ok, this is very difficult for sure, even I couldn't discover any clues"

A few moments later, the Earth sword also returned and hovered in mid-air.

It asked in a mountainous heavy voice: 「 Reneedol was one of the three Deities, but even after she examined them, she couldn't find any secrets. Could you have made a mistake? 」

Gu Qing Shan was a bit surprised but answered hesitantly: "I'm not sure either. I simply thought that after being summoned in that way, since she didn't have a lot of time, Lachesis wouldn't have told me useless things"

The Earth sword thought about it for a bit, before it then flew back and continued circling around the three statues again.

A few moments later, the Six Paths Great Mountain sword returned, Shannu's voice reported from the sword:

"Gongzi, there were originally defensive techniques on these three statues, but they're gradually fading away now"

Gu Qing Shan nodded: "Since they've been destroyed once, it makes sense for their defenses to gradually weaken"

"Other than that, I didn't discover anything either" Shannu replied.

Gu Qing Shan appeared a bit helpless.

No matter how he looked at them, these three statues were still only statues.

Perhaps it isn't a matter of the material or technique, but something else entirely?

Gu Qing Shan retreated a bit further and observed the three statues from afar.

Among the three statues; the eldest, Clotho, was on the left, and the youngest, Atropos, was on the right, while Lachesis stood in the middle. Their expressions were calm, dignified, and focused.

It was a real wonder who the sculptors of these statues were, as they perfectly depicted the three Deities' delicate physique, graceful features, as well as overwhelming charm.

After silently observing them for a while, Gu Qing Shan couldn't help but mutter:

"What are they looking at…?"

The gazes of the three statues were respectively looking in different directions.

Gu Qing Shan casually formed a hand seal.

A ray of light shot from his hand and connected to the iris of the Deity of Fate Clotho, then followed her gaze until it reached the wall.

Like the other divine palaces, the walls of this divine palace were also decorated by a series of grand murals that depicted the glorious past of the palace's Deity.

The place Clotho was gazing at depicted a pivotal moment in the saga of the past, countless Deities had been killed by the Apocalypse, leaving only a single Deity clad in black flames who barely managed to sit on the ground while praying to the three female Deities.

This Deity wielded a long-handled black scythe.

It was the Death God.

Gu Qing Shan's heart jumped a bit.

…

"…Death God, you are the only hope"

…

Lachesis' statement sounded by his ears once again.

------could she have been able to foresee this within Fate?

Gu Qing Shan lightly clenched his fist.

It was only now that he had finally confirmed that his conjecture was correct.

These three statues were definitely hiding some sort of secret.

------a secret that not even Reneedol had been able to discover!

Gu Qing Shan put his hands together to form another hand seal, sending two more rays of light towards Lachesis and Atropos' eyes respectively.

The mural Atropos was looking at depicted the most intense part of the war-------

On the battlefield, severed limbs and body parts were scattered all over the ground, the Deities were dying off one after another while Atropos herself was looking towards the severed limbs and body parts.

While Lachesis was gazing towards the top of the mural.

This mural reached towards the peak of the divine palace, where there wasn't quite enough light to illuminate it. Without carefully taking a look, one wouldn't be able to see anything clearly at all.

At the top of that mural, a single Deity was depicted standing on top of a tall cliff with a war horn in her hands. The warhorn gave off a divine holy light that summoned millions of Deities to the decisive battle.

At a glance, that Deity was indeed Lachesis.

But as Gu Qing Shan carefully observed, he found that it only looked that way.

It's as if…

This Deity is not quite right somehow.

Within the divine palace filled with murals of history, this Deity took up such an insignificantly small portion that anyone would easily miss her if they didn't take a careful look.

But Lachesis' statue was gazing straight at herself on the mural.

Then, this female Deity surely represents something.

Gu Qing Shan's figure shifted a bit as he moved towards the top of the mural to take a closer look.

-------indeed, this is Lachesis.

But her figure carries a sort of indescribable aura that is different from the real Lachesis as well as Lachesis' statue within this divine palace.

Gu Qing Shan fell into thought.

Three Deities.

All of which were gazing at three different locations.

-------the Death God.

-------severed limbs and body parts.

-------and a specious depiction of a Deity.

Gu Qing Shan closed his eyes and silently thought for a while.

The Death God represents Death, this was easy to infer.

Then, what do the severed limbs and the unfamiliar Deity represent?

Gu Qing Shan silently descended from the ceiling of the divine palace and looked around himself.

Reneedol had taken two Divine Artifacts away.

Other than the murals and statues, there isn't anything else in this place.

Gu Qing Shan recalled Lachesis' words once again.

…

"…In the past, I once predicted… someone in the far future would attack our statues… I made sure to imbue the statues with strong defensive measures to ensure that they remain intact"

"Never did I think... the one who ultimately caused the statues to break was actually one of us three sisters of Fate…"

…

In other words-----

Someone would have attacked the statues, but it wouldn't have been Reneedol.

Who did Lachesis think would attack the statues?

After a moment of silence, Gu Qing Shan abruptly exuded black flames from his entire body.

The Death God.

The one who would have attacked the statues would have been the Death God!

Gu Qing Shan took a deep breath, crouched down, then clenched his fist.

The boundless flames that filled the air slowly descended and converged towards his fist.

Gu Qing Shan threw a light punch towards the three statues.

Bam!

The three statues were once again broken apart and fell all over the ground.

This time, as the defensive techniques on the statues had already lost their effects, the black flames did not fade away and instead continued to burn the fragments.

Gu Qing Shan silently waited.

After a few moments, most of the fragments had already melted, leaving only a few that were burnt to the point of glowing incandescent, but still remained intact.

As Gu Qing Shan took a close look, he saw that the fragments that still remained intact were the relatively larger pieces, like Clotho's arm, Atropos' torso, Lachesis' head, and so on and so forth.

Scattered severed limbs…

Aren't they the 'corpses' of the three Deities right in front of me?

Then the only clue remaining would be the unfamiliar Deity.

That's very clear now.

Gu Qing Shan waved his hand and summoned the remaining statue fragments towards him.

-----there were around a hundred pieces in total.

Gu Qing Shan maintained a hand seal while putting the fragments of the statue back together again.

Time slowly passed.

Very quickly, a completely new Deity statue appeared in front of Gu Qing Shan.

Gu Qing Shan checked this statue, then looked back at the Deity on the mural.

"Do you think they look similar?" he asked.

"They're exactly the same, gongzi" Shannu exclaimed with a tone full of admiration.

Oong!

Chao Yin also replied.

「 They're indeed the same, but I have something else I want to say 」the Earth sword said.

"What's that?" Gu Qing Shan asked.

「 Gu Qing Shan, you're a real monster 」the Earth sword told him.

While they spoke, the completely new statue slowly gave off a dim glow.

As if some sort of mechanism had just been triggered.

Under the dim light, the murals on the wall began to turn.