Chapter 601: Scheme

Daoist Yellow Springs vanished.

Just like his sudden first appearance, this person inexplicably disappeared from the world, as if he'd never existed.

Of course he didn't accurately predict when Gu Nan would arrive. In all likelihood, he already left a long time ago and had no intention of meeting Gu Nan.

'He doesn't know that Void Grotto Heaven has collected so much information. So then, why did he run away?' Gu Nan frowned as he scanned the Origin World's vicinity and confirmed there was no trace of Daoist Yellow Springs.

However, although he didn't know why Daoist Yellow Springs ran away, the fact that the other party needed to avoid Gu Nan at least proved that he wasn't confident in his own strength.

Daoist Yellow Springs knew he would probably die at Gu Nan's hands the next time they met, which was why he escaped in advance.

But the timing of his escape was indeed clever. If a Unified Dao power was determined to hide himself, even Gu Nan would have a hard time finding him.

He wasn't like the greater gods in the Great War. The destroyed Divine Kingdoms still had their owners' lingering energy signatures, so Gu Nan could follow the traces to find the gods' true bodies.

On the other hand, finding someone like Eugene—who destroyed his Divine Kingdom with his own hands without leaving any trace, then hid in a random small plane—would undoubtedly be as difficult as ascending the heavens.

Daoist Yellow Springs didn't even have an astral world to begin with, so he would undoubtedly be even harder to find.

Gu Nan couldn't help frowning slightly once he confirmed that Daoist Yellow Springs was not nearby. He then returned to the Myriad Heavens and ordered a comprehensive search of all major worlds.

The target of the search was expanded from the original Fu Cheng to include Daoist Yellow Springs.

"Sure enough, Daoist Yellow Springs is still alive?" Yu Lian calmly sat beside Gu Nan and helped him pen the upcoming decree.

Although he essentially controlled the two worlds, Gu Nan had never liked to engage in superficial formalities, so Void Grotto Heaven became his spokesperson, and all orders were issued through the Daoist Sect.

As for his own Divine Kingdom, it was still developing steadily, unaffected by these external events.

And Yu Lian, the Daoist Sect's former sect master, seemed to have become Gu Nan's dedicated secretary. Whenever Gu Nan had any request, she needed to use various administrative methods to complete it.

When it came to handling practical matters, not even a hundred Gu Nan's could compare to a single Yu Lian. Not even the Cabinet in his Divine Kingdom could do better than her.

After all, Gu Nan's Divine Kingdom was only that big. Be it the matters that needed to be handled or the external enemies and friends that needed to be contacted, the scale was far from comparable to that of Void Grotto Heaven.

As the leader of the Myriad Heavens, Void Grotto Heaven could influence over 80% of the planes in the Myriad Heavens. This was already a terrifying number.

Now that he was short on time, of course Gu Nan would adopt the most efficient method.

"He's alive." Gu Nan nodded without any intention of hiding it.

Not only did he want to announce the fact that Daoist Yellow Springs was still alive, he also wanted to gather all the information on the other party's appearance, aura, habits, and other data to serve as the basis for the search carried out by the people below.

Some of this information came from Gu Nan himself, and some came from Void Grotto Heaven's archives. This behemoth, which governed the Myriad Heavens for several eras, did have its own foundation.

Under Gu Nan's order, all major organizations were mobilized and devoted a large amount of manpower and resources to the search, but this action obviously could not produce results anytime soon.

Nobody knew whether Fu Cheng had come to the two worlds and where she would appear. It would probably be very difficult to find her quickly.

This was even more true for Daoist Yellow Springs. With his Unified Dao methods, this was destined to be a long-term search.

Of course, the only information Gu Nan withheld about Daoist Yellow Springs was that he'd already ascended to Unified Dao Realm.

If people knew he quietly ascended to Unified Dao already, there was no guarantee that people wouldn't associate him with the gap outside the two worlds. Gu Nan didn't want the Origin World to be exposed just yet.

As the days passed, Gu Nan stayed in the Daoist Sect's temple, occasionally looking through the scrolls on the bookshelf, but more often than not, he was doing experiments.

He was conducting a comprehensive test on his current condition, analyzing and recording everything from the nature and strength of his laws to the various powers of his body.

This naturally also included the Stigma of Life and Death.

Due to the caster's death, the power of the stigma seemed to be gradually fading. Under the erosion of the Evil God physique itself, even the mark's structure was starting to become unstable.

This stigma, which the gods once pinned high hopes on and even gambled away Baal's entire Divine Kingdom to create, was thwarted thanks to Gu Nan's unexpected advancement to the Third Round.

Now, Austin and Daisy had no choice but to sacrifice their lives and pin their hopes on the Exile incantation.

It had to be said that Exile's power was indeed continuously taking effect. After two months, Gu Nan's body had already faded to the point where he almost became an illusion instead of a real existence.

It could be said that Gu Nan's current strength was very weak. The punch he threw right now was far from being able to destroy laws, and it may be similar to his strength at Tier 2.

And even this meager amount of power was rapidly fading.

Of course, conversely, Gu Nan had never been as safe as he was right now. Although his influence on the outside world was weakened, the reverse was also true.

If the outside world wanted to influence him, it would also have to put in thousands of times more power than normal. And with Gu Nan's physical defense, it was almost impossible to hurt the current him.

Yu Lian witnessed the entire Exile process with her own eyes, and because Gu Nan was always leisurely conducting experiments, she was particularly sensitive to the weakening of Gu Nan's power.

She didn't have many questions. After all, she was someone who once stood at the very peak of the Myriad Heavens. Yu Lian had a clear understanding of such an obvious principle.

In Yu Lian's eyes, Gu Nan seemed to be constantly transporting his body to a specified place.

But why this process was so difficult was something Yu Lian couldn't understand.

On this day, in a rare occurrence, Gu Nan did not do anything. He just sat quietly in the Daoist temple, waiting for Exile to finally complete its incantation.

He was already very, very far away from this world, so far away that even if his power wanted to descend here, it could only show a very weak partial effect.

However, at this moment, a message appeared on the table of the Daoist temple.

Yu Lian, who had always been standing behind Gu Nan, was slightly startled and quickly went forward to pick up the document and hand it to Gu Nan. In the last few days, Gu Nan had begun to have difficulty touching even physical objects.

If Gu Nan were to try picking it up himself, his hand might go right through the paper.

Of course, this also contained a bit of selfishness on Yu Lian's part.

A piece of news suddenly came through at such a critical moment. Yu Lian would never believe it to be a coincidence, so she wanted to see what was written in it.

Thus, she saw the message on the paper. It was very brief and could even be summarized in one sentence:

"Daoist Yellow Springs appeared, displaying Unified Dao Realm power, and stole Zero from the lab."