As the blood was absorbed by the evil god, the tiny baby began to grow rapidly.
What had originally been like a meatball not only grew hands and feet but also grew at a visible speed.
The hair, facial features, and limbs became increasingly clear.
Soon, it grew into a child about the same age as Nian Nian.
At the same time, Duan Qiu began to split his own soul.
The fragments of his soul drilled into the body of the evil god. Watching the continuous flow of vitality connect with it, Nian Nian immediately realized something.
"You sacrificed more than just these people?!"
Raising an evil god was not as simple as it seemed.
If it could be accomplished simply by using her merits or the blood of her third senior brother, the Holy Church wouldn't have spent so much time and effort on this.
In the first life, when they targeted her third senior brother, they were after the luck and merits. They wanted to create a true god recognized by the Heavenly Dao.
But due to her appearance, they failed.
In the second life, they wanted to become gods themselves and piled all the merits on one person. And she was the vessel chosen by the Holy Church to bear so many merits.
But again, due to her and the support of people from the Taoist sect, they failed.
In this life, they imprisoned spiritual beasts, absorbed the spiritual energy bestowed by the Heavenly Dao from the beasts, drained their luck, and raised these idols. Their purpose was to create a god that was illusory, formless, and completely theirs.
However, creating such a thing required a huge sacrifice.
Merits and luck were no longer the main factors in creating a god. More importantly, it was the vitality to create a god out of nothing.
The people in this cave alone were not enough.
"That's right. Those who joined the Holy Church and made a contract with me and the Harmonious God will all be sacrificed. The Holy Church is so stupid. They thought I was sincerely cooperating with them, but they didn't know they were just paving the way for others. I've been planning this for years, and no one can stop me now."
Half of Duan Qiu's soul had already drilled into the body of the evil god.
This thing was artificially created and had no consciousness of its own. As a powerful ghost king, Duan Qiu's soul was the most suitable to instill his consciousness into it.
Once the two combined, Duan Qiu would naturally become the new god.
"I can't stop you, I know. But what if it's Xiao Nan?"
Nian Nian watched his increasingly crazy expression and tightened her fists, especially when she saw the increasingly pale face of her third senior brother out of the corner of her eye.
She even felt a bit childish and wanted to swallow those words.
But in this situation, she had no choice but to speak.
"What do you mean?"
Duan Qiu's expression turned fierce. His eyes seemed to want to devour Nian Nian alive. He thought Nian Nian was threatening him with Yun Xiangnan and sneered disdainfully.
"It doesn't matter if Xiao Nan hates me. As long as she comes back to life, I'll do anything. Even if I have to sacrifice the whole world, so what? Moreover, the people I sacrificed are just a bunch of people who wanted something for nothing or were greedy. Maybe they had blood on their hands, or maybe they did a lot of bad things for the Holy Church. I'm just ridding the world of evil, aren't I?"
"I don't mean to threaten you. I just remembered something."
Nian Nian sighed deeply, then mobilized all the golden light of merits in her body with her magic weapon.
The whole cave was immediately illuminated as bright as day. The originally dark cave suddenly flashed with golden light. Even Duan Qiu had trouble opening his eyes.
But what surprised him was not that Nian Nian had so much merit, but...
"What's going on? Why is your merit so much less?"
That's right. What shocked him was that Nian Nian had too little merit.
Maybe others didn't know. Seeing so much merit on Nian Nian, they would surely think she was a great benefactor who had accumulated merits through doing good deeds, or someone who had done something to save the world to obtain so much golden light. It was already a very remarkable thing.
But he had experienced that battle himself. He knew the situation at that time, how Nian Nian got the golden light, and just how much merit she had.
There were thousands of Taoist priests who saved lives and healed the wounded. Almost every one of them was a person with great merits.
When all of them pooled their merits and luck onto one person, it was incredibly terrifying.
Before Nian Nian was reincarnated, the golden light on her was almost tangible.
Compared to now, it was incredibly thick.
In contrast, the golden light now seemed much thinner.
"Come to think of it, I'm sorry to all the Taoist priests. I was also selfish. More than half of the golden light on me was used to collect Xiao Nan's soul. But her soul was too scattered. Even the underworld couldn't forcibly piece it together. We could only use the most primitive method, letting her be reincarnated life after life until her soul automatically completed itself. She has now been reincarnated into the human world. I just remembered this. I didn't mean to hide it from you.
At that time, I had to hide the news of my reincarnation from everyone. My soul couldn't even communicate with others, so I didn't have time to tell you. In fact, if you had just waited a little longer, you would have been able to wait for Xiao Nan to come back."
When Nian Nian said this, she felt a headache.
In fact, she was more disappointed.
Before she remembered everything, she was unfamiliar with the big brother in front of her. So no matter what attitude he had towards her, Nian Nian didn't really care.
But now that she remembered everything, how could she not be disappointed and sad about Duan Qiu's distrust?
They were good friends who had gone through life and death together for so many years. How could he think that she would definitely forget Yun Xiangnan?
How could he think that she could be reincarnated with peace of mind before arranging everything properly?
"You mean... No, this is absolutely impossible! You must be trying to deceive me, using a delaying tactic, right? Xiao Nan's soul has already dissipated. How could you have the ability to piece it back together? If you couldn't tell me, couldn't you just ask the Black and White Impermanence to pass a message to me? Why did everyone hide it from me?
You're lying to me, right? You must be lying to me!"
Duan Qiu struggled internally. His originally good-looking face became distorted due to his overly excited emotions.
He simply couldn't believe Nian Nian's words, or rather, he couldn't accept them.
What was this?
All for nothing?
No one knew how much he had struggled when he chose to betray Nian Nian, and no one knew that the guilt in his heart almost swallowed him up when he first saw Nian Nian.
He had always told himself that his choice was right. He just wanted Xiao Nan to come back.
Just when he had made up his mind to betray everyone and even joined forces with his enemies, someone told him that Xiao Nan was still alive.
This was probably the greatest irony in the world.