My version of Heavenly Dao is too old, so it's full of bugs.

Chapter 502 Archives Updated, Hundred Gods Ascend!
Shasha~~~
Shasha~~~~
A blood-red fountain pen glides across the old, worn-out paper. The steel body, about three meters tall, remains as it always has, sitting cross-legged in the darkness and chaos, constantly writing something.

[Observation log 2-001 updated, new file 7.20-1 added!]

[The One Being Observed—The Heavenly Court!]

[In the first year of the Heavenly Dao 7.20, at the end of April, the Heavenly Court, with the Minister of War, Venus, as commander-in-chief and the Five Elders of the Five Directions and the ministers of various departments as generals, launched a campaign against the Dragon Clan.]

[If history had followed its original course, the Heavenly Court would have won, the Ancestral Dragon would have been annihilated by the Heavenly Court, the Dragon Clan would have been severely weakened, and would have been absorbed by the Alliance Against Heaven.]

[But unsurprisingly, Li Wei was once again unexpectedly drawn into fate, forcibly initiating a war for the establishment of the South China Sea Kingdom as the quasi-emperor, which should not have existed in the first place, thus attracting the attention of the Heavenly Court.]

[The Nine Saints, taking advantage of the situation, opened the Dragon Gate, causing Liangshan Marsh to smash and destroy Zhongzhou, leading to the complete collapse of the Heavenly Court on both fronts and a crushing defeat for the three armies! (Note: Li Wei was able to escape the Dragon Gate; without it, even the Nine Saints, working together, would not have been able to launch a surprise attack on Zhongzhou.)]

Livy once again establishes the death of the Old Ones.

[Observation record No. 2-000 has been updated! Current document: 7.20-1!]

As the steel giant wrote, he inexplicably frowned, paused abruptly, and after a long while, finally wrote somewhat reluctantly:
[A shift in the fate of the Wu Clan has been detected simultaneously. The fallen Jiuli lineage of the Wu Clan has been reconnected to the future timeline. Li Wei has strongly interfered with their predetermined destiny.]

The historical burial effect is diminishing.

The probability of the Wu tribe returning has increased by 29.2 percentage points, while the probability of other tribes returning has increased by 1.2 percentage points.

[The completed observation records 1-006 have been updated, and a new file number 7.20-1 has been added!]

Having written this far,

Suddenly, a crack appeared inexplicably on the steel giant's body. Ignoring the crack, he finished writing the record and swallowed the record paper into his mouth.

Gum!

He was full once again!

But this time, He didn't enjoy the meal very much.

Now that Li Wei possesses the hidden Heavenly Authority and the loopholes in the Dragon Transformation Crown, he has become extremely difficult to observe, even impossible to observe at all. His movements are undetectable, which will greatly interfere with my plans.

It seems it's time to find a way to strengthen surveillance.

then,

The steel giant took out a bunch of cards and picked and chose, quickly selecting four cards: Bai Jie, Chu Youling, Mi Hongzhi, and Mi Qingqing. But it seemed that it wasn't enough, so it also took out Jiang Ying, Ao Zi, and Ao Xin.

[Since this guy likes women so much, it's only natural that he'd fall for one, right?]

No one answered in the darkness.

The steel giant seemed to be talking to himself.

But after a while, the surrounding space and time began to ripple, as if the world was responding to Him!
The steel giant laughed, stood up, stepped out of the darkness and chaos, and looked up to see the rising crimson sun over the human realm.

[It's another day I'm looking forward to!]

Heaven!

In front of the Lingxiao Palace.

Standing among the gods, Meng Shifei looked at the lifeless figures around him and couldn't help but sigh: "What a despairing day!"

In order to restrain the Nine Saints of Heresy, the Heavenly Court not only sent two Great Luo Immortals, Xuanling Huanglao and the Minister of Finance, to lead the army, but also emptied the Ministry of Finance of all its gods, leaving only five True Gods to ensure the basic operation of the Ministry of Finance.

He Mengshifei was one of the five.

Now that the entire eastern battlefield of Zhongzhou has fallen, and Xuanling Huanglao has perished, the fate of the gods of the Ministry of Finance is naturally not much better. They are probably either dead or captured, and it seems they will never return.

Oh oh oh!
You promised to come back and work overtime together after the war started, but you never came back?
The entire Heavenly Court is now only managed by five Gods of Wealth, and to make matters worse, they're at war! How am I going to survive?!
Thinking about this, Meng Shifei felt utterly hopeless, and his future seemed bleak.

In the early morning sunlight, the gods stood with their backs to the light, as silent and lifeless as clay or wooden statues. Suddenly, a loud laugh rang out from behind them.

An elderly man with a snow-white face and a deep green mark between his brows slowly walked in from behind, laughing wildly from afar: "Gentlemen, why do you all look so gloomy?"

[It's Lord Bing!]

The lifeless gods suddenly came alive again, rushing to Venus's side: "Weren't you restoring defenses in the mortal realm? Why have you returned at this time?"

[Haha! Someone's taking care of the defenses, anyway, one more or one less won't make a difference. So, let me give my report! By the way, has everyone had breakfast yet?]

Meng Shifei was the first to panic: "Lord Bingzhu, can you still eat?"

[Xiao Meng, you still need to eat, even if you're a god. Look how thin you've become! If you collapse from overwork, you might be turned into a corpse puppet and forced to work overtime again!]

Meng Shifei was so moved that he almost cried!

The surrounding gods, who had been concerned about the War Lord's condition, breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing him still able to joke. Curious, they pressed him for an answer: "Your condition seems better than we expected!"

Venus laughed heartily: "It's not that I'm in good condition, it's that I'm in good mindset. Since I'm going to die anyway, I don't want to die crying and wailing."

Upon hearing this, the surrounding gods fell silent.
Has the Lord of War lost control of his divine power again?

Thinking of this, everyone's expressions darkened, and after a long while, they finally asked, "Is there really no way?" Taibai Jinxing, seemingly unconcerned about his own situation, spread his hands and said, "There's no hope. Just wait to die! But rest assured, before I die, I will try my best to consume as much of the calamity's energy as possible. This will be my final contribution to the Heavenly Court and the Three Realms."

The voice just fell,

The gates of the Lingxiao Palace suddenly burst open.

The expression on Venus's face immediately turned serious as he led the gods of Heaven into the palace.

The three great emperors of the Three Pure Ones and Four Emperors are already waiting here.

Upon seeing this, the warlord frowned immediately: "Has Ziwei still not shown up?"

Let bygones be bygones, but now the evil forces have destroyed two fronts of the Heavenly Court and could invade the Central Plains at any time!
As the head of the Four Emperors, He doesn't even care about such a big matter?
Could something have happened to Him?
However, Venus thought to himself, "I'm going to die soon, why should I worry about these things?"
Then a smile returned to His face, and He entered the hall.

After the gods had taken their positions, the Supreme Emperor Shanghao arrived late and sat on the throne. After the gods had finished their greetings, Shanghao's first words were:

[I believe you all already know about what happened in the lower realms, but to prevent anyone from being unaware of the seriousness of the matter, let me emphasize it to you again!]

The Supreme Emperor Haotian smiled, but his tone was incredibly sinister.

[The Mysterious Spirit Elder Huang is dead! The Minister of Finance has been captured. Of the 372 Gods of Wealth in the Ministry of Finance, 180 great gods were captured, nearly 100 Gods of Wealth perished on the spot, and some others went missing. In the end, only a dozen or so escaped back!]

The same was true in the southern battlefield; the Plague Minister was suppressed, and over 100 gods died.

[Everyone! Seven versions now!]

[Our Heavenly Court has never suffered such a great loss in the past seven versions. Even during the heyday of the Western Religion, they didn't kill so many of our gods at once!!]

The gods in Heaven were terrified by the barrage of numbers.

Although they knew that the Heavenly Court had suffered great losses this time, they did not expect it to be this great!

Meng Shifei and his group couldn't help but feel a sense of relief. Luckily, they stayed to work overtime; otherwise, their fate this time probably wouldn't have been much better.

Venus immediately stepped forward: "Your Majesty! This is all my responsibility!"

No!! This is all my responsibility!

The Supreme Heavenly Emperor abruptly stood up: "[Everyone, all are guilty, and the guilt lies with me! This time, the Heavenly Court's military campaign has failed, and as the Heavenly Emperor, I must bear the leadership responsibility! As for the Lord of War...]"

[His plan and strategy this time were flawless, but man proposes, God disposes; this time, the Nine Saints were indeed a cut above the rest.]

In this way, it's as if the Supreme Emperor of Heaven has given his final verdict on this matter.

After all, a dying person's words are often kind. Venus has worked hard for the Heavenly Court for almost several versions of history. Even if he didn't achieve great things, he certainly put in a lot of effort. Now that he is about to die, the Supreme Emperor of Heaven is willing to give him a peaceful end.

"Thank you, Your Majesty!"

The Supreme Emperor of Heaven surveyed the crowd, seeing that the gods were still reeling from the immense loss, before nodding and saying, "Now you all surely realize the gravity of the situation."

In this single battle, our Heavenly Court lost three Great Luo Immortals and nearly five hundred gods. The entire Dragon Clan's size is no more than this!

Fortunately, the vast majority of the losses involved lower-level Yin Gods, Yang Gods, Human Immortals, and Earth Immortals; most of our higher-level combat forces escaped, so the damage isn't too severe!

[This might even be a good thing.]

This is at least a good thing for the Supreme Emperor, since most of the dead gods were decaying beings from ancient times, beings outside His sphere of influence.

Especially the gods of the Ministry of Finance!
Their death would mean vacant divine positions, allowing the Supreme Emperor to install his own people. If he could control the treasury, he could further consolidate imperial power and become the true ruler of the Three Realms.

As for whether or not so many gods can be found to have ascended to immortality...
Hehehe!
The Three Realms have no shortage of cultivators who aspire to ascension!
What they lack is simply a way in, not the ability. So right now, countless people in the Three Realms are probably celebrating and thanking the times for helping them clean up those useless, incompetent predecessors in the Heavenly Court.

Therefore, I decree to open the ascension channel to cultivators of the Three Realms and urgently recruit a batch of deities to the heavens to replenish the divine army!

Among those who aspire to ascension, there are not only many commoners, but even more from noble families. Therefore, the gods' eyes lit up, and they hurriedly exclaimed, "Your Majesty is wise!"

A strange smile appeared on Shang Haotian's lips: "So, you all agree?"

【Agreed! Of course we agree!】

The gods, disregarding their defeat in the war, immediately turned their attention to how many of their descendants would ascend to immortality, which positions in the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of War were overflowing with wealth, and how to use the exchange of benefits to promote their own people to higher positions.

Seeing the expressions of the gods, the Supreme Heavenly Emperor couldn't help but let out a cold laugh: "Since everyone agrees, then I won't stand on ceremony."

Ok?
The gods were taken aback.

Before they could react, terrifying thunderous roars suddenly came from the lower realm.

The Lord of War glanced down and burst into laughter: "Wow! 500 True Gods ascending simultaneously! Your Majesty has truly gone all out this time!"

But as I looked at it...

The warlord suddenly frowned.

"That kid, why hasn't he ascended yet?"

(End of this chapter)