Chapter 366 - 189: Li State Civil War and Obtaining a Cultivation Technique
Chapter 366: Chapter 189: Li State Civil War and Obtaining a Cultivation Technique
A month isn’t a long time, but it isn’t short either.
For many cultivators, it was merely the length of a single session of secluded cultivation.
But in the month that Xiao Chen spent breaking through to the Golden Core realm, almost the entirety of Li State was plunged into the flames of war.
「About half a month ago.」
After numerous probing attacks, the Azure Flame Sect finally confirmed that both the Four Seas Sect and the Li Huo Sect were incredibly weak, nothing more than empty shells.
A gentle kick was all it would take for them to collapse completely.
One particularly crucial point was that, according to the Azure Flame Sect’s years of investigation and their recent probing,
there was a very high probability that Daoist Feihong of the Li Huo Sect and Master Shaqiu of the Four Seas Sect were not in Li State. Instead, they had journeyed together to the Eastern Domain.
In other words, the Li Huo Sect was now left with only the gravely injured Yunxiang Daoist and the recently wounded Master Ming Yan.
And the Four Seas Sect had been reduced to just Master Bisong alone.
’This is a once-in-a-millennium opportunity!’
The Azure Flame Sect and the Li Huo Sect, in particular, had a long-standing grudge that had festered for years.
Both sects used Fire Attribute Cultivation Methods as their primary system and often relied on Fire Spiritual Objects for their cultivation.
They had long desired to eliminate each other and seize the other’s resources.
And unlike the competition between ordinary sects,
if the Azure Flame Sect could take down the Li Huo Sect, they could plunder their fire seeds to accelerate the advancement of their own Spiritual Fire.
This previously unknown objective was their true top priority.
If not for this goal, Golden Mace True Man wouldn’t have bothered to secretly arrange the "pruning plan."
Years of meticulous planning were all for the sake of being prepared for any eventuality.
The reason he placed so much importance on it was because the plan’s implications were truly immense.
The Azure Flame Sect possessed a Tier Three Sect’s Spirit Fire, which its founding patriarch had serendipitously obtained during his adventures in the Eastern Domain.
This information wasn’t a secret; the other sects were aware of it.
However, what few people knew was that the Azure Flame Sect’s Spiritual Fire had an extraordinary origin.
Its true form was the legendary Beidou Spirit Fire.
In its complete form, it was a Tier Four fire, considered a rare treasure even in the Eastern Domain.
Although when they first acquired it, the Azure Flame Sect had only obtained a Tier Two fire seed.
But ever since obtaining the fire seed, under the leadership of the founding patriarch, the Azure Flame Sect had persistently fed it all sorts of Spiritual Fires for the Beidou Spirit Fire to devour.
Through these constant sacrifices, the fire seed successfully grew to Tier Three, powerful enough to anchor the sect’s destiny.
After generations of careful nurturing by the Azure Flame Sect and a thousand years of being nourished within a Spirit Vein,
the Beidou Spirit Fire had now secretly reached the peak of Tier Three and was on the verge of advancing to Tier Four.
Originally, this process might have taken another six hundred years.
But according to the calculations of the Azure Flame Sect’s three Golden Core True Men,
as long as they took down the Li Huo Sect and sacrificed all six of the captured Tier Two Spiritual Fires to the Beidou Spirit Fire, there was a seventy percent chance of forcing the fire seed to advance directly.
Those odds were extremely high, enough to tempt them into taking the risk.
The powers in Hezhou had also been concerned about internal strife in Li State, fearing it would needlessly weaken the forces of the Righteous Dao.
For this reason, they had specially dispatched Thousand Bamboo True Man back to Li State to persuade Golden Mace True Man and Gui Yan Zhenren to abandon their infighting.
After all, a great enemy was at their doorstep; the Divine Fire Sect and the White Bone Demon Body threatened all cultivators.
However, the reason the Azure Flame Sect dared to disregard the bigger picture at a time like this, revealing their ambition to annex other sects,
was precisely because possessing the Beidou Spirit Fire gave them the means to counter the White Bone Demon Body.
The Southern Dipper governs life; the Big Dipper governs death.
The Beidou Spirit Fire dared to borrow the Big Dipper’s name because it was known for its ferocity, especially in slaughtering living beings.
It might not be very effective for Alchemy,
but once it touched a living creature, it was said that wind could not blow it out nor water extinguish it. It would not stop until it had burned away all of its enemy’s life force and incinerated their flesh and blood, reducing them to ash.
As long as they could get the fire seed to advance into a true Tier Four Spiritual Fire, not only would the Azure Flame Sect possess a much stronger foundation, but dealing with the White Bone Demon Body would also become a trivial matter.
After secretly communicating with Thousand Bamboo True Man,
the Azure Flame Sect offered to deal with the White Bone Demon Body and promised never to invade Qianzhu Market. In exchange, they secured Thousand Bamboo True Man’s neutrality, allowing him to stand by and watch as the sect war erupted.
Thus, half a month ago, the long-plotting Azure Flame Sect brazenly launched a surprise attack.
They demanded that the Li Huo Sect and the Four Seas Sect swear fealty, surrender all the fire seeds and Spiritual Objects within their sects, and submit to the Azure Flame Sect’s rule.
Master Bisong of the Four Seas Sect had only formed his Core a hundred years ago and still possessed a wellspring of pride.
He wanted to fight a battle to force the Azure Flame Sect to relax their conditions.
As a result, he fought Golden Mace True Man for no more than half an hour before being severely wounded on the spot by the power of his opponent’s Golden Mace.
In his panic, he self-destructed a Spiritual Artifact to escape into the Ten Thousand Demons Mountain Range, his whereabouts now unknown.
The remaining families within the Four Seas Sect’s territory basically saw which way the wind was blowing and surrendered. No one else dared to cause trouble.
Master Ming Yan had also intended to fight, but after learning of Master Bisong’s fate, he simply activated the Grand Array and hunkered down, refusing to come out and hoping to buy time to heal.
By employing these turtling tactics, the Li Huo Sect managed to hold out until the present.
But by now, the Azure Flame Sect had already occupied South Lake and captured Li Huo Market.
They had used the Spirit Vein within the Marketplace to set up an Array, establishing a temporary base with their forces aimed directly at the nearby Qi Yun Peak.
As for the various families, large and small, within the Li Huo Sect’s territory, they had either taken refuge on Qi Yun Peak long ago or had already been absorbed and turned into cannon fodder.