Before their figure was even visible, the oppressive force arrived first; cultivators liked to use their aura to show dominance.
The basic principle was to make their spiritual energy flow rapidly within, stirring up the external spiritual force and creating a chaotic, high-speed swirl of power in the surroundings.
This move worked quite well against rookie cultivators.
But for me… every time I saw these cultivators madly circulating their cultivation base, twisting their meridians like an electric motor and even risking going berserk at any moment,
I couldn’t help but want to laugh.
Sorry, but you’re putting on airs for the wrong person.
“How dare you! Who dares destroy the Seal on the Demon Fox?!”
The Nine Tribulation Immortals glared furiously, muscles bulging, all posing like golden-eyed Vajras in fury.
With thunderous roars, they stomped heavily to the ground, then deliberately strolled out from the rising clouds of dust at a snail’s pace.
Their momentum was at its peak.
“It was me.” I raised my hand as if answering a question in class. “Now it’s your turn to answer. Who made the decision to Seal the Fox Clan?”
Unfortunately, they had no intention of playing this question-and-answer game with me.
They were not friendly teachers.
“Wretch! With just a mere Nascent Soul cultivation, you dare destroy the Seal of our Jie Xian Palace! Tell the truth, where did you get the Unlocking Key?”
“You need a key to unseal it?”
I raised my hand to my ear and snapped my fingers lightly.
“Pa—”
The shattered chains from before suddenly came alive; the fragments fused in the air, wriggling like living tentacles, and in the blink of an eye, wrapped up the Nine Tribulation Immortals tightly.
They didn’t even have time to react before they were restrained by their own powerful Seal.
Pity there were only nine chains.
But thirteen Jiexian had arrived.
That left four.
Those four were shocked and horrified, instantly attacking me from four directions.
“Three trash, and one barely passable.” I shook my head. “Since when can any riffraff call themselves immortals… You’re all so weak!”
Flash x3
In an instant, I flashed three times, appearing behind three of the Jiexian.
With palm-lightning, I instantly destroyed their sea of consciousness, erasing both body and soul.
There was only one left, but I wasn’t in a hurry to finish him.
I let him stand there in terror, mumbling, “I knew it… I just knew it… If you ever see one with a long white tail, you should run right away…”
“Wake up.” I slapped him.
“Spare me, Immortal! Please spare me!”
“Spineless…” I pressed him, “Tell me, why are they so weak? Their power’s just like mid-stage Nascent Soul at best. How do they even have Immortal Marks? How did this trash survive the Heavenly Tribulation?”
“Heavenly Tribulation? There is no Heavenly Tribulation.” The cultivator kowtowed as he spoke. “As long as you’re a human cultivator joining Jie Xian Palace, you can skip the Ninefold Tribulation Lightning and ascend straight to the Immortal Realm.”
“??? Don’t tell me this was Yuwen’s decision again? Has his brain turned to mush? Are there not enough freeloaders in the Immortal Realm already?!”
“The State Preceptor only wanted to benefit our people…”
“This isn’t about benefiting anyone. If you lower the threshold for immortality so much, even a pig waiting to die could become immortal. Where would you get enough resources for so many immortals to enjoy themselves?”
“With Jie Xian Palace and Jiugong Commerce Guild running things in the Mortal Realm, the Immortal Realm is well supplied,” that cultivator answered respectfully.
“Running things in the Mortal Realm??” Nice way to put it, but I instantly understood, “You’re enslaving mortals like livestock?!”
“Not livestock, just mutual need—”
“Need? You take the resources from the Mortal Realm, what do you give them in return?”
“Order, stability. Before Jiang Ke’er appeared, everything in the Nine Provinces was perfectly orderly, law and order solid—thanks to the strict control of Jie Xian Palace.”
“……”
Could these guys be any more shameless?
Utterly rotten. Absolutely rotten.
Even worse than when I first came here.
But what I didn’t get was, if little Yuwen truly cared about humanity and the Immortal Realm, he would never make such a stupid decision.
Allowing humans to ascend at will and turning the Mortal Realm into a livestock pen—he must have another scheme; it’s definitely not for humanity’s sake.
“And another thing—why did Yuwen pick Taoyuan Domain as the battlefield against the Heaven Demons? What did Taoyuan Domain ever do to him?”
“This… I don’t know, sir. I only follow orders.”
They probably didn’t know.
I sank into thought.
On the way here, I’d gotten intel from talking with Xiao Ming and Shaori. Combining that with what I’d just learned, I started piecing things together.
I seemed to have a vague idea.
“Taoyuan Domain was a neutral sanctuary, but he deliberately used the Heaven Demons to destroy it. Now, there’s no more shelter from chaos in the world, no place for philosophy or progress.”
“Mingzhou is the place where souls return, and the judgment of the Ten Halls of Yama establishes order in the Mortal Realm. But even Mingzhou was destroyed before Jiang Ke’er appeared, only rebuilt a decade ago.”
“Mingzhou and Taoyuan Domain—these are the two pillars of the Nine Provinces’ ideological foundation. One stands for scholarly progress, the other for social order. Destroy both, and the world will descend into chaos.”
“Chaos everywhere, morals lost—even worse than in my day.”
“Add to that the Immortal Realm’s endless plundering, and the Mortal Realm will become a true Reincarnation Inferno.”
“But even under this inferno-like oppression, the Mortal Realm wasn’t destroyed completely.”
“When pressure reaches its peak, to the point where people can’t survive, that’s when leaders are most likely to arise—a superstar, born from universal expectation!”
“And sure enough… That so-called Houtu Holy Master ended the immortals’ tyranny, united the world, a true hero sent from the heavens!”
“Was all this for Jiang Ke’er?”
“To create the ultimate genius of the era?!”
“But why?!”
“I won’t believe it till I ask that brat face to face. No one could guess what’s in his mind otherwise.”
Looking around at these useless fools, a plan began to form.
I pretended to lose strength, suddenly clutching my chest and showing a weak expression, while secretly loosening one of the chains.
That Jiexian thought he’d broken free himself. Delighted, he hid his aura and quietly sneaked up behind me.
“Bang!”
A heavy blow to the head.
I played along, pretending to faint.
“Jiexian Rope! Tie her up quick and bring her to Dijiang Lord! This brat is cultivating Ancient Techniques, and she’s a Fox Clan member—she might have something to do with that Jiang Ke’er… Take her back for a good interrogation!”
Very soon, a jade-green rope bound me.
The rope was made from snake demons, with a venomous fang on one end that bit into the captive’s neck.
Then, it would continuously inject poison to sap the captive’s resistance.
I played along, losing all ability to resist.
Then they dragged me away,
Flying straight for the ancient immortals’ stronghold.