"Lost them all—and lost badly?" Li Tianming clicked his tongue.
"The overall gap is obvious. Individuals can hardly change the bigger picture." After An Ning spoke, she sighed softly. "I have to admit, the Divine Tomb Cult's years of infiltration, encroachment, and brainwashing have all been highly successful. There will only be more people like Yan Chiying and the Lin Clan Soul Gods who defect to the Divine Tomb Cult."
"If not for your father's persistence, before long, your An Clan would have become the first imperial clan taken into the Divine Tomb Cult's fold." Li Tianming chuckled.
This kind of invasion, boiling frogs in warm water, was truly disgusting. It was an open scheme: one knew its power well, yet had no way to break it.
Li Tianming actually understood the reason behind this overall disparity even better.
The various Xuanting clans appeared to form an imperial dynasty, but in truth, they were ruled separately by their clans. Their cultivation resources were privately owned by each clan. The Divine Tomb Cult, meanwhile, was a typical sect. Within its domain, rewards and punishments were clearly defined. Ordinary disciples had more opportunities to access cultivation resources and receive better inheritances.
The Xuanting clans, by contrast, were closed off, neither communicating nor sharing with one another.
This gave the Divine Tomb Cult an enormous advantage among low- and middle-level disciples. Through constant selection and elimination, these people would become the backbone of the Divine Tomb Cult.
As for clan forces, even some exceptionally useless people could become superior to others through their backgrounds and status. Their elimination mechanism was weak.
In short, in terms of inheritance and the mechanisms for creating gods, sects of the same level were stronger than clans.
Not to mention that the Divine Tomb Cult was now already