As Cao Zhen finished speaking, the other three sect leaders all nodded slightly.
Their thoughts and suspicions likewise revolved around trouble involving the Demon Cult.
Since the destruction of the demonic nest in the Stone Mountain Secret Realm, the Demon Cult's overt forces in Jintai Prefecture had been purged. The prefecture appeared peaceful, but none of the older-generation experts dared truly let down their guard.
They had all personally endured multiple devastating demonic calamities that swept across the entire region. They knew how deeply the Demon Cult's roots ran, how cunningly it lay dormant, and how terrifyingly resilient it was.
Everyone knew that the Demon Cult forces behind this invasion, entrenched in Jintai Prefecture for years, were merely a single branch altar within the cult's vast hierarchy, nowhere near its true core.
Yet that single branch altar had ravaged Jintai Prefecture for years, sowing chaos far and wide, slaughtering innocents, and ambushing martial artists. It had left the prefecture's entire righteous martial community struggling to cope. Only after expending countless resources and sacrificing countless martial artists had they barely managed to eradicate it.
The open fighting had ended, but the danger in the shadows had never disappeared.
The Demon Cult's remnants lurked in secret, lying dormant across the region. Several top experts of protector rank remained unaccounted for, their whereabouts impossible to trace. Like venomous barbs hidden in the dark, they could return at any moment and stir up fresh turmoil.
Precisely for that reason, when Ren An convened a meeting of the five sects at the highest level, all four sect leaders immediately suspected that the Demon Cult's remnants had made a move and a crisis had erupted.
At that thought, the four men and women felt their slightly eased spirits sink once more, and a quiet gravity settled