Scattered Sand

"Cao Yuande, a disciple of the Seven Hearts!"

"Cao Yuanshen, a disciple of the Four Hearts!"

"Cao Yuanzhong, a disciple of the Four Hearts!"

"Greetings, Saintess!"

Three rogue cultivators at the Golden Core stage, with leopard-like heads and piercing eyes, all wearing mustaches, chainmail, ring-pommel swords, felt coats, and cloaks, clearly brothers, leaped out of the yellow sand, displaying the blood and sweat from their fingertips, and knelt to welcome Zhang Yanzhi, who arrived riding a flying tiger.

Zhang Yanzhi didn't accept the three brothers' hard work in examining the artifact. He simply shook the God Lord Jade in his hand as a greeting, went through the motions, and then directly asked, "Are there only three of you at the Shazhou liaison point?"

Li Fan, with the metal lump in his mouth, glanced at the Cao brothers, his Divine Sense pressure sending a shiver down their spines.

These three all specialize in the Body Domination Technique, so their foundations are naturally solid, making them stronger than Nangong Xianbing at the same level and comparable to the Thunder Department. If all the soldiers of the Divine Cult possessed such abilities, they would be quite difficult to deal with. However, they lacked secret techniques like refining Blood God Child, and at first glance, they resembled the bandits and swordsmen commonly seen in the desert.

"In response to the Saintess, when the Ten Ultimate Formation were being prepared a few years ago, in order to avoid being hunted down by the experts of the Demonic Sect, the local altar master of Duizhou led all the protectors back to the main altar of Tianshan. Now, only we scouts are lying in ambush here."

Zhang Yanzhi nodded, then suddenly became angry and said...

"I've heard that there are quite a few fools in the Shazhou, a place of constant battles, who don't know what's good for them and dare to be enemies of my sect. They're perfect for inviting the Demon Lord to have his fill, and also to help you eliminate potential threats. That's why I specifically asked you to spread the word and lure more people to their deaths. Wasn't what I said in the communication jade clear enough?"

Look at what you've done! We've been strolling along at a leisurely pace, and we've only encountered about ten people. Look at the Demon Lord, his stomach is growling with hunger! Where have all the people gone? Tell me! Are you not taking my words, the Saintess's words, to heart? Are you just giving me the runaround? Hmm!"

Li Fan nodded repeatedly. He hadn't shown any skills either, so there was no reason why so few people were trying to steal his things.

Stared at by a pair of tiger-like eyes as large as golden bowls, the Cao brothers dared not argue and hastily knelt down, begging for mercy.

"No, no! Saintess, please forgive us! It's not that we didn't try our best, it's just that..."

"Unfortunately, Qu Feihuang, the master of the local sect Feisha Palace in Shazhou, had also gone to seize the divine artifact from beyond the heavens, but encountered Old Demon Huang, a famous expert in the vicinity. He was almost disemboweled and seriously injured, but managed to escape with his life."

The independent cultivators in the vicinity, upon hearing of this, all knew their place. Except for a few clueless outsiders, none dared to confront Old Demon Huang head-on. "No matter what we say, they won't believe us..."

"No, however! We've learned that the cultivators of Shazhou are taking advantage of the Palace Master of Naqu's serious injury to launch a massive attack on the Feisha Palace! We are willing to lead the Demon Lord there and wipe them out in one fell swoop!"

Upon hearing what the Cao brothers said, Zhang Yanzhi rolled his eyes and whispered in Qiongqi's ear,

"Feisha Palace is a well-known sect in the area. Back then, it relied on a certain ancestor who had made a connection with the Xuanmen sect. It has always considered itself the representative of the local Xuanmen sect and often sent some of its disciples to the Central Plains to become Outer Sect Disciple or Dao Companion. As a result, it has occupied the nearby ancient ruins and has been passed down for hundreds of years."

A sect of this size must have three to five True Person Realm cultivators, and perhaps even Divine Transformation Ancestor in seclusion. For local cultivators to dare join forces to attack and destroy the sect, their numbers must be considerable. There might even be members of the Three Great Sects backing them up behind the scenes. What does the Demon Lord think? Since we've already brought the divine artifact to the branch altar, why don't we go and watch the show?"

"There's Divine Transformation? Roar! Let's go take a look!"

Li Fan was overjoyed that someone was testing his combat strength so soon after he reached the Divine Transformation.

Zhang Yanzhi on his hips, arrogantly shouted, "Fine! Go and see! If what you say is false, then we'll offer your heads as sacrifices to the Demon Lord!"

The Cao brothers, feeling as if they had been granted a pardon, quickly agreed. They then waved their command flags, opened the magic array, and revealed the divine altar hidden beneath the sand dunes. They first performed rituals to conceal the secrets of heaven and hide the divine objects from beyond. Then, they took the initiative to lead the way, guiding Li Fan to the nearby Shazhou sect, Feisha Palace.

The Cao brothers weren't lying; there were indeed quite a few cultivators besieging Feisha Palace. At a glance, there were about twenty Nascent Soul Stage and over a hundred Golden Core cultivators, divided into three groups, surrounding an oasis protected by the raging winds and shifting sands in the sea of sand.

The raging sandstorm was clearly a sect's protective formation, while the emerald green amidst the yellow sand, shrouded in ethereal mist and clouds, resembled a mirage—clearly a divine abode, a celestial cave dwelling, which was none other than the Feisha Palace.

At this moment, the three groups of people besieging the area were led by several Nascent Soul Stage cultivators who were setting up an altar and performing a ritual to try to dispel the outer magic array of the oasis. They had even prepared an altar, so it seemed that they had been planning this for some time and did not care about the extraterrestrial artifact at all. Or perhaps they were simply using that artifact to ambush the Palace Master of the Feisha Palace.

That's true. What good is it for ordinary people to fight over extraterrestrial artifacts? Can they be eaten? These things are only something that the Three Great Sects can study, perhaps to gain some enlightenment, or at worst, melt down and forge a sword or something.

For ordinary cultivators, these aren't divine techniques or secret arts, nor are they rare Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures that can be easily processed. Even if they manage to snatch them, they still have to figure out how to sell them, avoid being taken advantage of or double-crossed, and consider that most people don't have the connections to contact the Three Great Sects. Middlemen will definitely make a profit... So it's more worthwhile to honestly destroy other sects and annihilate other factions and collect their corpses!

Thus, the Feisha Palace was robbed, and Li Fan understood the situation after a quick glance.

This Feisha Palace is a sect that seized the ruins of an ancient oasis city in the desert. It not only controls the main spiritual vein hubs near the Shazhou, but also the trade routes and water sources to and from the Western Regions. Mortal caravans must pass through here, and they can collect a lot of money just from the tributes they pay. Naturally, it arouses the envy of others.

Moreover, according to the Cao brothers, Feisha Palace is not well-liked. Relying on the protection of the Xuanmen, they have always considered themselves a subordinate sect of Xuanmen, acting arrogantly and domineeringly. Taking advantage of their sect's location, they act recklessly, frequently robbing and plundering passing caravans and tribes. Under the guise of offering tribute to Xuanmen, they steal rare treasures, which has offended many people. Just to see that so many people have gathered in this small Shazhou island to cause trouble for them, it seems they are quite unpopular.

But now that the world is in chaos, even the Xuanmen sect is struggling to survive, let alone care about a lower-level sect in such a remote and inaccessible buffer zone as Shazhou.

Taking advantage of the fact that the Palace Master of the Feisha Palace was seriously injured, the cultivators of Shazhou launched a surprise attack, hoping to strike while she was still weakened.

Li Fan simply watched the show with the four weaklings from the Divine Cult, not in a hurry to make a move.

After all, Feisha Palace has close ties with Xuanmen and has been currying favor with them for hundreds of years. Surely they must have managed to acquire some magical formations, treasures, and secret manuals? Now that their sect is facing a major calamity, let's see how they handle it. Li Fan has never seen how local native cultivators attack a sect before. This will also serve as a preview for what will happen to Ink Bamboo Mountain in the future.

Please begin your praise.

So the monks on the Shazhou began to praise them.

The first thing to do is naturally to dispel the sect's grand formation. This sandstorm formation is actually quite useless. Li Fan glanced at it and saw that it was just a simple formation that took advantage of the desert terrain and natural advantages. It stirred up the killing intent of heaven and earth, which could obscure the Divine Sense of those who accidentally entered the formation, trap them inside, and then use the secret techniques hidden in the formation to harm them.

If Li Fan were in charge of making the arrangements, he could easily Dao Integration and transform the yellow sandstorm into a clone, capable of attacking or defending, or even launching a direct counterattack to bury and flatten the Feisha Palace inside.

Even without using the power of Divine Transformation to bully others, by calculating the location of the formation's base, sending flying talismans into the formation to damage its key points and disrupt the flow of Dao Breath, the formation can be broken without any further attack.

So how did the local monks do it?

Well, Li Fan hadn't expected this move; they were practicing human sacrifice and blood rituals...

What the heck?

So Li Fan drew a circle on the spot, had the noobs squat inside, and then transformed into a gust of wind, swept over to take a closer look at the altar, magic array, and incantations on the talismans that these people were setting up, and quickly understood them.

In short, they sacrificed six young girls each to bribe the local mountain god, city god, and land god of Shazhou Prefecture in Dui Country, in order to cut off the spiritual energy veins supplying the Feisha Palace...

It actually worked...

Well, it seems that Feisha Palace doesn't really respect the deities appointed by these Immortal Palace...

As the sandstorm subsided, the true face of the Feisha Palace was quickly revealed to everyone. They could even see that the great formation had suddenly failed, and many Feisha Palace disciples dressed in yellow robes were hurriedly fleeing back to the oasis from the formation.

The attackers were well-prepared, unleashing spells, talismans, and magical treasures to kill the Feisha Palace disciples lurking in the sand sea. They first eliminated those at the Golden Core stage, then annihilated those at the Foundation Establishment stage.

Indeed, Feisha Palace had arranged for ordinary Outer Sect disciples to be used as cannon fodder within the formation, intending to ambush those who entered. However, their tactic had clearly been seen through. As soon as the formation stopped, hundreds of people were killed on the spot, their blood blooming in patches on the yellow sand. Without the cover of the formation, these people were merely targets aimed at by a large group of cultivators. Once their Divine Sense were locked on and their magical treasures were discarded, how could they escape? They were all killed in no time.

Throughout this entire ordeal, three Nascent Soul Stage cultivators from the Feisha Palace hid on the altar within the palace, urgently using the sect's magical treasures and elixirs to supply spiritual energy and deploy a new protective array, which, like a light curtain, shielded Feisha Palace to prevent it from being attacked. They could not and dared not come out to rescue their disciples as they were slaughtered.

However, the attackers were not in a hurry to storm into the palace. They first safely eliminated the living people on the outer perimeter, then narrowed the encirclement and arrived at the entrance of the Feisha Palace. Every now and then, they threw out a few talismans to test the strength of the inner defenses of the Feisha Palace.

Li Fan realized they were waiting for nightfall.

Feisha Palace is, after all, a sect, with arrays and barriers set up for hundreds of years, and it also has magical treasures and pills to replenish its power. Even if its spiritual energy is temporarily cut off, it cannot be easily broken through by sheer numbers.

But things change once it gets dark.

As darkness fell, the False Moon appeared. The malevolent energy in the world began to grow. Although the time was not yet ripe for the spiritual energy array to be unusable, the burden on spiritual Divine Sense would increase exponentially. Moreover, if a fatal mistake occurred—that the spell would fail—it could determine victory or defeat.

After all, not everyone can fight back against a group of opponents at the same cultivation level like Li Fan. Generally speaking, if someone at the same cultivation level fights two opponents at once, they have little chance of survival.

In reality, the outcome was even more brutal; the battle was decided before it was even completely dark and before the final offensive had begun.

Yes, there's a traitor in the Feisha Palace.

Whether it was due to a mental breakdown or pre-arranged, someone broke the barrier and escaped under the cover of night.

So the attackers launched a coordinated attack, breaking through the last layer of sect defenses and rampaging through the Feisha Palace.

The three Nascent Soul Stage inside the palace turned and fled without a word. Not one of them swore to live and die with the sect.

The three escaped directly on their magical light, while the attackers, who had already made their arrangements, pursued them in a three-on-one chase, with nine others following behind. The remaining attackers began a brutal massacre, quickly slaughtering all the remaining disciples, servants, and cultivators of the Feisha Palace —those at the Golden Core Foundation Establishment, and Qi Refinement Stages. They stripped them of all their magical treasures, robes, and Storage Jade from head to toe, even killing and skinning the sect's rare and exotic beasts for their cores. They carried away any alchemy furnaces and magical Magic Treasure they could, and dug up, dismantled, smashed, and uprooted everything, leaving not a single tile behind.

Since we're all here to wipe out entire sects, let's not pretend to be virtuous gentlemen.

Li Fan couldn't stand watching for long.

He didn't care much about cultivators killing each other, after all, they were all humanoid monsters hundreds or thousands of years old, so killing each other didn't bother him much. But to wipe out the families and children of the Feisha Palace disciples, even the infants, was going too far.

So Li Fan took direct action, conjuring a whirlwind to sweep away the remaining old, weak, sick, and disabled members of the Feisha Palace, throwing them outside the sect to let them escape.

That's all. The disciples registered within the Feisha Palace cannot be saved. After all, if you inherit someone else's Daoist Tradition, you must bear the corresponding consequences. There's no such thing as a free lunch. It seems that even the Divine Transformation ancestor of the Flying Feisha Palace doesn't understand this principle. He thinks that by hiding and keeping quiet, he can escape this calamity.

Yes, there really is an ancestor within the Feisha Palace.

After a brief investigation, Li Fan discovered that the old ancestor and the palace master of the Feisha Palace were hiding in the sect's forbidden area underground.

This Divine Transformation cultivator was indeed much weaker than anyone Li Fan had seen before. He was probably facing imminent calamity and hiding in the sect's forbidden area, clinging to life and relying on the sect's offerings to prolong his existence. He was the kind of old monster who would be struck by heavenly lightning and perish as soon as he stepped out of the barrier. Naturally, he would just watch his sect be destroyed and wouldn't dare to rashly make a move that would lead to his death.

This underground sect's forbidden area is clearly riddled with traps and restrictions, and only the direct descendants of the Feisha Palace —the patriarch, the sect leader, and even illegitimate children—can enter and hide there. The attackers won't have time to raid it for the time being. Perhaps there really is a chance for them to escape.

Unfortunately, their chance for a turnaround didn't come today, because Li Fan wanted to test their combat capabilities.

So he transformed into a raging storm, and Li Fan pushed his way through the Feisha Palace's restrictive formation, rushing into the secret passage.

Unfortunately, the clone couldn't transform into a Kun to infiltrate, and breaking through multiple layers of barriers would cause too much commotion, so Li Fan was a step too late.

Qu Feihuang, the master of the Feisha Palace, is dead. He was the same woman in the yellow robe I saw not long ago.

Actually, having a piece of flesh removed isn't fatal; it can be healed with medication. But the patriarch of the Feisha Palace couldn't wait. He struck the palace master's divine court with a palm, directly using her body to dissolve his body.

"Fellow Daoist, please wait..."

"Slow my ass! Slow my ass!"

Enraged, Li Fan smashed the Feisha Palace Ancestor, who had just been possessed and was barely able to speak, to pieces with a single punch.

I finally found someone to test my skills against in the Divine Transformation stage, and you just went and disintegrated yourself first?! At least let me help you disintegrate!!

Li Fan was speechless.

Why is my luck so bad?! If I had arrived a moment earlier, I could have stopped this old bastard from disintegrating and fought him! Damn it!

A blow, fueled by resentment and dissatisfaction, shattered the wall of the underground vault of the Feisha Palace.

Then, this unknown Divine Transformation ancestor, who had accumulated countless mountains of gold, silver, silk, satin, agate, gemstones, pearls, and jade over many years, suddenly gushed out, almost submerging Li Fan's knees.

Li Fan sighed.

What's the point of a cultivator like you getting involved with all this gold and silver? You're just going to die surrounded by money, and now you're happy, aren't you?

Even if that old guy in the Feisha Palace doesn't disintegrate, he's probably trash that can be dealt with with a single punch.

After all, the moment he had the thought, "I've reached the Divine Transformation, I can finally enjoy life," the foundation of his cultivation, built up over many years, had already crumbled and scattered like loose sand...

Looking at the golden sand that buried the corpse of the Divine Transformation Ancestor, Li Fan suddenly felt something.

Cultivation is like rowing against the current or climbing a mountain against the wind; there can be no laziness whatsoever. Breaking through one realm leads to the next, and crossing one threshold leads to the next.

Once weariness sets in, the drive to succeed fades, and the grip loosens, sooner or later, one will fall to the bottom. No matter how glorious the achievements once were, they will all crumble like a sandbar, carried away by the wind...

Keep climbing, even if you climb to the ends of the earth, never stop.