After Qing Qin arrived at the Sub-Mountain Gate, his first order was: all Spirit Wood Dao disciples were to cease fighting immediately, or be killed without mercy!
A True Lord ought to carry himself this way, but although the many disciples stopped fighting, they could not help grumbling inwardly.
"Kill without mercy" again. Over the past few days, they had heard those words more than anything else.
Then True Lord Qing Qin bluntly announced, "I don't know about the challenge, but since you lost, you must accept the loss!"
"Now I'll ask you one thing: did this happen or not? If it didn't, I'll go to the Spirit Plant Path and demand an explanation."
"But even if I do seek an explanation, none of you may continue this infighting in the meantime. Otherwise, don't blame me for enforcing the sect rules."
No one dared claim the challenge had never happened. So many True Lords in Heavenly Zither had witnessed the entire affair!
Even if someone wanted to deceive Qing Qin, they had to consider reality: with a casual divination, how could a True Lord fail to learn the truth?
So denying the challenge was truly meaningless. It would only get them casually erased by a True Lord.
The moderate and neutral factions naturally admitted it without hesitation, but the war faction was unwilling to accept it.
They emphasized two points. The first was that True Lord Yuan Zhe had been set up, and Yi Jue had used underhanded methods.
Some said that how could Great Venerable Yuan Zhe possibly lose to a newly advanced True Lord? Others claimed Yi Jue had borrowed external power.
The second point was that the Spirit Plant Path's conditions for unification were far too overbearing. This was not a merger of the two paths at