True Monarch Li Yang emerged from seclusion after advancing to late Void Returning, and the news indeed dealt True Yang Sect a considerable blow.
After reaching the Void Returning Stage, any further breakthrough in cultivation became extraordinarily difficult.
Take True Monarch Li Yang as an example. He had broken through to the middle Void Returning Stage over twenty thousand years into the Cangyuan Calendar.
Yet during the hundred thousand-plus years that followed, his cultivation had progressed at a snail's pace, with no hope of another breakthrough in sight.
Among the many Void Returning Stage True Lords of the Human Race in the True Immortal Realm, fewer than one in five ultimately reached late Void Returning.
True Yang Sect had previously dared to suppress Crimson Firmament Immortal Palace at every turn not only because it possessed two more Void Returning Stage True Lords, but also because it had a late Void Returning True Lord.
But now, True Monarch Li Yang had also broken through to late Void Returning, and he even wielded the palace-protecting treasure that Crimson Firmament Dao Ancestor had left behind for Crimson Firmament Immortal Palace.
Thus, while True Yang Sect still held some advantage in terms of peak combat power, it could no longer be called an overwhelming advantage.
More importantly, True Monarch Li Yang's sudden breakthrough to late Void Returning was steeped in strangeness.
Coupled with the Nascent Soul Stage cultivators who had sprung up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain within Crimson Firmament Immortal Palace over the past thousand years, it was impossible not to make True Yang Sect's rulers think deeply.
And the more they thought, the more their thoughts made their hearts pound with alarm, until they did not dare think any further.
Thus, all the plans originally intended to target Crimson Firmament