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Yin-Yang Valley

A secluded valley in the Southern Region was sparsely populated and showed no sign of anything unusual.

Yet this seemingly ordinary place was home to one of the forces that shook the Southern Region: the Yinyang Sect, one of the Ten Great Sects.

"Old Ancestor Yin, Old Ancestor Yang has fallen!"

"Have you found out why?"

"No. When Old Ancestor Yang left, he didn't alert anyone."

"That old bastard. Damn him."

After hearing his subordinates' report, a middle-aged beauty remained expressionless, her gaze icy.

The Yinyang Sect had two sect masters, one Yin and one Yang. Each generation of sect masters were dual-cultivation partners, jointly comprehending the Yinyang Sect's secret arts.

Now that one was gone, it would greatly affect her cultivation as well.

As for grief, she felt none. What she felt was mostly regret and anger.

"Before that old bastard left, it seemed he went in the direction of Beast Taming Mountain..."

The middle-aged beauty's eyes flickered. Beast Taming Mountain seemed to have been destroyed.

Could there be some connection between the two?

She didn't care whether Sect Master Yang lived or died. At most, they were partners. But he possessed a treasure related to the Yin-Yang supreme treasure, and she had to obtain it.

"Go. Send more people and continue investigating the cause of Sect Master Yang's death."

"Don't overlook any possible clues."

"Yes!"

The Mystic Pill Sect.

Unlike the other sects, the Mystic Pill Sect had established itself right in the middle of a bustling Southern Region city. Its rows of buildings looked resplendent with gold and jade, utterly lacking the lofty air of cultivators. The whole place could be summed up in two words: filthy rich.

A middle-aged man dressed in splendid robes stared at the letter in his hand.

A calculating glint flashed in his eyes from time to time, making him seem sly and greedy.

After a long while, he casually burned the letter in his palm.

"A Xiantian from Jingyun Sect has fallen..."

The middle-aged man looked up and laughed gleefully. "Pass down my order. Starting today, cut Jingyun Sect's fixed pill allotment by seventy percent, and raise the price of additional pills by seventy percent! Without a Xiantian, they're destined to fall from the ranks of the one-star sects. They don't deserve the privileges they used to enjoy."

"Hmph, Jingyun Sect got what it deserved."

"Back then, when those fools banded together to oppose our pill monopoly, Five Elements Sect and Jingyun Sect were the loudest. 'For the sake of humanity,' they said. If a man doesn't look out for himself, Heaven and Earth will destroy him!"

"So what if the foreign races invade? Someone else will hold them off. They can't reach our own doorstep. Why risk our lives for a bunch of ants?"

"We're a great sect of the Southern Region. Why not stay safe in the rear and enjoy ourselves? At most, the foreign races will seize some borderlands. The Ten Thousand Alliance will deal with them. And what if a few ordinary people die? What does that have to do with us? People die every day. Those sects are all fools."

"A bunch of idiots whose brains have been washed by talk of righteousness. They were doomed to get what was coming to them."

Below the middle-aged man, a crowd of Mystic Pill Sect elders clapped and laughed.

Jingyun Sect had no strength to speak of, yet it had dared obstruct their interests. It deserved to be destroyed!

Now retribution had arrived. With its Xiantian fallen, Jingyun Sect's destruction was only a matter of time.

"Hahaha, well said!"

"If a man doesn't look out for himself, Heaven and Earth will destroy him. We make our fortunes off war!"

"We earn blood-and-tears money!"

"So what? Even knowing that, don't they still come crawling to beg us?"

"Everyone, let's sit back and wait for the show to begin."

The middle-aged man laughed heartily along with them. For a time, the hall brimmed with wine and song, a scene of decadent imperial splendor.

As for resisting the foreign races and forming an alliance to defend against them?

Those were just words to fool idiots. The Southern Region was vast. So what if a few people died? What did that have to do with them?

Wasn't it better to make money in peace?

And if the foreign races really did come... With the wealth the Mystic Pill Sect had amassed over the years, they could simply move their sect.

The worst that could happen was leaving the Southern Region.

A bunch of mortal ants—were they worth having noble cultivators risk their lives to protect?

Ridiculous.

As for the other great sects—the Myriad Array Mountain, the Treasure Pavilion, the Shadow Sect, and the War Puppet Sect—they also watched coldly from the sidelines.

What did it matter to them whether Jingyun Sect was destroyed?

The Myriad Array Mountain and the Shadow Sect were both located near the front lines, and devoted all their efforts to resisting the foreign races. They had no time to bother with Jingyun Sect's affairs.

Whether it would be destroyed depended on Jingyun Sect's luck.

The other two great sects were in much the same position.

The Treasure Pavilion had mysterious origins and rarely concerned itself with the affairs of the Southern Region.

This force had very few disciples—far fewer even than the Mystic Pill Sect. Every disciple had a mysterious identity and extraordinary methods, and they were difficult to track down.

Some even suspected that the Treasure Pavilion had no more than a dozen disciples in all.

The Treasure Pavilion mainly dealt in auctions and intelligence. Though it didn't fight on the front lines, it kept close tabs on the foreign races' every move, providing a wealth of intelligence that helped the front lines avoid many losses.

Thanks to this, the Treasure Pavilion had secured a place among the Ten Great Sects of the Southern Region with only a few dozen members.

Moreover, the Treasure Pavilion seemed to have deep connections.

That was another important reason the various forces feared it.

Thus, the two sides had always coexisted peacefully.

Unless the very survival of the Southern Region was at stake, neither side paid the other any mind.

As for the last, the War Puppet Sect.

The War Puppet Sect had been rebuilt on the foundations of the Artifact Refiner Sect, formerly one of the Ten Great Sects.

It had shifted from forging all kinds of magical treasures to building various war machines, which also played an indispensable role on the battlefield against the foreign races.

Most of the War Puppet Sect's efforts were also focused on the front lines. Though it regretted the upheaval in the rear, it could only set it aside so long as nothing major happened.

After all, the clash with the foreign races on the front lines mattered more than a fallen Jingyun Sect.

All in all, for one reason or another, the major sects of the Southern Region watched Jingyun Sect's troubles with cold indifference, if not outright glee.

Jingyun Sect.

At this moment, a storm was truly brewing. A mournful atmosphere hung over the entire sect, and countless elders and disciples wore blank expressions, their eyes dim.

The Grand Elder was gone.

The Xiantian of Jingyun Sect was gone.

Without a Xiantian to stand guard, could Jingyun Sect still be called Jingyun Sect?

Many newly recruited disciples stared in confusion.

Their futures looked utterly bleak.

Some with darker hearts cursed their bad luck. Why couldn't that old hag from Jingyun Sect have died at any other time? She had to die six months after they joined the sect.

Wasn't that a raw deal?

Perhaps Jingyun Sect really had fallen into decline. They ought to find another way out.

The ship that was Jingyun Sect could no longer carry many people. Soon, it would spring leaks everywhere, unable to weather even the slightest storm.

Quite a few people thought this way.

And it wasn't just the disciples. Many elders were wavering, too.

Some elders and disciples who were away from the sect heard that the sect's Grand Elder had fallen and simply cut off contact, going off on their own.

Some became wandering cultivators; others joined different sects.

All in all, Jingyun Sect was shrouded in gloom. Countless disciples were restless, and many had already begun making their move to leave.

Jingyun Sect was facing the greatest crisis since its founding.

Survive it, and it would be reborn from the ashes.

Fail, and it would never recover, disappearing from the Southern Region forever.