The Qi Refinement Way.
The news of something this momentous finally jolted Fang Qing out of seclusion, where he had been cultivating and strengthening his Core Formation powers.
"The White Bone Way... No, the Secret Treasury Domain is going to wage all-out war against the Harmonious Bliss Sect?"
He was startled. "Aren't they all heretical demons? They're going that hard?"
Fang Qing realized with a shock that he, too, had made no allowance or preparations for this. Perhaps no one in the world had.
Even the monasteries of the Esoteric Treasury were probably at a complete loss.
After all, how could lesser cultivators like them know what the True Lords and Embodied Buddhas above them were thinking?
"Is it a probe? Or something else?"
"Has the Secret Treasury Domain allied with the Demon Race again?"
Fang Qing let out a long breath.
He knew little else, but he knew this: if the earlier battle with the Profound Earth Sect had been a minor skirmish, and the battle on Black Marsh Plain had drawn real blood, then this eastward advance by the secret monks would be a war to the death!
To fight their way through the Land of Ancient Shu, they would have to pass through Departing Earth Commandery, where the Profound Earth Sect stood, and Wushan Commandery farther east. Neither would sit by and await its doom.
And that route already offered the least resistance.
"The White Bone Way has to fight through the Land of Ancient Shu and enter Harmonious Bliss Sect territory before it can receive the Esoteric Treasury Dharma King's support... Even if True Lord Profound Earth is willing to yield, he's hardly going to give up his own sect's mountain gate... What price will this cost?"
"This time, people are going to die. A great