Several days later.
In Eastwater.
A fine rain blurred the landscape. The former White Clan ancestral grounds had become a Bitter-Drowning Spring.
Even ordinary Qi Ingestion cultivators who drew near felt their eyes sting and began to weep without realizing it...
Monk-soldiers piled bones into mountains as offerings to the White Bone Way's Brahma Artifacts.
Ritual patterns of mingled blood and flesh spread across the earth, round on the outside and square within. Guardian deities patrolled them: this was the Esoteric Treasury's Mandala ritual. The White Clan's Purple Mansion array had been broken beyond use, so the Esoteric Treasury needed to establish another.
Inside a tent.
Fang Qing sat cross-legged, silently sensing the void.
"Before, the Great Void was like a solid iron plate, impossible to pass through... Now a few cracks have opened..."
"Those cracks still won't let ordinary Early or Mid Purple Mansion cultivators through... but for a late-stage Purple Mansion Great True Person or Great Dharma King, perhaps..." Just then, Fang Qing felt a crack in the Great Void widen a fraction.
Another array node has fallen?
The Great Void has loosened enough for late-stage Purple Mansion Great True Persons to pass through at will...
He grumbled inwardly: The Harmonious Bliss Sect's resistance isn't firm at all. Instead, they're dragging their feet... Is that their plan? An open scheme to stall for time and wait for circumstances to change? At the thought, Fang Qing came to a realization and secretly contacted Sangji through the Dao-Born Pearl. "Does the Harmonious Bliss Sect have any senior cultivators capable of attaining the Golden Seat? Four Divine Abilities at Perfection may meet the minimum requirement, but in reality, it's still far, far from enough..."
"Someone did attain the Golden Seat through Stomach Earth, but can you compare them?"
"How could a