As the battle continued to develop, things indeed gradually headed in a worse direction. Huo Hai saw it clearly: this was certainly a joint scheme by the Immortal Gate and the Ghost Medicine Sect. In truth, many others had seen through it as well.
But the issue was not whether they could see through it. Even if they knew, there was nothing they could do. At the beginning, the Ghost Medicine Sect and the Immortal Gate had used this Secret Realm as bait, continuously drawing the major powers into contention.
As more and more factions joined, the scale of the fighting grew ever larger. In the end, even the southeastern and northeastern regions joined in one after another. Under their planning, the various Sects suffered continual losses in battle. More and more people were killed or wounded, until eventually even some relatively important figures died in the fighting.
Once hatred had been completely forged, the battle could no longer be undone. With the Eight Gates continually fanning the flames, some of the greedier people within these factions kept joining in, and the scene only became more chaotic afterward.
Some Sects had even gathered large numbers of Rogue Cultivator adventurers from who knew where. Even assassin organizations had been swept into it. By now, this battle had spread across half the Eastern Region, shrouding an enormous expanse.
The major Sects of the Eastern Region bore the brunt of it. Aside from a handful of powerful Sects, whose doorsteps no one dared casually disturb, most factions had been dragged in. Even those that wanted to seal off their mountains could not escape the fate of being forcibly pulled out. In only a few short years, quite a few factions had already been wiped out.
By contrast, the Immortal Gate and the Ghost