Li Qiulan

A drastic upheaval in the rear mountain, a secret scandal exposed—Nine Void Mountain, which seemed to have forcibly suppressed the turmoil through the Patrol Division's iron-blooded crackdown, had in truth long since rotted from within, its very foundations thrown into chaos.

On the surface, the sect's prohibitions hung high. No one dared publicly discuss the Wisdom Gu or the deaths of the successors anymore. The once-bustling sect plazas and corridors had gained an air of dead silence and oppression.

Yet beneath the surface, undercurrents of suspicion, greed, and panic surged madly, spreading layer upon layer.

The sect's already intricate factional struggles were thoroughly reshuffled and abruptly intensified by this earth-shaking secret.

For hundreds of years, Nine Void Mountain's power structure had been clearly divided, broadly split into two great camps.

The first was the Lineage faction, formed by old cultivation Aristocratic Clans such as the Qian, Wang, and Zhao families, who had rooted themselves in Nine Void Mountain for generations.

These families were tangled together like roots and branches, with deep foundations. They controlled more than half the sect's tax revenues, industries, connections, and lower-level authority. Conservative in their ways, they valued hereditary interests and held the sect's worldly foundations firmly in their grasp.

The second was the Technical Faction, centered around the four major arts of alchemy, Gu refinement, artifact forging, and runes.

Most disciples of this faction lacked powerful family backgrounds. They established themselves in the sect through their unique skills, studying the arts and pursuing the utmost heights of the Great Dao. They relied on ability rather than lineage and had always been like fire and water with the old Lineage faction, which clung to its interests and monopolized resources.

Though countless smaller branches and interest groups had emerged beneath the two major factions, and internal conflicts