Hundreds of years!
Thousands of years!
That answer was within the Marquis of Northcloud's expectations.
After all, the expansion of the world took time.
At that thought,
he asked again, "Is there any way to stop the world from expanding?"
"Yes!"
"How?"
"Kill! Slaughter the vast majority of the world's powerful cultivators. With no one left to draw in heaven and earth spiritual energy, the world will no longer draw power from outside. Without enough spiritual energy to sustain it, the world will stop expanding."
That single word, kill, laid bare the essence of slaughter.
Upon hearing this,
the Marquis of Northcloud fell silent.
Rather than a solution, this was an utterly impossible path.
Exterminating every cultivator in the world
would be tantamount to wiping out the entire cultivation world, along with every cultivation legacy under heaven.
When that happened,
only ordinary people would remain in the world, without a single cultivator among them.
With no one drawing in spiritual energy,
the world would cease expanding.
However—
to accomplish this, one needed strength that could rival the entire world, as well as the resolve to cut off one's own arm to survive.
Even the Human Emperor
could not accomplish that.
Moreover,
although this approach would prevent the world from coming into contact with the Demon Abyss, it would also completely sever the path of cultivation. That was not necessarily a good thing.
Thus, upon hearing those words,
after a brief silence,
the Marquis of Northcloud shook his head. "Severing cultivation would bring about the end of the Dharma Era. How difficult that would be."
Having said that,
he set the matter aside for the time being.
Regardless of how things stood,
that day was still a long way off.
The most important matters at present
were the Demon Race and