Nuwa had no stake in the matter.
After all, she had not founded a sect and had merely taken a few disciples on a whim.
Whoever won or lost had little to do with her.
The Two Sages of the West, however, looked grim. The Interception Sect was so powerful, and their Western Teachings had already provoked it.
If they could not weaken the Interception Sect, any hope of the Western Teachings entering the Primordial World would be nothing but a joke.
As for this particular matter, Hongjun alone wore an unhappy expression.
Beyond the Thirty-Three Heavens, amid the boundless chaos.
Zixiao Palace!
Hongjun's expression was now extremely ugly. His hands blurred into afterimages as he reached into his Storage Space, rummaging back and forth without pause.
"Where's my Eastern Emperor Bell?"
"That great big Eastern Emperor Bell! I remember putting it right here after I collected it following Di Jun's death!"
"Why is it gone? How did it end up in Tongtian's hands?"
"Tongtian doesn't have that kind of ability either. Did the Eastern Emperor Bell choose its own master? Now that would be rather interesting."
Meanwhile, ten thousand zhang above Chentang Pass.
The disciples of both sects stood in the air, but none of them spoke.
With the sages of both sects present, there was simply no room for them to speak.
"Third Brother, back when the Demon Race ruled the Heavenly Court, even the Eastern Emperor Bell couldn't protect it."
"I must say, you're indulging in wild fantasies if you think you can use the Eastern Emperor Bell to anchor the Interception Sect's fortune."
"You'd be better off using your Four Immortal-Slaying Swords!"
The Primordial Heavenly Venerable spoke tentatively, hoping to persuade Tongtian to abandon the Eastern Emperor Bell.
The reason he had originally been confident that he could suppress the Interception Sect during the Investiture Calamity was simple: the sect was entangled in tribulation aura and lacked an Innate Supreme Treasure to anchor its fortune.
But now that the Interception Sect possessed the Eastern Emperor Bell, it had filled its final gap.
After seeing the Eastern Emperor Bell, Yuanshi had not even had time to consider Taiyi Zhenren's death.
At that moment, Tongtian smiled.
As he looked at the Primordial Heavenly Venerable before him, disdain curled his lips.
"How I run my Interception Sect is none of your concern."
"The Demon Race's Heavenly Court did indeed fall, but it fell at the hands of the Witch Clan."
"Does your Chan Sect possess the Witch Clan's might?"
Tongtian was not talking nonsense.
Although the Chan Sect and the Interception Sect seemed powerful now, and the Western Teachings were no weak force either.
They were still far, far inferior to the Demon Race and Witch Clan of old.
Only the sages could stand above those two races. In every other respect, the gap was enormous.
Who knew what Yuanshi was thinking?
But he knew that with Tongtian here today, killing Wuyun Xian was absolutely impossible. Their teacher Hongjun would never allow it either.
Taiyi Zhenren was dead, and that was that.
After all, this was the Investiture Calamity. Unless one became a sage, one remained an ant.
The Chan Sect had suffered a defeat today.
"You had better be careful, Junior Brother. The Investiture Calamity has only just begun. Who will bring down the deer remains to be seen."
"We'll see how this plays out!"
With a cold snort, Yuanshi swept his hand and took all the Chan Sect disciples away.
Tongtian remained calm at the sight.
Of course he knew the Investiture Calamity had only just begun.
But his own schemes had only just begun as well.
Nezha was merely the first step.
Watching Yuanshi leave, Tongtian spoke calmly. "Wuyun Xian, stay behind and look after your disciple."
"The rest of you, return to Golden Ao Island with me!"
Whoosh!
In the blink of an eye, Tongtian had brought everyone back to Golden Ao Island.
In short, unless there was something to gain, Tongtian would never allow his disciples to come and go from Golden Ao Island at will.
Elsewhere.
Once the matter was settled, Wuyun Xian returned to Li Jing's residence in Chentang Pass.
"Rest assured, both of you. It's over."
"As long as the Chan Sect has any shame left, they won't show up in Chentang Pass again."
"From today onward, your third son is unequivocally a member of the Interception Sect. The Chan Sect can no longer interfere."
"Relax and focus on the pregnancy. I'm off to cultivate."
Having said his piece, Wuyun Xian paid no further attention to the couple. He went straight back to his room, sat cross-legged, and began cultivating.
Li Jing and Yin Shiniang, however, could not calm down at all.
Neither husband nor wife had ever imagined that Taiyi Zhenren would simply be beaten to death like that.
Good heavens!
He was an eminent disciple of the Chan Sect, one of the Twelve Golden Immortals!
And he had died just like that?
What surprised the couple even more was that even when the Chan Sect's sage Yuanshi arrived, he gained nothing.
That was a Golden Immortal-an immortal who could endure ten thousand calamities without perishing!
In the couple's eyes, someone like that had already been among the strongest beings in all heaven and earth.
Especially for Yin Shiniang.
Only now did she truly understand what the Investiture Calamity meant.
Even Golden Immortals could die. Where did that leave their family?
Nezha would be all right. After all, he belonged to the Interception Sect.
Judging by how the Interception Sect conducted itself, it would not interfere with Nezha's choices.
But what about her other two children, Jin Zha and Mu Zha?
Were they simply to let those two take the calamity in their masters' place?
To Yin Shiniang, that was utterly unacceptable.
Her eyes flickered as she began considering asking Wuyun Xian to bring back her two ill-fated children.
Golden Ao Island, Biyou Palace.
Tongtian was no longer paying much attention to Chentang Pass. Instead, he turned his gaze toward the lands of Yin Shang.
Yangzhou City.
A great battle was taking place there.
Countless Heavenly Soldiers and Generals were pursuing a family of five.
Yang Tianyou, Fairy Yunhua, and their three children.
Yang Jiao, Yang Jian, and Yang Chan!
Fairy Yunhua was the younger sister of Haotian, the Jade Emperor. Not long ago, for some unknown reason, she had suddenly descended to the mortal world, fallen in love with a mortal named Yang Tianyou, and even borne him three children.
This had enraged Haotian, who immediately dispatched Heavenly Soldiers and Generals.
Something was deeply wrong with this in itself.
How could an immortal maiden fall in love with a mortal?
A romance that crossed such a gulf in rank simply made no sense.
This was no longer a love story between a wealthy heiress and a penniless boy, but one between a human and an animal like a pig or a dog.
Immortal and mortal!
That gulf had long since surpassed the difference between a wealthy heiress and a penniless boy.
After all, even if immortals did not live forever, they still had lifespans of at least a thousand years, ten thousand years, or even hundreds of thousands of years.
And mortals?
Even the long-lived ones had only a hundred years or so.
By that reckoning, no matter how foolish Fairy Yunhua was, she would never have fallen in love with Yang Tianyou.
Even without Haotian's interference, Fairy Yunhua could emerge from a single cultivation session to discover that her husband had died of old age. Was that not a joke?
Thus, Tongtian was certain that the Chan Sect's scheming had to be involved.
Perhaps the aim was to temper Yang Jian, who was destined to become a third-generation Chan Sect disciple.
This was probably also why Haotian was furious.
The Chan Sect had gone too far.
They had actually schemed against him, the Lord of the Heavenly Court.
The supposed pursuit of Yang Tianyou's family of five might well have been an attempt to protect them, to keep his relatives from falling prey to the Chan Sect's schemes.
Otherwise, no matter how weak the Heavenly Court was, it could not possibly fail to kill one immortal and a few mortals.
And by now, Tongtian had already spotted Yu Ding Zhenren lurking near Yang Tianyou's family of five.
Whenever the Heavenly Soldiers and Generals were about to reach them, he would secretly intervene and take those soldiers and generals away.
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