Some of the famines and calamities Wen Qingfei mentioned had been caused by flash floods, wildfires, beast tides, demons, and the like.
Others, however, were purely man-made disasters!
Some followers of the Demonic Path, Spirit Herders, and rogue cultivators specifically preyed on mortals and low-level rogue cultivators!
To them, the outbreak of war was a feast of revelry. Ordinarily, with the Righteous Path and the Heavenly Dao Alliance keeping them in check, they at least knew to restrain themselves, and finding opportunities to strike was difficult. But during this war, far too many people were fishing in troubled waters.
And so, everywhere, demons and spirit monsters emerged to wreak havoc with no one to suppress them, and no one intervened.
A rogue cultivator wanted to refine a ghostly entity but lacked offerings to sacrifice, so he simply slaughtered a village. No one intervened.
An Unorthodox Path practitioner took a fancy to a treasure and snatched it away. The rogue cultivator who owned it could not resist, and no one intervened.
A spirit creature created through lifeform manifestation was scattered in battle, escaped the battlefield, and fled to a village. Having gone too long without replenishing its spirit qi, it was ravenous and simply ate people to fill its belly, degenerating into a demon. No one intervened.
A faction desperately short of troops seized able-bodied men and abducted boys and girls, forcibly conscripting them as warriors or disciples, tearing spouses and children apart and shattering families. No one intervened.
Even when supreme experts fought in some remote forest, their overwhelming auras could scatter spirit monsters in terror. A thousand miles away, mortals might consequently fall into beasts' jaws or be harmed by drifting yin baleful energy and poisonous mist. In such cases, there was even less chance of anyone intervening.
Ordinarily,