Han Li's strategy of consolidating the Righteous Path Alliance and establishing four divisions and one pavilion was like a massive stone hurled into a tranquil lake, stirring towering waves across the Southern Heaven Cultivation World. On the surface, every sect answered the call, righteous cultivators' morale soared, and Star-Magnetic Peak bustled with reconstruction and military reorganization. Beneath that surface, however, countless undercurrents quietly surged, collided, and fermented in corners beyond Han Li's sight.
In the northwest of Heavenly South, deep within the Nether Abyss, the Ghost Spirit Sect's Headquarters Altar.
Venerable Bone Nether sat cross-legged atop a white-bone altar, his face ashen and his aura unsteady. In his battle with Han Li earlier that day, his "myriad ghosts same origin" had been severed, his White Bone Banner damaged, and the Ten Thousand Ghosts World-Breaking Awl stripped of much of its spiritual potency. His own vital essence had also suffered; without three to five years of secluded cultivation, he would struggle to regain his peak strength. Now, his crimson ghost eyes brimmed with venomous resentment and lingering terror.
"That junior... actually broke my 'myriad ghosts same origin'? His sword art, and Griffin's aura..." Venerable Bone Nether ground his teeth. Even now, Han Li's final sword strike left him shaken. It was not merely a power that countered his own; it seemed to have brushed the fringes of some higher-order law, exposing flaws that should never have existed in the ghost-path abilities on which he had built his reputation.
Below the altar, Fairy Lianhua of the Joyful Union Sect, Yan Luo of the Demonflame Sect, Dream Illusion Scholar of the Thousand Illusions Sect, and Blood Bat, a surviving elder of the Loose Demon Alliance at the nascent soul middle stage, sat along either side. None looked pleased.
"Fellow Daoist Bone Nether, what