Western Ox-He Continent, Ten Thousand Buddhas Temple.
Li Xingtian looked calmly down at the great city formed by an unbroken sprawl of magnificent Buddhist temples.
The monks chanted sutras with contented expressions, gazing up longingly at the impassive Buddha statues, yet never looking at the starving, dying refugees behind them.
This city of ten thousand Buddhas had also raised high walls, shutting out everyone and everything beyond them.
There was neither compassion nor humanity to be seen.
Following his master's instructions, Li Xingtian led cultivators from the Heavenly Derivation Sect. Wang Lin's squad, with whom he had worked before, had also been assigned to his command, making it especially easy to direct them.
As Nascent Soul cultivators who formed the backbone of the Heavenly Derivation Sect, their cultivation alone qualified them to be called patriarchs in this wild land of the Western Ox-He Continent.
And the cultivator leading them this time was none other than Yan Yun.
The Heavenly Derivation Sect's current core disciple.
A hundred cultivators stood high in the sky, the vast majority at Nascent Soul cultivation.
This force might not sweep across the entire Western Ox-He Continent, but crushing the Ten Thousand Buddhas Temple, which had no reinforcements whatsoever, would be effortless.
The abbot of the Ten Thousand Buddhas Temple, a plump, kindly-faced old man wreathed in golden light, possessed early Spirit Transformation stage cultivation. He approached the cultivators led by Yan Yun alone and offered a Buddhist salute upon meeting them:
"Greetings, everyone. May I ask what brings you here?"
Yan Yun swept her gaze over the scene below and said icily:
"The Ten Thousand Buddhas Temple has received offerings from the mortals of the Western Ox-He Continent for over a hundred years. Never mind how many mountains of gold and silver they gave you; at