Food, weapons, medicine, and talent were all indispensable elements of war. The demonic path had already spread its tentacles, and chaos was about to begin.
This year, the Yan family would offer the Talisman Treasure "Heaven-Earth Tower" as the prize and invite the young elites of every sect in the Yue Kingdom to attend the Treasure-Taking Assembly.
The Yan family's ancestor had come from the Ghost Spirit Sect, one of the Six Demonic Sects. During the war between the righteous and demonic paths, the demonic path had suffered devastating losses. The Yan family's ancestor had seized that power vacuum to rise rapidly, establishing the Yue Kingdom's foremost cultivation family.
Now the Ghost Spirit Sect had returned, sending its young master to turn the Yan family to its side.
After receiving this intelligence, Mo Caihuan began her campaign.
Troops began pouring into the territories controlled by the Whale-Jiao Society, while its members in many wealthy cities also sprang into action.
Everyone realized what was happening. The Whale-Jiao Society was finally going to rebel.
This was no simple rebellion, but a sweeping war of unification. The Whale-Jiao Society had long since established bases in impoverished regions across various countries, ready to launch uprisings on command.
For a time, the fires of war blazed everywhere. Across multiple countries and regions, people raised poles as banners of revolt, changing the strings and tuning their instruments anew.
The first imperial court to be overthrown was that of the Jiang Kingdom, a small country between the Yue Kingdom and the Tianluo Kingdom. Its emperor was a distant relative of the Tianluo Kingdom's emperor.
This little country was so poor its empty coffers rang hollow, and resentment among the people had long been boiling over. With a little organizing by the Whale-Jiao Society, countless people were willing to overthrow the court.
Seeing his distant relative overthrown, the Tianluo Kingdom's emperor immediately prepared to dispatch an army to punish the rebels. Then he discovered that the fires of war were blazing throughout his own country, with rebels flying the Whale-Jiao Society's flag everywhere.
The blue flag represented the sea. At its center were a whale and a flood dragon, the two beasts facing head to head, with a gear representing industry between them.
No one had imagined that, after twenty years of development, the Whale-Jiao Society's influence would extend so far.
They could not understand it.
By now, the cultivators had also noticed the problem, but they were too overwhelmed with their own troubles to interfere in mortal affairs.
The demonic path had returned. With the force of thunder, the Six Demonic Sects devoured the righteous path's territories, leaving the righteous path scrambling to respond.
Han Li had barely escaped the Yan family's blood sacrifice and the pursuit of the Ghost Spirit Sect's young master when, midway through his journey, an order from Yellow Maple Valley reassigned him to guard a Spirit Mine against seizure by the demonic path.
The demonic path proceeded methodically, while the righteous path lost its composure.
At this very moment, Mo Caihuan also faced the greatest crisis since her transmigration. Spirit Beast Mountain's retaliation had finally arrived.
After the Five Colors Sect's destruction, its backer had waited thirty years for a chance to avenge it.
"Now even the Covering Moon Sect can't protect you. Mo Caihuan, come out and die!" a crazed woman roared above Jia Yuan City. "You killed Brother Jing's grandson. I'll hack you into eight pieces!"
Mo Caihuan immediately took the elevator to the roof. Looking up, she saw a middle-aged woman in her thirties, with a pretty face and madness in her eyes.
Mo Caihuan had almost forgotten about the Five Colors Sect. She merely asked, "May I ask, Senior, how have I offended you?"
"You wiped out the Five Colors Sect. Have you forgotten?"
"That happened many years ago. Could you be a cultivator from Spirit Beast Mountain, Senior?" Mo Caihuan's expression darkened. Cultivators really know how to hold a grudge. After all this time, she's still coming after me for revenge?!
"No matter how many years have passed, you deserve to die," the female cultivator said furiously. "Die!" With a flick of her right hand, a razor-sharp Wind Blade came howling toward Mo Caihuan.
She was clearly a wind-attribute cultivator.
Watching the translucent, crescent-shaped blade howl toward her, Mo Caihuan inwardly groaned. Her body tempering only put her at roughly the tenth level of Qi Refining. How could she fight a Golden Core cultivator?
All she could do now was give it everything she had. She swiftly swallowed a Spirit Stone, opened her mouth, and spat out a bolt of searing lightning.
Boom! The lightning shot skyward and struck the blade, and both it and the Wind Blade dissolved into nothing.
"How is that possible?" The female cultivator frowned. How could a mere mortal spit lightning? She had sensed no fluctuations of spiritual energy.
The mortal's resistance only infuriated her further. Suspicion gave way to blazing rage. In an instant, a terrifying pressure enveloped all of Jia Yuan City. Every resident's heart pounded with fear that rose from the depths of their souls.
Bearing the brunt of it, Mo Caihuan felt her soul tremble. Was this the power of a Golden Core cultivator?
But she could not retreat. Retreat meant death. She murmured to herself, "Jia Yuan City, lend me all your electricity. Thunder Storage, fully open!"
Her stomach glowed, illuminating all her internal organs.
The entire city's electricity gathered together. Mo Caihuan was in excruciating discomfort, her body numb. Her tempered flesh alone could not withstand it.
She had to release it as soon as possible. But she knew she had to accumulate a little more, gathering the electricity of the entire city before she could unleash her strongest strike.
"Hmph! I don't know what trick you're playing, but your body can't take it. You killed Brother Jing's descendants, so I'll kill you. That's only fair. You have no idea how wonderful Brother Jing was. He was the man I loved most in my entire life. Even if he was only a mortal, I would still protect his offspring. Yet you killed them. Now I'll send you before Brother Jing to repent." She formed a hand seal and condensed more than thirty Wind Blades, intending to mince her enemy into scraps from every direction.
She did not employ any elaborate means. Spells alone would suffice.
"Die!" The female cultivator narrowed her eyes, her blue-green skirt fluttering as she unleashed Wind Blades with the force to crush dry wood and sweep away rotten timber.
"Fire!" Rat-tat-tat...
Six-barreled machine guns roared ferociously from all directions, sending the voices of mortals toward the enemy in the sky.
Mortals dared attack a cultivator? The woman grew even more deranged, and the Wind Blades around her mercilessly swept toward the troops on the ground.
In an instant, all six machine-gun positions were annihilated. Casualties were devastating. Steel shields were sliced apart in a heartbeat, and the soldiers behind them fell utterly silent.
The screams of civilians rang out endlessly. Mo Caihuan was frantic, but there was nothing she could do. She still had to build up power, striving to kill with a single strike. She had to lead everyone not merely to survival, but to victory.
Boom! As the soldiers in front fell, those behind continued the attack, hauling out cannons and firing shells.
The woman did not move an inch. She spread her delicate hands, and fierce winds rose around her. The shells veered away the moment they struck the gale, flying off to destinations unknown.
Mortals had courage, but unfortunately lacked the power to shake a Golden Core cultivator. In the cultivation world, courage alone was useless.
The whirlwind around the crazed cultivator grew fiercer and fiercer, becoming a veritable tornado. She said coldly, "What an eyesore. Watch me raze this city."
With the righteous and demonic paths now at war, the old order had collapsed, allowing cultivators to act without restraint. The gale sucked away the air, and the mortals below felt an immense suction pulling them upward.
Glass windows on the buildings shook as well, rattling incessantly. The city was shrouded in a vision of the apocalypse, and mortals could only resign themselves to their fate.
Mo Caihuan was about to explode. Terrifying electricity was already leaking from the portal. She had reached her limit. Without further hesitation, she opened her delicate mouth and spat out thunder.
"Heh. However powerful your move is, it's wasted effort if you can't hit me." Faced with Mo Caihuan's trump card, the female cultivator said disdainfully, "I am the wind. A simple sidestep is all I need to avoid it."
Dodge!
Yet just as she was about to dodge, her spirit altar shuddered. Her divine sense was under attack.
"Hahaha! Your body is mine!" It was Food Immortal. Having finally encountered a lone cultivator, he intended to perform Possession.
But a strike powered by the entire city's electricity was enough to slay a Golden Core cultivator. The lightning mercilessly pierced the enemy's chest, destroying her body.
Once her body was ruined, the female cultivator's nascent soul abandoned it without the slightest hesitation and fled.
"You're not getting away! Acid Storage!" Seeing a green orb of light break free of the flesh and shoot away, Mo Caihuan ignored her body's agony and opened another portal connected to the strong-acid warehouse, spitting with precision at the green light.
Struck by the strong acid, the orb immediately began howling in pain. This acid was aqua regia, capable of dissolving even gold. Once it clung to its target, it was like an abscess rooted in the bone, impossible to shake off.
Without a body's protection, the nascent soul was gradually corroded by the strong acid until she died.
"What a pity. You ruined such a fine body," Food Immortal said regretfully.
Mo Caihuan could no longer speak. After discharging electricity and spitting acid, the lower half of her face had been eaten away into a bloody mess. Worse still, the electricity had injured her internal organs, charring them all.
Her consciousness blurred. Once the nascent soul finally fell silent, darkness swept over her vision, and she passed out.