Half a day after Chen Yang left with the two Dongfang Clan cultivators, the foremost cultivators of the Righteous and Demonic Paths returned one after another from the Outrealm to Demon Suppression Pass.
By then, the peak-level body of the Azure Flame Demon Venerable had finally burned away completely. The wall of black smoke that had barred the righteous cultivators from returning to the Central Region slowly dispersed.
Once the Dark Underworld Venerable was the last to return to Demon Suppression Pass, all righteous cultivators at the Mystic Insight Realm or above gathered in Venerable Daohé's ocean domain for a council.
They tallied the casualties among the Path Enlightenment Realm cultivators of each faction in the Great Strife War and broadly settled the shares of merit rewards and compensation for the fallen.
But what concerned the righteous venerables most was the news that the Northwest recluse had entered the world.
When they learned that Chen Yang had named the Ninth Abyss Venerable and the Five Directions Immortal Mansion, taken away two prisoners, and gone to Ziyun Mountain with a Dongfang Clan venerable, none of the nine foremost righteous cultivators present was particularly surprised.
After all, the Northwest recluse had come bearing an Immortal Intent Edict after the Great Strife War. He had been acting on orders, with no intention of interfering in the war or meddling in which path would claim its fortune.
But now that the matter had been ruined, he could not answer to the Immortal Intent. Burdened with such a great tangle of cause and effect, he could hardly continue as before, shutting himself away from the world to focus solely on quiet cultivation.
In that case, he might as well enter the world openly, gather supporters in the Central Region, and build a power base, leaving