Cloud Dream Marsh.
Jade decrees arrived one after another, delivered by the disciples of Cloud Dream Pavilion.
Holding a jade decree in her hand, Zheng Zhaoling frowned, then instinctively looked up at Cui Hao, who sat calmly in a chair nearby, sipping tea.
Using the authority of Cloud Dream Marsh, Cui Hao had passed information about the movements of the Evil Spirit Sect to the Mountain Cover King, a figure of great renown in Northern Jambudvipa. This allowed the Incense Deities to react early, rallying their forces to prepare for the Evil Spirit Sect’s offensive.
However, the transmitted messages cleverly concealed the fact that the enemy was the main force of the Evil Spirit Sect, even led by the sect master himself.
This deliberately omitted piece of information gave the Mountain Cover King ample resolve to resist.
The Incense Deities had entrenched themselves in Northern Jambudvipa for thousands of years. Their foundations ran deep, far beyond just the Mountain Cover King. The orthodox sects were bound by old alliances, and when fighting flared for real, their identities could not be hidden.
If evil cultivators made a move, it would be even more ridiculous.
The Incense Deities cultivated using divine will, a method that even evil cultivators seldom deigned to use. Moreover, even if evil cultivators forcibly seized control, they could not guard it forever. Could they expect Cloud Dream Pavilion and other immortal sects to turn a blind eye and accept the Evil Spirit Sect’s domination of Northern Jambudvipa?
Thinking it over, the Mountain Cover King naturally felt victory was within grasp—the only question was the cost.
Besides, the Incense Deities now served as a facade for the outside world. Fall they might, but these facades could never collapse.
Yet they never expected that the evil cultivators of the Evil Spirit Sect had no other place left for grand schemes. Now, gritting their teeth, they were determined to tear a piece of flesh from Northern Jambudvipa.
After all, the same trick could not be used twice.
Cui Hao offered not just verbal support, but tangible aid. He had secured a considerable amount of weapons, healing elixirs, and a batch of Spirit Stones from Yunze.
The Evil Spirit Sect’s initial moves and offensives had been meticulously prepared. Even with early intelligence, the Incense Deities were still beaten into a rout.
If the support had been merely verbal, the Incense Deities might not have truly fought to the bitter end.
Why would Yunze, notoriously stingy, actually cough up the funds? That traces back to Cui Hao’s earnest persuasion of Yunze: “Now is the perfect time to spend money winning hearts. Once this is over, Cloud Dream Marsh’s reputation will be immense.”
In short, Yunze swallowed Cui Hao’s cryptic, half-true words neatly and paid up without hesitation.
With such strong backing from Cloud Dream Marsh, even if the Incense Deities were initially stunned in battle, they had now fully assembled.
The jade decrees constantly returning before Zheng Zhaoling contained front-line intelligence gathered by Cloud Dream Pavilion disciples and summaries from the Mountain Cover King.
If one word had to describe the situation, it would be: brutal.
The Incense Deities had dwelled in Northern Jambudvipa for a long time. Even knowing this wave of attackers was the Evil Spirit Sect, they refused to let the Eighteen Immortal Sects or other sects intervene.
They fully understood one principle: asking for help comes at a price.
No one would risk life and limb to help without cost.
Nor could the Incense Deities bear to lose any more of their territory to the human race.
Leading the gathered Incense Deities, the Mountain Cover King precisely targeted the Evil Spirit Sect’s spirit shrines. They did not harm humans but, under cover of night, would blast those shrines into craters.
Then they would seize the Incense Deities hiding within, kill them outright, reveal their true forms, and bury them in the pits.
Against the Evil Spirit Sect’s decapitation strikes, the Mountain Cover King would rally the Incense Deities into a unified group and even lay counter-ambushes.
Sometimes, they managed to kill many Evil Spirit Sect members.
But the Evil Spirit Sect adapted swiftly, and its high-level cultivators far surpassed the current Incense Deities.
The gap in cultivation realms could not always be bridged by numbers alone.
Yet the Incense Deities had no choice but to use numbers to close that gap.
Twenty-seven Nascent Soul realm Incense Deities capable of opening their own estates had already fallen. Even one hidden Spirit Severing realm Incense Deity had perished, to say nothing of the countless demon beasts under their command.
Northern Jambudvipa was vast.
The spark Cui Hao had lit spread naturally, and he even came up with a slogan for the Mountain Cover King: “The undead of Beimang shall never abandon their homeland.”
Most of the Incense Deities within the Kingdom of Cangxi were swept away. Among them were many Deity Lords from other kingdoms who had come to aid, only to fall on a land they had never set foot on before.
That slogan easily ignited the Incense Deities of Northern Jambudvipa.
For these Incense Deities, Northern Jambudvipa had given them their last dignity.
If they could not even hold Northern Jambudvipa, did they truly have a homeland left?
The Evil Spirit Sect seemed surprised by the ferocity of the counterattack and began evaluating whether this campaign could continue.
Holding the jade decree, Zheng Zhaoling had expected this to be a considerable operation.
But she had never imagined it would turn into outright slaughter—mountain caves and abodes reduced to ruins. Whatever final decision the Evil Spirit Sect made, both sides had already dyed the land of Cangxi red with blood.
When the Evil Spirit Sect pushed back the front lines, they began installing their own new Incense Deities. Controlling a kingdom was their true goal; mere victory was meaningless without stability. Only by securing these spirits could they proceed further.
In response to the Mountain Cover King’s counterattack, they gritted their teeth and held their ground.
Until the Evil Spirit Sect decided whether to continue, this bloody conflict would not cease.
More Incense Deities were rushing in for Cui Hao’s slogan.
The Evil Spirit Sect dispatched its main force, making no effort to hold back, and even reversed the front lines.
Every inch of land, every mountaintop, every town was up for grabs.
Yet they shared one tacit agreement: they dared not involve any mortals.
Massacring mortals would certainly provoke the intervention of the Eighteen Immortal Sects—something neither side could accept.
Zheng Zhaoling looked at Cui Hao, who was calmly drinking tea. She wanted to say something but found herself at a loss for words.
Such a brutal conflict was probably not what Cui Hao had wished for.
Sensing her gaze, Cui Hao set down his cup and said teasingly:
“What’s wrong? Did you realize I look even more handsome today?”
Zheng Zhaoling replied instinctively:
“If I gave you a punch on your right cheek, probably.”
“Is that so?” Cui Hao touched his right cheek, then sighed softly, “Could it be that I’ve grown thin and haggard?”
Seeing Cui Hao’s usual tone and unashamed attitude, Zheng Zhaoling thought for a moment before asking:
“You’ve read all these messages?”
“Naturally. What needs to be known, I know.”
“So, how is it? Met your expectations?”
“I overestimated the Evil Spirit Sect a bit. They start wavering the moment they meet resistance. Seems indecisive.”
Zheng Zhaoling nodded lightly, then put down the jade decree. As she lowered her head, Cui Hao’s voice came again.
“Are you asking if I feel any guilt for letting both sides slaughter each other until blood flows?”
Zheng Zhaoling looked up, meeting Cui Hao’s brief glance.
He let out a light laugh and said flatly:
“A little, actually. But I can live with it.”
“Just remember: neither side is worthy of sympathy.”
"Of course, it would be even better if I had a cup of Third Senior Sister's tea right now."
Upon hearing this, Zheng Zhaoling seemed to recall something and rummaged through the jade tokens laid out beside him.
He precisely found one and then handed it to Cui Hao.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
close your eyes and open them again, only to find yourself transmigrated into the role of a villainous male supporting character. Readers familiar with urban wish-fulfillment novels know that it is only through the relentless antics of the villainous male supporting character that the plot between the male and female leads can progress. As the villainous male supporting character, Long Aotian not only has to bully the female lead, harass the second female lead, and flirt with the third female lead, but he also has to go all out to antagonize the male lead. In the end, when his body is discovered, he is still clutching half a moldy fried dough stick in his hand. Fully aware of the plot, Long Aotian is determined to change his fate, starting with the female lead! In the beginning, the female lead lacks confidence: "Big brother, I hope I didn't scare you?" In the middle, the female lead treads carefully: "Brother Long, please don't hit me, okay?" Later on, the female lead becomes coquettishly clingy: "Aotian, it's time to pay the 'public grain' tonight." Long Aotian's legs go weak, and he feels like crying: "I taught you to be thick-skinned, not shameless!"
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
