Survive and Develop While the Eastern Domain Falls

"It’s just that I didn’t expect Xuan Huang Realm to be this unlucky this time—turns out the invaders are the Samo Clan, a race with formidable power even across the universe."

Xuan Xiaotian sighed with some emotion.

Mo Tianxiao, however, shook his head. "If it were before, you might say Xuan Huang Realm was unlucky, but after everything that’s happened, I’d say it’s those Samo Clan members who are the unlucky ones."

"You do have a point. Thank goodness your master is around, otherwise—apart from my demon race—hardly any living being in all of Xuan Huang Realm would have survived."

"But eleven quasi-emperors is still no small tribulation for Xuan Huang Realm. One misstep and everything could be doomed beyond recovery."

"I understand."

Mo Tianxiao naturally understood the reasoning. Saint-level cultivators could be dismissed without worry, but eleven quasi-emperors were more than enough to sweep through any top-tier power in Xuan Huang Realm—that was an undeniable fact.

Therefore, he had never planned to face those beings head-on. All he needed to do was hole up inside the emperor-grade formation and waste their time. The enemy couldn’t stay in Xuan Huang Realm forever, and neither could their strength remain stagnant.

After learning quite a bit more about things beyond Xuan Huang Realm, Mo Tianxiao finally dispersed his spiritual avatar with satisfaction.

Senior Turtle truly lived up to being—well—a turtle. This was exactly the benefit of living a long life; he was basically a walking history book.

However, since Senior Turtle had never set foot in the Void or roamed the cosmos himself, everything Xuan Xiaotian knew came from what he’d heard from the emperor-level experts who had once appeared in Xuan Huang Realm. How much of it was true was anyone’s guess.

The outside world couldn’t have remained unchanged either.

Back in the Demon Sect: thanks to the alliance with Yao Chi Heavenly Palace, along with other major sects in the Demon Province banding together, the Demon Sect now had more than forty Saint-level experts gathered in one place. Purely in terms of Saint-level strength, the Demon Sect Alliance no longer feared the Saint-level experts of the Samo Clan.

The only gap lay in quasi-emperor strength.

The sole remaining quasi-emperor of the Demon Sect, An Shouchang, had previously crippled his own cultivation and fallen all the way to the peak of Saint King realm. He was currently recovering his strength inside the Time Tower.

Aside from him, any other quasi-emperor in Xuan Huang Realm who hadn’t chosen to ascend had likely done the same thing—meaning that at present, apart from Senior Divine Tree in the Ten Thousand Great Mountains, Xuan Huang Realm had not a single quasi-emperor.

"Brother, is there anything else we need to prepare?" Nangong Wan looked at Mo Tianxiao, her expression serious as she asked.

With no quasi-emperor in the Demon Sect at all, if the Samo Clan figured out the current state of Xuan Huang Realm, they would surely strike at the top-tier powers first—after all, only those powers had any chance of threatening them.

Mo Tianxiao looked at Nangong Wan and the others. "There’s nothing you need to do. Just cultivate with everything you’ve got. They won’t dare make reckless moves for a while. Even if they figure out Xuan Huang Realm’s current situation, they won’t necessarily dare to attack the Demon Sect."

That single blade strike his master had unleashed would take the Samo Clan a good while to digest. Once they learned that the one who killed their kinsmen was the previous Sect Master of the Demon Sect, they would have two choices.

One: find the Demon Sect and annihilate it.

Two: avoid the Demon Sect entirely and abandon any plans against it.

The Samo Clan couldn’t guarantee that being hadn’t left some trump card behind for the Demon Sect.

"Tell all Saint-level experts to bring all the resources they have. I can refine Saint-grade pills at full capacity for them to cultivate inside the Time Tower.

As long as the Samo Clan hasn’t shown up yet, you all keep cultivating. In this battle, besides Saint Kings at the peak or quasi-emperors, almost no one else will be able to play a significant role.

What you need to do is raise your cultivation as high as possible before the enemy arrives."

"Understood."

"Aside from increasing our strength, there really is no better option right now."

Su Muxue nodded as well, agreeing with Mo Tianxiao’s decision.

"Elder He's bottleneck has loosened—he’s breaking through to quasi-emperor. Aunt Lin is the same. If the two of them can successfully break through, along with Elder An, that’ll give us three quasi-emperors. That should be enough to protect ourselves."

Hearing Mo Tianxiao’s words, the tension on everyone’s faces eased considerably.

The scene unfolding in the Demon Sect was playing out in different places across the realm as well. Every top-tier power in each region had adopted the same strategy—no aggressive moves, hold their ground.

Everyone was waiting.

Waiting for a new quasi-emperor to emerge.

Witnessing an ascension with their own eyes was enough to loosen the bottleneck of a Saint King peak expert with decent talent.

Meanwhile, in the Eastern Province.

"Young Master, what do we do now? Should we give up on the plan?"

Several dozen cultivators of the Samo Clan had fled into the Eastern Province territory.

The Young Master of the Samo Clan, Moke, spread his divine sense, surveying the surrounding environment at a glance. He found a location belonging to some faction and said, "First, figure out the power structure of Xuan Huang Realm and look for information on that human from before."

Until he understood the full situation in Xuan Huang Realm, he would never act rashly.

Losing over a hundred quasi-Saint-entry-level experts and several hundred Saint-level experts all at once was a massive loss for the Samo Clan—and those losses would naturally be reclaimed from Xuan Huang Realm as much as possible!

Before long, the Samo Clan captured a human cultivator at the Void Refinement realm. After performing a soul search, they reported to their Young Master: "Young Master, this is the Eastern Province of Xuan Huang Realm. The strongest power here is Yao Chi Heavenly Palace."

"However, according to the memories, Yao Chi Heavenly Palace is already allied with the Demon Sect, and that human woman from before was the previous Sect Master of the Demon Sect!"

Hearing this, Moke narrowed his eyes. "What’s the cultivation level of the strongest person in the Eastern Province?"

"The strongest person in the Eastern Province is the Palace Master of Yao Chi Heavenly Palace, but she has already stepped into Dao-Entry and gone to the Void. Right now, the strongest would be the Pavilion Master of Celestial Sound Pavilion and the current head of the Huangfu family—neither of them has reached the quasi-Saint-entry level."

Moke’s gloomy face finally cracked into a sinister smile. In a low voice, he said, "Then we start with the Eastern Province. Reclaim all the losses of this trip."

Unlike what Mo Tianxiao had anticipated, the Samo Clan didn’t pause to wait or regroup—they moved immediately and launched an invasion against the Eastern Province without delay.

And one thing Mo Tianxiao had guessed right was that the Samo Clan indeed didn’t dare attack the Demon Sect outright from the start. In fact, without enough information, they would deliberately circumvent the Demon Sect.

The cultivators of the Demon Province were calm and peaceful, going about their daily lives as if nothing had changed. The only difference was that their activity range had shrunk to within ten thousand miles of the Demon Sect, while incidents of plundering and robbery dropped sharply.

Everyone was getting along harmoniously, like one big family—no more scheming or mental gymnastics like before.

The situation inside the Demon Sect was different from usual too. Normally, disciples trained with harsh intensity while the Saint-level elders lazed about. Now it was the disciples who were relaxed while the Saint-level elders trained like mad.

They’d even hired professional Saint-grade alchemists to serve them.

Of course, the old rule applied: bring your own materials, and no guarantees on the yield.

With only a handful of Saint-level cultivators around, Mo Tianxiao’s workload was incredibly light. Besides fleecing resources off the Saint-level experts, he stayed true to habit and kept fleecing the disciples.

With all the female disciples of Yao Chi Heavenly Palace added in, Mo Tianxiao’s fleece-gathering skills grew sharper every day. Each sheep may have had short wool, but there were plenty of sheep around.

In such an time of looming catastrophe, Mo Tianxiao still went out of his way to exploit his disciples, even squeezing every last drop from the cultivators across the entire Demon Province. A textbook villain, utterly devoid of conscience—yet these people couldn’t even see through him, fools being swindled without a clue.

The Demon Province remained peaceful and serene, while the Eastern Domain, without exception, had descended into hell.

Corpses littered the fields; broken walls and rubble stretched as far as the eye could see.

"I am willing to submit! I am willing to lead the Huangfu family in submission to the great Samo Clan! We can provide aid to the Samo Clan!"

Huangfu Yunteng knelt on the ground, his face twisted in obsequious flattery.

Moke cast his gaze upon Huangfu Yunteng, a flicker of greed passing through his eyes. "A rare True Dragon Physique, no less. As expected of the Xuanhuang Realm."

"The wise submit to the strong, boy. I see great potential in you. From now on, you’ll follow the Samo Clan. When we leave this place, I’ll find a way to take you with us—this backwater is too small for a talent like yours."

"Thank you, my lord! Thank you for your kindness!" Huangfu Yunteng’s face lit up with feigned delight, while a barely perceptible flash of malice lurked deep in his eyes.

The Demon Sect. It had brought his Huangfu family to ruin, had forced him to kneel in humiliation before an alien race. Just wait—unless he destroyed the Demon Sect to its very roots, he was not worthy of the name Huangfu Yunteng!