After the initial tactical breakdown, Liang Jianqiu turned back and gave Li Xuanxiao a long, intensely contemplative look. He had witnessed exactly how close Li Xuanxiao was with that Nine-Tailed Fox demon. It instantly brought to mind the legends of the ancient Profound Saint, who had famously been tangled up with a fox spirit from the Jade Fox Pavilion.
Like ancestor, like disciple, Liang Jianqiu thought dryly.
Suppressing the urge to tease the youth, the veteran commander cleared his throat. "I've already alerted Wenyuan Pavilion. Once we return, we need to immediately mobilize the craftsmen. We need to find out if we can mass-produce an artifact capable of tracking the Devil Race over a much wider perimeter."
Li Xuanxiao nodded in agreement.
With the immediate threat neutralized, the Three Great Factions left a few specialized vanguard squads to monitor the Northern Region before the main contingent withdrew back to the Divine Land. There was zero time to celebrate. The potential descent of the Heavenly Abyss was a looming sword of Damocles, and the human domains desperately needed to reinforce their defenses.
Li Xuanxiao traveled back with the main Mystic Court division, the recent skirmish weighing heavily on his mind. Having personally exchanged blows with a young Devil, the sheer scale of the threat felt incredibly real.
That instantaneous, mass group-teleportation technique was an absolute nightmare. It was functionally a cheat code. If the Devils anchored their spatial rifts over the Divine Land or the sovereign territories of the Four Great Ancient Tribes, the casualties would be severe, but at least those areas possessed the elite combat power to form a defensive line.
But what if they chose to bypass the high-tier zones entirely? What if they targeted the lower kingdoms like Yunqi, the Crimson Wheel Empire, or... the Dayu Kingdom?
That wouldn't be a battle; it would be a literal dimension-lowering strike. A complete server wipe for the mortals living there.
The last time the Heavenly Abyss fractured, the combined, desperate mobilization of the Human and Demon races had barely managed to push the invaders back. This time, the Devil Race had clearly adapted their strategy. They were picking on the soft targets first, covertly assimilating human populations to build a massive, corrupted sleeper army from within.
Every human turned into a puppet was a point lost for humanity and a point gained for the enemy. If this trend continued unchecked, the math simply wouldn't work in their favor.
"This is bad..." Li Xuanxiao murmured under his breath.
Mass-producing radar artifacts to track the Devils was a decent preventative measure, but true security never came from external tech. In a world on the brink of an apocalyptic event, the only metric that guaranteed survival was one's own baseline cultivation.
A standard Void Realm base was considered a supreme master in peace times, but in a cross-faction meat grinder against the Abyss, it was barely enough to qualify as a generic foot soldier. After all, even that young scout he had fought was already throwing around Void-level energy. Who knew how many thousands of those cells were currently nesting in the shadows?
I need Demon Value Points. Lots of them. The more the better!
Li Xuanxiao's gaze turned entirely firm. The moment he wrapped up his consulting duties with Wenyuan Pavilion, he was going to find every available optimization loop to farm DVP like a man possessed.
...
Zhuxia Divine Land, Wenyuan Pavilion — Spiritual Craft Secret Academy
The atmosphere inside the academy was a fascinating blend of ancient machinery and high-amplitude spiritual physics. Massive bronze gears and precise pulley networks rotated smoothly along the walls, emitting a low, rhythmic drone. On the primary workbenches, rows of specialized artisans were driving their Luck in a highly unorthodox manner, seamlessly binding metaphysical concept-laws onto physical, objective materials. The air smelled crisply of cold iron and refined spiritual jade.
Li Xuanxiao took in the fantastical, steampunk-esque environment with genuine admiration. Under the guidance of a senior receptionist, he was led deep into a heavily reinforced facility within the inner academy.
The moment he stepped inside, the normally reclusive, eccentric artisans working outside abandoned their stations, crowding into the observation gallery. Even the most stoic scholars of Wenyuan Pavilion—men who usually ignored worldly politics entirely—were intensely curious to witness a freak anomaly like Li Xuanxiao: a martial brute who had somehow managed to master high-tier Buddhist Dharma tech.
Following a brief technical briefing, Li Xuanxiao stepped into the activation matrix and mobilized his meridians, unleashing his signature technique:
Buddhist Dharma —「Vairocana's Seven Radiances」!
Instantly, the ambient Luck in the room surged violently! A grand, profoundly heavy golden aura erupted into the airspace, radiating absolute tranquility and spiritual weight.
A collective gasp echoed across the gallery. Hearing rumors about a dual-cultivator was one thing; witnessing a human martial artist radiate the authentic, blinding majesty of a literal living Buddha right in front of your eyes hit completely differently.
As the spiritual currents peaked, Li Xuanxiao's eyes transformed into pools of molten gold. His physical silhouette seemed to seamlessly dissolve into the natural sunlight filtering through the dome, casting a brilliant, warm radiance across the entire hall.
The surrounding scholars immediately went into a frantic, high-speed documentation frenzy, their brush-pens flying across parchment as they recorded his energetic fluctuations. In the center of the room, a cluster of premium Soul Recording Stones hummed loudly, capturing every micro-frequency of the performance so the craftsmen could attempt to reverse-engineer and simulate the tracking properties of the light later.
Seeing the utterly flabbergasted looks on the faces of the esteemed elders, Li Xuanxiao found it slightly amusing. Bro, it's literally just a Heaven-tier spell. If I ever deduce this tree up to the Void Realm, these guys are going to have a collective medical emergency.
But as the demonstration wound down, a sudden, logical inconsistency struck him.
This was the Zhuxia Divine Land—the absolute peak of human civilization and historical heritage. Why on earth were its top-tier scholars reacting to a basic piece of Buddhist magic as if they had just discovered fire? Why was there an absolute, glaring vacuum of Buddhist factions across the central territory?
Historically, any religious sect worth its salt would view a prosperous, hyper-populated empire like the Divine Land as an absolute golden buffet for gathering incense and believers. There was zero logical reason for them to willingly abandon this market.
Taking advantage of a scheduled recovery break, Li Xuanxiao turned to the Wenyuan Pavilion scribe assigned to his desk and casually raised the question.
It turned out to be a brilliant move. The scholars of Wenyuan Pavilion lived up to their reputation—their historical database completely put the meatheaded martial artists of the Mystic Court to shame. Within minutes, the scribe provided a comprehensive breakdown that answered his doubts perfectly.
As it happened, a century ago, Buddhism hadn't just existed in the Divine Land; it was thriving. In fact, its popularity among the common populace had completely eclipsed the native Daoist factions.
However, during the previous catastrophic war against the Heavenly Abyss, a massive systemic rift occurred. While the Three Great Factions and every minor sect across the empire were bleeding themselves dry on the frontlines to hold off the Devil hordes, the Grand Buddhist Monasteries executed a total tactical retreat. Facing waves of desperate refugees and wounded warriors begging for sanctuary at their mountain gates, the abbots directly slammed their doors shut.
Their official press release at the time was a masterclass in corporate dodging: "The sangha refuses to interfere with the karmic cycles of the mortal world."
This absolute display of cowardice during a literal existential crisis thoroughly enraged every single survivor in the Divine Land.
"Refusing to interfere with mortal affairs?" the populace had roared. "When you were begging for daily alms to plate your giant statues in solid gold, you didn't seem to have any issues interfering with our mortal pockets!"
Li Xuanxiao could easily guess how the story ended, and the scribe's grim recital confirmed his suspicions.
The moment the Heavenly Abyss War concluded, the surviving population launched a massive, coordinated, empire-wide cancellation movement against the entire Buddhist network. Citizens, martial clans, and government factions alike completely ostracized them. All the flowery rhetoric about universal salvation and divine compassion was exposed as nothing more than pompous marketing.
The temples had happily collected incense to "avert disasters" during peacetime. But when a literal demonic apocalypse arrived, the Buddhas essentially looked down from their golden altars and told the dying population: "Skill issue. It's your destiny, accept the bad karma."
In stark contrast stood the native Daoist Sects. The Daoist priests, who had historically been ignored, underfunded, and viewed as eccentric hermits by the general public... when the world was tearing at the seams, they systematically emptied their monasteries. Every single priest descended the mountains, picking up swords and marching straight into the meat grinder to shield the human race.
The difference in corporate culture was stark. Under immense, unyielding pressure from the furious population and the corporate executives of the Three Great Factions, the Grand Buddhist Monasteries were forcefully evicted, completely stripped of their assets, and permanently exiled from the Central Continent.