A youth in his late teens was full of hot blood—the prime age to be swayed.
Moreover, Shang Tianci had fallen under Li Fan's Bloodline Transfer technique and trusted him implicitly.
And what manner of man was Li Fan? Even when he was a mortal, he could talk circles around people and make them gladly lay down their lives for him.
Thus, with very little effort, Shang Tianci was thoroughly indoctrinated by Li Fan.
"The Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals is rotten to the core. We cultivators must make it our duty to overthrow it!"
"Only then will a truly Splendid Era of freely accessible techniques arrive!"
Shang Tianci felt his blood boil, overwhelmed by a supreme sense of purpose he had never experienced before.
As for what would happen after overthrowing the Alliance, or whether cultivators could truly attain total freedom in acquiring techniques, such questions lay entirely outside the scope of his thoughts.
"The Alliance is immensely powerful, while our strength remains feeble. We must proceed step by step."
"The first thing we must do is unite every force that can be united. For instance, the stray grotto-heavens and worlds of Xuanhuang..."
Shang Tianci's eyes lit up. "A union of myriad realms—brilliant!"
Li Fan continued to feed him various concepts.
Yet this process was suddenly interrupted by an inexplicably oppressive atmosphere.
Both looked up at the same time and gazed into the distance.
Mount Tianlao was the tallest range among the Nine Mountains.
From here, one's line of sight could sweep across more than half the province. Along the border, densely packed legions of cultivators abruptly surged forth.
"That's..." Shang Tianci's expression shifted in horror.
Those cultivators wore robes and attire vastly different from the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals.
They clearly belonged to Xuanhuang's other great powerhouse: the Five Elders Association.
"Damn it, an enemy invasion! I have to immediately..."
Shang Tianci moved to teleport away using the Heavenly Scenery Treasure Gourd, but after fumbling around, he could not find it.
Only then did he recall that the gourd was still in Li Fan's possession.
"Senior!"
He opened his mouth to say something, but Li Fan pressed a hand down on him.
"The Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals is rotten, but the Five Elders Association is no better."
"The five Heavenly Venerables reverse the natural order of heaven and earth and dupe the inhabitants of their domain."
"The more fiercely they fight, the more advantageous it is for us."
"As the saying goes: drive the tiger to devour the wolf, and sit atop the mountain to watch them tear each other apart!" Li Fan's voice was exceedingly grim.
Shang Tianci initially showed some hesitation on his face.
However, after careful consideration, he ultimately fell silent.
The moment the cultivators of the Five Elders Association stepped onto the soil of Jiushan Province, chaos erupted simultaneously across all of the Nine Mountains.
Numerous cultivators clad in Alliance robes revolted, launching sudden assaults against the garrison cities of the Nine Mountains.
Moreover, as time went on, the number of rioting cultivators grew larger and larger.
"See? The Alliance has lost the hearts of the people. The moment someone raises the banner of rebellion and shouts the call, countless others immediately respond!" Li Fan seized the opportunity to say.
Watching this unfold, Shang Tianci slowly nodded.
In truth, the Five Elders Association was far from incompetent.
At the very least, this surprise raid fully demonstrated their organizational prowess.
In a mere half day, most of the vast Jiushan Province had fallen.
The Five Elders Association's forces advanced at breakneck speed, detailing men to take over the garrison cities of the Nine Mountains while their main body pushed on toward the final peak, Mount Tianchang.
The battlefield was chaotic.
Li Fan and Shang Tianci remained concealed atop the summit of Mount Tianlao, undetected for the time being.
As the most critical stronghold of the Nine Mountains, Tianchang City not only had a Dao Integration cultivator presiding over it, but also hosted the presence of the Wanfa Merchant Guild.
If the Wanfa Merchant Guild lent its strength to help hold the ground, they might well have held out until Alliance reinforcements arrived.
Yet the Wanfa Merchant Guild were opportunistic fence-sitters through and through.
From beginning to end, not a single one of their personnel stepped forth to fight.
Meanwhile, besieged by three Dao Integration cultivators deployed by the Five Elders Association, Tianchang's resident Dao Integration expert was already struggling to hold his ground.
"It seems the Alliance's defeat is sealed. It is time for us to depart," Li Fan said, suddenly rising after watching the spectacle unfold for quite some time.
"However, before leaving, we must leave something behind to prove we were here."
"Tianyang!"
Li Fan tossed a jade slip over.
Receiving the command, Tianyang caught the slip and clamped it firmly in his palm.
Then, aiming toward Mount Tianchang, he hurled it with tremendous force.
What flew through the air was not just the jade slip.
It included Tianyang's entire hand!
A red-and-black exhaust flame erupted from behind the severed hand, accelerating it further.
Like a shooting star, it flashed swiftly across the sky of Jiushan Province, streaking straight toward its destination.
"Let's go!"
Li Fan patted Shang Tianci on the shoulder and said nothing more, merely handing the Heavenly Scenery Treasure Gourd back to him.
Shang Tianci felt a sudden surge of understanding, grasping Li Fan's intent in an instant.
With a shift of his thought, a bizarre ripple enveloped them both.
A moment later, their silhouettes vanished from the summit of Mount Tianlao!
Above Tianchang City.
The three Dao Integration cultivators of the Five Elders Association besieging the Tianchang garrison, Immortal Venerable Qingyu, suddenly registered a slight flicker of movement.
They glanced toward a fireball hurtling rapidly toward them.
"What is that?"
Initially assuming it was an Alliance trump card, a sweep of their divine sense revealed that inside the burst of fire lay a jade slip!
Without a word between them, their actions were remarkably unified.
A Dao Integration cultivator dressed in coarse hemp, looking like a middle-aged farmer, intercepted the jade slip.
After inspecting its contents, the eyes of all three narrowed in unison.
"Myriad Realms Association?"
"Helped us resolve the crisis of an intelligence leak?"
"A method to greatly reduce the effects of the Essence-Devouring White Mist and march through it?"
Though the jade slip contained brief words, the weight of the information was staggering.
Their divine sense swept instantly across all of Jiushan Province, yet they found no trace of the person who had hurled the slip.
"Quite resourceful, aren't they?"
All three wore expressions of immense intrigue.
***
Taihua Province.
Without any warning, Li Fan and Shang Tianci appeared atop Mount Taixu, one of the Taihua Ten Ranges.
"This Heavenly Scenery Gourd of yours is truly marvelous."
"Does it rely on the power of earth veins to achieve instantaneous spatial leaps?"
Li Fan clicked his tongue in wonder, savoring the sensation of the spatial traversal he had just experienced.
"No, rather than the power of earth veins, it feels more like directly shifting locations through the realm power of the Xuanhuang Realm."
Li Fan instantly remembered the scene of Mr. Bai "slowly ambling" along back then.
A faint realization dawned in his heart.
Though Mr. Bai had fallen, the various 'authorities' of the Xuanhuang Realm had not perished with him.
Instead, they had scattered and been inherited by various so-called prodigies.
"Yet even Mr. Bai, who could unify all the wonders of Xuanhuang into one, was no match for Chuanfa."
"Much less these prodigies."
"At best, they are merely prime nourishment in the eyes of Chuanfa!"
Li Fan pondered the thoughts of the Dharma-Transmitting Heavenly Venerable.
Shang Tianci remained oblivious to this.
He continued introducing his Twin Treasure Gourds to Li Fan with proud enthusiasm. "I possess two companion wonders in the form of gourds."
"One purple, one green."
"As you have seen, Senior, the green one can record landscapes and locations, allowing me to traverse between them at will."
"As for this purple gourd..."
Chapter 812