Possession

Hong Chuan, Ye Longxing, Zhou Changfeng, and the others soon took their leave. Ji Pingtian asked, "Do you need me to stand guard here?" "No need," Yaoguang said calmly. "At present, the only means Chixing has that can threaten me is nuclear weapons, but Chixing may not have the courage to launch nuclear weapons at Dayu." He explained plainly, "Even if Dayu cannot intercept Chixing's nuclear weapons, detecting them in advance poses no difficulty. If I simply take cover inside the nuclear defense works built within Dayu, I will naturally emerge unscathed. But they would then face retaliatory strikes from Dayu. The Chixing Jiang family will surely weigh the consequences for themselves." Ji Pingtian nodded. "I will head to the White Tower Federation right away." "Mm," Yaoguang replied. He did not care all that much whether the White Tower Federation joined or not. Ji Pingtian and the others quickly departed. After they were gone, Kong Fang came up beside him and said indifferently, "Even now, the Jishi Society still fails to grasp the true situation. They don't realize that you are the core of everything." "Everyone has their own thoughts and desires, but it doesn't matter," Yaoguang said with a sigh of emotion. "What I seek is not world unification, but merely peace in my immediate surroundings. To achieve this goal... unifying the world is one option, and making myself powerful enough to transcend any faction so that none dare act rashly is another." Kong Fang was startled, but soon understood Yaoguang's meaning. "You chose the latter? You plan to forge Dayu into a sacred land that stands aloof from the world?" "It's just that the latter is easier to accomplish and involves far fewer trivial matters," Yaoguang said. Besides... Had this world not lost contact with the Artifact Sect? In that case, why not let him become the Artifact Sect and replace it? ... When impoverished, attend to your own virtue; when prosperous, bring benefit to the whole world. Yaoguang was far from impoverished now, but he was hardly prosperous enough to think of saving the world and helping mankind stand against Chixing, Xuelong, and the Rebirth Society. The sole reason he had been forced to take these steps was that Chixing's presence and actions threatened his safety. Just before moving against the Liao family, he had already examined the map of Dayu and circled a radius of six hundred kilometers centered around Dayu's capital and four surrounding cities. Within this six-hundred-kilometer span, Mount Yuhuang, where Yaoguang currently resided, lay to the north. To the south flowed the Canglan River, cutting across the entire nation and the neighboring White Tower Federation and Lihuo before emptying into the sea. To the east and west lay the massive Zongheng and Taibai mountain ranges. It possessed natural geographical advantages. This territory also held all manner of mineral deposits and resources within Dayu. When he moved against the Liao family, his intention had been to turn this area into the Su family's power base, consolidating and developing it thoroughly. Only... The situation had shifted too quickly. Chixing's intervention had forced him to step forward and confront them directly. Yet this was within expectations as well. The reason families like the Jiang and Lü families placed the Su family on a pedestal and exerted every effort to grant their requests was to borrow his strength to ward off pressure from Chixing. Both sides took what they needed. Just like his current relationship with the Jishi Society and the nations of the Central and East Continents. All bustle under heaven is driven by gain; all scurrying beneath the sky is spurred by profit. Such was the nature of the world, and he had no intention of trying to change it. Respect the fate of others. Likewise... Respect the fate of other nations. The only thing he could do was carve an opening into the sacred land he forged, using it as a mirror so the people of the world could see the truth of things. Like a beacon, letting the world truly see what life was meant to be. ... The news that Yaoguang had stormed the Crimson Star Empire and slain Jiang Shengtian circulated only within a very select circle. Secondary powers, including royal families across the nations, assumed this was merely retaliation carried out by the Jishi Society against the Crimson Star Empire. Furthermore, with Yaoguang's approval, the Jishi Society claimed the credit for themselves in order to establish the Central-East Continental Alliance they so desired, causing everyone's attention to focus entirely on them. For once, Yaoguang had a rare stretch of leisure. ... The Mount Yujing Defense Line. This was the highest vantage point in the entire world. It was also where the Star Gates of both Chixing and Xuelong were situated. The mountain range itself was a grand formation. By harnessing the flow of the terrain to stir the momentum of heaven and earth along with the magnetic fields of the astral bodies, it received signals from the Artifact Sect through the Star Gates and transmitted signals back, creating a stable corridor to traverse between two worlds. Yet now... Both nations had gone over forty years... To be precise, forty-six years without receiving a single signal from the Artifact Sect. For Star Gates that previously opened almost every year or two, this was practically unthinkable. Had their world been abandoned by the Artifact Sect? Yet... That shouldn't be the case! Their realm was of exceptional quality; the immortal weapons and demon weapons nurtured here reached the grade of Treasure Weapons. Under no circumstances would the Artifact Sect willingly discard such a world. Unless... Things were truly as the Moon Demon Empire claimed: a catastrophic upheaval had struck the Artifact Sect, culminating in outright defeat, and even their corresponding Star Gate had been destroyed, preventing them from receiving signals or opening the passage. The Xie family had long found this news difficult to believe, yet now... They had no choice but to accept reality. ... At this moment, within a canyon heavily guarded by the Xuelong Empire, stood a towering gate over a hundred meters tall. The gate was oval in shape, resembling a mirror, but what was reflected inside was not the surrounding scenery of the valley, but a radiant starry sky. Every single star across this expanse twinkled with a faint brilliance, lending the gate an ethereal, dreamlike appearance. Yet as time passed, the brilliance gradually faded. Until all light vanished completely. ... A few minutes later, a trace of desolation flashed through the eyes of an elderly man inside the command room. "Did it fail?" Beside the old man stood a middle-aged man in his forties wearing three golden stars. He was Gu Wanquan, the youngest three-star general in the Xuelong Empire. Hearing the old man's question, Gu Wanquan shook his head. "Still no coordinate signal transmitted from the sect." "The eighty-eighth attempt," the old man breathed out a long sigh. "Though we cannot entirely trust what those special lifeforms claiming to be from the Moon Demon Empire say... something massive has definitely gone wrong with the Artifact Sect." Gu Wanquan hesitated for a moment before adding, "Or... should we forcefully activate the Star Gate and send someone across to take a look?" "Without establishing a linking conduit with that side, forcefully activating the Star Gate will inevitably cause our gate to collapse. When that happens, we will truly lose all connection to the Artifact Sect," the old man said. "Not necessarily. Doesn't Chixing still have a Star Gate?" Gu Wanquan smiled faintly. "With our strength, if we truly set our minds to seizing that Star Gate, could Jiang Bairen alone possibly defend it?" "And what if the Artifact Sect is unharmed?" The old man glanced at him. "Decades ago, Heavenly Venerable Jiang had already cast his Dao foundation. Who knows what level he has reached over all these years?" He looked toward the Chixing positions on the opposite side of Mount Yujing. "If we truly intended to move against the Jiang family, we would have done so long ago. Why wait until now?" "Yet reason is clearly not on the Jiang family's side in this matter... They should have yielded this world to us long ago..." "Reason?" the old man said faintly. "Might makes right. The Jiang family is stronger than our Xie family. Is that reason enough?" Hearing the old man's words, Gu Wanquan felt a wave of indignation in his chest. Their Xie family was clearly the legitimate ruler of this world. The Jiang family... They should have returned to the Artifact Sect a century ago. Yet not only did they refuse to leave, dragging it out for nearly a hundred years, they wouldn't even relinquish the northern and southern continents. It was simply intolerable. "Is there truly no other way?" Gu Wanquan said. "The Rebirth Society has grown increasingly brazen in recent years. A massive influx of their personnel is pouring in through methods unknown to us. If we don't put a stop to it, once they firmly establish themselves in this world, they will remain a dire threat even if Chixing leaves. Worse yet... it might disrupt the nurturing of the immortal weapons due to be delivered to the sect in two hundred years... If we fail to nurture the immortal weapons properly and the sect lays blame, when the time comes..." The old man remained silent. The current predicament of the Xuelong Xie family... They were caught in a dilemma. Even the affiliated families brought along with them harbored considerable grievances. They had come to this world intending to plunder it thoroughly and cultivate artifact spirits, blood souls, and soul essences to trade back at the sect. Yet now, Chixing had boxed them into the West Continent, blocking them from penetrating into the Central and East Continents, and they dared not wage war. What kind of mess was this? Just as the old man was about to speak, the lights across the entire base flickered simultaneously. The next instant, everything went black. The base plunged into a blackout. Even though emergency backup generators kicked in across numerous areas right away, a peculiar wave swept past, quickly extinguishing the backup power as well. "Again?!" The old man's expression changed. "Commander! Look!" someone suddenly cried out, pointing outside. As the old man peered as far as he could, a ripple of invisible disturbances undulated out, situated not far in front of the Star Gate. However, the characteristic signs accompanying this ripple were not the opening of a Star Gate, but... "The Moon Demon Empire?!" The old man immediately barked an order, "Everyone, focus your minds! Visualize the Nine Heavens Snow Dragon Diagram!" "Those monsters of the Moon Demon Empire... how dare they act so rampant?!" Rage flared in Gu Wanquan's eyes as well. Over the years, they had long figured out that whenever an abnormal, continuous blackout occurred in a region, it was inevitably accompanied by the infiltration of those demons from the Moon Demon Empire. In the past, such blackouts had always taken place in small nations within Chixing's sphere of influence; only one incident had occurred within Xuelong over a decade ago. Yet now... This infiltration by the Moon Demon Empire was not only occurring once more within Xuelong, but right at Xuelong's core stronghold—Mount Yujing. "Outrageous!" Fire flashed in the old man's eyes. "Since the Jiang family cannot curb the insolence of these demons, our Xie family will—" Before he could finish his words, he felt an unspeakable chill wash over him, and he shivered involuntarily. The next moment, a consciousness surged forth rapidly from the depths of his spiritual world, as though... It had been there all along. "What is this?!" An unprecedented terror flooded the old man's heart. "The only high-tier cultivator in this world? Barely passable." Amidst his dread, a wave of thought that did not belong to him radiated out, crashing against his consciousness like ocean waves, plunging him into an icy abyss that froze him to the bone. "Destruction?! This time, let me teach you what true destruction is!"