At Hundred Refinings Peak, Yaoguang continued using the Spirit Nourishing Technique to activate the Dao rhyme within the Dao artifact materials, feeding it to the Swimming Dragon Sword to refine.
From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a streak of sword light piercing into the sky.
Before long, intense energy fluctuations surged from the area west of Nandu, carrying with them the Dao rhyme of the Dao of Destruction.
"This is the third time Qi Sha has intervened today, isn't it?" Yaoguang asked abruptly.
Beside him, Tang Fenghua, who was responsible for relaying messages and managing trivial affairs, immediately answered, "The third time. This time, a prince from the True Dragon Celestial Dynasty clashed with a true disciple from the Golden Crow Sect."
"The True Dragon Celestial Dynasty and the Golden Crow Sect have never gotten along well, so a clash between a prince and a true disciple isn't surprising. However..." Yaoguang paused slightly. "Qi Sha intervening means Void Piercing level power was involved. I recall that before anyone entered Nandu, I had people remind them: visitors are guests, but regardless of past grievances, no fighting is permitted within Nandu's borders, correct?"
"Yes. Anyone who fights is to be declared unwelcome and barred from entering Nandu again. Should severe damage or injury occur, the Domain Lord's Estate will show no leniency." Tang Fenghua hesitated as he spoke. "However, in the previous instances, both sides ceased hostilities as soon as Hall Master Qi Sha arrived, and they compensated for the damages. Therefore... the order to expel them wasn't strictly enforced..."
"Which is precisely why fights keep happening one after another today," Yaoguang said bluntly. "Send word to Qi Sha: expel anyone who raises a hand immediately."
Tang Fenghua was taken aback. "One party in this fight is from the True Dragon Celestial Dynasty, one of the Four Great Celestial Dynasties, and the other is from the Golden Crow Sect, one of the Ten Immortal Sects. Expelling them might negatively affect the grandeur of our auction..."
"You seem to underestimate the influence of a Dao artifact." Yaoguang's tone hardened slightly. "It isn't that I'm begging them to buy our Dao artifact. Rather, they are the ones who must rack their brains to offer higher bids for the Void Sword in our hands."
A chill ran through Tang Fenghua's heart.
"Go." Yaoguang waved a hand.
He understood why Tang Fenghua and the others harbored such concerns.
At the end of the day, aside from himself, the only presentable figure the Nine Cauldrons Sect possessed was Li Hanqiu, a single Void Piercing Battle Immortal.
And what did a Void Piercing Battle Immortal amount to in a Dao artifact auction that was practically a grand event for the entire human race?
Even before the auction had begun, the Void Refining experts who had arrived were already too numerous to count on one hand, and the Void Piercers had reached double digits.
Facing so many top experts, it was only natural that those lacking confidence would hesitate and act timidly.
At that moment, Wan Liugui hurried over.
"Sect Master, something has happened."
He swiftly retrieved a message jade talisman. "Word came not long ago from the Liu family, a major clan in a border prefecture. Just today, a Void Piercing demonic cultivator from the Shadow Moon Sect crossed into the Southern Domain's borders. Unlike the past few days, when they merely pillaged resources and probed with minor casualties, this time, that demonic cultivator directly performed a blood sacrifice on an entire small city of forty thousand cultivators in Meng Prefecture!"
"A blood sacrifice of an entire city... They are pushing their luck," Yaoguang sighed softly.
He had planned to deal with the Shadow Moon Sect after concluding this Dao artifact auction. However, through their probes over the past several days, the Shadow Moon Sect had clearly realized that he would avoid major conflicts until the auction was over.
Especially when...
Zong Wenxian had actually taken all the battle halls capable of providing reinforcements off to the extraterrestrial battlefield.
This signal was virtually telling the Shadow Moon Sect that the Heavenly Dao Sect was currently short of personnel and that reinforcements would never arrive in time, naturally making these probing demonic cultivators grow even more unscrupulous.
Though only half a month remained until the auction, if he continued to show no response, another blood sacrifice of a city would inevitably happen.
Worse, they might directly seize an entire prefecture or even several.
If territory were lost...
Zong Wenxian would certainly seize the chance to launch an attack against him.
"Sect Master, should we request aid from the sect? After all... this is an invasion by the Shadow Moon Sect!" Wan Liugui asked.
"The scale is too small, and combined with other factors, even if the sect sends reinforcements, they won't arrive for ten to fifteen days. There isn't enough time," Yaoguang said. "I understand. I will take care of it."
"Whatever instructions you have, Sect Master, please speak freely. Though we are only Void Piercing Battle Immortals, going all out, we can still pose a threat to those Void Piercing demons," Wan Liugui said gravely.
"No matter. It's a small issue." Yaoguang waved his hand, signaling Wan Liugui to leave.
After he departed, Yaoguang reached out, and a talisman appeared in his hand.
As his divine sense flooded into the talisman, several cloud-piercing peaks across Nandu flared with brilliance simultaneously. After converging for a moment, these beams of light surged into the sky, forming a dazzling curtain of light.
Countless rays linked together, culminating in a colossal defensive formation spanning thirty thousand li to envelop all of Nandu.
The Heavenly Capital Dragon-Slashing Formation had been activated.
Every single day this formation remained active—even without sustaining any attacks or amplifying any Dao arts—required consuming five to six hundred thousand Pure Yang Great Pills. There were still fifteen days until the auction, meaning that over the next half-month, nearly ten million Pure Yang Great Pills would be poured into it.
Many Void Piercers could spend a century without saving up such a fortune.
"Chi Yu."
Yaoguang's divine sense quickly located the Void Piercer.
"Sect Master? I am here." The Chi family Void Piercer sounded somewhat surprised. "Activating the Heavenly Capital Dragon-Slashing Formation this early?"
"Yes. Keep an eye on its operation. I need to make a trip out. Also, during this period, if anyone dares cause trouble, whether Void Piercer or Void Refining expert, do not hold back when it's time to suppress them," Yaoguang instructed.
"Understood," Chi Yu replied, adding, "With your word, I can rest easy."
"Mm."
Yaoguang acknowledged, and with a flash of his silhouette, he appeared directly within the pavilion where Li Hanqiu was.
At that moment, Li Hanqiu and Li Qingshan were busy recording a guest registry of visitors. Seeing Yaoguang, Li Hanqiu was slightly startled and quickly rose. "Yaoguang, what brings you here?"
"Lend me the Void Disk for a bit. I need to make a trip out. Also, let no one know that I've left." Yaoguang made a rough estimate of the time. "Three to five days at the quickest, ten days at the slowest, and I shall return."
"Supreme Elder, you wish to leave at a time like this? Many Void Refining guests have already arrived ahead of time..." Li Qingshan hesitated.
Before he could finish, Li Hanqiu had already brought out the Void Disk. Without prying, he merely gave a solemn warning: "Take absolute care!"
"Just taking care of a minor matter; there won't be any danger," Yaoguang smiled faintly.
Li Hanqiu asked no further questions, and Li Qingshan fell silent as well.
There was no need for superfluous words.
Both understood clearly that the current Yaoguang was far beyond their tier; they could not assist him at all.
All they needed to do was manage as many of the various matters as possible on his behalf. Whatever he chose to do...
They had no need to question it.
Asking was pointless anyway.
They could not help.
***
Compared to the Boundary-Crossing Ruler, the Void Disk excelled at long-distance flight.
When wielding the Boundary-Crossing Ruler, a single Void Flicker carried Yaoguang thirty thousand li, but traveling this way for a few dozen flickers at most would destabilize his grotto-heaven—akin to exhausting one's "true qi."
Using the Void Disk for travel, however...
Though somewhat slower, the strain on his grotto-heaven was drastically reduced.
*A pity that my current Void Shattering progress contains no records of the Dao art Supreme Human Sovereign. Furthermore, while my grotto-heaven was remade by the Heart of the Void, no cultivators dwell within it yet, so it doesn't provide much boost to my strength...*
As Yaoguang pondered, a silent Void Flicker carried him outside Nandu.
Even though the Void Refining experts currently in Nandu were too numerous to count on one hand, not a single one noticed the traces left by his Void Flicker, nor did anyone realize he had departed Nandu.
Once outside the city, he flickered several more times, putting hundreds of thousands of li between himself and the city before summoning the Void Disk to travel at high speed.
His destination...
Was the border of Meng Prefecture, where the blood sacrifice had occurred.
Relying on the Void Disk, a Dao artifact exceptionally adept at void traversal and flight, he arrived within Meng Prefecture in a single day.
Reaching Meng Prefecture, he stowed the Void Disk and, maintaining low-intensity Void Flickers, began searching for demonic cultivators.
With every flicker to a new location, he circulated the light of his true spirit. Invisible ripples soon flushed out the demonic cultivators concealed across the city.
Demonic cultivators existed among humanity, but the term did not refer exclusively to humans.
Any practitioner who tempered their mind and advanced their realm through the seven emotions and six desires of sapient beings was called a demonic cultivator.
The demonic cultivators of the Shadow Moon Sect primarily preyed on dark emotions stirred from the souls of intelligent life. By feeding upon these emotions, they cultivated their divine abilities and Dao arts, which in turn fed back into themselves to raise their cultivation realm, achieving rapid progress.
The benefit of this system was that, given enough negative emotion, their divine abilities and Dao arts advanced swiftly, carrying their cultivation realm forward much faster than conventional methods.
The downside was that relying on external forces to hone divine abilities and Dao arts before elevating their realm left their combat prowess generally inferior.
Worse yet, at the step of integrating with the Dao, the heart demon tribulation would obliterate the souls of 99.99 percent of Void Shattering cultivators.
Consequently, despite demonic cultivators progressing faster in strength, they possessed only six Dao Lord lineages and could not rival the blazing prominence of the Ten Immortal Sects.
"Demonic cultivators... there truly are quite a few."
Sweeping the light of his true spirit across the area, Yaoguang sensed a substantial number of life fluctuations leaning toward darkness.
If every one of these creatures were slaughtered as demonic cultivators, perhaps one might be wrongly accused, but even that solitary innocent was unlikely to be a good person.
Thus, Yaoguang showed no mercy whatsoever. With a flick of his finger, dozens of sword beams streaked across the sky, carrying invisible void ripples to swiftly slay every creature in the city whose soul fluctuations leaned dark.
After executing the dozens of cultivators in this city, he did not linger. Consulting another city on the Southern Domain's map, he flickered away to continue the search.
In the blink of an eye, he had searched six cities.
During this time, the number of demonic cultivators killed by his hand exceeded three hundred.
If the Shadow Moon Sect cared in the slightest about their disciples, they would realize a powerhouse had arrived in Meng Prefecture and react accordingly.
Either withdraw these demonic cultivators, or dispatch a Void Piercer to intercept him...
"Hm?! A Void Piercer?!"
Mid-thought, Yaoguang suddenly came to a halt upon flashing into the seventh city.
Within this city lingered the undeniable aura of a Void Piercing demonic cultivator.
Chapter 362