The Hearts of Men

"The Wuguang Alliance is finished," Dao Lord Dihui remarked with a sigh. It was the grief of seeing one's own kind fall. Watching Dao Lords of their own caliber being slaughtered by Yaoguang with such overwhelming ease stirred a strange, unnamable feeling within them—even though they stood in Yaoguang's camp and the slain were technically their enemies. Perhaps it was the sorrow of the fox mourning the hare. "Life-and-death battles are not calculated deductions. Once a battle truly erupts, the variables determining its outcome are no longer limited to the one doing the deductions; they include the opposing party. When that time comes, any unexpected turn can occur." Dao Lord Taiqing spoke with emotion as well: "Take right now, for instance. No matter how well the Wuguang Alliance calculated, even using a temporal treasure beforehand to drill a formidable formation, and though that powerful formation indeed achieved their anticipated effect, everything they deduced proceeded strictly according to their own assumptions. Yet Yaoguang refused to play by their plan and instead forcibly broke the deadlock using sheer speed." "It seems there really is no need for us to step into the fight. Everyone, prepare yourselves to prevent the other Dao Lords from escaping. Otherwise, once Dao Sovereign Yaoguang ascends to the Immortal Realm, those who fled will surely stage a comeback and seek vengeance with everything they have. When that happens, all our heritages could become targets of their wrath." Dao Lord Juntian issued a solemn reminder. His words made every Dao Lord shake off their complacency and focus. They knew this was no alarmist exaggeration, but an undeniable reality. If a significant number of Dao Lords escaped, it would take only one instigator to rally thirty or forty of them back to deal a devastating blow to the Ten Immortal Sects, the Four Great Celestial Dynasties, and other factions. By that time, the Dao Lords remaining on their side would number fewer than five fingers. Even with defensive formations, they would never withstand the fury of dozens of Dao Lords. Therefore, seizing this moment to tie down and trap as many Dao Lords as possible, then using Dao Sovereign Yaoguang's might to strangle them here, was the best solution to the problem. It was not just the dozens of Dao Lords of the Ten Immortal Sects who saw that the Wuguang Alliance's momentum was gone. When Yaoguang charged repeatedly into the Six Harmonies Yaoli Formation led by Dao Lord Wudi, slaughtering over a dozen Dao Lords while they remained entirely helpless against him, the remaining Dao Lords also sensed the abnormality. Several Dao Lords were already instinctively falling back. Dao Lord Wudi noticed this early on. His formidable divine sense, laced with a soul-beguiling Dao art, echoed incessantly across this expanse of starry sky: "Do not panic! Maintain formation! As long as you can tie down Yaoguang for just a moment, he will become a turtle in a jar, with no escape from death!" He knew in his heart that while others might slip away safely amidst the chaos, as the alliance master of the Wuguang Alliance... He was definitely one of Yaoguang's primary targets, with zero chance of being spared. Under these circumstances, he had no choice but to fight to the bitter end. And the only way to fight to the bitter end was to rope in the rest of the Wuguang Alliance, beguiling them into fighting on. Even though the hope of victory was gradually fading from sight. Unfortunately, while the Dao Lords had previously been stirred by his rallying cries and their minds swayed by his soul Dao art to charge forward in waves to besiege Yaoguang, now that retreat and dread had taken root in their hearts, his soul Dao art was clearly losing its efficacy. Not only was it ineffective, but it even provoked resentment among several Dao Lords. "Wudi! I was about to leave Beihai Star in the first place, and I never should have listened to your deceit! You dragged me right back into this Beihai Star vortex, where the slightest misstep means eternal damnation!" "As Dao Lords, even if we cannot ascend to the Immortal Realm, we still have lifespans of well over a hundred thousand years! Why risk our lives confronting a Dao Sovereign? I was truly blind to let myself be duped by you!" "Didn't you claim that with sixty Dao Lords forming the Six Harmonies Yaoli Formation, slaying Yaoguang would be effortless? That we only needed to keep watch and hold off the Dao Lords of the Ten Immortal Sects? And what is the result? Is this what you called effortless!?" Several Dao Lords roared in fury, immediately disengaging and retreating rapidly from the battlefield, bolting straight toward the depths of the starry sky. Once the first batch withdrew, others quickly followed. In the blink of an eye, more than a dozen streaks of light broke away. Seeing this, the Dao Lords of the Ten Immortal Sects and other allied factions, who had long prepared for this moment, stepped forward and moved to intercept them. "Did you think our Beihai Star is a place you can enter and leave as you please?" "Dao Sovereign Yaoguang gave you more than one chance before, yet you seized none of them. To think of fleeing now—do you hold our Beihai Star's immortal Dao Lords in such contempt?" "Hahaha, trying to run? Get past us first!" These Dao Lords unleashed their Dao arts one after another, intercepting the dozen or so fleeing streaks of light. They did not aim to kill these Dao Lords, only to entangle them and keep them from escaping in the short term. Seeing their retreat cut off, the Dao Lords who had been wavering instantly plunged into panic. They had chosen the starry void of outer space as their battlefield partly out of concern that a life-and-death clash between over a hundred Dao Lords might shatter Beihai Star, delaying the full opening of the Gate of the Immortal Realm. On the other hand, it was also because the starry sky was vast; if things went poorly, they could scatter in all directions and flee. Now that their escape route had been severed by the Dao Lords of the Ten Immortal Sects, many of them lost the sense of security they had felt at the beginning. Furthermore, Yaoguang was using Void Flicker to run circles around them, going on a slaughtering rampage while the Six Harmonies Yaoli Formation led by Dao Lord Wudi fruitlessly gave chase. Unable to endure this suffocating dread any longer, more and more Dao Lords broke off to join the streaks fleeing the battlefield. At this moment, their only thought was to disengage as swiftly as possible, put as much distance between themselves and this place as they could, and never set foot on Beihai Star again. "A mob! Dignified Dao Lords acting like a rabble of cowards, without the slightest sense of the greater picture!" Dao Lord Wudi's divine sense washed over the battlefield once more: "Everyone, consider the greater good! If you each think only of saving your own skins, don't you realize that scattering will only allow Yaoguang to hunt us down and defeat us one by one!? Only by fighting Yaoguang to the death can we seize a sliver of survival!" These ripples of divine sense caused a few sensible Dao Lords to pause in their tracks. Yet in the very next instant, Yaoguang's figure flickered again. The Great Daos revolving atop the Grand Dao Pagoda wove together into an unstoppable, all-crushing torrent that slammed straight into a group of over a dozen Dao Lords. Wherever it passed, even renowned Dao Lords were reduced to dust. Meanwhile, because the Six Harmonies Yaoli Formation led by Dao Lord Wudi shifted sluggishly, it could only trail behind, unable to offer those Dao Lords the slightest rescue. Faced with this bloody reality, the Dao Lords hesitated no longer. Fully forty to fifty Dao Lords broke away from the battlefield, ramming into the defensive perimeter established by the Ten Immortal Sects and their allies. "You cannot escape! You won't make it out at all! Fleeing individually will only turn you into easy prey for Yaoguang to hunt down!" Dao Lord Wudi saw the heart of the matter. His powerful divine sense surged across the starry sky once more: "Everyone, join my Six Harmonies Yaoli Formation! We will expand the formation and fight our way out with its collective power!" The moment these words went out, the Dao Lords who recognized the grim reality had their eyes light up. Yaoguang had refrained from clashing head-on with the full Six Harmonies Yaoli Formation. Even when he had breached it to kill several people, he had disengaged immediately after a single strike, refusing to linger. It was clear he was exceedingly wary of the Six Harmonies Yaoli Formation. If they could also integrate into it... Wouldn't it be far safer than being stranded alone outside? In an instant, the Dao Lords rushed toward the formation, merging into the Six Harmonies Yaoli Formation. The formation, originally optimized for sixty people, instantly swelled from fewer than fifty Dao Lords to seventy or eighty. Another thirty to forty Dao Lords no longer trusted Wudi and continued trying to shake off the interception and entanglement of the dozens of Dao Lords from the Ten Immortal Sects. Dao Lord Wudi swept his gaze across the field and only then realized with a jolt that in just this brief clash, forty to fifty Dao Lords on their side had already fallen! This discovery sent a shudder through his heart. Dao Lords! These were Dao Lords standing at the pinnacle of the cosmos! Even during past Dao Contentions, when Dao Lords fought to the death over the Gate of the Immortal Realm, casualties typically amounted to ten or twenty percent. In the most tragic contentions, casualties reached thirty or forty percent—several dozen to nearly a hundred fallen Dao Lords—but that was the cumulative toll over a span of a full century of sporadic deaths! And they had never fallen at the hands of a single person! Yet right now... How long had it been? The number of fallen Dao Lords was already comparable to the casualties of a moderately intense Dao Contention. A Dao Sovereign's might... Was terrifying to such an extreme. At this point, Wudi—whose Six Harmonies Yaoli Formation had grown clunky and sluggish due to the influx of many Dao Lords who were not versed in it—could no longer care about the formation's proper functioning. Even if he had to drag these Dao Lords along as meat shields, he had to flee toward the void node and use it to escape this region. He had chosen this starry sky near a void node as the battlefield precisely because he possessed a powerful void treasure. With this treasure, he could preserve his life even if he plunged into the void turbulence. Therefore, all he needed to do now was reach the void node. Better that a fellow Daoist die than oneself. He would use the deaths of the other Dao Lords to buy himself time and burst into the void node in a single surge. As for how many of them could successfully complete the void transit once inside the node... That would depend on their own luck. With this intent, Dao Lord Wudi dragged the bloated Six Harmonies Yaoli Formation along, continuously closing the distance between himself and the void node. Throughout the process, he watched with his own eyes as Yaoguang repeatedly flickered into view, picking off Dao Lord after Dao Lord. He could even vaguely perceive that Yaoguang's mastery of formations was exceptionally profound. To Yaoguang, the Six Harmonies Yaoli Formation seemed completely meaningless, unable to provide the other Dao Lords with the slightest additional protection. Yet Wudi continued to stir his divine sense, boosting their morale with waves of soul Dao arts. At this moment, an unspoken tacit understanding seemed to form between the two. Dao Lord Wudi used the other Dao Lords as meat shields, while Yaoguang... Refrained from using Void Flicker to close in and execute Dao Lord Wudi, who presided over the formation. Although some Dao Lords noticed the anomaly and wished to break away, the moment they stepped outside the range of the Six Harmonies Yaoli Formation, they immediately became Yaoguang's targets. Coupled with the herd mentality, even though the Six Harmonies Yaoli Formation was now an empty shell, all the Dao Lords clung tightly around Dao Lord Wudi at its core, viewing it as their only path to survival. "The common failing of intelligent beings: subconsciously ignoring the facts that are disadvantageous to them." Yaoguang observed the spectacle in full. When Dao Lord Wudi arrived at the void node, dragging along a Six Harmonies Yaoli Formation reduced to barely twenty-odd Dao Lords, Yaoguang executed a Void Flicker. He appeared instantly at the position of the void node, and right after, the Grand Dao Pagoda slammed violently into the void housing the node. *Buzz! Buzz!* An invisible ripple spread outward, sweeping across hundreds of billions of li of void at speeds surpassing light, forcibly shattering the entire void node. Though the cosmos's innate restorative power would eventually mend this node over thousands or tens of thousands of years, nonetheless... This single strike crushed all hope harbored by Dao Lord Wudi and the remaining twenty-odd Dao Lords. "No!" Dao Lord Wudi and the Dao Lords who had long realized that the situation was doomed cried out in despair at the same time. Yaoguang turned. Commanding the Grand Dao Pagoda, he charged into the crowd once more. His demeanor was so chilled that not a single trace of emotion rippled forth. A few dozen breaths later, as Dao Lord Wudi was crushed to dust beneath the Grand Dao Pagoda, the Wuguang Alliance's resistance was formally declared broken.