Begin your practice with the crane-shaped stance.

Chapter 109 The Situation

After leaving the deep mountains of Tiger Hill, Xia Dong did not approach Lin Yuan Prefecture City rashly. Instead, he concealed his tracks and came to an underground black market that was quite popular among independent cultivators and martial artists, located fifty miles outside the prefecture city.

However, the once bustling black market is now in chaos and fear, with fleeing cultivators and martial artists everywhere looking panicked.

Xia Dong sat down in a dilapidated tea stall in a corner of the black market, ordered a pot of cheap tea, and quietly pricked up his ears.

Before long, he pieced together a chilling piece of news from the still-shaken rogue cultivators and martial artists.

Based on previous information, Xia Dong deduced that the "Sacred Heart Lotus Seed" at the bottom of the Crimson Fire Mine was a carefully orchestrated trap by the Wusheng Sect from beginning to end!

The Wusheng Sect deliberately used the lure of the imminent ripening of the Sacred Heart Lotus Seeds as bait, playing a clever trick of "luring the tiger away from the mountain."

Just as Commander Xiang led the elite Eagle Wolf Guard deep into the Crimson Fire Mine to carry out a cleanup operation and was trapped in an underground formation, Lin Yuan Prefecture City was already in turmoil.

The Wusheng Sect, which had been plotting for a long time, launched a surprise attack on the poorly defended Linyuan Prefecture without any warning.

Even more fatally, there was a deeply hidden mole within the city secretly providing support, and the formidable city gates were breached from the inside in a very short time.

Currently, the entire Lin Yuan Prefecture City has temporarily fallen into the clutches of the Wu Sheng Sect.

The cultists burned, killed, and looted throughout the city, and the Eagle Wolf Guard's armory, with its rich resources, was the first target.

Besides the armory, many wealthy households and merchants in the city were also looted, and blood flowed like a river.

As the city fell into ruin, some local cultivation families, both inside and outside the city, not only failed to put up a desperate resistance, but instead changed their tune and colluded with the Wusheng Sect, becoming accomplices in their evil deeds.

The city was thrown into chaos, and the Qixia Immortal Sect was not spared either, even falling into an even more devastating internal strife.

The Pei family, which controls the "Enforcement Hall," the powerful department of the sect, and is the leader of the aristocratic faction, has suddenly raised the banner of rebellion.

The Pei family not only ruthlessly suppressed dissidents within the sect, but also went so far as to introduce the Wusheng Sect into the Qixia Immortal Sect.

Because the whereabouts of Master Guyue, a key figure in the "master-disciple faction," were unknown during the battle of the Crimson Fire Mine, the master-disciple faction of the Qixia Immortal Sect was repeatedly defeated and at a great disadvantage under the combined attack of the Pei family and the Wusheng Sect. The entire sect's lineage was in grave danger.

The "low-grade golden cores" of the Qixia Immortal Sect, who barely managed to form their own cores by consuming the inner cores of demonic beasts—commonly known as "external alchemy masters"—fought independently after the outbreak of war, only concerned with protecting the interests of their own lineage, and were unable to form a united force.

Meanwhile, the true pillar of the Qixia Immortal Sect, the ancestor who had attained the "Middle Grade Golden Core" level, was currently overwhelmed with other matters.

According to the fleeing cultivators, although the Wusheng Sect did not send its leader in person, it dispatched a terrifyingly powerful deputy leader who held back the mid-grade Golden Core ancestor of the Qixia Immortal Sect.

Two high-level cultivators clashed fiercely in mid-air, the terrifying aftershocks of their battle leveling several mountains. The two fought all the way to the vast ocean in the far east, and the outcome remains undecided, their fates unknown.

In order to ascertain the truth, Xia Dong continued to gather information in other places.

In this process, the phrase "cautious and meticulous" was taken to the extreme.

He doesn't easily give in; he pieces together the whole picture only by listening in, observing, and occasionally exchanging a few words.

However, the more he learned about the current situation outside, the more alarmed and chilled he became.

Lin Yuan Prefecture is currently in complete chaos, a boiling pot of bloody porridge, with various forces vying for power, creating a situation of endless, relentless battle.

Inside the city, the Wusheng Sect and defected cultivation families were burning, killing, and looting; outside the city, the remnants of the scattered Eagle Wolf Guard and various bandits were taking advantage of the chaos. Meanwhile, within the Qixia Immortal Sect, the aristocratic factions and the master-disciple factions were engaged in a fierce battle.

In this terrifying situation where the sky is falling and even Foundation Establishment cultivators could perish at any moment, the disappearance of a mere Eagle Wolf Guard commander is not even worth mentioning.

Nobody cares about the life or death of a low-level Qi Refining officer; the Eagle Wolf Guard's higher-ups are themselves in a state of utter chaos.

So Xia Dong breathed a sigh of relief.

According to the reliable information Xia Dong has gathered, the Great You Dynasty is furious about the upheaval in Lin Yuan Prefecture and is swiftly mobilizing an even larger elite Eagle Wolf Guard army from surrounding prefectures and counties, and even the entire Tianshui Province, vowing to suppress this turmoil with swift and decisive action.

The court's strong reaction was therefore understandable.

If the Wusheng Sect were to completely seize control of Lin Yuan Prefecture and establish itself as a powerful force, it would severely damage the prestige of the Great You Dynasty in ruling the world.

Once the imperial court shows signs of weakness and fatigue, those immortal sects that were originally suppressed by the powerful, the demonic sects that were secretly lurking and lying dormant, and all kinds of forces with ulterior motives will definitely spring up like mushrooms after rain, and the world will be in chaos in no time.

Having grasped the overall situation, Xia Dong breathed a sigh of relief, and suddenly realized the truth.

Senior Lonely Moon wasn't tricked by the Wusheng Sect at all; he clearly saw through everything and had planned it all along!

Master Guyue was clearly aware of the secret collusion between the Pei family and the Wusheng Sect, and she probably had already been alerted to the internal strife within the sect and the catastrophic disaster in Linyuan Prefecture.

After all, with her terrifyingly deep foundation, achieving the mid-grade Golden Core was a natural and effortless thing for her. Why would she need to go to such a dangerous place as the bottom of the Crimson Fire Mine to snatch the unripe Sacred Heart Lotus Seed?

This is clearly a brilliant "escape from the cicada's shell" move!

She deliberately turned the tables, using the pretext of stealing the Sacred Heart Lotus Seed to make a grand entrance down the mountain, thus legitimately distancing herself from the Qixia Immortal Sect, a powder keg about to explode.

While the outside world is engulfed in chaos and bloodshed, with heavy casualties on all sides, she is peacefully hiding in a secluded cave deep in the Tiger Hill Mountains, comfortably healing her wounds.

Once the group outside has fought to the point of mutual destruction, she can then peacefully form her Golden Core.

At that time, a Golden Core stage cultivator in his prime will emerge, easily quelling all evil spirits and reshuffling the entire Lin Yuan Prefecture's situation.

"clever."

Xia Dong sighed inwardly in the shadow of his straw hat.

The old monsters in the cultivation world are indeed all formidable, and their cunning is unfathomable.

Xia Dong prided himself on being steady and methodical in his actions, but in front of Gu Yue Zhenren, he was shocked to realize that his little schemes were simply inadequate.

Recalling the details of the Redfire Mine, Xia Dong couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat.

Xia Dong couldn't help but start to wonder if his identity as a "cultivator" had been exposed in front of Master Gu Yue.

Did she even notice anything about the mysterious ancient bronze bell in her mind's sea of ​​consciousness?

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