[Li Family Year 378]
One night in Merit City, the Grotto-Heaven of the Li family, Xu Cuihua concealed her aura and quietly dressed. After a last, deep look at the sleeping Li Dalong, she took a final walk through the city. She lingered in the Ancestral Hall for a long while before departing her clan's home.
High in the sky above Solaria City, a host of great demons awaited her, among them a powerful being at the Divinity Transformation stage. Xu Cuihua cast one final glance back toward Eternal Sun Prefecture, then left with them.
She never knew that Li Dalong had awoken the moment she rose from their bed.
Beneath the Old Tree, he and the other clan members had silently tracked her departure with their senses. In the end, none of them tried to stop her.
[Li Family Year 380]
This year marked Li Dalong's 400th birthday, an occasion the clansmen could only celebrate with him inside the Ancestor Space.
Even the Seven Ironclads had departed.
They followed the Blood Demon Lord out of Eternal Sun Prefecture, heading for the Grand Yu Prefecture of the Azure Dynasty—a place known for having the highest concentration of demonic cultivators in the empire.
[Li Family Year 385]
The children of the clan returned to Merit City from time to time.
They were growing more mature, but each visit found them weary and travel-worn.
The one who stayed home most often was Li Yaozu.
To others, he seemed a bit strange.
The young man would wander all over Eternal Sun Prefecture with a sword box on his back, and when he had nothing else to do, he would simply mutter to the box itself.
Li Wei observed the state of the world.
The Azure Cloud Region was growing ever stronger.
Under the management of Li Kuangren and his wife, Hundred Treasures Mountain thrived, even in this age of turmoil.
The Li family's Hall of Heavenly Principle was also inviting Pill Masters, Artifact Refiners, and other specialized cultivators from all corners of the Azure Dynasty to the region.
They had turned Azure Cloud into a manufacturing hub for all kinds of cultivation necessities, selling medicinal pills and spirit artifacts through the Hall of Heavenly Principle while procuring a steady supply of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures.
As for the world's secret realms, the very places cultivators would fight to the death to enter, the Li family rarely bothered with them anymore.
Perhaps this was one of the benefits of power.
They no longer lacked for martial techniques or spirit stones. Nowadays, only items of Rank 5 or higher—such as spirit veins, spirit objects, Dharma Treasures, or powerful secret techniques—could still pique their interest.
The Old Tree grew ever more lush, yet even after absorbing the vast worldly essence Qi that Tian Xing had seized, it still hadn't broken through to the Divinity Transformation realm.
The Old Raging Sky Flood Dragon was the same; it remained in its semi-translucent dragon form, traveling everywhere with Li Kuanghua.
Both claimed they had encountered a bottleneck.
Until [Li Family Year 390].
That year, the million-strong army of the Azure Dynasty, led by General Dongfang Lianwu, finally clashed with the forces of Prince Jue.
Their first great battle was a multi-front engagement in the Benedicta Mountain Range of Duskwild Prefecture.
Li Wei instantly appeared at Li Tianyue's side as she led the fifty thousand cultivators she had trained for years onto the battlefield.
The brutality of the fighting was clear from the outcome: of her fifty thousand cultivators, only twenty thousand returned alive.
During the years Dongfang Lianwu led the great war, Prince Jue had not been idle.
Suddenly, two military forces from other prefectures appeared on the battlefield.
A dense, dark mass of spirit arks and sword-riding cultivators pressed in on Dongfang Lianwu's army.
The old general, who had endured the passage of countless years, once again took command, only to be soundly defeated by Prince Jue.
He was forced to lead the remnants of the Azure Dynasty's forces in a sorry retreat from Duskwild Prefecture.
Their defeat wasn't a matter of battlefield tactics; the Imperial Dynasty itself had never imagined that two entire prefectures would choose this moment to rebel.
But what left Li Wei truly speechless was what happened next.
As Li Tianyue was retreating with her battered forces, she was ambushed.
Li Wei was just preparing to intervene when a contingent of troops from Duskwild Prefecture appeared.
The ambushers assumed they were allies, but to their shock, the Duskwild contingent immediately turned and helped Li Tianyue cut down her foes.
And then, Li Tianyue could only stare blankly at her three elder brothers, dressed like charlatans and still shouting, "I have seen it!" and "I have heard it!"
She couldn't help but think that if the Old Tree back home ever found out, it would be furious enough to die.
[Li Family Year 399]
That year, there was joyous news.
[Your descendant, Li Yunlin, after collecting 64 types of spirit objects of Rank 8 and higher and spending many years within the Skyveil Sect comprehending the Rules in unison with the Skyveil Hall, has used the grand array to perceive the secrets of heaven and has now glimpsed the opportunity for Divinity Transformation.]
[The Skyveil Hall has begun to merge with Li Yunlin's Nascent Soul and divine soul. Acquired Trait: Body of Fused Spirit.]
[Trait Effect: By merging with the Skyveil Hall, the speed of comprehending the Rules is increased by 20%.]
Inside the Skyveil Hall, now no different from a Grotto-Heaven, Li Yunlin sat cross-legged at its center.
Dressed in a white, cloud-patterned Daoist robe and holding a horsetail brush, he looked like a banished immortal.
Over the years, Li Yunlin's gains had been the greatest.
When sparring with his father, Li Yaozu, he could now last for over a dozen rounds against his flying sword.
Everyone said that Li Yaotie, ranked first on the Nascent Divinity List, was a formidable fighter, but Li Wei suspected that Li Yaotie might not actually be a match for Li Yunlin.
Of course, that was assuming Li Yaotie didn't unleash his horde of self-destructing spirit puppets.
But aside from this piece of good news, the Azure Dynasty was growing ever more chaotic.
If General Dongfang Lianwu had managed to defeat the army of Duskwild Prefecture back then, things might have been fine.
But his crushing defeat caused the Imperial Dynasty to lose all face.
As a result, Prince Jue gained the support of more wavering prefectures, and he now commanded the forces of seven of them.
[Special Event—The Azure Dusk Dynasty]
[Prince Jue repeatedly submitted memorials to "cleanse the sovereign's side," but the Human Emperor refused. In response, Prince Jue declared himself king and established the Azure Dusk Dynasty.]
Following this, the thirty-six prefectures of the Azure Dynasty descended into chaos as more and more warlords declared themselves kings.
The most absurd case was an obscure branch of the imperial bloodline, whose control extended no further than a single town, yet they still rushed to proclaim themselves kings.
Others used the pretext of "quelling rebellions" to rally cultivators, though everyone knew their intentions were wicked.
These factions would even come to blows with one another, forcing the great aristocratic families and major powers to choose a side.
The reason was simple: the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures found in the wild could never compare to the vast riches plundered from conquering another major power.
It wasn't that the Azure Dynasty itself was flawed.
As Li Wei had learned from Li Yaowen, the problem was that the Human Emperor had simply lived too long, which fueled humanity's inherent greed.
It was said that long ago, the Human Emperor had promised his children he would one day pass the throne to them—a promise he had repeated for thousands of years.
Years ago, the Second Prince rebelled. Now, not even his grave could be found within the Imperial Dynasty.
The Azure Dynasty of today was in a state of utter chaos.
No one knew which new warlord would rise up tomorrow and proclaim themselves king.
The number of officials attending the court assembly grew smaller by the day, and as for Min Youguo, every memorial he submitted likely just said, "Everything is fine, Your Majesty."
Li Wei didn't know whether things were truly fine, but he did know that Li Dalong hadn't received his salary from the imperial court in years, yet the court still sent envoys every year to press for taxes.
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