"Move faster! Stop gawking!"
By then, Myriad Immortals Island had been nearly razed to the ground, and the cultivators of the Five Elders Council had begun digging into the earth itself.
Li Fan wanted to observe further, but an armored cultivator barked at him and forced him to clear the area.
Several squads of armored cultivators had formed up, herding the members of the Myriad Immortals Alliance like livestock toward a narrow cave mouth at the base of a canyon.
A sinister wind howled from the opening, and the sound alone was enough to stir a faint but unmistakable dread in their hearts.
"Get inside! Quit dawdling!"
The lead armored cultivator slammed his weapon against the ground, his voice a thunderous crack.
Some among the captives wore expressions of open resentment. They exchanged glances, seemingly conspiring in silence to resist.
But circumstances overpowered men. After a moment of hesitation, they yielded.
One by one, they filed into the dark cavern.
Li Fan was piloting a borrowed puppet body, so he felt little genuine fear. Even so, to avoid drawing attention and to prolong the vessel's usefulness, he feigned terror and blended into the crowd.
The moment he stepped inside, all light vanished.
The next instant, an utterly unexpected scene unfolded before them.
There was no winding, lightless tunnel through the mountain. Instead, they found themselves transported to a lush, verdant valley. In the distance stood a bamboo pavilion, and dozens of people sat on the ground before it, listening to a scholarly cultivator who appeared to be lecturing.
This bore no resemblance to an interrogation or a prelude to torture. The Myriad Immortals Alliance members who had been quietly plotting rebellion began to settle, and they decided to assess the situation before acting.
Under the escort of the armored cultivators, the group slowly approached the pavilion.
As they walked, Li Fan noticed a peculiar change occurring within his body, and his expression shifted.
With every step closer to the scholar, their bodies were shrinking.
The change affected only the detained members of the Myriad Immortals Alliance. The armored cultivators, the scholar, and the surrounding valley remained entirely unchanged.
So although they kept walking forward, their destination seemed to grow ever more distant.
The bizarre phenomenon sent a ripple of unrest through the Alliance's ranks, but it was swiftly suppressed.
"Move faster!"
In their eyes, the armored cultivators had swollen to the size of small hills. Those giants showed no mercy, driving the captives relentlessly onward.
For the first time, the Myriad Immortals Alliance cultivators understood what it was to be an ant staring up at the world of men. The composure on their faces crumbled, and they found themselves obeying the armored cultivators' commands almost without thinking.
As they pressed forward, the shrinking did not stop.
After what felt like more than ten days of walking, they finally arrived before the pavilion. By then, the scholar loomed above them like a mountain pillar holding up the sky.
"Sit," he said, his tone gentle.
But to their ears, his voice struck like the tolling of a great temple bell, filling heaven and earth and reverberating in the depths of their minds. It seemed to reach directly into their souls. Even those who tried to block their own hearing could not stop his words from ringing within their heads.
One by one, they lost control of their bodies and sank obediently to the ground.
What kind of divine ability is this?
Dread swept through them all.
The armored cultivators bowed toward the scholar in unison. Seeing the Myriad Immortals Alliance cultivators now seated, they quietly withdrew.
The scholar looked out over the assembly and sighed softly. "Another flock of lost lambs.
"But since fate has brought you here, I will not allow you to stray back onto the wrong path."
Those cultivators of the Myriad Immortals Alliance bristled with indignation at the words.
"In your eyes," the scholar asked gently, "what manner of existence is our Five Elders Council?"
"Manipulating cultivators with Soul Contracts. Utterly vile."
"Clinging to survival. The Myriad Immortals Alliance will annihilate you within a thousand years."
"Ignorant and backward."
"Not exactly virtuous, but any force that has contended with our Myriad Immortals Alliance for this long must have some redeeming qualities."
Prompted by the question, they all began to speak, giving voice to the answers in their minds.
The horror on their faces made it plain enough that none of it was voluntary.
Yet not all of them had been seized by the compulsion. The puppet body Li Fan inhabited, for one, remained unaffected. A few Nascent Soul cultivators in the group were also resisting, brows furrowed in fierce concentration.
Isn't this an area-of-effect version of the Heavenly Physician's Art of Questioning? Li Fan felt a cold wariness. Its power may be weaker than what the Heavenly Physician can achieve personally, but the sheer number of targets it can reach is staggering.
He stayed on high alert, ready to abandon the puppet body at any moment.
Fortunately, the scholar paid him no particular attention.
The crowd went on answering, voice after voice. The scholar listened with a slight smile, his head inclined.
When the last voice finally fell silent, the pavilion grew quiet.
The scholar shook his head. "You are profoundly mistaken.
"Do you know from whence our Five Elders Council originated?"
No one did.
"After the Heavenly Venerable Dao Teacher established the new methodology, rogue cultivators across the land used its terrifying cultivation speed as a weapon, launching an assault against the orthodox immortal Dao sects. And within the sects themselves, a schism formed, splitting them into two factions locked in relentless struggle and slaughter.
"Yet before a clear victor could emerge..."
Rather than answering directly, the scholar turned to history.
"The Great Reformation descended upon the world. Techniques could no longer be shared. The immortal Dao sects suffered a catastrophic blow, and fewer than one in a hundred survived.
"But they had ruled the Xuanhuang World for ten thousand years. Their foundations ran deep.
"A handful of surviving sects weathered the catastrophe. They withdrew from the world and waited for the storm of blood to pass.
"When the slaughter ended and the darkness receded, they united once more upon the ruins.
"That was the nascent form of what is now the Five Elders Council."
He continued calmly, unmoved by their stunned expressions.
"The conflict between the Myriad Immortals Alliance and the Five Elders Council is, at its root, still a struggle between the old powers of cultivation and the new. All conflict in this world largely stems from the oppression of those who came first by those who came after. Thus has it stretched on for millennia without cease, and it will never end until a decisive victory is achieved.
"You have dwelt within the Myriad Immortals Alliance and been kept in the dark. That is to be expected. One cannot blame you."
The scholar's face settled into an expression of sorrowful compassion.
As for the Myriad Immortals Alliance cultivators seated before him, shock was spreading plainly across their faces. They had grown accustomed to the existence of the Five Elders Council, but none of them had ever heard anything of its origins.
Li Fan was not as startled as the rest.
Senior Sister Zhao, one of the Five Elders Council's Eternal Heavenly Venerables, had originally been the sect leader of the Great Dao Sect, one of the Ten Immortal Dao Sects. Li Fan had long suspected that the Five Elders Council was composed of surviving sect members from that era.