The commotion in Chongling Gorge was also detected by Lei Jun, Yuan Mobai, Yao Yuan, and the others atop Dragon Tiger Mountain.

Yuan Mobai gave a soft sigh.

He remained at his post, steady and unshaken, atop the Altar of Wanfa Sect.

Trouble within the Celestial Master Mansion had by now more or less reached its conclusion.

Yet not even the slightest hint of negligence could be permitted.

Beyond the mountain, it was not just Tian Linlong and Qi Shuo lying in ambush, there could well have been other formidable experts as well.

If the Celestial Master Mansion revealed a weakness, the enemy would swarm in, tearing into their prey like a pack of wolves.

*That was precisely what Yuan Mobai had always feared and sought to avoid.*

The Mountain Defense Array of Dragon Tiger Mountain remained intact, evolving into a colossal altar that enveloped the main peak of the mountain gate, denying any opportunistic adversary a chance to strike.

Except, if there was no opportunity to be had at the mountain gate, then those outside the mountain would become the next targets.

It was not just Li Ziyang who had been ambushed.

Upstream of Golden Palace Creek, near the foot of Cloud Brocade Mountain, a flash of purple thunder split the heavens.

From afar, Lei Jun turned to look.

Qi Shuo, Elder of the Yellow Sky Sect.

Cao Chu, Elder of Golden City Stronghold.

Tian Linlong, Elder of Yintuo Mountain.

These people had already revealed their whereabouts.

Now, who was the one at the headwaters of Golden Palace Creek near the slopes of Cloud Brocade Mountain?

Lei Jun picked up the Divine Eye Mirror Stone and gazed into the distance.

He saw that amidst countless stars, radiant as a star river, a luminous giant was encircled by celestial lights and ferociously battering a purple Thunder Dragon.

Lei Jun knew that figure all too well.

After all, his own master, Yuan Mobai, had only just displayed it not long before.

The Taoist Talisman Sect's sacred transmission within the Celestial Master Mansion, the secret art known as the Divine Faculty Talismans, originating from the Life Skill Human Script Talismans: the Doumu Star God Dharma, also known as the Destiny Star God.

In recent years, only three people in the Celestial Master Mansion had mastered this powerful divine skill.

Xu Yuanzhen, Yuan Mobai, and Li Song.

Judging by the air at Cloud Brocade Mountain's foothills, it could not have been Xu Yuanzhen returned, so that left only one possibility.

A practitioner of Yellow Sky Sect.

From what Lei Jun knew, there were two in Yellow Sky Sect who had attained the Destiny Star God Dharma.

The sect leader Taiping Taoist, in the Eighth Heavenly Layer.

Zhao Zongjie, Elder in the Seventh Heavenly Layer.

Judging from the Dharma's supernatural power, it should have been cast by a cultivator with Seventh Heavenly Layer cultivation.

"Zhao Zongjie..." Lei Jun glanced back at Chongling Gorge once more.

Six years prior, after the battle that left Taiping Taoist wounded, he had recuperated in seclusion, without word for a long time.

In recent years, the main leadership of the Yellow Sky Sect was essentially in the hands of Qi Shuo and Zhao Zongjie.

Rumor had it the two were at odds.

With the internal factionalism in Yellow Sky Sect, each had become the respective leaders of opposing sides.

Today, with another outbreak of internal strife in the Celestial Master Mansion, the Yellow Sky Sect had indeed come to stir up trouble.

Qi Shuo had come, watching the outskirts like a tiger eyeing its prey, and had even orchestrated the earlier Three Caverns Desolate Divine Tribulation.

Although someone had foiled the tribulation in advance, leaving Qi Shuo stifled with frustration,

Still, he had been extraordinarily patient in waiting on the outskirts for an opportunity, and at last he caught Li Ziyang, so as not to leave empty-handed.

Meanwhile, Zhao Zongjie had also arrived.

It seemed he had been hiding all along near the upstream stretch of Golden Palace Creek at Cloud Brocade Mountain's foothills.

*No wonder both times the lot-drawing for fortune or calamity had hinted at risk in that direction.*

*But at the time, Lei Jun had the Sheltering Spirit Veil, while Zhao Zongjie did not possess an Illusion-Breaking Stone like Qi Shuo that could see through the veil.*

*If Lei Jun acted with more caution and thoroughness, there was some hope he might deceive Zhao Zongjie.*

Hence, in regard to the upper regions of Golden Palace Creek, the divination sphere twice yielded perfectly neutral lots.

Of course, now Lei Jun's Sheltering Spirit Veil had been exhausted; if he went that way again, the danger would surge dramatically.

Except, none of that had anything to do with him now.

Someone else had already blundered into it.

Li Zhengxuan was the one retreating toward that place.

His cultivation far surpassed that of the Middle Three Heavens cultivators.

Yet after the previous battle, he had already been wounded beneath Tang Xiaotang's sword.

Fleeing the battleground now, he was waylaid by Zhao Zongjie, who had been conserving his strength for so long.

Even with his formidable cultivation, Li Zhengxuan found himself at death's door in that instant.

He could only fend off attacks as best he could, even gambling on taking a hit just for the slightest chance at escape.

For Zhao Zongjie, presented with such a rare opportunity, he certainly would not let it slip away, and relentlessly pursued Li Zhengxuan.

The two chased and fought, wrestling back and forth, disappearing together into the distant sky.

At least Li Zhengxuan had only to face Zhao Zongjie alone.

On Li Ziyang's end, he was beset by two powerful foes.

With injuries already upon him, Li Ziyang stood little better a chance than a cultivator of the Middle Three Heavens under such circumstances.

Qi Shuo and Cao Chu, determined to achieve their goal.

The once High Merit Elder of the Celestial Master Mansion, Li Ziyang, followed the path of Li Hongyu—today, he too perished at the border of Dragon Tiger Mountain.

Yet, after appearing to unite against Li Ziyang, Qi Shuo and Cao Chu did not continue their alliance to attack Dragon Tiger Mountain Celestial Master Mansion.

Instead, the two turned on each other and fought yet again.

The whole of Chongling Gorge, along with the neighboring mountains, had been ravaged by repeated battles—mountains flattened, then smashed into deep valleys.

Neither Lei Jun down below, nor Yuan Mobai up the mountain, found the distant spectacle particularly surprising.

Both Qi Shuo and Cao Chu were hostile to the Celestial Master Mansion.

Unable to breach Dragon Tiger Mountain, they targeted the isolated Li Ziyang instead.

But Cao Chu's situation was unique.

He practiced the Witchcraft Sect Ghost Tao lineage from the Southern Wilderness, notorious for cultivating evil souls and reanimating corpses.

While slaying the enemy, he also seized every chance to feed himself through combat and augment his own power.

Yet Qi Shuo, eager as he was to kill Li Ziyang, did not want to see Cao Chu take Li Ziyang's spiritual soul or corpse and then refine, detain, and manipulate them.

As someone who styled himself as the orthodox inheritor of the Taoist Talisman Sect, Qi Shuo had no wish to watch the sect's top-tier divine talents fall into the hands of the Witchcraft Sect from the Southern Wilderness by such means.

Thus, having just cooperated to take down Li Ziyang, Qi Shuo immediately turned on Cao Chu to stop him.

Their fight did not last long.

Because Tang Xiaotang had returned.

Sword of the Celestial Master in one hand, and a corpse in the other.

To be precise, in her other hand she held the withered corpse of an old man.

Li Song.

The Supreme Elder with the highest seniority of Dragon Tiger Mountain Celestial Master Mansion perished today.

He had once personally witnessed the passing of every First Celestial Master, enduring all the storms the mansion had weathered over these years.

Now, with his death, it seemed also to mark the official end of the Li Clan of Xinzhou's rule over Dragon Tiger Mountain Celestial Master Mansion.

Today, a winner and loser had at last emerged from the Celestial Master Mansion's civil war.

There might have been twists and surprises in the middle, but in the end, the outsiders won a sweeping victory, while the Li Clan suffered total defeat and loss.

Yet, the Celestial Master Mansion as a whole had suffered a severe blow to its vitality once again.

The Celestial Master Robe had been lost.

Multiple High Merit Elders had fallen in battle.

Even so, seizing the advantage at Dragon Tiger Mountain still was not up for grabs for just anyone.

With Tang Xiaotang's return, Qi Shuo and Cao Chu no longer lingered—they, like Tian Linlong and the others who had left earlier, withdrew from the outskirts of Dragon Tiger Mountain Celestial Master Mansion.

"Li Ziyang got taken out?" Tang Xiaotang had been somewhat regretful that she could only pursue and kill one person at first.

Upon returning and hearing of Li Ziyang's ambush and death, she burst out laughing, "Serves him right!"

After the great war, everywhere was a scene of devastation and ruin.

But at last the flames of battle had subsided.

.........

Far away in the Northern Lands, the depths of winter, snow fell thick as cotton.

In the ancestral home of the Jinzhou Ye Clan, an old man sat alone in the main hall.

He turned his head to the window, gazing out with a distant, distracted look at the snowy scene.

Before him, a middle-aged man was speaking in a low, grave tone,

"The latest news, Li Zhengxuan... has perished above the Grand River,"

Six years prior, the former Celestial Master Li Qingfeng and the former head of the Lin Clan, Lin Qun, perished together above the Grand River.

And now, six years later, the former Young Celestial Master, Li Zhengxuan, also fell above the Grand River.

As for who killed him, apart from Zhao Zongjie, Elder of Yellow Sky Sect who had been pursuing him, it was someone from the Jiangzhou Lin Clan.

"Who did it?" The old man withdrew his gaze from the window.

The middle-aged man before him replied, "Lin Wu and Lin Yuwei of Jiangzhou."

The old man nodded, "As expected, the number one figure of the side branch, gifted and powerful, and, above all, ambitious—fearless to the core."

At the battle of Poyang Lake, the Jiangzhou Lin Clan had suffered heavy losses, forced to retreat back to their ancestral land in Jiangzhou.

They even needed support from the Qingzhou Ye Clan to withstand the pressure from Dragon Tiger Mountain.

Even as the Celestial Master Mansion was mired in internal chaos, the Jiangzhou Lin Clan found little peace, squeezed by the Fang Clan of Jingxiang upstream.

Yet, there were those among the Jiangzhou Lin Clan who were bold enough to fish in troubled waters under such conditions.

The Li Clan suffered defeat and was driven from Dragon Tiger Mountain.

But the previous Poyang Lake battle was also partly due to them.

The Li Clan of Xinzhou and the Jiangzhou Lin Clan remained mortal enemies.

With Xu Yuanzhen missing, for the Jiangzhou Lin Clan to strike back, they could only pick someone else as their target.

The fugitive Li Zhengxuan became that target.

Lin Yuwei acted decisively, intercepting the fleeing Young Celestial Master, already being pursued by Zhao Zongjie.

Already wounded upon wounded, hounded by his pursuers, Li Zhengxuan was ambushed by another Upper Three Realms Great Scholar of the Lin Clan; at last, he died in bitter regret above the Grand River.

*The resemblance to his father Li Qingfeng's death years ago could not be missed, and even the Ye Clan members far off in Jinzhou sighed to hear it.*

Yet, their sighs were brief.

The Ye Clan people were far more concerned with another question, and one of life and death.

Li Hongyu, fallen above Dragon Tiger Mountain.

Li Ziyang, dead in Chongling Gorge.

Li Song, personally slain by Tang Xiaotang.

Li Zhengxuan, dead on the Grand River.

All four of the Li Clan's Upper Three Heavens experts—every last one of them had perished. Not a single one survived!

*Such an outcome—truly unexpected even to the old man in the Ye Clan's ancestral house.*

*Even the original worst-case estimation was merely that the Lis might lose the struggle within the sect, as long as Li Song and the rest did not let pride push them to fight to the last and never retreat, there ought always to be a chance for some to escape, and regroup outside Dragon Tiger Mountain when the time came.*

*But now...*

"The Li Clan, their destiny is spent."

The old man remarked, "The Celestial Master Mansion of Dragon Tiger Mountain has suffered another catastrophe, its vitality again wounded, but faintly, I sense in the deadwood a hint of spring and new growth."

The middle-aged man before him maintained a solemn expression, bowing his head in silence, not daring to reply.

"I have no regrets that we moved against Bodhi Temple first," the old man smiled faintly, "though in hindsight, perhaps we should have watched the Celestial Master Mansion more closely—but who in this world gets all that they wish?"

The middle-aged man replied quietly, "Both are troublesome enough."

The old man nodded, "Indeed."

He rose slowly, walked to the window, and gazed out at the snowy landscape again, "Still nothing from Chifeng and the others?"

The middle-aged man said gravely, "At present, it appears... something has happened. Things were too chaotic at the time, and we do not know who struck the blow—the disciples of Dragon Tiger Mountain are the prime suspects."

The old man nodded and said no more, only adding, "With the Li Clan gone, the Celestial Master Mansion requires a new layout; hopefully, there is still time."

The middle-aged man looked up, "Father?"

The old man said, "Everything else can be put aside for now; from here on, the Celestial Master Mansion is our first priority."

The middle-aged man bowed his head, "Understood."

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