Chapter 253 - 245: Hold It—!!
He reached out, gently pressing a hand onto Xuanyuan’s head. The motion, the position, the force... it was identical to how Xuanyuan had treated Su Ling’er earlier.
He mimicked Xuanyuan’s previous tone, his face a mask of pity, his voice perfectly calm.
"A little trick."
"But the cicada of summer can never understand the snow of winter. All your struggles are meaningless in my eyes."
Hearing his own words thrown back at him verbatim, Xuanyuan trembled with rage, his eyes filled with humiliation. He wanted to struggle, but the Grievance Beast’s aura and Shen Nong’s vines descended upon him once more.
And Ji was constantly afflicting him with various debilitating curses.
Lin Qingfeng’s palm pinned him firmly in place.
He had no chance left...
"You..."
Lin Qingfeng’s palm, pressed against his head, slowly began to apply pressure.
"CR... CRACK..."
The sound of bone cracking echoed—this time, from the top of Xuanyuan’s head.
"Your Dao heart is quite impressive," Lin Qingfeng’s calm voice echoed in his ear. "I, too, have used my own hand, granting you this final respect. But this is where it ends."
Inside the coffin, Su Ling’er stared blankly through a crack at the scene before her. The man who had driven her to desperation, the elegant and cruel man, the god-like and invincible Xuanyuan... was now being subjected to the same humiliation, with the very same methods and the very same words.
’Is... is this really the same person?’
’And when did Eldest Brother get here?’
’How much of their conversation did he hear...?’
...
The force from the palm on his head seemed to be crushing not only his bones, but all his dignity as well. Xuanyuan felt the excruciating pain of being slowly squeezed, unable to struggle, as his consciousness faded amidst the humiliation and agony.
Countless images flooded his mind.
That year, he was just a boy in ragged clothes, on the verge of death from starvation.
It was his Master, the Sect Leader of Qingxu Temple at the time, who had seen his potential, rescued him from a pile of corpses, and brought him back to the sect.
He became the sole Direct Disciple in the temple.
Like Su Ling’er, he too had once been full of hope for the so-called righteous path.
He too had once believed that Cultivation was about slaying demons, protecting the common people, and that as long as one’s heart was true, the Great Dao was attainable.
But reality soon gave him a harsh slap in the face.
Following his Master, he left the sect for the first time to visit an elder of their suzerain sect, the Celestial Furnace Sect, and pay the annual Tithing.
It was not a visit between equals, but a one-sided report and tribute. Xuanyuan watched as his Master—the Sect Leader of Qingxu Temple, a man who seemed omnipotent in his eyes—acted so cautiously, so obsequiously, before that Celestial Furnace Sect elder.
And that layered hierarchy didn’t just exist in titles and etiquette.
It was like an airtight net. From resources to talent and even Cultivation Techniques, it permanently locked every sect into its designated echelon—from the Celestial Furnace Sect to bottom-tier ones like their own Qingxu Temple.
Advancing further was impossible.
Cultivation Techniques were monopolized.
The sect-guarding Cultivation Technique that Qingxu Temple took such pride in was nothing more than an even more incomplete, cast-off copy of the *Primordial Dao Scripture* handed down by the Celestial Furnace Sect.
The true core Cultivation Techniques were held in a death grip by the top-tier sects, never to be shared. Even an existence like the Celestial Furnace Sect did not possess a more complete version.
These bottom-tier sects, vassals of vassals, didn’t even have the right to a glimpse of the complete techniques. This determined, at a fundamental level, that the upper limit of the disciples they trained could never surpass that of the suzerain sects.
Resources were controlled. The best Spirit Veins and the rarest mineral deposits had long been claimed as forbidden territory by the suzerain sects. Qingxu Temple could only eke out a living on barren lands.
Moreover, nearby Anhe City was mostly populated by ordinary mortals; people with a Spirit Root were rare. Someone with a dual Spirit Root could be considered a prodigy of the inner sect.
After all, while the suzerain sects feasted on meat, they had to grovel just for a sip of the broth.
The suzerain sects held the best Cultivation Techniques, controlled the most crucial resources, and monopolized the most talented disciples.
Rebel?
The suzerain sect didn’t even need to act personally. Simply cutting off a portion of their support was enough to make you slowly wither and die.
That day, as he watched his Master argue heatedly with that elder over the ownership of a single medicinal pill, only to receive a contemptuous sneer in return, his understanding of the "righteous path" began to deepen.
He had also, with his Master, learned about the so-called "War between the Righteous and the Demonic" from a safe distance.
In his youth, he’d thought it was a decisive battle between light and darkness. Only later did Xuanyuan realize it was a catastrophe that swept across the entire region.
Countless Righteous Path Cultivators, inspired by slogans like "Uphold Justice" and "Exterminate the Demonic Hordes," charged toward the demonic front with noble ideals, only to end up as mangled corpses.
The ones who died were always the Loose Cultivators with no backing, the cannon fodder treated as consumables, or the disciples from vassal sects that depended on the Righteous or Demonic paths for survival.
Meanwhile, the true upper echelons—the great immortal sects of the Righteous path and the titans of the Demonic path—rarely entered the fray themselves. They sat high in the clouds, gazing down upon the bloody meat grinder.
The players on both the Righteous and Demonic sides were like opponents in a game of chess. This vast land was the board, and everyone else were the pawns.