Chapter 219: The Hidden Hand Stoking the War

Over the past few days, Jiuyou had thoroughly mapped out the entire layout of Beiliang Mountain. Its formation nodes, personnel deployments, and rear supply routes were all etched into his memory.

He had to admit that the Northern Plains tribes were extraordinarily tight-knit, likely due to their harsh environment. Over thousands of years, huddling together for survival had become an instinct carved into their very bones.

Sitting inside his residence, Jiuyou occasionally cast his gaze into the distance, eager for the war to erupt. He idly turned a refined Nascent Soul over in his hand before tossing it into the Nether Capital Gate.

To him, all he needed was the divine soul of a middle or late Nascent Soul cultivator; as for which faction they belonged to or who they were, he could not care less. He had originally intended to use the might of the Northern Plains to wipe out the Blood Abyss Sect, but the Three Demonic Path Sects striking early was an unexpected boon. Once he broke through to Deity Transformation, the mere Blood Abyss Sect could be obliterated with a snap of his fingers. This slight detour was nothing more than a passing gust of sand along his great path.

Yet over the past few days, despite constant skirmishes between the two armies that claimed the lives of over a thousand low-tier cultivators, not a single Nascent Soul cultivator had fallen. Both sides hesitated, neither willing to be the first to break the deadlock, stalling the grand war.

What displeased Jiuyou even more was that voices favoring peace talks with the Three Demonic Path Sects had surfaced within the Northern Wilderness Alliance. Some higher-ups believed that having just endured a major conflict, the Northern Plains desperately needed to recuperate; starting another war now would only severely deplete their strength, so they were getting cold feet.

When these words reached Jiuyou's ears, his face remained calm, but thoughts were already racing through his mind.

He had gone to great lengths to push both sides to this point; how could he let things fall short of success at the very last step over the deaths of a few ants?

Late one night, Jiuyou quietly slipped away from Beiliang Mountain. Thanks to his familiarity with the terrain and his concealment arts, no one detected his departure.

He headed straight for Bailing Mountain, intercepting several Golden Core cultivators of the Three Demonic Path Sects around the perimeter. Using the Dream Entry Spell, he extracted several of Ganzhou's rear supply routes from them. Afterward, he staked out each path in turn, obliterating every supply spirit boat and leaving no survivors. That way, Ganzhou would firmly believe it was the work of the Northern Plains, completely severing any chance of peace talks between the two sides.

While staking out the final route, he uncovered an unexpected piece of intelligence from the dream of a Demon Fiend Sect Golden Core guard: deep within the Beiguang Mountain Range lay a Demon Fiend Sect stronghold overseen by an early Nascent Soul female cultivator. This woman practiced a dual-cultivation demonic art originating from the same source as that of the Demon Fiend Sect's Supreme Great Elder. She was the only woman to reach the Nascent Soul realm with this art, and she was that Great Elder's sole Dao companion. Ordinarily, others dared not even utter her name carelessly; she was truly the Great Elder's untouchable reverse scale.

Upon learning this, Jiuyou did not hesitate, turning immediately toward the Beiguang Mountain Range. He quickly located the stronghold upon arrival and barged straight in, dragging the female cultivator out by force. She was utterly powerless to resist in his grasp, unable to even send out an alert in time.

What surprised him even more was the presence of a fire-attribute Heavenly Spiritual Root Golden Core cultivator within the stronghold, who bore a peculiar soul imprint upon his body. Jiuyou was all too familiar with it—it was a body seizing soul imprint. Once this Golden Core cultivator broke through to the Nascent Soul realm, he would become a vessel for someone else to seize, and it was most likely linked to that Supreme Great Elder of the Blood Abyss Sect.

Once these two died, the Supreme Great Elder of the Demon Fiend Sect would likely go mad on the spot. The entire Northern Plains would then become the target of his vengeance, and he would surely drive both sides into total war with reckless abandon, leaving Jiuyou with no shortage of what he needed.

Without a shred of hesitation, Jiuyou struck decisively, cleanly finishing off the two cultivators.

Before leaving, he deliberately left behind several strands of blood vitality that only a physical cultivator would produce—subtle enough not to seem staged, yet distinct enough to point suspicion in a specific direction. Only then did he depart the Beiguang Mountain Range at an unhurried pace, as silent as when he arrived, leaving behind a ruined stronghold and faint traces slowly dissipating in the wind.

None of the traces were heavy, yet they were just enough for someone to follow the scent.

Sure enough, not long after Jiuyou returned to Beiliang Mountain, grim reports arrived one after another from the front lines.

More than a dozen Northern Plains cultivator outposts across a frontline spanning hundreds of li outside Beiliang Mountain were hit by large-scale assaults almost simultaneously, cutting off many frontline supplies. Most of the reinforcements sent afterward failed to return. The few who made it back alive were covered in wounds and trembling with sheer horror, muttering the same words over and over: "Mad, they've all gone mad! The Demon Fiend Sect cultivators have lost their minds!"

Hearing these reports, Jiuyou showed nothing on the surface, though everything was clear in his heart. He knew his goal had been achieved. Having the lives of these tens of thousands of cultivators pave the way for his ascension to Deity Transformation was their honor.

Soon, with those outposts uprooted one by one and the demonic army bearing down on the borders, the final glimmer of hope for peace talks was completely extinguished. The armies of the Three Demonic Path Sects pressed forward, their vanguard pointing straight at Beiliang Mountain. But one spark was still missing—and Jiuyou intended to light that spark himself.

He took out a pre-prepared map that meticulously detailed the layout of Beiliang Mountain and the surrounding restrictive formations. Every node had been personally verified by him over recent days without the slightest fabrication. Seizing the moment when the armies of the Three Demonic Path Sects had just leveled an outpost and were reorganizing, he tossed the map out without a sound, allowing it to be picked up by a demonic path Golden Core cultivator at just the right moment.

The map was passed up through the ranks, quickly landing on the desks of the Dayong Demonic Path higher-ups.

At first, the upper echelons of those demonic sects harbored doubts and did not fully trust it. But after tentatively dismantling several slaughter arrays set up by the Northern Plains cultivators according to the map's guidance, they became certain of its authenticity. Though they did not know who was secretly pulling the strings behind this war, it brought them no harm.

Soon, a brand-new offensive targeting Beiliang Mountain quietly unfolded.

Over the following days, the formations laid by the Northern Plains formation masters were unraveled ahead of time, supply routes were severed one after another by enemy forces, and defensive lines fell in rapid succession. A vast number of Northern Plains cultivators perished in the chaotic melees following the breaches. The Three Demonic Path Sects advanced with astonishing speed, pushing the front line steadily northward. Only then did the higher-ups of the Northern Plains realize a traitor had emerged among them.

As this suspicion quietly spread among the higher-ups, Jiuyou, as an outsider, naturally became the prime suspect. After all, across all of Beiliang Mountain, only a handful of individuals possessed the ability to leak the defensive layout so precisely, and he was one of them.

Yet this suspicion was swiftly suppressed by Gu Daobian. As the Saint Teacher of Beiyuan stationed alongside Jiuyou at Beiliang Mountain, he naturally had his own considerations.

In his view, leaving aside Jiuyou's affiliation with the Righteous Path, based purely on his strength, if he truly wished to collude from the inside, he could have simply joined forces with the demonic sects to take Beiliang Mountain directly. Why would he go through such elaborate, unnecessary trouble?

Furthermore, Beiliang Mountain currently had only the two of them, late Nascent Soul grand masters, holding down the fort. If such gossip drove Jiuyou away, Gu Daobian alone would never be able to hold this perilous ground.

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