272: Chapter 272 New Turmoil, the Great White Crane Demon Breaks Free!

...

The eagle demon's wings sliced through the thick layers of clouds as it flew northward carrying the secret letter.

The territory of the Liang Kingdom below, however, was shrouded in continuous drizzle, with the mountains and rivers blurring into a gray-black ink wash in the moisture.

The Liang Kingdom was located in the southeast of the Xuanling Continent.

Its territory was vast, with crisscrossing Spiritual Veins, and the four Sects of the Righteous Path stood in rivalry.

The Haoran Sect held the leadership, followed by the Tianjian Sect, with the Tongyou Sect ranking third, and the Qingfeng Sect at the bottom; on the surface, the four Sects were closely united, but in secret, they schemed against each other and clashed continuously.

In the cultivation world, there are never eternal allies, only eternal interests.

Such things had long since ceased to be rare; back then, the four Sects of the Righteous Path had stood united, colluding with the five Sects of the Jin State's Demonic Path to launch an attack on the three Sects of the Wei State.

And the result?

Today, the Wei State remains powerful, with the Xuanqing and Taiqing Sects standing firm.

Instead, the Jin State was destroyed bit by bit, with the Shangqing Sect carving up the territory and establishing the Qingcang Kingdom upon the corpse of the Jin State.

At that time, under external pressure, the four Sects of the Liang Kingdom stood united against the outside world.

As the two Sects of the Wei State recovered their breath and the Qingcang Kingdom secured its foothold, expanding its territory to occupy the Nine Provinces and ruling nearly half the continent.

Instead, it formed a direct confrontation between Qingcang and the Wei State.

Meanwhile, his Liang Kingdom gradually returned to peace, and under the stalemate between those two countries, internal strife gradually resurfaced among the four Sects of the Liang Kingdom.

...

At this moment, on the Tai'a Main Peak of the Qingfeng Sect.

The death knell tolled eighteen times in succession, its sound echoing for a hundred miles; white banners hung all over the mountains and plains, and tens of thousands of Disciples, dressed in mourning clothes, knelt on both sides of the mountain path, their wailing shaking the heavens.

The pillar of the Qingfeng Sect, qingfeng True Monarch, had passed away.

A Cultivator at the Early Stage of the Nascent Soul has a Lifespan of a thousand years.

qingfeng True Monarch had guarded the Sect for nearly a thousand years, but in the end, he could not withstand the erosion of time, and attained liberation through death in his closed-door Immortal Cave, his body dying and his Dao dissolving.

Originally, this news could have been suppressed and concealed for a few years.

However, unexpectedly, someone within the Sect leaked the news in all directions, and in the end, the matter was brought into the open, becoming known to everyone.

At this moment, inside the great hall, True Monarch Tongming sat upon the throne, his face as dark as water; he was the only remaining Nascent Soul True Monarch of the Qingfeng Sect.

With the death of qingfeng True Monarch, the Qingfeng Sect's strength instantly plummeted to rock bottom, making it difficult to compete with the other three Sects.

If Tongming defended the Sect to the death, he would even face the danger of losing his life.

If he did not defend it, he could naturally live out his life in carefree leisure.

But the Sect was, after all, the place that had raised him, and moreover, the source of his cultivation resources; how could he bear to part with it?

At this time, the ever-burning lamps in the great hall were blown by the wind, swaying wildly, just like this Qingfeng Sect, teetering on the brink of collapse...

"Old Ancestor, the flying ships of the Haoran Sect have already pressed to the outskirts of Luoyan Valley, while the Cultivator army of the Tianjian Sect has set up camp at the Soul-Severing Cliff to the east."

"They are under the banner of coming to offer condolences to Grandmaster qingfeng."

The Grand Elder stopped at the bottom of the steps and bowed respectfully.

Hearing this, True Monarch Tongming almost laughed in anger. "To offer condolences, does one need to bring three thousand Sword Cultivators and twelve city-breaking flying ships?"

"What an absolute joke!"

"Senior Brother qingfeng has just departed, and they cannot even wait for the first seven days of mourning before wanting to divide the heritage of my Qingfeng Sect..."

"Pass down the order to fully activate the core of the Sect-protecting grand Formation."

"Bring out all the Spirit Stones stored in the treasury and fill them into the Formation eyes. The entire Sect, prepare for war!"

True Monarch Tongming tidied his sleeves and strode out of the hall.

"This seat would like to see if they dare to openly tear off their masks of friendliness!"

...

In the Forbidden Ground behind the Tai'a Main Peak, there was a thousand-year-old spiritual pine forest locked in mist all year round.

This was the habitat of the Qingfeng Sect's Sect-guarding Spirit Beast; a Great White Crane Demon, thirty feet long with wings as white as snow, was perched upon a thousand-year-old spiritual pine.

The Great White Crane Demon possessed a cultivation at the Golden Core Perfection stage.

Possessing an ancient mutated Bloodline and proficient in the methods of the Cloud Dao, its combat power was fierce; back then, qingfeng True Monarch had exerted immense effort to subdue it, even planting a Restriction deep within its Sea of Consciousness to enslave it for generations.

Now, qingfeng True Monarch had passed away.

The Restriction branded deep within the white crane's Sea of Consciousness, which had tortured it for hundreds of years, vanished along with him, and it regained its freedom!

The white crane opened its eyes, a trace of mockery flashing in its pupils.

"Old bastard, you are finally dead."

"Hahahahahah, you dog, a good death indeed!"

"Hahahahaha!"

The white crane laughed wildly without stopping, yet it did not act up immediately.

It knew very well that True Monarch Tongming was still around; taking reckless action would only be seeking its own death, and it had to wait for a better opportunity!

Furthermore, the Qingfeng Sect had imprisoned it for hundreds of years; how could this enmity not be avenged!

Until today—

The death knell tolled, and the spiritual energy flow of the Sect-protecting grand Formation began to tilt frantically toward the outskirts; a great war was seemingly on the verge of breaking out!

The armies of the Haoran Sect and the Tianjian Sect arrived at the mountain gate of the Qingfeng Sect.

Under the guise of offering condolences, the Cultivators of the two Sects actually began to force their way through.

True Monarch Tongming was furious and personally took action, engaging in a fierce battle with the Nascent Soul True Monarchs of the two Sects high up in the Nine Heavens, their majestic heavenly might echoing continuously!

A battle at the Nascent Soul level was earth-shattering.

The Sect-protecting grand Formation of the Qingfeng Sect drew away most of the Sect's spiritual energy, and the defense of the Sect's Forbidden Ground plummeted to freezing point as well.

At this moment, a golden opportunity had appeared; if it did not act now, when would it!

The Great White Crane Demon transformed into a streak of white light, breaking through layers of seals, and then turned into a flowing light, silently slipping into the Treasure Pavilion of the Qingfeng Sect.

The defensive Formation on the outskirts of the Treasure Pavilion had already had most of its spiritual energy drawn away, and the Formation's light barrier was incredibly dim.

Outside the Treasure Pavilion, two Elders of the Golden Core Early Stage guarded the place.

With a gust of wind and cloud, the white crane quietly landed in front of the two, who both froze slightly upon seeing this.

"Venerable Crane, why are you not staying in the forest?"

"There has been a change in the Sect. I have been dispatched by True Monarch Tongming to guard this place."

The white crane replied, quietly closing the distance between them, and at the very instant the two let down their guard...

Two bursts of blinding white light erupted from the white crane's sides!

Two long, slender feathers detached from the edges of its wings, drawing two straight white lines in the air, instantly piercing through their foreheads.

Before the two Elders could even react, their heads exploded!

The white crane stepped forward, using its long beak to pry the Golden Cores from the two corpses and swallow them, then snatched their storage bags and swallowed them into its stomach space.

Then, raising a foot, it directly kicked and shattered the Treasure Pavilion's Formation as if it were nothing.

The white crane strutted inside.

Opening its mouth, a terrifying suction force emanated from its abdomen.

The Tier 3 Spiritual Plants, Tier 4 precious materials on the shelves, the top-grade Magical Artifacts and Magic Treasures stored in jade boxes, along with the shelves themselves, were all sucked into its stomach in one fell swoop.

Having ransacked the Treasure Pavilion.

Before leaving, the Great White Crane Demon also made a detour to the Spiritual Medicine Garden, uprooting several thousand-year-old rare Spirit Medicines...

"Consider this interest for the hundreds of years of prison food I've had."

"Hahahahaha!"

Having done all this, the white crane gazed into the distant sky, watching True Monarch Tongming fighting fiercely with the other two Nascent Soul True Monarchs above the clouds, the thunderous rumbles continuous.

The white crane let out a crisp cry, its wings vibrating as it transformed into a streak of light.

In an instant, it broke through the weak Formation light barrier and disappeared into the vast horizon.

It possessed a mutated Bloodline; as long as it was given some time, advancing to the Nascent Soul stage would be a natural progression, and by then...

...the sky would be high enough for the bird to fly, and the sea wide enough for the fish to swim—where in this vast world could it not go!

Hearing that crane cry.

Only now did True Monarch Tongming look back at the Sect; sweeping his Divine Sense outward, he saw that the Treasure Pavilion had long been ransacked, and the Spiritual Medicine Garden was in utter disarray, with all the precious Spirit Medicines stolen.

His already gloomy face instantly flushed a purplish-red.

A mouthful of fresh blood sprayed from his mouth as his Qi and blood reversed in an instant, overwhelmed by extreme anger.

"How dare you, vile beast!"

He wanted to pull away to give chase but was blocked by the Nascent Soul True Monarch of the Haoran Sect, a giant bronze sword spanning heaven and earth, forcing him back.

In the blink of an eye, the white crane's figure had already merged into the astral winds of the high sky.

A pure white feather drifted down from the sky, slowly landing in the pool of blood in front of the Treasure Pavilion, gradually soaked through by the red blood.

The Qingfeng Sect was thrown into complete chaos.

The Disciples below, seeing the Sect-guarding Spirit Beast defect and the Treasure Pavilion destroyed, had their already taut nerves snap completely.

Some began to rush outward, while others began to plunder the resources around them.

Seeing that the situation was already decided, the three Sects—the Haoran Sect, the Tianjian Sect, and the Tongyou Sect—all tore off their masks and launched a full-scale offensive!

In an instant, the entire Liang Kingdom fell into a frenzy of carving up the Qingfeng Sect!

...