Aspiring to the Immortal Path

“So, she won?”

In the Hall of Divine Conference, Tang Jie was playing chess with Tang Xuanyu. Behind him stood a girl with an emotionless expression.

“Indeed! Just as Domain Lord predicted, Demon Lord Libido used the Avarice Serpent immediately, devouring two devil chiefs. The Light Seeds hidden in their bodies exploded within Libido, and though Libido destroyed his own body and reforged it, his soul was still severely damaged,” a cultivator down below reported.

The battle in the Confusionem Demon Region had ended ten-some days ago, but the difficulty of communication meant that Tang Jie had only received the report now.

Tang Xuanyu chuckled. “Father is as wise as ever. That Libido never would have imagined that Father had predicted everything.”

Tang Jie shook his head. “I just told her about some of Libido’s combat habits. Using the Light Seeds was Ice Phoenix’s idea, and I’m certainly not going to steal that credit from her. In addition, Xuanyu, let me tell you that you should still be forthright and open in your actions. Avoid using these sorts of insidious schemes.”

“If it’s used against Demon Lord Libido, can it really be considered insidious?”

Tang Jie sneered. “You think this scheme came without a price? Think about it! Do you really think that the two devil chiefs Libido devoured just happened to have Light Seeds? You really think he was that unlucky?”

Tang Xuanyu froze for a moment, and then he said in realization, “Father, are you saying that Ice Phoenix planted Light Seeds in all seven of her subordinates? Right, can those things still be extracted?”

Tang Jie shook his head. “Ordinary methods wouldn’t be able to fool Libido. If they could be so easily removed, the demons would have been using Light Seeds all the time in their wars, and she wouldn’t be doing anything new.”

Tang Xuanyu said in alarm, “Doesn’t that mean that those seven devils were basically walking corpses? How did she get seven devil chiefs to be willing to die for her?”

“I’m sure she has her ways. Immortal Ji Yao was able to enchant countless Immortals of the court, so I’m sure her disciple has ways to seduce others,” Tang Jie replied.

“But she couldn’t seduce you, Father,” Tang Xuanyu chuckled.

Tang Jie shot him a glance, and Tang Xuanyu immediately knew that he had misspoken and hastily changed the topic. “But she really is rather ruthless, willing to pay such a price to kill Libido. Those are seven Earth Immortals! Back then, even the Rosecloud Domain using everything it had couldn’t bring out this many Earth Immortals.”

Tang Jie casually replied, “She’s a demon, and demons don’t really consider morals when they consider problems. Seven devil chiefs for one Archdemon Lord is a good deal, so she’ll take it. Right, even a heavily injured Libido isn’t that easy to deal with, no?”

He asked this last question to the cultivator down below.

The cultivator quickly replied, “Domain Lord is truly insightful. While Libido was injured, he still exhibited the power appropriate to his rank. With one Primal Heaven Demon Finger, he slew the remaining five devil chiefs, and he didn’t waste the Light Seeds in their body either. That demoness wanted to have we human cultivators shield her, but we held true to the Domain Lord’s order and refused to participate in the battle with Demon Lord Libido. We thought that we were going to see a good show, but that Demoness God Phoenix still had a trick up her sleeve. She had somehow gotten her hands on a Dao armament, the Spatial Parting Mirror, a treasure of Space that can create a spatial passage between two locations.”

Tang Jie stopped mid-move. “Oh? And what came out from that mirror?”

“A woman’s hand,” the cultivator answered.

In the battle of the Arid Sky Plains, Ice Phoenix had ultimately used her trump card, a Space Dao armament.

A woman’s finger had come out of that Dao armament and obliterated the heavily wounded Libido with a single strike.

This battle also set in stone the defeat of Libido’s faction.

“As expected, Immortal Ji Yao intervened,” Tang Jie sighed. He was not at all surprised by this news. After all, he had already guessed that Immortal Ji Yao was assisting from the shadows.

After some thought, Tang Jie asked, “Meng’er, what do you think about this matter?”

The girl behind Tang Jie said, “Since Ice Phoenix defeated Libido and became the Lord of Confusionem, her need for my Rosecloud Domain will gradually decrease. The Primordial Fog Domain’s desire for the positive plane has no end, and Meng’er believes that Ice Phoenix must have made many promises to recruit so many subordinates. She does not have the resources to fulfill these promises right now, so she can only get what she needs from the human plane.”

The girl speaking was none other than Huangfu Meng, the disciple Tang Jie had taken in the Divine Spring Domain.

This girl who had once struggled on the brink of death was now an elegant beauty, and four hundred years of cultivation had been enough for her to reach Violet Palace. Unlike Wang Posha and Xi Canhen, who walked their own paths, she had truly inherited Tang Jie’s legacy, learning all of Tang Jie’s techniques and powers. Other than the perfect body and the Heavenly Dao Realm, she had a basic grasp of all his abilities and could even use some of them better than he did, developing new ways to use many of his spell arts and Divine Connections.

Tang Xuanyu was taken aback. “Junior Sister, do you mean that Miss Ice Phoenix will attack our Rosecloud Domain?”

Huangfu Meng shook her head. “Attacking the positive plane doesn’t mean attacking the Rosecloud Domain. A Demon Region corresponds to hundreds of domains in the positive plane. Whether it’s because of affection or lack of strength, Ice Phoenix has no reason to attack the Rosecloud Domain. But she can easily choose another spatial fissure, to attack another domain.”

Tang Jie nodded in satisfaction.

Since the struggle for Confusionem was over, so was the honeymoon between Tang Jie and Ice Phoenix. They had entered the phase where they would both try to undermine each other. He was very satisfied to see that Huangfu Meng had recognized this. This girl had not only succeeded his martial arts legacy, but also his intelligence and experience.

“That’s going to happen?” Tang Xuanyu paled. “Father, you can’t let her do this!”

“I would like to stop her,” Tang Jie sighed. “After all, I was the one who raised this Demoness God Phoenix. Although she has already done a lot for humanity, exterminating many demons, that isn’t reason to let her wreak havoc on other domains. Ice Phoenix is a dog that I’ve released against the other hungry wolves of the Primordial Fog Domain. Whether she does it willingly or not, this dog must faithfully carry out its mission of keeping the house safe, not biting its master… nor its master’s neighbors.”

“But Miss Ice Phoenix won’t obey so readily.” Tang Xuanyu frowned.

“I don’t need her to agree,” Tang Jie coolly said. “The Primordial Fog has never had an Archdemon Lord of the Earth Immortal level, so she must have earned the attention of many Demon Lords. Those Demon Lords who were so busy attacking the human plane and had no interest in fighting over a Demon Region will now try to challenge her, and some Demon Lords from outside Confusionem will also start to desire her Archdemon Lord position. Originally, Immortal Ji Yao should have been able to stabilize things, and then she would just need to use some of her wiles to play powers against each other, which would give her precious time to grow stronger. Once she was a True Immortal and grew a little stronger, she would be able to hold down the situation by herself. But with me around, that plan won’t be possible.”

Tang Xuanyu’s eyes lit up. “Miss Ice Phoenix still needs the Eight Ocean Mountains to advance. If that’s the case, can’t we just choose not to help her?”

Tang Jie shook his head. “First of all, I already promised her my help. As the Domain Lord, I serve as a model for the entire domain, so I can’t go back on my word. Secondly, if I didn’t give it to her, she could take it from other domains, which would only serve to stimulate her savage nature, which is unhelpful. Fortunately, ascending to True Immortal is more than a matter of resources, and she should still be in the middle of preparing and won’t be ascending anytime soon. Thus, what we need to do is make her so busy that she can’t cultivate. Until she reaches the True Immortal bottleneck, she won’t come to us for help.”

“Father, you mean…”

Tang Jie casually played a piece. “The Primordial Fog Domain is sparsely populated, and it takes time for news to travel. The various Arch- and Lesser Demon Lords are all busy attacking the human plane and won’t be receiving this news very soon. So what we need to do is hasten the spread of the news so that more demons go and make trouble for her.”

Tang Xuanyu chuckled in understanding. “Father is right. If that’s the case, I will go and spread this news across the domains.”

Moving the Rosecloud Domain naturally wasn’t the best way to spread the news to the other domains. Rather, they could use the Primordial Fog Domain as a relay station to travel to other domains. Tang Xuanyu had entered the Dao of Space and had learned the finest Space Divine Connections of Horizon Ocean Pavilion from Xu Miaoran, so when it came to spatial movement, even Tang Chuan wasn’t necessarily his match. He was truly the optimal choice for this mission.

But Tang Jie replied, “Your Endless Dimension is naturally fine for getting around, but do you know where to find the other demons? And do you know what to do once you find them? Do you just plan on running up and saying, ‘Confusionem has a new Demon Lord;

go and fight her’? And how do you offset the influence of Immortal Ji Yao? Finally, we want Ice Phoenix to hold off the other demons for us, not for the other demons to kill her. This means that when we spread the news, we want to draw out enemies that are neither too weak nor too strong for her, and we also need to keep control of the tempo. If they’re too weak, they might serve to only make her stronger. If they’re too strong, they’ll kill her, which goes against our original goal. If the tempo is too fast, Ice Phoenix won’t be able to keep up and will ultimately lose. If it’s too slow, she’ll adapt and might even realize that someone is trying to mess with her… So, what’s your solution for all this?”

Tang Xuanyu froze, not realizing that he had to consider all of this. Scratching his head, he said, “Then could Father offer some guidance?”

Tang Jie answered, “Xuanyu, you cultivate Horizon Ocean Pavilion’s Sunset Treatise, the Tathata Celestial Heart Art, and the World Descender Mantra. These divine arts all require you to maintain your true nature to the utmost, so your mother and I have never required you to deal with mortal affairs, wanting you to focus entirely on cultivation so that your heart was not corrupted. But for this very reason, you are not an expert in such things.

“Thus, leave that all to Meng’er. She grew up in a difficult environment, so when it comes to survival and subterfuge, she is far superior to you. Go with her, and she will do all the planning while you obey her orders. With your Endless Dimension, so long as you don’t run into a foe as skilled in Space and Time as you, nobody will be able to catch you.”