In the Realm of Abezan, the last 10 years did not fare well for Ember.

Most of the scattered forces on the Realm willingly sided with the coalition of the Immortal Sect and the Wilderness. Even those who were reluctant to give up their sovereignty had no choice if they wanted to survive.

The few forces that joined the side of Ember only did so when they either had no other choice or had past grievances with those in the coalition.

After the first initiative that they had taken to reduce the numbers in both the Immortal Sect and the Wilderness, Ember could not find an opportunity to push them back again.

For the past decade, Phoenix City was forced into a defensive position. Occasionally, a joint army of Human and Beastkin cultivators would appear in the distance, led mostly by the Elders from both sides.

The Sect Leader and the Wilderness Leader always showed off their presence, though they seldom took part in the fights. As such, the Celestial Phoenix and Ember had no reason to make any appearances either.

They didn’t need to fight unless the barrier was damaged to the point of no return. Fortunately, they had enough resources to always keep it intact.

’If only the Phoenix was more cooperative...’ sighed Ember as she read the most recent report on their losses.

The dome protecting the whole of Phoenix City was more effective than she had imagined. It could even stand a few blows of the Elders.

The problem was with the attitude of the Celestial Phoenix. If she simply made an appearance every time they had to fight, her army would suffer little to no casualties!

She did not care even if hundreds of their soldiers died unless either an Empyrean or the famed Heavenly Virtue was involved. The worst part was that Kai and Hakuja had long realized this weakness and started to exploit it.

Now they slowly bled dry the resources and manpower under Ember.

The 5 Sages she had were worked to the bone as they had to endure the combined assault of all the Elders from the coalition. They suffered grave injuries almost every time.

’Just what is he thinking?’ Ember occasionally wondered about the grand plan of the so-called Lord of Shadows. In the past decade, she only had the luck of meeting Baoshi, the Virtue of Temperance.

The little information she had about the other Realms made her aware that their situation was more or less the same as that of the Realm of Abezan.

The forces aligned with the Lord of Shadow were all in a defensive position, while he continuously gave them resources as they demanded.

Just recently, Ember was granted a batch of a hundred soldiers with 2 Peak Transcendent cultivators. Unsurprisingly, they were all trained like the others, willing to lay down their lives without hesitation.

Since Phoenix City could not produce everything, they would also occasionally have to procure resources from the surroundings.

Expeditions led by at least a group of peak Transcendents had to venture out and pillage the other forces.

As such, the conflicts were not limited to Phoenix City.

The long-standing war was also draining the resources from the rest of the continent, so food shortage was already a cause of concern among the common people.

Ozul and the trio were leading a team of Origin cultivators to interrupt a huge caravan moving goods from one side of the continent to another.

"How long?" he asked seemingly no one in the group while moving steadily through the rough terrain.

"It should be behind that hill," Raven pointed ahead, following closely behind him.

Blaze and Zier were at the tail of their group. They remained on either side, making sure there were no ambushes.

Ozul silently inspected their group, focusing only on the trio.

’They have all grown well...’

He had seen how the three of them learned from each other.

Blaze was finally appreciating that brute force was not everything as he learned to focus on the techniques as well.

Raven, on the other hand, learned from Zier to incorporate the element of Poison in her Shadows as well. The new poisonous attribute of her attacks compensated for the lack of lethal force.

Zier’s fighting style was completely his own. However, he no longer hesitated in taking lives on the battlefield. Maybe it was to battle his inner demons, but he had become fond of making friends among the soldiers.

’At least someone has proper emotions,’ sighed Ozul, not sure if it was a good thing or not. He couldn’t be the judge of that.

He had seen Raven interacting with the Transcendents of the army as well. It was only Blaze who remained aloof.

The soldiers that the Lord of Shadows sent were all versed in Darkness or elements closely related to it.

’I can see the title now. But why Darkness? Does he know something about it?’ Ozul wondered silently.

He had long realized that among all the Elements, the Darkness was the most ’pure’ as he liked to put it. He had advised Raven to adopt it as well, and she obeyed without question.

If only a majority of the soldiers were on this path, he could pass it off as the influence of the Lord of Shadows.

However, the fact that there wasn’t a single soldier who had adopted a different Element proved that they were not given a choice in this matter.

Soon they were atop the hill that Raven had pointed to, and the long caravan protected by more than 50 cultivators of various realms appeared in their view.

’No peak Transcendent...’ His shoulders dropped after he calculated all of their cultivation realms.

In the past 10 years, his strength had undoubtedly increased, but there weren’t many opportunities.

In the first place, he couldn’t absorb the dead bodies of their own soldiers as that unsettling news wouldn’t take long to reach the ears of the 2 Heavenly Virtues working with the Lord of Shadows.

If they took some twisted interest in him, it wouldn’t do him any good.

He was stronger than many peak Transcendents, but nowhere near strong enough to fight against a Sage.

Meanwhile, the trio’s growth was so explosive that at the moment, he didn’t doubt that they could defeat him if they worked together.

’If they all become a Sage... life would be so easy...’ he imagined the time that he wasn’t sent on any useless battles like this.

"I will make sure no one escapes. Go," he ordered the team and they all rushed toward the caravan, not giving the escort cultivators time to think.

Using Purity, he flew above the caravan and watched as the trio immediately went after the 2 Transcendents. The origin cultivators engaged with the other escort guards. The scene quickly became chaotic as booming sounds of swords clashing began to drown the sounds of nature.

What Ozul failed to see was that even now, he wasn’t doing anything, leaving all the work to the trio.

They would even bring the corpses of dead Transcendents to him, knowing that he could get stronger by those. All he had to do was just accompany their group.

’But what is this feeling lately...?’

He was distracted, contemplating the churning feeling in his stomach.

His sixth sense was never wrong, and whenever it felt something was about to go wrong, it always would.

Sighing loudly again, he muttered to himself in a defeated tone, "I will not be able to change anything, will I?"

Now he only wanted to head back as soon as possible and take long naps with Jinx. Only that could ease the unrest in him. And so, to the surprise of his team, he came down to the ground and released all of Purity at once.

He closed his eyes, and sensed the aura of all cultivators, pinpointing their location within his range. The Purity split into many sharp spikes.

He took a moment and aimed for all the cultivators at the same time. At once, all the spikes shot in random directions, aiming straight for the hearts!

Everyone observed in shock as the once chaotic scene came to a halt.

All the escort guards had a fist-sized hole in their chest.

As the shock of realization made itself apparent on their face, their lifeless bodies dropped to the ground.

Even the two Transcendent guards fighting the trio were caught off-guard.

Raven wondered what made him step in this time, but she didn’t mull over it. Instead, she quickly commanded the stunned origin cultivators to retrieve everything they needed from the caravan.

They ripped apart all the carts and instantly killed the non-cultivators.

From one such lavish cart closest to Ozul, a woman with silk robes rushed close to him.

Her face was wrinkled with fear of death as she watched everyone being killed one by one. She immediately dropped to his feet, shouting, "M-my fiance is the direct disciple of Elder from the Sect! If you spare me, I will mak-" 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

She fell face-first to the ground, her body going limp. There was no apparent wound on her body.

Only if someone picked her up would they see the needle-size hole in her forehead.

Ozul knew most of these people were innocent and some didn’t even have any relation to the Immortal Sect.

Those who were on the verge of death always had the most twisted and the most rushed, mixed emotions. With his sensitivity to emotions, even while he tried to suppress them, they always affected him to an extent.

Yet, he didn’t feel any remorse for them.

Such is war; only the survivors are innocent.

The best he could do for them was to give them a quick death.