Aside from the Seven Great Sects, no one in the world knew how many people harbored hatred toward the White Lotus Cult. The bloody tempest it had unleashed had torn apart countless families, leaving wives separated from husbands and children from parents.
The people around Lin Taidou had gathered gradually, just like that.
Once the White Lotus Cult unified the world and faced no rivals, the upper echelons of the sect indulged in a life of decadent luxury every single day. Even the White Lotus Matriarch herself had relaxed her vigilance.
It was not until half a year later, when the Righteous Alliance led by Lin Taidou first showed its colors, that the White Lotus Matriarch felt a faint stirring of wariness.
But that was all it was. After all, both the Hall of Noble Spirit and the Seven Great Sects had already been crushed by the White Lotus Cult. How long could this so-called Righteous Alliance possibly hold on?
And yet, every encounter between the White Lotus Cult and the Righteous Alliance ended in devastating defeat. Cult members were killed one after another, and even several Hall Masters met with unfortunate ends within those six months.
Only then did the White Lotus Matriarch truly wake up. She grew alert to this newly formed Righteous Alliance and ordered her elite subordinates to track down its whereabouts — they were to be wiped out to the last soul.
The Righteous Alliance was nothing like the Hall of Noble Spirit or the Seven Great Sects.
When the White Lotus Cult had waged war against the Hall of Noble Spirit and the Seven Great Sects, the former had operated from the shadows while the latter stood in the open. Now the situation was reversed.
The White Lotus Cult had stormed the Hall of Noble Spirit, and while that had given them a headquarters of their own, it had also exposed their very existence to the eyes of the world.
The Righteous Alliance, on the other hand, had remained hidden in the dark from the very moment of its founding.
Moreover, with Lin Taidou — a leader of tremendous strength and extraordinary charisma — at its helm, every deployment of the Righteous Alliance dealt considerable trouble to the White Lotus Cult. This, in turn, brought Lin Taidou enormous prestige and popular support.
Five years passed. Under the relentless campaigns of suppression by the White Lotus Cult, the Righteous Alliance had not only survived but had grown ever stronger.
It had not yet reached the point where it could rival the White Lotus Cult head-on, but its wings were sufficiently developed to pose a lethal threat at times.
The White Lotus Matriarch would never permit a second voice to exist within the territory she ruled. She had once believed that destroying the Taidou Sect was a feat no previous Cult Master had ever accomplished. But now it was clear — as long as the Righteous Alliance remained, that accomplishment was still out of reach.
The White Lotus Matriarch, alarmed by danger, cast aside all decadence and threw herself body and soul into the struggle to eradicate the Righteous Alliance.
She had never imagined that the Righteous Alliance would prove so tenacious.
By the tenth year, the Righteous Alliance's scale was no less than the old Hall of Noble Spirit. It had clashed head-on with the White Lotus Cult on several occasions, with both sides trading victories and defeats.
This infuriated the White Lotus Matriarch to no end. Every time she recalled the day the Taidou Sect had fallen, she was filled with bitter regret.
Back then, if only she had taken Lin Taidou more seriously and ordered someone to hunt him down and kill him, none of today's troubles would exist.
But in this world, there was ultimately no medicine for regret. A moment's lapse in judgment all those years ago had created the mess of today, and no matter how furious she was, it still had to be cleaned up.
Over the next ten years, the entire world was swept up in the fierce struggle between the righteous and the evil paths.
Any martial artist who had achieved a measure of cultivation had to choose either to join the White Lotus Cult or to join the Righteous Alliance — there was no third option, and there was no possibility of remaining on the sidelines. The battles and skirmishes between the two sides could be seen in every corner of the continent.
The White Lotus Matriarch slowly grew old. Her beauty faded, her remaining lifespan dwindled, and the once jet-black hair on her head gradually turned silver-white as the muscles on her face sagged.
She could feel that she would not live much longer. In her youth, she had sustained numerous injuries during the struggles with the Hall of Noble Spirit, and most of those wounds had left lasting aftereffects. As she aged, those aftereffects increasingly sapped her body's vitality.
Perhaps one night she would drift off to sleep and never see the next day's sun.
But her lifelong wish to unite the righteous and evil paths of the world remained unfulfilled. Her rule from over a decade ago had been nothing but an illusory facade. As long as Lin Taidou and the Righteous Alliance were not eliminated, the White Lotus Matriarch would die with her eyes unclosed.
She launched the final battle against the Righteous Alliance at all costs.
In the span of just one year, the combined death toll of martial artists from both the White Lotus Cult and the Righteous Alliance exceeded half of their respective numbers. The ferocity of each battle far surpassed anything seen in the preceding decades.
In the end, perseverance paid off. The White Lotus Cult's armies cornered the Righteous Alliance inside the Red Wind Canyon!
Red Wind Canyon was a natural gorge — at its widest points, dozens of horsemen could ride abreast, while at its narrowest, only a few people could pass through side by side.
Towering cliffs rose sheer on both sides, standing a thousand ren high.
With both ends of the Red Wind Canyon sealed shut, it became a dead end with no way forward and no way back.
The credit for trapping the Righteous Alliance inside went overwhelmingly to Yang Kai. It was through his strategic planning and coordination that, over the course of three months, the enemy had been lured step by step into this very place. During that time, both sides had engaged in countless bouts of cunning and counter-cunning, with the plan nearly falling apart on several occasions. Fortunately, in the end, it had succeeded.
When the final assault was launched, the long-prepared White Lotus Cult forces stormed into the Red Wind Canyon from both ends. The two great armies clashed inside the gorge in a desperate, no-holds-barred battle to the death.
At every instant, someone fell and drew their last breath. In barely half an hour, the floor of Red Wind Canyon was awash in rivers of blood.
After days of savage fighting, over a dozen fierce charges by the White Lotus Cult had been beaten back. Both sides had fought themselves into a blood-mad frenzy, and exhaustion had taken its toll on all.
The White Lotus Matriarch sat upon a massive boulder on one side of the canyon, silently watching the carnage below. She suddenly raised her hand in a beckoning gesture.
Qu Huashang stepped forward and came to her side.
The White Lotus Matriarch said, "Little Qu, do you have a sound strategy to break the enemy?"
Qu Huashang had been observing the battle for days herself and naturally could discern the key points. She replied, "To catch the bandits, catch their king. The rest of the Righteous Alliance are no threat — Lin Taidou alone matters. If he can be killed, the Righteous Alliance will collapse on its own."