If Heavenly Court hadn't voluntarily revealed it, the world would never have known that Lin Jianxing actually possessed quasi-Immortal Venerable combat strength. Hiding it so deeply — he must have had ulterior motives.
Judging from the reactions of most Lin Family Gu Immortals, even they had been kept in the dark.
The Western Desert's Righteous Path superpowers were all watching from the sidelines.
Many among them had hoped Lin Jianxing would come forward and explain, but the Lin Family maintained their silence, offering no explanation whatsoever.
The Western Desert Righteous Path did nothing.
They didn't want to ignite a "Crusade Against the Lin Family" right after the "Crusade Against the Fang Family."
Attacking a single Fang Family had already laid the consequences bare for all to see. If the Lin Family followed the same pattern — with a quasi-Immortal Venerable leading their entire clan in guerrilla warfare — how could the Western Desert Righteous Path possibly survive?
"The Fang Family couldn't possibly make a move right now. So the series of Fang Family offensives before — they were all fabricated illusions created by Heavenly Court." After reviewing the complete intelligence one more time, Fang Yuan understood clearly.
The Western Desert Fang Family, having lost all of their clan's resource points, had become even more dependent on Fang Yuan. As a result, his control over them had deepened further. If the Fang Family launched a large-scale attack, there was no way they wouldn't inform him in advance and seek his instructions.
Fang Yuan couldn't help but find it somewhat amusing.
Heavenly Court wanted to intervene in the Western Desert — of all the targets they could have chosen, they picked the hardest one!
But almost immediately, Fang Yuan sank back into contemplation.
A thought crossed his mind: "Why did Heavenly Court suddenly target the Lin Family?"
Was it because they had secretly discovered the Lin Family Supreme Elder's quasi-Immortal Venerable strength, and therefore, for the sake of Heavenly Court's grand strategy of dominating the Five Regions, decided to eliminate the threat preemptively?
That possibility was extremely unlikely.
Setting aside that the greatest obstacle to Heavenly Court's stable dominance over the Five Regions was the other Venerables — quasi-Immortal Venerables had to step aside for now — consider this: if Heavenly Court had discovered the Lin Family Supreme Elder's quasi-Immortal Venerable combat strength, why would they only dispatch five Heavenly Court Gu Immortals to surround and kill Lin Jianxing?
That was clearly unreasonable.
"Then what was Heavenly Court's true objective? Why did they suddenly target the Lin Family?"
From what Fang Yuan had learned through the Fang Family, the Lin Family and the Fang Family had never been secretly conspiring together.
This was entirely a frame-up by Heavenly Court!
"Is it because Lin Jianxing is an Otherworldly Demon?"
That didn't fit either.
Heavenly Court's attitude toward Otherworldly Demons was not to blindly condemn them all.
As long as they could be recruited, Heavenly Court would recruit them. Even Fang Yuan himself had once been approached by Heavenly Court.
Heavenly Court's recruitment criteria were straightforward — as long as the candidate was human!
"Then what exactly was the reason? Star Constellation Immortal Venerable, the foremost among the Wisdom Path, even if she wasn't the one making the decision, she must have at least agreed to the plan of targeting the Lin Family. But she rarely makes miscalculations. What made her agree to this attack on the Lin Family?"
This was a critical question — well worth Fang Yuan's deep consideration.
Even though Zhi Hui Gu was only at the Eighth Transformation, it could still be of help to Fang Yuan.
After deploying various Wisdom Path methods, Fang Yuan developed a theory, but he still couldn't be entirely certain.
After all, everything was just deduction.
What was the truth?
Fang Yuan naturally had a way to prove it!
He immediately ordered the ascension of a Fifth Transformation Gu Master.
In the Supreme Immortal Aperture, the number of Fifth Transformation Gu Immortal seeds remaining was already slim. Moreover, these Gu Immortal seeds lacked deep foundations and sufficient experience, making their chances of successfully passing the tribulation extremely low. That was precisely why Fang Yuan had decided to suppress them and allow them to continue accumulating foundations.
But because this question was so critical, Fang Yuan felt that even sacrificing one Fifth Transformation Gu Master was worth it.
In the end, this Fifth Transformation Gu Master did indeed fail — dying from an imbalance of the three qi.
But during that brief window of three qi fusion, Fang Yuan used the Steal Heavenly Secrets killer move to probe and uncover the truth.
Although Star Constellation Immortal Venerable had issued the order to target the Lin Family while located outside Heavenly Court in her Embroidery Tower, Bo Qing's soul had been retrieved from Heavenly Court's secret treasury.
This was the most obvious piece of evidence!
Coupled with the fact that Fairy Qian Hun's modification of Bo Qing's soul had taken place entirely within Heavenly Court, Fang Yuan was able to learn even more valuable intelligence.
"Zi Wei Fairy and Ying Wu Xie have fallen into the Heavenly Dao Dream, so Star Constellation Immortal Venerable decided to cultivate Bo Qing, despite the risks this entailed."
With this, Star Constellation Immortal Venerable's purpose became glaringly obvious — she intended to use Bo Qing to scheme against Spectral Soul Demon Venerable.
"Spectral Soul Demon Venerable..."
Fang Yuan's eyes were dark and unfathomable as he murmured the name.
He knew why Star Constellation Immortal Venerable wanted to target Spectral Soul Demon Venerable. The latter's consistent track record had long made him Heavenly Court's foremost threat.
Of course, this was Star Constellation Immortal Venerable's assessment under the assumption that Fang Yuan had been repeatedly concealing his own strength.
If the truth of Fang Yuan possessing numerous Ninth Transformation Immortal Gu were to be exposed, Spectral Soul Demon Venerable would be cast aside — not only would Star Constellation Immortal Venerable come after Fang Yuan, but Giant Sun Immortal Venerable would also be scrambling to join forces with Star Constellation to frantically target Fang Yuan!
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
In this moment, Fang Yuan calculated rapidly, delving deep into thought. Ideas surged through his mind like tidal waves, rising and crashing one after another.
He knew that an opportunity lay before him.
A tremendous opportunity!
If he missed this chance, given enough time, Star Constellation Immortal Venerable would surely succeed.
Once this village was passed, there would be no more inns.
So then — could he actually seize this opportunity?