Seeing that
Judging from the outcome alone, whether this decision was a success or a failure was actually hard to say. At least in Jiang Chen's eyes, the decision didn't appear particularly successful on the surface.
"Jiang Chen, judging by that depressed look on your face, you're definitely not satisfied with this decision, are you?" Xia Tianze let out an odd chuckle.
Jiang Chen had nearly forgotten that this Sixth Inheritance Palace could detect one's emotions. He didn't bother hiding his feelings and gave a dry laugh. "Judging from the outcome, it was indeed somewhat less than satisfactory."
"Haha, that's exactly right. You're not a hypocrite, kid. But if you think the result was less than satisfactory, then it must be right."
"Right? Senior, what do you mean by that?" Jiang Chen was completely baffled.
"This was the Grand Sovereign's strategy. This was precisely the effect he wanted. He had discussed it with several great cultivators, and they all agreed — after the Demon Sealing War, the Human Domain absolutely could not go down the conventional path. If they chose to do nothing and let nature take its course, the various powers of the Human Domain would inevitably descend into internecine strife. If they chose to invade outward, then after the fierce battles, they would simply lack the capacity to do so, and would only invite disaster. So the Grand Sovereign and the others chose a highly radical approach — one that others would be completely unable to understand, and of which they would remain entirely in the dark."
Hearing the smug tone in Xia Tianze's voice, Jiang Chen realized that things were apparently not as simple as he had imagined.
"You saw the Boundary Stele Realm, right? That was just one of the steps the Grand Sovereign and the others put in place. It was something they had agreed upon. Although they didn't participate in the entire construction of the Boundary Stele Realm, it was their decision all the same. But the most important decision of all wasn't the Boundary Stele Realm. It was that these great cultivators, using their Divine Abilities, concealed and sealed away every spirit vein in the Human Domain. And during the final battle of the Demon Sealing War, they deliberately created the illusion that the spirit veins had been destroyed. In this way, after the war, the Human Domain appeared devastated, its spirit veins utterly ruined. The great leading factions had also completely fallen — either their armies were annihilated, or their legacies had gone missing."
"But all of this was actually nothing more than an illusion they had deliberately fabricated. The disappearance of sect legacies wasn't a true disappearance — they had merely been sealed away. The destruction of spirit veins wasn't true destruction — they too had merely been sealed. It was just that the great cultivators' Divine Abilities were so powerful that the illusions they created deceived everyone."
Jiang Chen was dumbstruck. Had Xia Tianze not told him this with his own lips, he would never have been able to imagine that all of this had been deliberately orchestrated by the great cultivators of antiquity.
Jiang Chen asked in a daze, "Senior, what was their motive for doing this? This junior is dense — I humbly ask Senior to enlighten me."
He was struggling to wrap his head around it.
"Their motive?" Xia Tianze sighed. "You never experienced the ancient war, and you don't know what the atmosphere was like in the Human Domain back then. After the Myriad Spirits God-Locking Formation was activated, everyone felt that the demon race was nothing but autumn cicadas — their days were numbered. Only a handful of great cultivators understood the truth: the formation hadn't sealed away the demon race at all, but merely their puppet army."
This was something Jiang Chen actually knew about. He had once stumbled into that formation during his time in the underground world of the Eastern Thousand Nations. He had also met
Mang Qi had mentioned that the cultivators locked within the Myriad Spirits God-Locking Formation possessed almost no demon bloodline — they were all members of the puppet army the demons had seized from across the land. Mang Qi himself had no demon bloodline either; he was merely another of the demons' puppets.
So the great cultivators of antiquity had known this all along.
"Although the formation didn't trap the demon race's main forces, it did eliminate a portion of them. After fierce fighting, another batch of the demon race's main forces was destroyed as well. In the final battle, the great cultivators had also guessed that it would not go smoothly. If several of them fell in battle, the power structure of the Human Domain would inevitably be thrown into upheaval. Those second-rate factions that had done the bare minimum would swoop in to reap the rewards. The outcome would be that the ten great leading factions fought to the brink of annihilation, while those who had shirked their duty would enjoy the spoils. Not only would they reap the benefits, but the ten great leading factions' legacies and resources would be carved up — their very lineages and traditions would have difficulty continuing. And such contention would inevitably plunge the Human Domain into endless internal strife, accelerating its destruction. Once that cycle of infighting began, the catastrophe would be without end."
"Rather than leave a perfectly good foundation for opportunists to seize, it was better to hide it away proactively — leaving those who wanted to exploit the situation with nothing to exploit."
Jiang Chen was slowly beginning to understand.
He recalled how, before the battle between the Ten Great Sacred Lands of Myriad Abyss Island and the elder Guangdu, everyone had been certain that Guangdu would die. Many cultivators had started doing the bare minimum during that fight.
If, in the ancient era, the great powers had each harbored their own schemes, it would have been profoundly unfair to the ten great leading factions. Most critically, what Grand Sovereign Liuli had feared would certainly come to pass.
No one wanted to risk their lives defending a legacy, only to have future generations swoop in and take the credit. Worse still, they would make a complete shambles of that legacy.
Though what Grand Sovereign Liuli and the others did was partly motivated by self-interest, it was also entirely justifiable from a public standpoint. If the ten great leading factions declined, and those factions that had shirked their duties during the Demon Sealing War rose to power, the result would inevitably be a cycle of carving up territory and fighting over the spoils. Plunder after plunder! Battle after battle!
And in the end, the Human Domain would not have been destroyed by the demon race — it would have been destroyed by its own internal strife.
Jiang Chen's understanding suddenly crystallized. Putting himself in their shoes — if he were in their place, he probably would have made the same choice. Just take the Radiant Capital, for example. Would he be willing to hand it over to those factions with hidden agendas? Obviously not. He would be unwilling, and he certainly wouldn't feel safe doing so.
Who knew what kind of mess it would become in their hands?
The thing human cultivators excelled at most was infighting — and infighting was undoubtedly the fastest road to decline. When it came to the Human Domain, how many powerful cultivators had lost their lives in the conflict between the Radiant Capital and Pill Fire City?
In that moment, Jiang Chen could finally understand the painstaking effort behind Grand Sovereign Liuli's intentions.
Xia Tianze had been watching his emotional shifts the entire time. "Haha, young man, it seems you've grasped the Grand Sovereign's painstaking intentions."
Jiang Chen let out a soft sigh. "In those circumstances, the Grand Sovereign's far-sighted vision was truly admirable. However, this junior still has one lingering question."
"What question?"
"If the spirit veins were merely sealed, then they were never truly destroyed? If the seals were lifted, would the Human Domain recover the vitality of the ancient era?"
"Of course," Xia Tianze replied with a smile. "Once those seals are removed, not only will the spirit veins be restored, but the ten great leading factions of antiquity will gradually resurface as well."
(Third update delivered — two more chapters tonight!)