Cultivation is just so scientific! Chapter 1522 - 807: Annihilating the Sect (Part 2)

He felt an urge to roar in anguish, as the sect enduring for ten thousand years met its end in their era; he longed to weep, mourning the comrades he'd shared nearly a millennium with; he yearned to act, yet all that filled his vision were those apocalyptic lightning strikes.

Those strikes evoked memories of the heavenly tribulation during his initial breakthrough to Nascent Soul, though that one featured merely three bolts, whereas the onslaught they endured now formed an unceasing cascade of tribulation.

He couldn't help pondering if, upon reaching half-step Mahayana as cultivators do, any bolt from such a tribulation might match the ferocity of the lightning now crashing down before him.

"It’s over!" Master Qiao detected a lightning bolt targeting him directly. A fleeting thought crossed his mind just as the thunder swallowed his form whole.

Li Shiming exhaled deeply while unleashing forty instances of the ’Thunder Cloud Skill’, which left him feeling rather drained. It appeared this marked his present boundary.

On this occasion, he relied on raw power to shatter the Taichu Sect’s formation, with slaying six great cultivators serving merely as an incidental feat.

The Taichu Sect’s mountain gate required no additional assault. Once the sect formation crumbled, a barrage of lightning bolts first eradicated every Nascent Soul cultivator. Regarding those beyond Nascent Soul, the ’Thunder Cloud Skill’ proved unnecessary, since the mere shockwaves from the lightning sufficed to end them.

With a flick of Li Shiming’s wrist, the corpse of the White Emperor Sect’s great cultivator stationed at the Taichu Sect’s mountain gate, plus six other great cultivator remains, soared toward him.

He had deliberately spared these seven great cultivator bodies, ensuring they stayed whole.

Should the full might of the lightning from the forty ’Thunder Cloud Skills’ have targeted the great cultivators, those six caught within the skill’s domain could have been reduced to ashes by the thunder’s fury.

After securing the seven great cultivator corpses, he soared through the Taichu Sect’s mountain gate.

Little needs to be said about the Taichu Sect’s mountain gate; hardly a single area remained unscathed.

The spirit fields, ample enough to sustain cultivation supplies for thousands of cultivators, lay utterly ravaged by his onslaught.

This outcome was inevitable; absent the array’s shield, even the fringes of the lightning’s residual force would wreak havoc, much less the all-out barrage from the ’Thunder Cloud Skill’.

Yet Li Shiming understood that despite the heavy devastation to the Taichu Sect’s mountain gate, its core treasure endured.

That treasure being the Grotto Heaven, bound inseparably to the Taichu Sect’s mountain gate and impervious to outside assaults.

His divine sense swept across the Taichu Sect’s mountain gate, swiftly locating the Grotto Heaven’s entrance hidden under debris.

The grand hall overlying the Grotto Heaven entrance had toppled, its wreckage obstructing the space gate at the entry. As he stepped into the space gate’s zone, fragments of the grand hall got sliced away and thrust into the Grotto Heaven.

When Li Shiming’s divine sense located the Cave Heaven Space Gate, the portal amid the ruins persisted, sharply delineating its spatial boundaries within the debris, lending it an oddly striking appearance.

He cast a look at this Cave Heaven Space Gate but chose not to step inside.

Rather, he produced one hundred and eight Buddha Beads, which upon release morphed into formation anchors, weaving a barrier array around the Taichu Sect’s mountain gate.

Next, he retrieved an Identity Jade Disc to reach out to Grandmaster Hu.

Over the last decade, the Ten Thousand Beast Sect seldom mounted direct assaults, and even more oddly, despite awareness of Ten Thousand Beast Sect cultivators’ actions by the other two sects, no countermeasures emerged.

This stemmed from reports both sects had gotten: Li Shizhen, freshly returned from afar and elevated to great cultivator status, was besieging the Taichu Sect’s mountain gate.

Both sects hung on updates from the Taichu Sect’s mountain gate; lacking solid details, they hesitated to move rashly.

Li Shizhen’s might proved horrifying. Across countless years on the Dongqi Continent, great cultivator deaths stayed rare. Even the ambush slaying a Ten Thousand Beast Sect great cultivator relied on a premeditated snare exploiting a surplus of great cultivators to overwhelm that lone figure.

But consider Li Shizhen, who clashed directly with two great cultivators and, despite their bolster from the White Emperor Sect’s base formation, dismantled it while claiming the lives of those two White Emperor Sect great cultivators and almost a hundred Nascent Soul Middle Stage experts.

Li Shizhen’s battle strength left the two major sects in awe. Learning of his push against the Taichu Sect’s mountain gate, they viewed it as the ultimate gauge of Li Shiming’s capabilities.

Word spread of the Taichu Sect’s formation’s collapse and the demise of seven great cultivators total, one from the White Emperor Sect included, hitting the two major sects.

Lianhua Temple and the Sun Concealing Sect could no longer remain idle. They refused to watch their ancient legacies, spanning millennia, perish in their time like the Taichu Sect now facing obliteration by Li Shiming.

No coordination was needed between the two major sects; they promptly dispatched surrender missives and admissions of defeat to Grandmaster Hu of the Ten Thousand Beast Sect, offering reparations to appease the Ten Thousand Beast Sect.

The swift capitulation of the two major sects caught Grandmaster Hu off guard.

Grandmaster Hu had only just gotten Li Shiming’s update; scarcely the span of a tea’s brewing had elapsed when the surrender letters from the two major sects landed.

As he raced toward the Taichu Sect, Grandmaster Hu mulled over his reply to the two sects.

Other Ten Thousand Beast Sect great cultivators had empowered him to confer with Li Shiming regarding the fate of the surviving two sects.

Li Shiming’s views carried immense weight, potentially swaying outcomes decisively; every great cultivator in the Ten Thousand Beast Sect recognized this.

The Ten Thousand Beast Sect’s dramatic turnaround owed itself to Li Shiming’s unmatched skill.

And thanks to Li Shiming, Grandmaster Hu, already wielding considerable influence in the sect, enjoyed an even loftier position.

Grandmaster Hu sped onward with utmost haste, arriving at the Taichu Sect in record time.

Upon nearing the Taichu Sect, the devastation froze him in shock.

This had been the Taichu Sect, a realm akin to paradise, now a wasteland of rubble; the Thunder Cultivator’s fearsome strike had infused the zone with lingering thunder energy.

Because the Thunder Cultivator’s assault bore hints of the Thunder Rules, the thunder energy lingering in this area would persist undiminished for no less than thousands of years.

Grandmaster Hu harbored no pity for the Taichu Sect; he grasped full well that absent Li Shiming’s arrival, the Ten Thousand Beast Sect’s mountain gate might have suffered a parallel fate.

He only sensed relief, grateful for accepting Li Shiming as a disciple, which steered the Ten Thousand Beast Sect through its darkest hour.

"Master, you’re here!" Li Shiming spotted Grandmaster Hu and parted the formation slightly, calling out.

"Shizhen, you’ve worked hard!" Grandmaster Hu passed into the formation, sensing the stable aura cloaking Li Shiming, which eased his final concerns, and he grinned as he spoke.

"It’s hardly hard work, just that after advancing to a great cultivator, I needed opponents to test my combat prowess!" Li Shiming replied with a grin. He proceeded to brief Grandmaster Hu on the Taichu Sect’s mountain gate circumstances: "I didn’t enter the Taichu Sect’s Grotto Heaven, so it’s best for the sect to send cultivators to explore it. I imagine over the years, the sect must have gathered some intelligence on this Grotto Heaven."

Li Shiming fully recognized his own ruinous strength. The Taichu Sect’s Grotto Heaven, holding immense worth, ought to pass wholly intact to the Ten Thousand Beast Sect.

Should he venture inside to probe it, he worried about causing irreparable damage.

"As for this Grotto Heaven, our sect’s intel has long infiltrated it and gathered quite a bit of information. I believe fully taking it over won’t be a significant issue!" Grandmaster Hu eyed the space gate at the Grotto Heaven entrance, his features brightening with joy as he declared.

Acquiring an extra Grotto Heaven meant a tremendous boost in resource generation.

A Grotto Heaven inherited from a mighty figure, particularly one linkable to the mountain gate, could yield enormous cultivation resources.

Across the years, why had the Ten Thousand Beast Sect produced so few great cultivators if not for shortages in supplying Nascent Soul Middle Stage cultivators?

With this Grotto Heaven added, the Ten Thousand Beast Sect might witness its great cultivator count swell by over half.

Admittedly, this would demand time, possibly a few centuries, yet for a sect, such a duration hardly counts as lengthy.