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Chapter 1025: Chapter 981: Qi Fortune_2
While these words were spoken, quite a few Crab Devils were tempted. Wasn’t their initial deployment of low-rank Sea Clan in battle simply due to the fear of defying orders and facing retribution later?
"Since that’s the case, let’s go ask these races to see if they are willing," spoke the most powerful Seventh Rank Crab Devil, who had remained silent until now.
"However, there’s one thing we must be cautious about, we absolutely cannot be the ones linking up different races to withdraw from the war!"
After all, even if there’s safety in numbers, they — as the chief culprits who foiled the plans of the great clans — might not face immediate consequences, but any slight accident in the future will turn them into corpses!
And by then, although all races will know who was behind it, absolutely no one will step forward to say anything, and will instead treat the incident as an accident.
"Yes!"
Having thought of a countermeasure, the Crab Devils grew even more perfunctory in the warfare, utterly indifferent to the Sea Clan’s total collapse on the battlefield.
Dead fled, escaped fled; over a hundred thousand low-rank Sea Clan members were dealt with by Cultivators in just a few short days.
Moreover, this is with the Cultivators adhering to the unwritten rules, not allowing Nascent Soul and Combined Body Cultivators to take action. Otherwise, the Sea Clan would probably have lost on the very first day.
"Is the Giant Pincer Crab not afraid of the Sea Clan’s punishment? They are not even willing to make a superficial effort anymore," mused Li Zhirui, who didn’t participate in the fight but didn’t leave either, watching the battle from the side.
His main interest was to see how the Crab Devils would respond, and to his surprise, they just stopped engaging in the fight?
"Maybe they think there’s safety in numbers," guessed Da Qing.
There would certainly not be a small number of Sea Clan like the Giant Pincer Crab that were unwilling to keep fighting with Cultivators, especially those races without sufficient power.
Li Zhirui shook his head. It seemed a good way to avoid the war, but if the great clans were ruthless enough, they might not be able to escape this disaster.
However, this was good news for the Li family, as it meant they could end the battle sooner and then mine that large Spirit Stone Vein!
In fact, the Li family had already been mining quietly.
Previously, the Dragon Carp had returned to Mount Wanxian with a large amount of Qinggang Stone, and among the island chain’s inhabitants were several dozen Puppet Masters. Also, since Mining Puppets were very easy to make, a group of Nascent Soul Clan Members were directly arranged to learn.
Although they were only the most basic Puppets, the powerful Divine Sense of Nascent Soul Cultivators made it easy for them to learn.
With everyone’s efforts, the quantity of Mining Puppets had reached several thousand!
They then selected some of the most loyal family members to control the Puppets and mine for Spirit Stones.
Naturally, since they couldn’t afford to cause any major disturbances, the daily output of Spirit Stones wasn’t very high, just tens of thousands of Spirit Stones.
But there was a huge and unexpected surprise!
The quality of the Spirit Stones was excellent, and the further they mined, the better the quality, suggesting the Li family might even excavate a batch of Top-grade Spirit Stones.
Many Sea Clan territories had collapsed, and Cultivators naturally wouldn’t miss this excellent opportunity, they started advancing on all fronts, occupying islands in the coastal areas, drawing upon Spirit Veins, then started to construct Island Defense Arrays and develop the islands.
This served two purposes: first, it created a fait accompli, demonstrating that Cultivators had already triumphed in the great war; second, even if the Sea Clan didn’t submit, with these Cultivator’s territories in place, it would be more difficult for them to reclaim the coastal areas.
Of course, the largest occupied areas with the best conditions were held by the Cave Abyss Sect and the other four major Immortal Sects. The islands they built could no longer be called mere islands but were instead small landmasses, each one astonishingly large.
Other Immortal Realm Forces in the East Continent had generally established branches and separate courts in coastal regions. This not only facilitated future Disciples’ training journeys to the East Sea but was also to exploit the East Sea’s unique Spiritual Objects.
And they would also be the main forces defending the coastal Cultivation World in the future, preventing the Sea Clan from reclaiming it, as each family and sect had at least one Immortal Realm powerhouse stationed!
Previously, those powers that looked down on the Li family, considering the Li family’s choice to build Spirit Island in the Wanxia Sea Domain extremely foolish, now looked back and found that the territories they could occupy were not even as good as the Li family’s.
That’s because these Nascent Soul Powers were the weakest amongst the many combatant forces in the Immortal Tao, and to build a Spirit Island in prime locations depended on the consent of those powerful forces.
And regarding the coastal region’s size, it’s not small by any means - stretching hundreds of thousands of miles from north to south and up to three thousand miles wide from east to west - but also not large, as the major Immortal Sects of the East Continent already occupy more than half!
The remaining half was still divided according to their power, with Tribulation Transcendence, Mahayana, and Combined Body Cultivators coming first before it was their turn, these Nascent Soul Powers.
It goes without saying that the quality of the remaining territory wouldn’t be high.
The Wanxia Sea Domain wasn’t really anything special, but the Li family had made up their minds early on to establish Spirit Island here. Therefore, taking advantage of the inaction of other forces, they drew in quite a few Spirit Veins, including some of higher grade, into the Li Family Island.
It’s just that the Li family still knew moderation; otherwise, the number of Spirit Veins in the island could have been doubled at least!
Even so, the Li Family Island still made other forces green with envy.
Luckily, in the previous few rounds of warfare, the Li family had displayed their formidable strength, making the Void Refinement Powers wary of them, otherwise, it would have been very possible that these Spirit Veins could not be kept.
Time flew swiftly, and in the blink of an eye, more than two months had passed.
The Giant Pincer Crab clan in the Wanxia Sea Domain had been thoroughly driven away, with only some Low-rank Sea Clan left. But even so, it could be said that this sea area had completely fallen into the hands of the Cultivators!
And such situations, not only occurred in one place, were rather common, quite ordinary.
Many nearshore races completely gave up their territories and fled towards the deep sea, easily occupied by the Cultivators.
——
"Damn it! Imbeciles! A bunch of fools!"
The Immortal Realm Sea Clan in the deep sea, upon receiving the news, there wasn’t one who wasn’t furious.
Because with such actions, it was akin to automatically declaring defeat and surrender, allowing the Cultivators to actually take over the nearshore areas. If they wanted to drive out the Cultivators again, they would have to launch an even larger scale warfare, and also needed to secure victory.
However, at present, the Sea Clan had suffered heavy losses, and each race feared and detested war. It was very difficult to assemble a large number of the Sea Clan.
Of course, it wasn’t impossible; just exert pressure with a show of overpowering strength.
But this way, the already loose union of the Sea Clan had a significant chance of splitting!
"With such a large-scale, orderly retreat, there must be someone secretly orchestrating this, thinking of ensuring immunity for the masses. We cannot do anything against them, we must find the main culprit!"
Ao Peng said angrily, "Even if we can’t directly take action, we cannot let them off!"
"Let’s talk about these issues later, the main thing now is what to do with the nearshore areas! Surely we can’t just watch as the Cultivators snatch it away?" A certain Realm of Human Immortality Sea Clan member spoke up.
"No one wants to lose such a large expanse of territory, but now we are already powerless to reclaim it."
Despite their great reluctance, the fact was right before their eyes: the Sea Clan had lost!
It wasn’t that they couldn’t continue fighting the Cultivators, but what was the point? It would only lead to more casualties.
"Focus on enhancing our strength; in the future when we have the chance, we will surely take back the nearshore areas!"
Now, they could only comfort themselves in such a way.
——
In the following year, the entire nearshore area was occupied by the Cultivators.
At that instant, the Qi Fortune of the Immortal Tao surged by a whole ten percent!
Although ten percent may not seem like a lot, this was the Qi Fortune of the entire Immortal Tao.
And one must know, the birth of a Heavenly Immortal would only add half a percent to the Qi Fortune.
All Cultivators of the East Continent benefited more or less; some had a slight increase in their cultivation speed, others broke through long-standing bottlenecks, and some even advanced by an entire Great Realm!
Unfortunately for Zhirui, he belonged to the first type, merely having the speed at which his Mana accumulated increased.
This was actually the norm, after all, there were untold millions of Cultivators in the East Continent. Even if the increase of the Immortal Tao’s Qi Fortune brought tremendous benefits, after such a division, naturally very little was left.
