Indeed, a man cannot get rich without windfalls, just as a horse cannot grow fat without night grass.

Even for Lei Dong, who was accustomed to wealth, merely seeing this portion of the Hehuan Sect’s assets nearly made him faint; what truly stirred his heart were the thirty-odd Celestial Spirit Stones in the storeroom.

The Celestial Spirit Stone, an object born from the purest essence nurtured by the primordial chaos and spiritual energy since the world's creation, contained spiritual energy so pristine and clear it was an incomparable treasure.

Generally, even Nascent Soul cultivators would treasure such an item, never daring to use it carelessly. It was reserved only for the desperate need to break through a cultivation bottleneck or to desperately draw power for survival.

The Hehuan Sect had existed for over ten millennia, surely acquiring more than just a few dozen Celestial Spirit Stones during that time. However, between constant expenditures and accumulation, it was commendable that so many remained.

What Lei Dong did not know was that under normal circumstances, the Hehuan Sect could never have amassed this many Celestial Spirit Stones. The majority of these stones, along with a batch of other rare natural treasures, were secretly bestowed by the Taishang Sect.

This immense bounty of resources was the result of the Hehuan Sect selling out the Yinsha Sect. Now that they had returned to Lei Dong’s hands, it was fittingly the circle of heaven’s justice.

Setting aside the euphoria of acquiring such resources for a moment, Lei Dong began preparing for the next phase of his plan. First, he directed the Hehuan Sect's formation masters to repair the Mountain Protecting Grand Array, while secretly recalling all the Earth Giants who participated in the siege and those deployed externally to form the inescapable net, positioning them and over ten thousand Swift Bugs as an ambush within the repaired array.

Lei Dong had no intention of losing the territory he had worked so hard to conquer, especially to the hidden forces of the Taishang Sect lurking somewhere in the shadows—they were his true primary concern. Once they learned that the Three Great Evil Sects had been crushed, they would certainly come to investigate. However, they would never have imagined that someone would dare breach the three sects right under their noses and then stay behind in the enemy headquarters.

Leaving this contingent of Earth Giants and Swift Bugs was intended to leave a profound impression on the Taishang Sect members. The Earth Giants were no ordinary terrifying creatures; they were direct descendants of the Ancient Giants. Even in their decline, they were absolutely no less formidable than the Asura Clan or the Winged God Clan.

Through countless millennia of evolution, the Earth Giants no longer possessed the peerless, beast-god-level combat prowess of the Ancient Giants. But several fierce innate talents made them an immensely powerful and difficult race to provoke.

Earth Evasion Technique allowed the Earth Giants to sink into the earth and rock, merging indistinguishably with the ground. In an unforeseen situation, even some supreme experts might not detect them. The innate Gravity Technique was even more perverse. The power of a single Earth Giant’s Gravity Technique was mediocre. However, once they assembled in formation and, through training, could simultaneously unleash their innate Gravity Technique on the same target, it became a level of ultimate weapon.

Although Lei Dong had never tested it, he was certain that even a Soul Transformation expert would struggle against it.

Especially since Saintess Lan Qisi had painstakingly researched and trained the Earth Giants’ abilities, this contingent now obeyed orders instantly, possessing a faint aura of a disciplined army. Furthermore, the Swift Bugs were notorious apex predators of the Great Desert; people from Zhao Zhou on the other side of the desert turned pale at the mere mention of them. Ambush and assassination were precisely what the Swift Bugs excelled at.

This was not all; combined with the Mountain Protecting Grand Array operating at full capacity regardless of cost, Lei Dong’s hidden contingency was sufficient to deliver an unforgettable lesson to anyone who dared to invade.

After securing these preparations, according to the original plan, he would advance with the other three contingents toward the Yaksha Sea, slay Ajana in the East Sea, and thereby sever one of the Taishang Sect’s limbs. Once the sea territories were controlled, the Taishang Sect members remaining within Kangzhou would be like turtles in a jar, entirely at his mercy.

However, just as Lei Dong had commanded over a hundred Earth Giants and Swift Bugs into ambush positions, and before the Mountain Protecting Grand Array could be fully repaired, the unexpected occurred.

A vast, unparalleled power suddenly manifested out of thin air above the Hehuan Sect headquarters.

“Damnation!”

A furious roar shook the heavens, resounding from mid-air.

Venerable Xuan Yuan, clad in luxurious Daoist robes, with a handsome, jade-like face and a long black beard, saw this scene and was so enraged his lungs felt like they would burst. Originally, although he was in Kangzhou, he was merely there to maintain a presence. He had intervened privately at the beginning to intimidate the various sects, and then immediately went into secluded cultivation, leaving most matters to be handled by the Seven Sons of Lingxiao.

Venerable Xuan Yuan believed that with him maintaining surveillance from the shadows, these country bumpkins of Kangzhou could not stir up any major trouble. But recently, he had received an urgent message from his brother, Venerable Tai Yi, expressing considerable dissatisfaction with how long the campaign here was dragging on.

This prompted Venerable Xuan Yuan to personally intervene to urge the Three Great Evil Sects to stop taking benefits without delivering results. Attacking the Yinsha Sect fiercely would indeed incur significant losses for the Three Great Evil Sects, but what concern was that of Venerable Xuan Yuan? Moreover, according to the Taishang Sect’s strategy, the weaker the forces in Kangzhou, the more advantageous it was for the Taishang Sect. But he never anticipated that such a huge mistake had occurred. The spies embedded in the various evil sects sent back rapid and vague reports suggesting the Yinsha Sect had been attacked.

Disbelieving and uncertain of the truth, Venerable Xuan Yuan hurriedly rushed toward the nearest Yin-Yang Hehuan Sect, accompanied by the Taishang Sect members lurking in the shadows. To accelerate his speed, he even used spatial displacement magic to travel alone, moving ahead of the main force. He knew well how closely his brother, Venerable Tai Yi, monitored this affair; failure due to not exerting his full strength would surely result in a harsh reckoning. Although Venerable Xuan Yuan was a Soul Transformation expert, having only recently advanced, he was far inferior to Venerable Tai Yi, still holding both respect and dread for their ancestor.

Yet, he was still a step too late. The Hehuan Sect was foolishly weak to have been sneak-attacked and conquered so swiftly.

Venerable Xuan Yuan was accustomed to acting with impunity in Dagan Prefecture. Upon arriving in Kangzhou, he was filled with a superiority complex and disdain, viewing this underdeveloped region as if it were the remote countryside compared to his advanced civilization. He did not believe that this dilapidated place, lacking even a single Soul Transformation expert, could pose any threat to him.

When the Hehuan Sect was counter-attacked and broken, his expectation was that the Yinsha Sect, cornered and facing annihilation, was merely engaging in a final, frantic act of revenge. He blamed the Hehuan Sect for its lack of vigilance.

Furthermore, he had already scanned the area with his divine sense: only a hundred or so Ghost Generals, a few Ghost Kings, a large swarm of Yakshas, and some humans of weaker cultivation. In a direct confrontation, Venerable Xuan Yuan would naturally avoid conflict, but slaying a few individuals and then holding them off until his own forces arrived to eradicate them was certainly achievable. After all, even the Winged God Clan had an army of over a thousand experts. While the Golden Core experts sent by the Taishang Sect were only a few hundred, their Nascent Soul experts numbered over thirty—more than the Winged God Clan.

This also demonstrated that the Taishang Sect truly had grounds for its arrogance. Perhaps precisely because their foundation was so deep, the vast majority of Taishang Sect members held their heads excessively high.

With barely a moment’s assessment, upon seeing several Ghost Kings and Yaksha experts clustering around a young man of extraordinary bearing, Venerable Xuan Yuan let out a roar and brought his palm down.

Boom!

That hand spanned over ten zhang, shining with a golden light like the Hand of Divine Punishment, exuding overwhelming oppressive and terrifying power.

“They arrived this fast?” Lei Dong’s heart gave a slight jolt, but his expression betrayed no surprise. After all, when devising the plan, he had considered every conceivable scenario, including encountering unforeseen circumstances during the attack on the three sect headquarters, or running into a contingent of Taishang Sect members coincidentally stationed at one of the sects.

For every situation, there was a complete countermeasure. Especially to deal with the worst-case scenario where the three attacking forces encountered the main body of the Taishang Sect, the seasoned Netherworld Ghost Emperor had extra-handedly provided two Netherworld Tokens, though the Ghost Sovereign had clearly stated that only one token could be used; upon the use of any one token, he would reclaim the remaining two.

Without hesitation, Lei Dong pulled out a Netherworld Token and crushed it in his hand. Simultaneously, his figure scattered like a phantom, and he roared, “No one retreat, hold the line!”

The faces of the Ghost Kings and Yaksha elders changed drastically as they channeled their utmost power, striking back at the giant palm flashing towards the sky. Facing a Soul Transformation expert, if Nascent Soul cultivators did not unite, they would only be picked off one by one.

Boom! Boom!

Fierce explosions erupted in mid-air, and blade-like shockwaves rolled outward. Those Nascent Soul cultivators who managed to barely block the ferocious strike were shaken, feeling momentarily dispirited, but they had at least withstood the blow. Of course, the reason they heeded Lei Dong’s command was twofold: the emperors of their respective clans had strictly ordered them to obey Lei Dong’s command, and secondly, they had personally witnessed Lei Dong deploying over a hundred Earth Giants and more than ten thousand Swift Bugs.

Since their side possessed overwhelming strength, there was absolutely no need to flee.

Here, no one expected Venerable Xuan Yuan to be audacious enough to come alone while leaving his main army behind. Even Lei Dong had not anticipated this. Had he known, he likely would have simply laughed at the fool courting death while cursing himself for unnecessarily using the Netherworld Token. Regardless, Lei Dong immediately transmitted his divine sense command to the hundred Earth Giants.

As soon as the command was received, the culmination of Lan Qisi’s years of painstaking effort manifested.

Almost instantaneously, a terrifying pressure created by the simultaneous exertion of hundreds of Earth Giants erupted high in the sky. Such sudden immense pressure, even against the Soul Transformation-level Venerable Xuan Yuan who was caught completely off guard, slammed him down like a cannonball crashing into the ground, carving out a massive crater.

Sssshhh! Countless terrifying Swift Bugs surged out from the soil, swarming toward the crater like a tide.