Volume 4, Chapter 19 – Dao Strife

“…That’s roughly how it is.”

On the other side, Sun Yaoming finally laid out all the information he knew to Bai Xiang.

“The monster race is overwhelmingly strong, and humanity desperately lacks power to stand against them. Yet cultivating Void Dao arts cuts off humanity’s path upward. After we finally groped our way to the path of Sacred Weapons, now comes news that you, Revered Bai, have created a Sacred Law. That really is…”

Sun Yaoming seemed to feel it wasn’t exactly glorious to say. He imitated the ancient manner, lifting his sleeve to half-cover his face and mumbling, “Just within Tianfu Mountain alone, there are already two factions, and both of them want you, Revered Bai, to abandon the Path of Qi.”

He got it all out in one breath, then didn’t dare look at Bai Xiang anymore. He rose and knelt, sitting back on his heels in front of her like someone awaiting judgment.

So that’s how it is.

Bai Xiang finally understood why the atmosphere these days had felt so strange, and why a human faction like Tianfu Mountain had sent so many scouts looking for her.

The logic was simple. Tianfu Mountain thought she was blocking their road.

For the humans of the Upper Realm to break past the limits Void Dao arts placed on them, they had clearly gone through great hardship to create the path of Sacred Weapons. Sun Yaoming hadn’t said how many years ago that road was forged, but it likely wasn’t recent.

Which meant that almost all of the human great powers still remaining now had broken through by cultivating the path of Sacred Weapons. That was how they had earned their current standing.

And now Bai Zhixing suddenly burst onto the scene, claiming she had created a Sacred Law. It was like slapping them in the face, mocking them, saying the road they had devoted themselves to all this time was the wrong one.

This was where she’d thought about it the wrong way. She had assumed the Path of Qi wouldn’t be much of an obstacle to them and would actually become a helping hand.

In other words, if there really were human factions up in the Upper Realm, then the appearance of the Path of Qi should help them raise more experts. Taken as a whole, it was a net benefit.

But she had probably underestimated how hard it would be for everyone else, outside of herself, to switch over to the Path of Qi.

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It was like a grade-schooler who’d spent all six years focused on the arts track, barely touching their academic subjects. If you told them at that point to give up their artistic skills and pivot to cramming academics, it would be tough and exhausting, but still doable.

Even a middle-school or high-school student could manage. The actual volume of middle and high school material wasn’t that large. As long as they were willing to work, willing to settle down and study, with young people’s good memory and plasticity, it wasn’t impossible.

But once someone had already entered society—into their thirties, or even their forties and fifties—and then you asked them to abandon everything they were good at and learn something new from scratch, that difficulty skyrocketed.

The same thing was happening with people switching to the Path of Qi.

For people like Bai Zhuqing, Xu Shu, Lian Feng and the others, whose cultivation was still low when they switched, the process was relatively easy.

By the time you got to people like Bai Lianzhou and Bai Shengju, it was already much harder. At the level of Xiang Xian, Han Yinshuang and the like, it was harder still, with the difficulty spiking several times over.

By that logic, if a human great power wanted to switch to the Path of Qi, then with the limits imposed by their lifespan and all sorts of other factors, the time and effort it would take, the price they would have to pay, would probably be judged “unbearable.”

So they were almost certainly never going to cultivate the Path of Qi. They simply couldn’t risk trying again. They had long since reached the point where they couldn’t afford to lose.

People like that were, in all likelihood, hoping Bai Xiang would disappear from the world.

Sacred Law, new law, whatever.

Bai Zhixing had only cultivated her way up to the Three Flowers Realm.

As long as she hadn’t climbed to the summit of the Sacred Dao, she had no right to declare that the Path of Qi was “the only correct cultivation path” for humanity. She had no right to style herself anything, let alone lead humanity’s future using some new Path of Qi.

That was one side.

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Sun Yaoming had said Tianfu Mountain had “two factions” that both wanted her to abandon the Path of Qi. The other faction was very likely the so-called “reformists.”

Compared to the conservative stance of most, they were more radical. They could accept the existence of the Path of Qi and even accept it as the Human Dao Sacred Law, but they specifically couldn’t accept that this Sacred Law was in Bai Xiang’s hands.

Because from the perspective of Void Dao arts, this was still a “Dao path” for condensing a Divine Pool.

By now, she had essentially figured out the truth behind the “Head Shop.” Its purpose wasn’t to kill and harm, but to rewrite people’s understanding.

Victims like Uncle Liu were polluted into believing that human brains were edible. At first, they didn’t even seem that deranged. They only treated the heads sold by the “Head Shop” as food and felt no appetite when facing living people.

But if left alone, the pollution deepened, and even living people’s heads became prey. They came to firmly believe that “humans eating brains is the natural order of heaven and earth.” That was cognition being completely rewritten.

Once that phenomenon reached a large enough scale, under the rules that governed the main world, that part of the order would be rewritten and condensed into a “Dao path,” becoming someone’s newly forged Divine Pool.

Even though both were “Dao paths” for condensing a Divine Pool, the “Head Shop” obviously could not compare to the Path of Qi.

From that angle, it was perfectly normal for people to covet the Path of Qi.

It fit Bai Xiang’s understanding of “human nature.”

Of course, human nature wasn’t entirely filthy and dark. Take Sun Yaoming, who was kneeling in front of her right now. He was also from Tianfu Mountain, yet he—and the forces he represented—clearly didn’t want those two wills to succeed.

Fixing her gaze on Sun Yaoming, Bai Xiang asked him softly, “Then why bother coming here to warn me?”

Sun Yaoming bowed again. “This was my master’s idea,” he said. “He said there were two reasons for sending me to warn you, Revered Bai. First, the fact that you could create a Sacred Law means you are a person of great fate. Even though you’ve only just stepped into the Three Flowers Realm, your future achievements are limitless. Those people absolutely cannot be allowed to ruin humanity’s hope for the future because of their obsession with Dao strife.”

“Second, my master said he does not wish to see the Path of Qi fall into the reformists’ hands. I don’t really understand the reasoning behind that. I only know my master did say so.”

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Very clever.

Bai Xiang grasped the logic in an instant.

It was simple. The impact the Path of Qi would have on humanity’s internal situation in her hands would be far smaller than if it fell into the reformists’ hands.

He had probably already acknowledged the status of the Path of Qi and accepted that the new Law replacing the old was inevitable.

But that process would definitely involve pain. Letting the reformists seize the right to define the Path of Qi would, in the short term, inevitably rip humanity apart from within.

Humanity was already weak. If the monster race seized the moment to launch a massive offensive during this period, there was a real risk of total annihilation.

So he wanted her to hold the line and act as a variable that could balance all sides.

He was thinking far ahead.

She asked Sun Yaoming, “What is your master’s name?”

“My master’s name is Chang Xing, courtesy name Wen Yuan. He is one of the sect heads formally appointed on the mountain.”

“Chang Wenyuan…” Bai Xiang murmured. “I’ll remember this favor.”

“Immortal Venerable?”

Sun Yaoming looked up in delighted surprise.

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For Bai Xiang to say that meant she recognized Chang Wenyuan’s line as her allies.

“Do you know when your fellow disciples will arrive?” Bai Xiang asked him again.

Sun Yaoming shook his head.

Voyages through the Illusory Realms were full of variables. Minor Void Tribulations, turbulence, Void Demons—they all affected the journey. All he could give was a rough estimate: it shouldn’t be more than a week.

Bai Xiang arched a brow. “And if my methods of response are on the harsher side?”

Sun Yaoming froze for a moment, then clenched his teeth. “Master also said… since this is Dao strife, it should not be bound by everyday notions of virtue.”

Meaning that once things reached the level of “Dao strife,” neither side should expect their methods to be restrained by ordinary moral and human standards.

Because that was the nature of Dao strife.

You used any means necessary.

It was you or them.

There was no room to turn back.

Bai Xiang didn’t say anything more. She simply had Sun Yaoming stay and wait for Yu He to make arrangements, then rose and left the room.