Though the Myriad Immortals Alliance officially downplayed the battle's progress and outcome, its subsequent flurry of actions told a different story.

Freshly issued offensive orders were urgently rescinded. Instructions went out to every province to hold their defenses and resist infiltration by the Five Elders Council. No province was to initiate hostilities rashly; the primary task of the current phase was defense.

Conscription orders from the frontlines to the various provinces grew increasingly frequent.

"Decrees changing by the hour—what a ramshackle operation held together with spit and prayers!"

The entire operational doctrine had flipped overnight, and every Alliance cultivator felt the sting of it. Yet cowed by the Alliance's overwhelming...