This Western Teaching… seemed rather weak against attacks.

One Divine Country of Incense after another was “reclaimed” under the Immortal Alliance’s sharp offensive.

In just three years, the Immortal Alliance’s influence grew dramatically, with Western Teaching losing one-tenth of their territory in the Three Thousand Worlds, and two-tenths of their immortal experts either dead, wounded, or fled.

If not for Western Teaching’s extensive use of methods to control beings’ minds when originally building their Divine Countries of Incense, making most of their controlled immortal experts act like puppets, their morale might have already collapsed.

Worth mentioning was that Li Changsheng chose to conduct the vast majority of battles in the void between various Great Thousand Worlds and Small Thousand Worlds, minimizing the impact on living beings.

However, this situation was somewhat reversed after Spirit Mountain secretly deployed several dozen old adepts and utilized some hidden Primordial Fierce Beasts.

In the last two clashes, the Immortal Alliance suffered heavy losses among their experts.

After considering it for half a night, Li Changsheng still decided to have the Immortal Alliance reduce their offensive and switch to a defensive posture.

Being able to tie down part of Western Teaching’s forces in the Three Thousand Worlds was a great victory for the overall situation in the Primordial World.

Elder Wan Linjun had been exceptionally active these past three years, with the name “Poison Immortal of the Degree Gate” becoming famous across the four seas. Though only at the Golden Immortal realm, and having just recently entered it, his poison pills were incredibly sharp.

—, aside from the initial poison pills that Elder Wan refined himself, the later ones were all supplied to Elder Wan by Lu Yue under Li Changsheng’s arrangement.

In terms of poison pill attainment, Elder Wan could only be called ‘Little Lu Yue’, still having quite a gap with the original Plague Department head from the ancient Investiture of the Gods’ tribulation.

But with a paper person hidden in Elder Wan’s sleeve, under Li Changsheng’s painstakingly devised tactical guidance, the killing power was truly remarkable.

He appeared and disappeared like a ghost, impossible to defend against, preferring stealth attacks over direct confrontation, and immediately fleeing when discovered.

When Western Teaching mobilized large numbers of experts to surround and intercept him, with Li Changsheng secretly orchestrating things, Elder Wan didn’t feel even a hint of danger or excitement. He just followed Li Changsheng’s instructions to change his escape route direction a few times, completing the counter-encirclement operation of luring the enemy deep.

But what worried Li Changsheng was that after three years of killing, Elder Wan’s Dao heart had become somewhat unstable.

Old Master Wan Linjun had vented most of the anger in his heart, and recently Western Teaching had begun to counterattack. To be on the safe side, Li Changsheng still persuaded Elder Wan Linjun to temporarily return to the Horizon Secret Realm to stay with Lu Yue.

That place, even Primordial Fierce Beasts didn’t dare easily venture into, after all, Lu Yue’s poison pills had transcended from targeting living beings’ physical bodies to affecting the Great Dao itself.

As Western Teaching and the Immortal Alliance shifted between offense and defense, Li Changsheng wasn’t in any hurry.

First, he arranged for the Golden Spirit Holy Mother, who had come to the Three Thousand Worlds to kill people because she felt guilty, to ambush the enemy several times together with Zhao Gongming, killing more than ten Primordial Fierce Beasts.

Then, when Cultivator Wenjing came to reinforce the Divine Countries of Incense, he arranged several large retreats, letting Wenjing kill some morally corrupt people from the mixed Immortal Alliance who were already burdened with karmic obstacles.

This way, he could both delay the pace of internal conflicts erupting in the Immortal Alliance and help Wenjing accumulate some military achievements.

With this back and forth, Western Teaching’s dark forces accumulated over many years had been damaged by more than half, and they had few usable Primordial Fierce Beasts remaining.

The eastern region of the Three Thousand Worlds, which had been lively for three years, once again fell into a stalemate, finally allowing Western Teaching to catch its breath.

These three years, they had been quite troubled by the Heavenly Army in the Five Continents of the Primordial World;

Disciples of the Saints had to completely conceal their movements when going out, not daring to mention they were Spirit Mountain cultivators;

Two-tenths of their foundation built up over tens of thousands of years in the Three Thousand Worlds had been lost, and although they could ‘convert’ some independent cultivators to fill this power vacuum, ultimately, it had reached the point of severe injury…

Most terrifying was that they didn’t know how long the Star Lord of Great White’s revenge would continue.

To be honest, they had only had a not-so-familiar Senior Brother secretly plan an ambush, killing one Golden Immortal, more than ten Heavenly Immortals, several hundred True Immortals, Primordial Immortals, and Gate of Degree Immortals disciples who hadn’t even become immortals yet…

This Maitreya, why did he have to provoke this guy for no reason?!

After about three and a half years, Li Changsheng’s true body remained in the Palace of Great White in the Heavenly Court.

During this period…

The process of “teaming up” with Elder Wan to trap people was quite enjoyable, helping him rediscover a bit of his youthful poison-spreading ways, truly worthy of praise.

Mediating between the various Vice Leaders of the Immortal Alliance and the Heavenly Court Marshal Group was somewhat tedious, but this was also a necessary measure, barely acceptable.

The only negative review was that Brother Zhao still maintained his distance from the Golden Spirit Holy Mother in public.

Moreover, this was at the Golden Spirit Holy Mother’s request, with Brother Zhao finding Li Changsheng’s paper person every few days to pour out his feelings, developing serious self-doubt…

‘Changsheng, is it because I’m not good enough that Golden Spirit doesn’t want to tell others about our relationship?’

To this, Li Changsheng could only smile awkwardly, stuff more leftover paintings from what he had given Jiu Wu back then to Brother Zhao, and ask Brother Zhao to go hunt some greatly nourishing and poisonous creatures.

Returning to old practices.

These three years, the greatest achievement wasn’t actually in the Three Thousand Worlds, but on Little Jade Peak.

Li Changsheng further integrated Little Jade Peak’s formation, filling in details he had previously overlooked, and further improved the formation’s ‘independence’, reducing reliance on formation control.

When Sect Master Ji Wuyou met his tribulation, if Ling E had been able to utilize even one-tenth of Little Jade Peak’s power, she wouldn’t have let those dozen or so Golden Immortals act so arrogantly.

Of course, this was Li Changsheng’s fault, having nothing to do with Ling E.

The little Junior Sister had already tried very hard at the time, and being able to make choices in those few moments was truly not easy.

Just because he was afraid she would become proud, Li Changsheng took the opposite approach, having her self-reflect for several months, and spending all three years learning the correct usage of Little Jade Peak’s compound formation system.

Additionally, half a year ago, Little Gold and Little Silver brought a treasure pouch containing the treasure Li Changsheng had asked for the last time.

The Bear Battle Armor!

This was a set of purple-gold chain mail, though its protective ability could only be called ordinary, being Lord Laozi’s creation it was far from common, especially since Lord Laozi had spent quite a few ancient treasure materials and primordial spiritual items on this armor.

The first thing it solved was Xiong Lingli’s mobility problem.

After Xiong Lingli put on this armor, with just a thought, her form could slowly float up, and she could walk freely in the air, moving forward, backward, left, and right at will.

And over these three years, under Li Changsheng’s threats and inducements, Xiong Lingli had wholeheartedly practiced transformation techniques without slacking off, and could barely manage to temporarily grow larger or smaller.

However, even at this level, Li Changsheng still wouldn’t let her leave Little Jade Peak.

Otherwise, while walking, chatting, and laughing, suddenly turning into a mountain would certainly cause all sorts of accidents.

When Little Gold and Little Silver delivered the armor, they also said that Lord Laozi would craft a set of weapons for Xiong Lingli next, asking if she preferred a blade, spear, sword, halberd, or axe and hammer.

Xiong Lingli decisively chose a pair of super-large bronze hammers.

Little hammers that could shatter dragon spines and phoenix chests in one blow were the romance belonging to the Ancient Ones!

Whatever about Yang Jian or Monkey, when storming the Heavenly Court, they all had to experience the baptism of a thousand-zhang tall mountain giant’s “Let me tap your chest with my little hammers”!

That scene, just thinking about it excited Li Changsheng!

Of course, not everything could go as smoothly as one wished.

Li Changsheng’s paper person revision project hadn’t made much progress in these three years.

The advantage of paper persons was their cheapness, equivalent to having countless avatars and being able to move one’s spirit in real-time to some extent regardless of space-time barriers.

The disadvantages were also very obvious: they were too fragile, and couldn’t replenish immortal power once depleted.

And Maitreya had already mastered countermeasures against them.

This had forced Li Changsheng to be more careful these past three years, preparing several backup plans for [“If Contact is Lost”] every time he took action.

Actually, he had thought of improvement methods three years ago, but when it came to practical implementation, there were endless difficulties.

There was no help for it, he had already improved it too many times before, and even with the ‘External Golden Core’ enhancement, there wasn’t much room for improvement left, he could only break new ground and develop other paths.

“Ah, avatars are indeed a difficult problem.”

Li Changsheng rubbed his brow, lying under a tree on Little Jade Peak, looking at the Palace of Great White in the distance that appeared incredibly magnificent due to the distortion of the Mustard Seed Universe Formation, slowly emptying his mind.

Suddenly he felt like seeing Yun Xiao, with nothing to do these days, he should secretly take a break and actively visit Three Immortal Island.

Last time their relationship had made substantial progress… probably.

This time he had to advance from holding hands and kissing to the next great stage, a ceremonial light embrace!

Hmm?

Spirit disturbance?

Li Changsheng immediately closed his eyes, searching for the source of the disturbance.

Among the paper persons he had scattered outside, several had retained a trace of weak spirit power, which now felt like a ‘subconscious’ sensing of matters he cared about.

In an instant, Li Changsheng raised his eyebrows with closed eyes, finding the location of the disturbance.

That black panther spirit had suddenly emerged from closed cultivation!

His spirit fell to outside a certain valley at the borders of South Jambudvipa Continent, Central Divine Continent, and East Victory Divine Continent, where Li Changsheng’s paper person opened its eyes to see a patch of bushes, his form silently merging with the remaining earth.

Almost habitually invoking the Wind Speaking Spell and carefully extending his immortal consciousness, he immediately heard the black panther’s murmur as it stood before its cave dwelling.

“How are you?”

It must be remembered that water spirit.

Speaking of the water spirit, Li Changsheng also felt somewhat emotional.

Originally the black panther’s cultivation was not as good as the water spirit’s, and the water spirit was completely devoted to the black panther, constantly encouraging it;

But when the black panther recovered its previous life’s memories, knowing it had been a Severing Teaching immortal in its past life, and insisted on going to Golden Turtle Island once, the water spirit chose to leave without saying goodbye.

Then he heard the black panther murmur again: “Senior Lu Ya.”

Li Changsheng: …

He wondered if his past impersonation of Lu Ya was still passable.

Never mind these details.

Li Changsheng calculated the time – in the South Jambudvipa Continent, it was about two hundred years until the ‘Tang of Shang’ would become the new Human Emperor.

In the original Investiture of the Gods story, Shen Gongbao brought his skills when becoming a disciple, entering Yu Xu Palace together with Jiang Ziya.

Now that the Investiture List was in the Heavenly Court’s hands, could it be that Shen Gongbao and Jiang Ziya would have to become disciples under him, the Star Lord of Great White?

Wouldn’t that be chaos?

Li Changsheng pondered deeply, unable to fathom what fate awaited Shen Gongbao, the best partner of karmic destiny.

He could only watch closely.

The black panther stretched lazily, concealing its demon qi and releasing a thread of pure qi, having secretly practiced Severing Teaching methods, barely managing to change its demon lineage.

He had now reached the threshold of the Heavenly Immortal realm, his cultivation speed truly not slow.

At this moment when the black panther moved, Li Changsheng felt this was the Heavenly Dao plotting something, either to speed up the black panther’s cultivation or to use the black panther to do something.

The black panther rode clouds into the sky, hesitated in the air for a while, then flew southeast, seemingly heading toward Golden Turtle Island.

Li Changsheng thought for a moment, not letting this paper person follow too closely, instead activating part of the paper person’s ‘network’ buried under the East Sea, taking in the black panther’s every movement.

Under the vast blue sky and drifting white clouds, the black panther seemed to have emerged from the shadow of abandonment, maintaining the appearance of a middle-aged cultivator, leisurely proceeding through the air.

He even started humming a tune while flying.

Li Changsheng: …

Was he perhaps worrying too much?

This black panther was a true child of tribulation, the Heavenly Dao’s son. Before the Investiture of the Gods tribulation fully activated, the Heavenly Dao wouldn’t let anything happen to the black panther, so why was he watching him?

Well, better safe than sorry.

Although he couldn’t say he was confident in completely controlling the black panther, he was ninety-eigh… ahem, ninety percent sure he could use the black panther for his purposes at crucial moments.

Show more respect to the Dao Ancestor.

However, the subsequent developments began to gradually exceed Li Changsheng’s imagination.

The black panther flew southeast for a while, indeed heading in the direction of Golden Turtle Island;

But flying to roughly the southeastern corner of South Jambudvipa Continent, the black panther frowned, suddenly turned toward the southwest, and at the edge of the South Sea, encountered a middle-aged cultivator riding clouds northward.

Li Changsheng inwardly sighed, the Heavenly Dao’s manipulation in the background was too obvious.

Completely unnatural.

There were countless cultivators in the Primordial World, and although few cultivators traveled during this time of great tribulation, coming from the South Sea and passing through the eastern side of South Jambudvipa Continent to East Victory Divine Continent was nothing unusual.

But when the black panther passed by this middle-aged cultivator, he frowned slightly, hesitated, and turned to say:

“Fellow Daoist, please wait.”

That middle-aged cultivator frowned, turning to look at the black panther.

Li Changsheng was also slightly surprised, his eyes narrowing as he closely observed this middle-aged cultivator.

This observation revealed something crucial…

Li Changsheng immediately saw that this middle-aged cultivator wasn’t human!

The middle-aged cultivator turned around, cupped his hands toward the black panther, and smiled, “Greetings, fellow Daoist. Why suddenly ask me to wait? I don’t believe we’re acquainted.”

The black panther’s eyes showed some confusion as he stared at the middle-aged cultivator for a while, then smiled awkwardly: “This poor Daoist thought you were an old friend, but it seems I was mistaken.

Please excuse me, excuse me.”

“It’s fine.”

The middle-aged cultivator answered with a smile as warm as spring sunshine, but for some unknown reason, the black panther felt this person was somewhat… fake, unreal.

The black panther couldn’t exactly say what was wrong;

He didn’t even know why he had suddenly flown here.

The two made Daoist salutes to each other and turned to leave, with the middle-aged cultivator naturally being somewhat guarded, using his immortal consciousness to lock onto the black panther.

After the black panther flew beyond his immortal consciousness’s range, this person let out a light sigh of relief.

‘That was close, almost exposed.’

…

‘My name is Du Shuren, I’m not human, nor am I a Primordial World being, but rather a special existence known in the Primordial World as an Outer Heaven Demon.’

Du Shuren was naturally a false name, one he had casually chosen after occupying this body.

Being able to come to the Primordial World wasn’t luck, nor was it the result of effort, everything had simply followed its natural course.

From the moment of his birth, he had been raised as a human.

Although called Outer Heaven Demons, in reality, they were also a form of life produced by the resonance between true spirit and the Great Dao, essentially the same as Primordial World beings.

They were born in relatively stable corners of the Chaos Sea, naturally looking different from Primordial World beings. Because of different Dao principles, their definition of ‘innate Dao body’ was also different.

Environment determines whether one becomes a crooked melon or split date.

Actually, the arrogant Primordial World beings had never properly looked at them, not understanding that they were mainly divided into seven major categories and three forms.

In Primordial World terms, the three forms were ‘Heart Demon’, ‘Simulated Real’, and ‘Spirit-like Body’.

Of course, this was Du Shuren’s summary and classification.

The so-called Heart Demon form was probably most familiar to Primordial World beings; while the Spirit-like Body form was most common outside Xuandu City.

Because they lived in the Chaos Sea surrounding the Primordial World, greatly influenced by Primordial World principles, strictly speaking, they had many similarities with Primordial World beings.

Hmm… completely different from those ugly and truly bizarrely shaped Chaos Sea beings.

Du Shuren was of the ‘Heart Demon’ form.

Du Shuren preferred to remove the words ‘Outer Heaven’ and call himself simply—

A Demon.

He once had a physical body, but with continued cultivation and transformation, his body had been completely discarded, becoming a pure spirit existence.

How to bewitch cultivators, how to enlarge the cracks in cultivators’ Dao hearts, how to seize opportunities to invade and devour cultivators’ primordial spirits, making them become one’s own nourishment, these were required courses for ‘Demons’.

But Du Shuren was different from ordinary demons.

He was exceptionally talented, a demon of upper-class birth, trained from childhood in how to be a cultivator, all for the day when he would invade a cultivator’s primordial spirit and control their body and mind, to be able to live like an ordinary cultivator.

Those low-class demons who only knew how to kill, smash, and destroy made Du Shuren feel extremely embarrassed.

An excellent heart demon should read books, listen to music, engage in some cultivation, and do some art.

Otherwise, what were they coming to the Primordial World for? Just to die?

However, Du Shuren didn’t know what he was supposed to do in the Primordial World after all his long years of training.

He had infiltrated the Primordial World two years ago.

Before departing, his ‘mother’, who had split him off from her body, had taken him to their clan’s holy land to pay respects to a massive black shadow that couldn’t be sensed or seen.

Du Shuren felt his insignificance and humility, only able to shrink into a ball of black mist, trembling like a mouse.

Afterward, the master of that holy land conversed with his mother for a while, and he accidentally used the demon ‘divine ability’ to sense a certain conversation.

‘Master, is he suitable?’

‘Yes, implant the plan into its spirit, let it gradually know what to do next.’

‘Yes, Master, do you… need to eat?’

Mother asked excitedly, already eager to split off individuals from her enormous body…

That hazy black shadow sucked up the ‘siblings’ split off by mother in one gulp.

‘Enough, I’ve long recovered my vigor, I need to remain dormant recently, send him out, find the cultivator body we selected before.’

The black shadow instructed thus, and his ‘mother’ sighed contentedly, leading him away from the holy land.

Then came the tedious process of finding cracks, descending, bewitching, body snatching, and disguising.

The first step of the plan he received was to go from the edge of the Great Thousand Worlds to the most central area of the Primordial World, the Five Continents.

After arriving here, Du Shuren waited half a year before the second step of the plan appeared in his heart—

[Go to East Victory Divine Continent to find an immortal gate, and attach it to a cultivator at the Heavenly Immortal realm.]

So, he just ordinarily flew from a town in the South Sea toward East Victory Divine Continent.

The journey had been uneventful until just now, when entering the borders of South Jambudvipa Continent, he suddenly encountered an old cultivator who called out “Fellow Daoist, please wait.”

At the time, Du Shuren thought he was about to be exposed, but the other party had mistaken him for someone else, and his performance had been nearly perfect.

Infiltrating the Primordial World wasn’t difficult…

“Fellow Daoist?”

Suddenly hearing a call in his ear, this voice seemed to be right beside him.

Du Shuren was slightly confused, turned his head, and immediately saw a young cultivator with a smile on his face.

The other party smiled, gently swaying the jade flute in his hand.

“Would you be interested in climbing a mountain together?”