That was an idea that Jiang Chen had privately passed on to Eternal’s forefather in private. He had a lot of such tricks in his disposal.
As he’d predicted, the traitors could no longer stay quiet. One by one, they raised their hands and volunteered to name one of their fellow spies in exchange for their lives.
It was human nature to prioritize one’s own safety. And thus began a farce of finger-pointing.
A good number of people were exposed. Gradually, it became clear which faction was behind this ploy – the Bluesmoke Isles.
As Jiang Chen had previously pointed out, something was up with Bluesmoke.
Although many more traitors had been identified, they couldn’t provide any other useful information. They didn’t know who their master was or what their master was planning.
Their responsibility was to leak information from Sandplain to a specific recipient.
Before the Prismatic Convergence Formation was broken, the spies had sent the enemies a lot of useful information.
The traitors had no use now. Every cultivator from Bluesmoke was imprisoned, but nothing else was forthcoming.
The ten sacred lands were dejected. They’d wanted to get something useful out of the traitors so that they’d know what the enemies were planning.
“We should’ve pulled our punches and kept some of them alive,” a forefather said remorsefully. “We got too into killing them and forget about sparing any of them.”
“What a shame that we’ve killed all of them.”
Jiang Chen smiled. “That’s not true.” He snapped his fingers. The Black Tortoise shot out a torrent of water and expelled the divine cultivator it had trapped.
The man was within an inch of his life. His pride and arrogance were long gone. After his fall from grace, even a divine cultivator was no better than a beaten dog.
The ten forefathers soon acquired the information they wanted through interrogation.
Their mood hit rock bottom as things didn’t look good. The relief of surviving the ambush gave way to grave concerns.
As Jiang Chen had expected, the ambush was meant to delay them. It’d be even better if members of the ten sacred lands were trapped or killed.
The main enemy forces had already made their way to the ten sacred lands to attack their bases of operation.
The information sent a shockwave through the crowd.
No one could maintain their composure when their home bases were at stake. Even Jiang Chen grew agitated.
If the Eternal Sacred Land was attacked, the consequences would be unbearable. Right now, Huang’er was still in his abode. Many members of House Yan were also in the sacred land. Although Huang’er was Divine Kasyapa’s granddaughter, he wasn’t sure if Kasyapa was involved in this conspiracy.
If he was, what role did he play?
Jiang Chen demanded answers from the captive. The cultivator responded, “An Kasyapa doesn’t submit to Master Lightford. Master Lightford recruited him many times, but he refused to come. Therefore, he isn’t involved in this operation. After this though, Master Lightford will not let An Kasyapa off the hook.”
“You keep talking about your Master Lightford. What’s so impressive about him?”
“Hmph, Master Lightford was already the most powerful of us all when we were in the Boundless Prison. It’s said that he’s ascended to mid divine realm!”
Mid divine realm?
Everyone sucked in a breath. Even the ten forefathers exchanged a worried look. They were all at initial divine realm. None of them had ascended to fourth level divine realm yet.
In contrast, the Master Lightford the captive spoke of had reached mid divine realm! Half of the ten forefathers would have to work together to even rival Lightford.
What was worse, it was clear from the man’s tone that there were more fugitives from the Boundless Prison than they had expected.
There was one silver lining to the situation: The divine cultivators weren’t a close knit group. Some had been recruited by Lightford, but not all of them were loyal to him. Many kept up the appearance of listening to his orders, but deep down, they didn’t actually consider Lightford their leader.
After all, divine cultivators had their pride. It would be humiliating for the unbridled cultivators to listen to everything Lightford said.
An Kasyapa was an example. Lightford might be powerful, more powerful than An Kasyapa, but it didn’t mean An Kasyapa would throw away his pride and let Lightford order him around.
That was the backbone and pride of a master cultivator.
Jiang Chen felt the weight of concerns bear down on him. If the fugitives did want to attack the ten sacred lands, they must have done so already.
More than half of the ten sacred lands’ elites had come to Sandplain. No divine cultivators had stayed behind for defense.
Eternal, for example, had only the demigod second prime and third prime to rely on. The only thing keeping them safe would be the sacred land’s great formation, which, unfortunately, had been severely damaged during the rebellion and hadn’t recovered fully yet.
The thought gnawed at Jiang Chen.
The ten forefathers were visibly concerned.
“The sacred lands are our roots, everyone. If they’re taken from us, we’ll have no place to call home. Therefore, we must take the sacred lands back no matter what!”
“Oh, don’t be so pessimistic. Perhaps the ten sacred lands will be able to resist the attack for some time. It may not be too late for us to go back now!”
Eternal’s forefather looked remotely at the cultivators from the second and third tier factions.
“Then my apologies, fellow daoists. Before we root out every traitor, you’re all suspects. If we rush back to our respective sacred lands and the traitors leak the information, our enemies will be able to easily target us on the way!”
That was something they had to consider.
