After the path was cut off

Zhongzhou is the origin and foundation of the Ziwei Star race.

Li Wangxiang took out a spirit tablet.

——【Spiritual Guide to Spirits】.

This is a special token issued by the Immortal Sect. Every ten years, cultivators who leave the sect to establish their own sect can receive one, which is used to enter and exit the Taoist temple area of ​​Zhongzhou, and also serves as proof of receiving a Spirit Aperture.

In the instant that inspiration struck, the world before my eyes suddenly changed.

Beneath their feet lay no ordinary mountains and rivers, but a boundless expanse of orderly spirit fields. Countless spirit puppets, like worker ants, toiled tirelessly within them. Further away, towering pagodas rose from the ground, one every thousand miles, reaching into the clouds and forming a dense forest.

The tower's shadow fell upon the sacred fields, like a series of silent and enormous cages.

As Li Wangxiang gazed at the rows of Taoist temples, his chest tightened.

He knew, of course, what was being raised in there.

It's not incense offerings, nor is it a group of believers.

Rather, they are generations of ordinary people.

These people do not engage in production, nor do they worry about hunger or cold. From birth to death, they are confined in the tower. Their only mission is to mate and reproduce, giving birth to batches of children with spiritual abilities—the so-called "spiritual children."

This is the root cause that has supported the Ziwei Star human race in its nearly ten thousand years of pioneering wars.

It appears glorious, but in reality, it is extremely ruthless.

However, it is not completely sealed off.

Taoist temples do not restrict the freedom of ordinary people. If someone awakens to self-awareness and refuses to mate, the temple will let them leave to fend for themselves.

However, the day one breaks free from the cage is also the beginning of facing harsh reality.

All they know is how to mate; heaven knows how they're supposed to survive.

They often starved to death, froze to death, or, to put it more bluntly, were captured by evil cultivators waiting outside and used as food.

Those who are lucky enough to survive don't last more than a few generations. Their descendants, living in constant fear and poverty, turn back and knock on the door of the Taoist temple again.

Li Wangxiang was born in such a small town that had broken free from its constraints. His ancestors were the "detached observers" of that time.

Although his childhood was difficult, his parents always repeatedly admonished him:

—One should live as a human being, and never return.

At that time, he only had a vague aversion to Taoist temples.

Only after ascending to immortality and witnessing the almost insurmountable chasm between cultivators and mortals did he truly grasp the edge of the cold logic behind this order.

In the eyes of high-level cultivators, mortals are no different from insects.

That's why he reminded himself all the more—

I am a human being.

I must not entertain such thoughts.

I too came from the mortal world. I have elder brothers and relatives, and I am no different from them.

Within his sea of ​​consciousness, [Xuan Li] had manifested on its own, quietly hovering beside him.

The mirror no longer held any of its former frivolity or ostentation; only a layer of deep, flowing light remained, silently overlooking the imposing towers below.

These days, it has pieced together the vague outline of the "Taoist temple" from countless jade slips, but seeing it with its own eyes now still stirs up great waves deep in the spiritual core.

In its remaining impression, there was a separation between immortals and mortals. Cultivators avoided worldly karma as much as possible, fearing that they would be tainted, incur heavenly tribulations, and ruin their immortality.

Instead of this—

They raise their kind like livestock, keeping them in large numbers within the tower, solely to continuously generate spiritual apertures for cultivators of this realm to use.

Such behavior is not merely callous, but a desecration of life.

What alarmed it even more was that all of this was done so openly and brazenly that the whole world seemed to tacitly approve of it.

How could Heaven allow such a thing?

Is the Way of Heaven dead?

No, the Way of Heaven is the law governing the operation of all things, and it will never die; therefore, the Way of Heaven permits it.

As soon as the thought crossed Xuan Li's mind, he felt an almost instinctive sense of disgust.

At the same time, another, even stranger feeling began to slowly rise from the mirror.

The distribution of these Taoist temples and sacred fields exudes an extremely unnatural orderliness.

They are not randomly arranged.

Every tower and every field seems to be stuck at some invisible node, locking the vital energy of the entire Central Plains in a mysterious and ruthless way.

The light in the Xuanli Mirror suddenly froze.

An extremely ancient formation name slowly surfaced from the depths of damaged memories.

——【Ten Fields, Ten Jade, Ten Directions Grand Array】.

It has seen, or at least seen something very similar to this.

"Alright." Xuan Li's voice lowered slightly. "Put the spirit letter away."

Li Wangxiang acted as if he hadn't heard.

"Huh?"

Xuan Li turned the mirror light away in confusion.

Li Wangxiang stood frozen in place, his gaze fixed on the rows of Taoist temples and sacred fields, his eyes eerily empty. Two streams of tears had already slid down his cheeks without him even noticing.

The question from his dream kept reverberating in his mind:

—Open your eyes and see clearly.

—Is this the future you all want?

Li Wangxiang's throat moved slightly, as if he was completely unaware of what he was saying.

"Little mirror..."

"Did I... do something wrong?"

Upon hearing this incredibly familiar address, Xuan Li's gaze sharpened.

"Old Taoist Jin Guang?"

Surprisingly, there was a hint of unease in its childish voice.

"You old geezer... don't come out and scare me at this time."

The next moment, Li Wangxiang also suddenly came to his senses, raised his hand to wipe his face, and his fingertips touched something burning hot.

"I……"

"Why am I crying?"

Xuan Li was getting annoyed by Li Wangxiang's back and forth, and Jing Guang quickly scanned him several times.

"Li Wangxiang?"

"What's wrong, Master Mirror?" Li Wangxiang had regained some of his senses, but his voice was still somewhat distorted.

The light in the Xuanli Mirror dimmed even further.

"It's nothing."

"Quickly put the memorial card away."

Li Wangxiang followed the instructions and put the spirit tablet into his sleeve. The Taoist temple and the spirit field then disappeared, and were covered again by the original mountains and rivers.

High in the sky, the man and the mirror remained silent for a moment, neither of them speaking.

The wind swept in from afar, brushing against Li Wangxiang's pale, stiff profile.

"Master of the Mirror."

Why is that?

Xuanli didn't know how to answer him—whether to address his loss of composure or the Taoist temple.

But if I were to answer, it would bring up the words "golden light," that old dream, and many things that are currently impossible to sort out.

After thinking for a moment, it decided to suppress the "golden light" and start with the most practical thing in front of it.

"This is the [Ten Fields, Ten Jade, Ten Directions Grand Array]."

"This formation locks the earth's veins in the Central Plains, gathers spiritual energy, and folds and hides a large area of ​​real space. Have you noticed that although the Central Plains seems vast, it's always much faster to cross than other states? It's as if only one-tenth of the land is in front of you."

Li Wangxiang had this feeling before. He used to think it was just because of the special terrain of Zhongzhou, or because he lacked experience, and never thought about it more deeply. Now, after listening to Xuan Li's explanation, many of the previously vague inconsistencies suddenly became clear.

"That's true," Li Wangxiang said in a low voice. "When crossing the Central Plains, the time spent is often far less than that spent crossing the Southern Frontier and the Northern Plains."

"That's exactly right." Xuanli Mirror light flowed, and a blurry map was projected in mid-air, circling the entire Central Plains region.

What you see now is merely a corner of the true Central Plains.

"The broader, deeper, and more real Central Plains have long since locked these Taoist temples and spiritual fields within the formation."

"They themselves are the key points of the formation."

"When you went south back then, was there ever a moment when you felt that the temperature, wind direction, and even the sky around you had suddenly changed?"

Li Wangxiang frowned slightly, and after a moment, he finally remembered an old story.

"have."

"Once, I was only a few dozen steps away when the mountain winds were completely different in temperature. I just assumed I had gone to the wrong place at the wrong time and didn't dare to think about it any further."

Xuan Li said, "That's because you accidentally touched a node in the formation and stepped from one folded area into another adjacent one."

Li Wangxiang felt a chill run down his spine upon hearing this.

Xuan Li, however, was no longer concerned about his current shock.

"This great formation contained the spiritual energy of the Central Plains, which was then offered to Taoist temples to house countless mortals."

"As long as the Taoist temples are not eliminated, the war of conquest will never stop!"

"What exactly are humans plotting...?"

"Is occupying an entire continent not enough? Do they have to feed people all over the world?"

"Could it be that they really won't be satisfied until the entire Ziwei Star is filled?"

Li Wangxiang listened quietly.

He had asked himself this question many times.

But to this day, it still only has three words.

"I can't figure it out."