Junior Sister must ascend this time!

Heaven cursed, "I was just a little late, is it really necessary to threaten suicide?"

"What do you mean by 'burning the divine soul'? What would I do with that thing of yours? You're just giving me things nobody wants."

"Don't let me hear you say that again next time, even if you withdraw this time."

Yun Qing smiled and said, "I understand."

As soon as she finished speaking, she raised the fragment of the guiding array high, and golden light shot into the sky from the fragment.

The leader of the alliance finally saw what was in her hand. It was this that she used to initiate the Heavenly Judgment.

Suddenly, his eyes lit up. He realized he hadn't been mistaken; there really was the power of the Heavenly Dao on it!

"Give me back my Spirit Fragment!"

Yun Qing chuckled, "You're saying it's a fragment of a spirit-nurturing plant? The Heavenly Dao would probably be furious if it heard that."

Sure enough, as soon as the leader finished speaking, the Heavenly Dao and the golden light around him suddenly intensified, and the runes surrounding the golden light slammed down on his body.

The runes, as if alive, densely embedded themselves into his flesh, scorching and charring his skin until it curled back, his screams echoing throughout the Sacred Land.

"Stop smashing! Stop smashing! I don't want it anymore..."

Gu Changfeng and Lu Xingzhou covered each other's eyes. "Tsk tsk tsk, so bloody..."

Heaven's Dao: You used my fragments to nourish your spiritual root, I'll smash you to death!

Yun Qing looked at the Tribulation Transcending stage cultivator rolling on the ground and "kindly" reminded him, "Hey, why did you lie down first? The real trial hasn't started yet, don't die yet."

She clenched the fragments of the guiding array again.

"The leader of the Immortal Alliance has seized the spiritual roots of others, defying the heavens. He has exchanged the lives of cultivators for cultivation; this is his first crime."

As soon as he finished speaking, a bolt of lightning, entirely black with dark red edges, pierced straight into the leader's body.

The heavenly lightning of this judgment is different from the tribulation lightning; every bolt of it is aimed at annihilating the soul.

It strikes at the foundation of one's Dao and destroys one's primordial spirit. Each strike carries the absolute judgment of Heaven on the "traitors." It can be said that there are no survivors under the judgment thunder.

The alliance leader curled up on the ground, clutching his chest with both hands, his face filled with resentment. "No!! I wasn't the only one who did this, why am I the only one being judged!"

Yun Qing did not stop. "Using the core of the spiritual vein to control the living beings of the Nine Provinces and sever the chance for the spiritual veins of the Nine Provinces to regenerate, this is the second crime."

The second bolt of lightning struck.

The alliance leader was sent flying by the cleavage and crashed heavily to the ground. Most of his dark gold spiritual energy had dissipated, leaving only a few wisps barely holding on.

He looked at the six powerful figures before him who remained unmoved. "You think you're safe just because you're standing aside? Don't forget what you've done! My fate will be your fate!"

"Using the name of ascension to pursue personal desires and deceive the entire land, this is the third crime."

The third bolt of lightning struck, and the golden light suddenly intensified. The alliance leader let out a piercing scream.

His spiritual power had completely dissipated, and the five spiritual roots that he had forcibly fused were struggling and backfiring wildly within his body.

"No...no! My spiritual root! My cultivation!"

He reached out to grab, but couldn't grasp anything.

The spiritual roots he had seized, under the golden light of the Heavenly Dao, transformed into five faint rays of light, which were forcibly extracted from his body and then disappeared.

His cultivation level plummeted from the Tribulation Transcending stage, through the stages of Void Refining, Spirit Transformation, Nascent Soul, and Golden Core...

In the end, there was nothing left.

His appearance, which he had maintained with spiritual power, collapsed instantly, leaving only an old man with a full head of white hair and a withered face.

Once a person has nothing left to lose, they are very likely to resort to desperate measures.

The alliance leader glanced down at his withered hands, then laughed maniacally, "I made a wrong move, I lost, and I accept it. But..."

He pointed to the six powerful figures high above him, "You all wanted to see me end up like this, didn't you? That way, no one will know what you did during the war between immortals and demons a hundred years ago."

"It's a pity I only have one breath left. How about I tell the seven sect leaders how you acquired your cultivation levels..."

The six powerful figures' expressions changed, and the elder in the lead raised his hand, sending his Tribulation Transcending stage spiritual power toward the Alliance Leader.

He must die!

Yan Li's Guiji Sword flew out, blocking the old man's attack. He said with a smile, "Trying to kill me to silence me? Don't be in such a hurry, we still want to hear the story."

The old man's face was even uglier than if he had eaten excrement, but the will of Heaven had not yet departed, and to make a move now would be tantamount to courting death.

The alliance leader knew it concerned the war between immortals and demons, and the seven sect leaders wouldn't let him die until he finished speaking. He was more relaxed than ever before.

He sat cross-legged on the ground, enduring the pain, and said, "A hundred years ago, the cultivation world had already exhausted its spiritual energy, which is why the barrier sealing the demon realm was opened."

"At that time, Yu You led the long-dormant demon race to victory, capturing several cities in the Central Plains. The Immortal Alliance had not yet been established, and the leaders and disciples of the seven sects fought desperately to resist."

"This is the part of the story everyone knows." He looked at Pu Hengzhi. "Sect Leader Pu was also a cultivator who participated in the war between immortals and demons back then. You know these things better than I do, but you're probably curious about why your senior brothers and sisters died, aren't you?"

Pu Hengzhi's fingers tightened slightly as he tried his best to control his emotions. "You know the inside story?"

After coughing a few times, the alliance leader wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve and looked at the six powerful figures. "Because of them, the entire war between immortals and demons was started because of them."

"Before the great war, there were far more cultivators in the cultivation world than there are now. With so many people, there was only so much spiritual energy, and those with high cultivation levels each possessed a large amount of spiritual energy. Therefore, there were very few cultivators who could reach the Void Refinement stage back then."

"When demons die, they release demonic energy. Similarly, when cultivators die, they release spiritual energy. The higher the cultivation level of a cultivator, the more and richer the spiritual energy they return to the cultivation world. Someone once calculated that if a group of high-level cultivators died, the spiritual energy within them would return to the world and be enough to sustain the remaining people for several hundred more years."

"But they can't kill cultivators directly, because that would incur karmic consequences. So they made a deal with Yu You, whereby the demons would slaughter high-level cultivators, and they would take the opportunity to absorb spiritual energy and... spiritual roots."

The eldest brother shouted, "Nonsense! If it weren't for a few of us intervening during the war between immortals and demons, the cultivation world would have been wiped out long ago! How could we possibly collude with the demons to massacre humans!"

The alliance leader smirked and sneered, "These words might fool yourselves, but do you really think you can get away with it?"

"You—no, it should be us—we're just taking credit for what others have done. To put it bluntly, we're picking up the good deeds from a pile of corpses."

He looked at Pu Hengzhi again, "Liu Fushu...is your junior sister, right?"

"The one who truly sealed away the demons was not any of us, but her."