Cultivation: I Can Steal Lifespan from Spirit Beasts

Chapter 203: Five Sects

Jade Emperor Peak.

The undisputed apex of the State of Chen. Piercing the heavens at over eighty thousand feet, it held the majestic title of the nation’s paramount pillar. Dominating the eastern mountain ranges, a Golden Core True Person standing at its summit could take in more than half the State of Chen with a single sweeping glance.

Due to its desolate, unforgiving altitude and lack of mortal populations, even the rampant Incense Burner Path had not bothered to occupy it.

On this day, over twenty figures quietly descended upon the summit.

They naturally divided themselves into five distinct factions. Leading one of these groups was the former Sect Leader of the Eastern Sage Sect, Ji Lan.

Following closely behind him was a young woman with a frosty countenance and an icy gaze, a heavy broadsword strapped to her back. Had Wang Ba been present, he would have instantly recognized his old acquaintance, Ye Lingyu. However, the current Ye Lingyu possessed a fierce, unsmiling hostility. An inexplicable, world-weary age clung to her features, making her seem unnaturally mature.

Aside from her, Ji Lan had brought four Golden Core True Persons—effectively the entire surviving upper echelon of the Eastern Sage Sect.

Surveying the gathered leaders, Ji Lan offered a refined, elegant smile, politely greeting the heads of the other factions.

“Greetings, Sect Leader Ciren.”

“Brother Zhong’s sword intent has grown remarkably sharp; truly worthy of being the number one blade in the State of Chen.”

“Sect Leader Shi… haha, you are far too polite. When it comes to spirit beast cultivation, we naturally must exchange insights and compensate for each other’s weaknesses… my sect has benefited greatly from your wisdom.”

Ji Lan paused, his gaze sweeping over the Mountain Sea Sect delegation. “Hehe, Sect Leader Xiong, why do I not see Grand Elder Pang Xiao?”

A thin, short middle-aged man chuckled in response. “Grand Elder Pang recently acquired a heaven-defying treasure that provides immense benefits to the physical vessel. He has hurriedly entered Secluded Cultivation to absorb it.”

“Furthermore, since I brought the entire upper echelon of our sect today, someone had to stay behind to hold the fort. Thus, he remained.”

Hearing Sect Leader Xiong’s casual dismissal, the surrounding Golden Core True Persons felt a collective, icy weight settle over their hearts.

Ji Lan, however, masked any concern with a look of delighted surprise. “Excellent! Grand Elder Pang’s physical vessel is already an absolute monstrosity, rivaling that of a Nascent Soul True Lord. If he has taken yet another step forward… does this mean he is on the verge of officially breaking into the Nascent Soul realm?”

“Once Grand Elder Pang emerges from Secluded Cultivation, our Five Sects united will effortlessly sweep this filth from our lands and restore absolute clarity to the State of Chen! This calls for celebration! Truly, congratulations!”

The short, thin Sect Leader Xiong repeatedly waved his hands in a display of practiced, hollow modesty.

The leaders of the other three sects, recovering from their momentary shock, quickly chimed in with their own congratulations.

Inwardly, however, their thoughts were a turbulent mess.

For centuries, the five great sects of the State of Chen had maintained a fragile geopolitical balance precisely because none of them possessed a Nascent Soul True Lord. If the Mountain Sea Sect’s Pang Xiao shattered that ceiling…

A suffocating paranoia was already taking root in several minds.

Yet, regardless of their hidden motives, they were powerless to stop it. Pang Xiao was a generation senior to everyone present, and his raw combat power had long earned him the undisputed title of the strongest man in the State of Chen.

He only lost that title when the Heavenly Gate Sect’s Ning Daohuan arrived. After all, no matter how much Pang Xiao’s raw power rivaled a Nascent Soul, Ning Daohuan was a genuine, bona fide Nascent Soul True Lord.

“Speaking of Ning Daohuan… I cannot fathom why the man remains completely dormant,” remarked Ciren Pengcuo, the Sect Leader of the Great Sun Gate, seamlessly shifting the topic. He adjusted his crimson sun-robes, his brow furrowing in genuine confusion.

At the mention of Ning Daohuan, the atmosphere on the peak turned palpably grave.

Sect Leader Shi of the Nine Spirits Sect nodded heavily. “Indeed. The man possesses a terrifying degree of patience. Even now, he has only dispatched a single newly ascended Golden Core to manage the entire theater.”

“Still… this Incense Burner Path is a virulent plague,” Sect Leader Shi continued, his eyes darkening. “When we abandoned them to the Heavenly Gate Sect, they were nothing but a handful of stragglers. Yet, somehow, they managed to hide four Golden Core equivalents. If the Heavenly Gate Sect hadn’t captured Zhongyuan City and backed them into a corner, we might still be ignorant of their true numbers.”

“Exactly. It appears the Incense Burner Path is every bit the existential threat Ning Daohuan claimed,” Zhong Bu of the Red River Sword Sect sneered, his Killing Intent bleeding into the freezing air. “But this plays perfectly into our hands. Once the two factions inevitably cripple each other, we will sweep in and annihilate them both in a single stroke!”

The surrounding leaders nodded in predatory agreement.

Only Ji Lan frowned slightly.

Noticing this, Sect Leader Xiong of the Mountain Sea Sect tilted his head. “Sect Leader Ji, do you possess a differing perspective?”

Ji Lan quickly smoothed his features into an amiable smile. “I wouldn’t dare. Brother Zhong’s strategy is fundamentally sound, and I fully support it. However…”

“I am not overly concerned with the Incense Burner Path. No matter how wildly they proliferate, we have completely quarantined the borders of the State of Chen. They cannot spread outward, and culling them will simply be a matter of time. My sole, lingering dread is reserved for the Heavenly Gate Sect’s Ning Daohuan.”

“I have crossed blades with the man before,” Ji Lan said, his voice dropping into a solemn register. “His mind is an abyss. He is flawlessly meticulous. He knows perfectly well that our Five Sects harbor immense hostility toward him and are lurking in the shadows. Would a man of his intellect truly bleed his sect dry against the Incense Burner Path, just to let us play the fisherman?”

“I fear this is an elaborate, lethal trap.”

Ji Lan’s grim assessment struck a nerve, dousing the group’s arrogance with cold reality.

Ciren Pengcuo of the Great Sun Gate nodded slowly. “Sect Leader Ji speaks wisdom. We must maintain absolute paranoia regarding Ning Daohuan. And do not forget—according to Ji Lan’s own intelligence, the Heavenly Gate Sect boasts twenty Golden Core True Persons and commands five massive garrisons. Their foundation vastly eclipses any single one of our sects. Do not underestimate them. When we strike, it must be with world-ending force!”

“Agreed!”

“Agreed!”

The Golden Core True Persons voiced their unanimous assent.

“For now, we watch. Let us see how much blood this Heavenly Gate Sect and Incense Burner Path war spills,” Ji Lan murmured, his eyes locking onto a tiny black speck on the western horizon.

It was the location of his former home—the Eastern Sage Sect garrison.

…

Boom! A crimson figure violently exploded backward from a cloud of dust, retreating in absolute disarray.

Recovering mid-air, the zealot scrambled frantically, attempting to flee into the forest.

But before he could cover a dozen yards, a phantom-like shadow blurred past him!

The crimson figure spewed a massive arc of blood across the sky, his trajectory instantly violently plunging toward the earth.

Just before he could be crushed against the jagged rocks, a massive, sapphire-blue hand composed entirely of Magic Power materialized from the void. It snatched the crimson figure out of the air like a fly, then viciously swatted him into the dirt.

The concussive impact rattled the zealot’s soul so violently that his Spiritual Terrace temporarily shut down, leaving him entirely paralyzed and unable to summon a single thread of Magic Power.

Two figures melted out of the surrounding shadows, standing over the broken man.

It was Wang Ba and Shen Fu.

“I apologize, Senior Brother,” Shen Fu muttered, his face tight with shame. “If you hadn’t intervened, I would have let him slip away.”

“It’s fine,” Wang Ba smiled, shooting his Junior Brother a scrutinizing glance.

He could tell Shen Fu’s mental state was deteriorating. The youth was distracted, constantly warring with some internal demon. But since Shen Fu hadn’t spoken up, Wang Ba respected his boundaries and didn’t pry.

He stepped up to the paralyzed Second Order Incense Burner Path cultivator. After verifying the man was still conscious, Wang Ba ruthlessly clamped his hand over the top of the zealot’s skull and initiated the Soul Searching Technique.

Extracting memories from a Second Order Foundation Establishment cultivator was exponentially harder than a First Order pawn, and Wang Ba felt a sharp, grinding strain in his own mind.

Fortunately, he ripped out a goldmine of raw tactical intel.

Yesterday, Lu Yuansheng engaged six Third Order Incense Burner Path cultivators simultaneously… and fought them to a complete standstill. As of right now, Lu Yuansheng is the only Golden Core elder from the Heavenly Gate Sect deployed to the front lines. The whereabouts of the remaining twenty elders are unknown. Sect Leader Ning Daohuan is entirely MIA. Yan Yun is currently butchering his way through the northern territories. In response, Zheng Yuanhua has deployed a strike team of Perfection-stage and Late-stage Second Order Cultivators to lay a lethal trap for him. Zhu Ziji, Cui Fengcheng, and Yang Lie are highly active across the eastern front… Zheng Yuanhua, feeling the pressure of the Heavenly Gate Sect’s offensive, ordered this specific zealot to ride south to conscript reinforcements, and to deliver a highly classified message regarding… Pop. Wang Ba barely had time to throw up a dense Magic Power barrier around himself and Shen Fu before the zealot’s head violently expanded and detonated, turning the man into a gruesome crater of blood and bone shrapnel.

“What absolute madness! They are using mid-tier officers as couriers and still rigging their souls with suicide curses,” Wang Ba muttered, wiping a speck of gore off his barrier.

“Still, the intel confirms it… the Heavenly Gate Sect is truly committing to a war of annihilation. But why are all the Golden Core True Persons hiding?!”

Wang Ba was completely baffled.

On paper, the Heavenly Gate Sect commanded twenty-one Golden Core elders. Led by Ning Daohuan, that force was easily enough to scour the entire State of Chen and slaughter the Incense Burner Path ten times over. Even if they were paranoid about the Five Sects stabbing them in the back, sitting idly by while a virulent parasite devoured their territory was tactical suicide.

Yet, bizarrely, despite deploying hundreds of Foundation Establishment disciples, the sect had achieved almost nothing. Instead of crushing the zealots early, they had watched them mutate into a continental threat whose blade was now pressed directly against the Heavenly Gate Sect’s throat.

Wang Ba couldn’t reconcile this suicidal incompetence with the terrifyingly calculating, hyper-predatory sect that had masterminded the silent, overnight coup of the Eastern Sage Sect over a decade ago.

The entire war reeked of an elaborate, horrifying conspiracy.

But I am just a low-level pawn. The games played by gods are beyond my sight. I just know that staying in the State of Chen is a death sentence. Everything is wrong here… the Five Sects, the Heavenly Gate Sect, the Myriad God Kingdom, and whatever the hell is brewing in Qianyu Lake. I need to return, hand in my mission, and immediately grease some palms with Lu Yuansheng to see if I can transfer Junior Sister and Shen Fu to the Sword Billow Garrison. We need to hide out until this blows over. It’ll also give me the perfect excuse to Seclude myself and forge my second Dantian… Wang Ba aggressively suppressed the spiraling thoughts. Relying on the fresh intel extracted from the exploded zealot, the duo rapidly adjusted their exfiltration route.

Oddly enough, Wang Ba no longer dreaded running into Incense Burner Path patrols.

With the zealots’ elite heavy-hitters massing around Zhongyuan City, the rear-guard cultivators were entirely outclassed by Wang Ba’s Kaiju-tier spirit beasts and Shen Fu’s suicidal explosive artifact tactics.

Plus, stripping a dead zealot of a lifetime’s worth of hoarded loot was an intoxicatingly profitable endeavor. The risk-to-reward ratio was so astronomically skewed in their favor that even the hyper-paranoid Wang Ba found himself actively hunting.

However, the southern routes were practically desolate.

After flying for half a day, Shen Fu suddenly skidded to a halt mid-air. He stared down at a seemingly idyllic canyon with profound suspicion.

The valley below was a picturesque painting—a babbling brook winding through a meadow bursting with hundreds of blooming, vibrant wildflowers. It was quiet, serene, and entirely mundane.

“Is someone down there?” Wang Ba asked, his voice dropping to a whisper as his eyes scanned the empty meadow. He saw absolutely nothing.

“There’s… a massive Formation cloaking that valley,” Shen Fu replied, his expression grave as he secretly consulted the ancient demon residing in his mind. “A very high-tier Formation.”

A hidden Formation?

Wang Ba’s heart skipped a beat, though he didn’t doubt Shen Fu’s terrifyingly sharp intuition for arrays.

But who would burn the resources to establish a high-tier cloaking Formation in the middle of nowhere? Especially deep inside Incense Burner Path territory?

“Incense Burner Path zealots?” Wang Ba asked, his muscles tensing.

“Most likely… judging by the raw energy draw of the array, there’s a heavy troop concentration hiding inside,” Shen Fu analyzed meticulously.

Wang Ba didn’t hesitate for a microsecond.

“Then we widen our arc and completely bypass it. Move.”

“Understood!”

The duo instantly banked hard, carving a massive, evasive detour around the invisible kill-zone.

What they didn’t know was that deep within the illusion, twelve Second Order Incense Burner Path zealots were staring intensely at a massive, shimmering water-mirror.

The mirror perfectly tracked Wang Ba and Shen Fu’s fleeing silhouettes.

As the two dots vanished over the horizon, the zealots collectively exhaled, the suffocating tension leaving the cavern.

“Why the hell were there cultivators out here?!”

“I don’t know. Rogue Cultivators scavenging the warzone?”

“They didn’t spot us, right?!”

“The Divine Object is our absolute, supreme priority! If our location is compromised, the Divine Envoys will flay us alive!”

“We weren’t spotted. The Third Order Illusion Array is flawless. Two Foundation Establishment runts couldn’t possibly pierce it. But seriously… why haven’t the Divine Envoys signaled us? When are we supposed to transport the Divine Object to the front?!”

“Who knows? Keep your mouths shut and wait! Maybe the Divine Envoys will manifest their supreme power and slaughter the Heavenly Gate Sect without even needing the weapon.”

“True…”

Outside the illusion, Wang Ba and Shen Fu continued their relentless flight south, blurring past rolling hills, dense forests, and scattered mortal settlements.

There were bustling villages and farming towns. Yet, beneath the chaotic veneer of mortal life, there was a deeply unsettling, unnatural synchronization.

One moment, a village of two hundred houses would be completely still. Then, the exact second the sun hit its zenith, every single chimney in the settlement began billowing smoke simultaneously.

It was as if an invisible puppeteer had yanked a string, forcing every single mortal to drop their tools, walk to their hearths, and ignite their fires in the exact same fraction of a second.

The terrifying, robotic uniformity sent a profound, freezing chill down Wang Ba’s spine.

“This is the true horror of the Incense Burner Path,” Wang Ba whispered, piecing together the shattered memories he had ripped from the zealots. “Once a mortal becomes a ‘believer’ of these profane deities, they are reduced to meat puppets. Their entire existence—beyond the bare minimum required for biological survival—is hijacked to act as a battery, generating a perpetual stream of faith energy.”

Shen Fu’s face tightened in revulsion.

Compared to this systemic, absolute erasure of human free will, the Heavenly Gate Sect was practically benevolent. Yes, the Heavenly Gate Sect occasionally butchered mortals for blood-sacrifices, but they did it in the shadows. The Incense Burner Path had literally transformed an entire nation of humans into mindless livestock, existing solely to feed the parasitic gods of the Myriad God Kingdom.

The oppressive reality of the world they lived in hung heavily over both men.

Two days later.

They finally breached the southern border of the State of Chen, officially crossing into the southwestern quadrant. The Eastern Sage garrison was drawing closer.

However, the further north they pushed toward the garrison, the denser the enemy patrols became.

They even spotted a Heavenly Gate Sect cultivator in the distance, but Wang Ba refused to make contact. In a war where Body Seizing was a standard tactic, an ally’s face meant nothing.

The sheer density of the patrols confirmed they were nearing the frontlines.

Crunch. Shen Fu casually crushed the skull of a First Order zealot into a fine paste with a localized gravity spell.

Wang Ba ignored the gore, his brow locked in a fierce scowl as he stared at his map.

He had just interrogated the now-dead zealot, and the intel was disastrous. Their planned exfiltration route relied on slipping past Water Controlling City. Unfortunately, the city had been heavily fortified and was now a major Incense Burner Path staging ground.

Worse, Meng Xing Village—located barely a hundred miles from the city—was acting as a secondary garrison.

Wang Ba knew both locations well. Meng Xing Village was the site of his very first sect mission, and he had followed Bai Yu to Water Controlling City shortly after. It was there he had resurrected Zhao Feng and achieved a foundational breakthrough in his Dao.

“Both Water Controlling City and Meng Xing Village are going to be absolute meat grinders to pass through,” Wang Ba muttered. “It looks like we’re going to have to forcefully breach this final blockade.”

According to the dead zealot, Water Controlling City housed over thirty Foundation Establishment captains and an uncountable swarm of Qi Refining fodder. Sneaking past a perimeter that dense was mathematically impossible.

As Wang Ba’s eyes traced the map between the two strongholds, his gaze snagged on a specific geographic anomaly.

“Yutang Mountain?”

A dormant memory from nearly a decade ago violently surfaced. He remembered dispatching a human puppet to deliver a mortal to Meng Xing Village. The puppet’s visual feed had inadvertently captured a secluded mountain valley harboring twenty to thirty towering ‘Thousand Spirit Trees.’

“Thousand Spirit Trees… a resource that vital absolutely demands an Incense Burner Path guard detail.”

“The mountain sits roughly two hundred miles from Meng Xing Village and three hundred miles from Water Controlling City…” Wang Ba’s mind raced with tactical arithmetic. “If I launch a catastrophic raid on Yutang Mountain, the commanding officers in both strongholds will panic over the loss of their strategic resources and deploy heavy reinforcements to secure the area.”

“If we time the diversion perfectly…”

Wang Ba’s eyes ignited with a predatory gleam.

The strategy was beautiful in its simplicity. He quickly outlined the operation to Shen Fu.

“The only blind spot is the combat strength of the guards stationed at the mountain itself,” Shen Fu analyzed cautiously. “However, given that the war is currently concentrated around Zhongyuan City, they likely haven’t wasted their elite heavy-hitters guarding a grove. It would be a massive misallocation of resources.”

“Exactly.” Wang Ba nodded.

With the tactical insertion planned, they immediately veered off-course and burned toward Yutang Mountain.

They maintained maximum stealth, hugging the earth and utilizing every scrap of cover to avoid the sky-patrols. Despite several agonizingly close calls, they managed to infiltrate the perimeter undetected.

However, as Wang Ba peered over the ridge into the valley, his brow furrowed.

There were no Thousand Spirit Trees.

The valley was a mundane, overgrown depression choked with wild grass and weeds. The only notable feature was a cluster of bubbling, sulfurous hot springs dotting the landscape.

“It’s an illusion array,” Shen Fu stated instantly, his eyes tracking invisible ley lines.

Wang Ba wasn’t surprised. A resource node this close to the Heavenly Gate Sect’s borders demanded heavy security. A cloaking Formation was standard protocol.

“Can you crack it?” Wang Ba asked.

Shen Fu’s face hardened as he rapidly consulted the ancient demon in his mind. A moment later, he nodded. “I can. But I need your Magic Power to act as a battering ram, Senior Brother.”

“Say the word.”

Shen Fu blurred into motion. He produced a handful of specialized, rune-etched spikes from his Storage Bag, violently driving them into specific, mathematically calculated weak points in the earth around the valley’s rim.

Minutes later, Shen Fu raised his hand. “Now!”

Wang Ba unleashed a torrential flood of Magic Power, channeling it directly into the network of spikes.

“Rise!” Shen Fu roared.

The spikes violently erupted, transforming into glowing, ethereal array flags! The conflicting energy frequencies violently jammed the illusion array.

Like shattering glass, the mundane valley of weeds evaporated.

In its place stood a majestic grove of towering, perfectly straight trees. Resting gently upon their emerald leaves were thousands of luminous, colorless droplets.

“Divine Essence Dew!”

“The Thousand Spirit Trees!”

At the base of the nearest tree, a disheveled zealot, his robes half-undone, stared blankly up at Wang Ba, his brain completely failing to process the sudden disappearance of his fortress.

Beneath him, a half-naked female cultivator let out a piercing, hysterical scream…

…

Simultaneously.

Far to the north, inside a heavily fortified command tent outside Zhongyuan City.

Zheng Yuanhua, who was currently reviewing casualty reports, suddenly violently seized, his face draining of all color.

“Not good! Yutang Mountain is under attack!”