Chapter 653: The Calamity Of The Beast Taming Sect

As with the habitual nature of his host body, Li Fan struck Xu Ke with a claw.

Then a flood of memories surged naturally into his mind.

After he and Xu Ke had returned to the Beast Taming Sect from the Southern Abyss Sacred Beast Mountain, they had learned that Sovereign Tapir Tertius and Senior Brother Lu Ya had both gone out on business and were nowhere to be found.

The promised mission reward had naturally gone unfulfilled, so Xu Ke kept harping on about it.

Of course, in Li Fan's view, this was more a matter of Xu Ke's pure longing for Senior Brother Lu Ya. After all, as orphans from the Xuantian Temple in Ningyuan City who had come to the Beast Taming Sect together, Xu Ke and Lu Ya could well be described as family that depended on each other for survival.

Ignoring Xu Ke's chatter, Li Fan closed his eyes, focused his mind, and began cultivating the Creation Forge Technique.

Truly, after being remolded by Mister Bai, it had become a perfect technique. Since he'd begun cultivating it, not only had his physical body grown far stronger, but his essence, spirit, and energy had also increased daily. Even if he went a day and night without rest, he felt no fatigue.

More importantly, the bloodline of the Heaven's Will Xuan Bird within him also seemed to be growing purer by the day.

Li Fan's feathers, already black and lustrous, now occasionally shimmered with iridescent light in the sunlight, making him seem exceptionally divine and majestic.

Xu Ke couldn't help reaching out to stroke him from time to time, only to be ruthlessly smacked away by Li Fan.

The benefits brought by the bloodline's purification were truly comprehensive.

He now executed the divine ability Heaven's Will is With Me with increasing ease, nourishing Xu Ke's providence while feeding back into himself.

Currently, Li Fan had reached the first critical threshold recorded in his inherited memories: he could create a Heaven's Will Domain of a certain radius around himself, one that could attract good fortune, avoid calamity, and even repel enemies.

One should know, among the Heaven's Will Xuan Bird Clan, this was usually an ability only achieved by adult Xuan Birds over a hundred years old.

And yet, less than five years had passed since Li Fan had broken out of his shell. He was still a juvenile.

That he could break the laws governing a demonic beast's growth was proof enough of the transcendent nature of Mister Bai's Creation Forge Technique.

After returning from the Fallen Immortal Realm, every technique aside from the rewards gained from fulfilling obsessions will be forgotten. I wonder whether the Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Sutra changes that. Li Fan pondered the profundities of the Creation Forge Technique.

Even if he couldn't bring the technique itself back to reality, the insights he gained while cultivating something so magnificent were deeply beneficial to him.

So even though the plot of the Fallen Immortal Realm wasn't advancing, he felt no urgency, and immersed himself in cultivation day after day.

Then, one day, Li Fan jolted awake from deep cultivation.

A sudden throb of agitation surged through him, and he lifted his head to gaze at the sky.

It was still clear. And yet Li Fan could see it: a pervasive, overwhelming aura of slaughter and death, almost solidified, rolling in like black stormclouds. It pressed down on the heart, suffocating and terrifying all at once.

This is... the Exclusivity of Techniques. The realization settled over him.

Moments later, cries of alarm broke out one after another across the Beast Taming Sect.

"What is happening?!"

"There are 36,482 people currently cultivating the Beast Taming Art?!"

"No matter how I circulate the technique, I can't make any progress!"

"This is utterly absurd!"

For a sect that cultivated almost exclusively a single technique, the calamity of the Exclusivity of Techniques was nearly catastrophic.

Almost anyone could foresee what extreme measures these countless cultivators would take once they found themselves trapped at their current realms, lifespans nearly exhausted, grasping at straws for survival.

And so the disciples of the Beast Taming Sect were plunged into panic. In an instant, they distanced themselves from one another, looking at the fellow brothers and sisters they had cherished just moments before with suspicion.

Restrained only by reason and conscience, no cultivator had chosen to attack yet.

Even with the sect leader and the various elders stepping forward to calm the crowd, they could not stop the terrifying atmosphere from festering within the sect.

Slowly, some began to buckle under the pressure and slip away in secret. Under the constant, crushing mental strain, other disciples' eyes burned red as their sanity began to fray.

It was a powder keg, waiting for a single spark from an unknown source to set it all off.

At this crucial moment, Sovereign Tapir Tertius and Lu Ya returned.

"Did you bring it back?" Lu Ya asked Xu Ke the moment he saw him. His face was calm, betraying no alarm whatsoever.

Xu Ke nodded. From the beast pouch at his waist, he withdrew a small, still-sleeping lump of flesh.

It was the strange exotic beast gifted by Sovereign Primus, one capable of splitting itself apart to produce offspring.

At the sight of it, a flicker of joy crossed Lu Ya's face. He took the lump with great care, studying it closely for a long moment before finally letting out a breath of relief.

"Brother Lu, what's so important about this little thing that you'd be so anxious over it?" Xu Ke knew Lu Ya wasn't one to show joy or anger easily, so this departure from his usual demeanor piqued his curiosity.

"Heh. It's our hope for surviving this calamity," Lu Ya said slowly, a strange, unreadable light passing through his eyes.

"This thing?" Xu Ke's eyes went wide, his face a mask of disbelief.

"You'll understand in time." Lu Ya offered no further explanation and hurried off.

He left behind only a thoroughly baffled Xu Ke and a Li Fan lost in thought.

Three days later, the Beast Taming Sect's sect leader convened a sect-wide assembly. Facing the calamity that had descended upon the world, he announced a series of plans.

First, to prevent the mutual slaughter the Exclusivity of Techniques would bring, all disciples, starting with the sect leader himself, were to temporarily disperse the Beast Taming Art, retaining only their cultivation.

Second, the entire Beast Taming Sect was to evacuate the Xuanhuang Main World in batches, retreating into prepared grotto-heavens and minor worlds for safety.

Because a Beast Taming Sect cultivator's strength lay almost entirely in the demonic beasts they commanded, even after dispersing their technique, their actual combat power would barely be reduced.

For most disciples, their demonic beasts had been carefully nurtured from the moment of birth, and the bond between them was already formed. Even without the Beast Taming Art, nothing would hinder them from commanding their beasts.

Since this plan could prevent the sect from devolving into mutual slaughter, few opposed it. As for the handful who were unwilling, once the sect leader led by example, they had no choice but to agree.

As for how one could go about dispersing a technique without harming their cultivation...

Li Fan watched as Xu Ke muttered an incantation under his breath. In an instant, he had scattered his technique, transforming it into pure cultivation stored within his dantian.

The Taishang Primordial True Scripture?

Li Fan was familiar with this scene and instantly recognized the method the Beast Taming Sect was now employing.

He'd only taught the method of operation, saying nothing of its origin.

What's going on here? At this point in time, the incident of the Heavenly Venerable Dao Teacher forcibly seizing the Taishang Primordial True Scripture shouldn't have happened yet.

Where did the Beast Taming Sect get this method from?

In that instant, an image of a figure in white robes flashed through Li Fan's mind.

Was it him?

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