Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Unaware of the fact that He Jie had somehow ended up finding himself within the territory of his sect and had already been noticed by a group of patrolling disciples, Xuan Hao remained focused on comprehending the Dao of Space alongside the Dao of Formations. Feeling that while it might not be possible for him to jump all the way from the Perfection Realm to the Origin Realm in a single step, he did at least manage to lay down a solid path to follow. Making reaching the Origin Realm in the future far easier.

The one problem he did find himself encountering as he remained stationary observing the battle playing out, was the fact that the battle that seemed to not be progress in the slightest did turn out to favor one side… And that side wasn’t the guardian formation of the ancient secret realm, but instead the spatial storm that seemed to be slowly increasing in strength and size. Pushing against the barrier created by the guardian formation in an attempt to contain it before it could expand out and tear apart the secret realm from the inside out.

Although this happened slowly, it did spell out the end for the ancient secret realm, as there was no way it would be able to survive if the guardian formation ended up faltering under the pressure of the spatial storm.

The only positive was that the rate at which the guardian formation was losing out was slow enough that there was more than enough time for him to leave. Not just would he be able to easily avoid the spatial storm, but by the time the guardian formation buckled under the pressure of the spatial storm, most of the ancient secret realm’s inhabitants would have long since died of old age.

Estimating based on what little he could comprehend of the guardian formations current power and that of the spatial storm, he guessed that it would take between two hundred to three hundred years before the guardian formation broke.

Of course, before that happened, most of the ancient secret realm would get swallowed up by the spatial storm as it continued to slowly expand even with the guardian formation trying its best to seal it off and prevent it from doing so. Expanding at a pace that would swallow up the holy lake and the few villages around it over the next few weeks.

Unfortunate as this was for the locals, there wasn’t really anything he could do about it with his current strength outside of warning them ahead of time… Though… Looking at the terrifying battle between the spatial storm and the guardian formation, it wouldn’t be surprising if those people hadn’t already run away ahead of time.

In fact, as his divine sense swept over those villages that had once been filled with people striving to ascend through the traditional immortal cultivation path, he only found the older woman who had broken through to the Core Formation Realm thanks to his help still lingering around at the very edge of her village. Looking towards the chaos that had consumed the core of the holy lake with a complicated expression on her face.

Given the fact that she had reached the Core Formation Realm and had just recently gained the ability to utilize her newly formed divine sense, she had already sensed his presence as he hadn’t hidden himself… And together with him, she had also ended up seeing the terrifying clash playing out between the guardian formation and the spatial storm.

The complicated expression on her face almost definitely emerged because she already somewhat understood that he was the one behind the current state of things and didn’t know how to feel. After all, while he had helped her breakthrough to the Core Formation Realm, the current deadly situation that she and her people found themselves facing was also due to his meddling.

It was also because of this that he didn’t interact with the other party, as he had no way to explain the current situation to her in case she asked. After all, he couldn’t just tell her that he had essentially ended up dooming the entire ancient secret realm with his actions.

Even if what had happened would eventually come to pass when one of those demon beasts ended up throwing out a spatial attack towards the formation core within the dark space while the spatial storm outside was still raging, it was a fact that his actions had inevitably ended up accelerating the destruction of the ancient secret realm. Dooming not just the villages surrounding the holy lake, but all the people living within the boundaries of the ancient secret realm.

The worst part of it was the fact that he couldn’t make use of his Dao of Space to carve open a passage for the people of the ancient secret realm to escape through, as the spatial storm surrounding the ancient secret realm on the outside made such a thing impossible to accomplish with his current comprehension of the Dao of Space.

If anything, attempting to recklessly carve open a passage leading back to the Ewaria Continent might end up backfiring. Giving the spatial storm another way into the ancient secret realm, thus accelerating the destruction of the ancient secret realm.

Of course, he could always make use of the formation disc that Li Feng had used to enter the ancient secret realm to create a temporary passage relying on the predecessors who already had fully established spatial passages in place cable of cutting through the spatial storm.

But…

Doing so wasn’t exactly reliable for evacuating an entire secret realm with millions of people inside of it. Especially given the fact that the spatial passage created in this manner wasn’t one that could remain for more than a few minutes before the spatial storm ultimately tore it apart and closed the passage forcibly like it had done when he had followed behind Li Feng into the ancient secret realm.

Although it was possible to reestablish and reopen the passage again, he had clearly sensed that doing so would strain the ancient spatial passage and over time, the spatial storm would fully sever this passage and make it impossible to use again.

The only realistic way he could think about when it came to evacuating the residents of the ancient secret realm was to somehow make use of the countless ancient spatial passages that had once connected the ancient secret realm to the divine continent that had now split up into several large continent like the Ewaria Continent and countless smaller continents and islands now scattered throughout the endless ocean.

The problem with doing this was that although he could now rely on his strength not being sealed to use his divine sense to find these ancient spatial passages, it was impossible to determine what was on the other side of those ancient spatial passages and if they were even safe to go through in the first place.

After all, from the sweep of the ancient secret realm he had done earlier, he had already found some of these ancient spatial passages, but found himself unable to determine where they led, as they stretched far beyond the Ewaria Continent towards what he guessed was past locations on the divine continent that had now split apart that had once been under the control of the Noble Li Clan.

Still, just leaving the residents of the ancient secret realm to slowly perish with the slow but inevitable collapse of the guardian formation of the ancient secret realm wasn’t exactly something he wanted to happen. Especially with him being the main reason behind the current disaster that the ancient secret realm was facing.

Because of this, as he mulled over the situation and what to do while still partly focused on comprehending the Dao of Space and the Dao of Formations from the growing battle not too far away, he ultimately came to the conclusion that he would give the locals a chance to escape the ancient secret realm and leave their ultimate fate up to chance.

Planning to first inform them about the situation before taking the time to briefly reestablish those ancient passages out of the ancient secret realm after informing the locals about the situation and what was going to happen to the ancient secret realm.

Given the strength of some of these ancient spatial passages, the locals would have anywhere between a few minutes to leave and a few weeks for some of the stronger spatial passages that should once have served as main spatial passages connected to important locations under the Noble Li Clan.

With how slow the collapse itself would be, those who wanted to could always just decide to stay and live out the rest of their life before the ancient secret realm ultimately collapsed, while those who wanted to leave could not just leave, but also get a chance to enter a place with a far better cultivation environment than the desolate secret realm they called home…