"Preparing to rebel?"
Li Wei waved his hand, dismissing Li Xinghuo to go speak with his sons, Li Xinri and Li Xinjue, hoping to thaw the nearly frozen relationship between the estranged father and his children.
Watching Li Xinghuo stand before the two brothers with a towering, majestic demeanor, Li Wei's brows furrowed deeply.
Li Xinghuo had relayed many troubling details about the Northern Frontier to him.
The Grand Tutor had indeed been acting increasingly erratic lately.
Back when Demon Emperor Xuweng first manifested in the Northern Frontier, the Demon Race and the Wu Tribe had forged a deadly alliance.
Exploiting a moment when the Wu Tribe had brutally breached the Western Frontier, Demon Emperor Xuweng launched a massive, coordinated invasion into the Northern Frontier.
It was the perfect opportunity to marshal the entire might of the Demon Race to crush the North, especially with a second Demon Emperor abruptly joining the fray.
Faced with such apocalyptic odds, Lin Jiu had frantically requested reinforcements from the Dynasty, only for the Imperial experts to repeatedly drag their feet with hollow excuses.
The Dynasty had blatantly adopted a posture of sitting on the mountain to watch the tigers fight, hoping the Grand Tutor and the two Demon Emperors would bleed each other dry so the Imperial Family could swoop in to reap the spoils.
Yet, defying all expectations, from that day onward, it was the Demon Race that steadily retreated, while the Grand Tutor launched a relentless counteroffensive.
Li Xinghuo still didn't know the full truth of what had transpired during that bloody period, but the Dynasty's cowardly inaction had sown deep seeds of resentment across all major factions in the Northern Frontier.
Even if the Grand Tutor remained fiercely loyal to the throne, how could he possibly suppress the mounting fury of countless experts who were growing increasingly disillusioned with the Dynasty?
The only reason they hadn't shown their hand yet was because the Northern Frontier still bore the crushing, suffocating pressure of the Demon Race.
Perhaps all it would take was a single misstep for both sides to completely shatter the fragile peace.
"Motherfuckers, you Imperial dogs are truly despicable."
Li Wei raised a brazen middle finger in the general direction of the Imperial Capital.
However, after retracting his hand, Li Wei raised his eyebrows with a slight, helpless sigh.
In truth, looking at the bigger picture, the Dynasty couldn't shoulder all the blame.
Every single one of the Dynasty's Crown Princes was utterly useless.
Never mind Crown Prince Sheng—as for Crown Prince Fei Heng, the clan had painstakingly nurtured the boy for three hundred years, only for him to idiotically entangle himself with Min Tiange and throw his future away.
"Let it burn to the ground, then; it's completely out of our control." Li Wei shrugged dismissively.
He shifted his gaze toward the towering iceberg, where his descendants were busily hauling plundered treasures in every direction, and a warm trace of gratification flashed through his eyes.
Indeed, who gave a damn what happened to the Dynasty? The Li Clan had long since grown accustomed to thriving and expanding in the face of absolute adversity.
Among the thousands of battle-hardened descendants who had just returned from the Auric Empire, three exceptional talents in the Divinity Transformation realm had managed to catch Li Wei's discerning eye.
[Li Xinfeng, the fifth son of Li Xinghuo, age two hundred and thirty-eight.]
[Blessed with a dual-element Spiritual Root, he was sent from the harsh Northern Frontier to the clan at a young age.
Receiving vigorous, focused nurturing in the Azure Cloud Prefecture over the decades, and after consuming the clan's Primal Blood Fruit, Qilin Blood, Dragon Blood, and Myriad Dharmas Spiritual Spring...
He survived the brutal wars against the Wu Tribe in the Auric Empire, seized rare treasures, and forcefully broke through to the fourth-tier Divinity Transformation realm.]
...
[Li Zhige, son of Li Xinghuo's fourth daughter Li Xinyu, age two hundred and forty-two.]
[Born to a father who married into the family, he spent years hunting beasts in the perilous Northern Frontier. Catching the appreciative eye of Li Zhijing, he was brought back to the main clan for proper cultivation.
After consuming the Primal Blood Fruit and Qilin Blood... he pushed his limits and broke through to the third-tier Divinity Transformation realm amidst the slaughter of the Auric Empire.]
...
[Li Jianping, granddaughter of Li Xinjue, age one hundred and seventy-two.]
[Transferred from Silver Moon City to the main clan for cultivation... Her extraordinary, explosive physical strength earned the profound appreciation of Daoist Mosquito of the Ephemeral Grotto-Heaven in the Azure Cloud Prefecture.
Gifted a drop of precious heartblood, she awakened an innate "Blood-Drinking" physique and spectacularly shattered her bottlenecks to reach the fifth-tier Divinity Transformation realm in the Auric Empire.]
...
Standing among these elites were countless other battle-tested clansmen in the Nascent Soul and Golden Core realms.
At this very moment, they were happily reuniting with their elders, passionately recounting the grueling hardships they had endured while operating deep behind Wu Tribe lines over the years.
However, seeing so many of the aged, graying clansmen huddled among them—wrapped in thick furs and breathing out white plumes of frost to stave off the iceberg's biting chill—Li Wei couldn't help but let out a heavy sigh.
These children had also marched boldly into the Northern Frontier.
In their youth, they had harbored immense, boundless confidence. Yet, after struggling bitterly through decades of blood and frost, they still couldn't escape the tragic fate of their mediocre aptitudes, failing to even cross the threshold of Foundation Establishment.
For some children, even repeatedly consuming precious medicinal pills designed to enhance Spiritual Roots couldn't force a heaven-defying change.
Moreover, with the clan's massive population now swelling to nearly ten thousand, it was mathematically impossible to provide top-tier pills for every single mouth.
After all, even if they strip-mined the entire Azure Cloud Prefecture, the resources simply wouldn't be enough to defy heaven and alter the destinies of so many people.
To the clan's current standards, merely being born with a functional Spiritual Root was already considered a blessing.
Breaking through to Foundation Establishment remained an insurmountable chasm for the vast majority of ordinary cultivators.
And stepping into the Golden Core realm demanded not just massive stockpiles of resources, but an abundance of sheer, heaven-sent providence.
Not everyone could be a freak like Li Jianning, who had somehow clawed his way to his current realm despite being burdened with a chaotic five-element mixed Spiritual Root.
"Old Ancestor, Father... Father is dying!"
Cutting through the howling blizzard, Li Jianning and Li Jianshu sprinted frantically toward Li Wei, panic written all over their faces.
Li Wei's expression drastically changed.