[Special Event: Crisis of Life and Death]
[Your family has encountered foreign enemies.
They have already entered the Azure Cloud Prefecture, heading toward the locations of the major Grotto-Heavens where your family's experts reside.
They know Azure Cloud Prefecture and your family like the back of their hands.]
[Without exception, they all consist of elders from major sects and immortal clans, or cunning, deeply experienced wandering cultivators of the cultivation world.]
[During these hundreds of years of chaos, every single one of them has waited for opportunities to plunder.
Having survived crisis after crisis amidst troubled times, they are the absolute elites of their respective domains.
In every City, Region, and Prefecture, in every place where opportunities are plundered, they have managed to survive.]
[Emergency Level: Full Stars!]
...
Azure Cloud Prefecture.
This area is the central heartland of the prefecture, where destiny converges, resulting in incredibly dense worldly spiritual energy.
Daoist Mosquito, who arrived from the Northern Frontier to lead the Monster Race, established the 'Ephemeral Grotto-Heaven' here.
The Li Clan possesses a Grotto-Heaven nearby, named Immortal Seed.
Thirty percent of the descendants of the Li Clan, generation after generation, reside here.
Within the Immortal Seed Grotto-Heaven, numerous Tier-4 spiritual veins converge, and massive quantities of heavenly materials and earthly treasures are cultivated.
A rainy night.
Outside the Immortal Seed Grotto-Heaven, in a mountain forest nurtured by fairy spiritual energy for hundreds of years, the rainy night was cloudless, illuminated only by a faint nocturnal glow.
The heavy rain fell on the rocks and vegetation, producing crisp, melodic sounds. Yet, in mid-air, the falling rainwater was suddenly severed, as if sliding off the edge of a massive pane of glass.
Ordinary people would not be able to see it, but a group of over a hundred people had already arrived silently in the rainy night.
At the forefront was Zishu Ling.
This ambitious woman from the royal family wore an expressionless face, but her eyes held an unprecedented high-spirited vigor.
Without moving her body, her eyes shifted slightly to the right.
"Divine Calculator, what is the situation now?"
Behind her stood over a hundred people.
An old man among them stepped forward.
He wore a purple Daoist robe printed with the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams. His face was gaunt and wrinkled, yet his eyes shone brightly.
Holding an abacus in his hand, his five fingers flicked the beads rapidly, producing a clattering sound that surprisingly rivaled the noise of the rain outside.
White silk threads pierced through the rainy night, spreading in all directions.
Finishing this divination, the Divine Calculator smiled. "A sign of Heavenly Favor!"
Hearing this, everyone was overjoyed.
The Divine Calculator of the Southern Sea had cultivated the art of destiny his entire life, capable of predicting the past and future, and divining good and ill fortune.
Relying on such methods, he sought good fortune and avoided disaster in these chaotic times, allowing him to travel anywhere in the world.
Countless people would gladly offer heavenly materials and earthly treasures just to beg for a single divination from him.
"With Uncle Rain bringing down the rain, there is nowhere in Azure Cloud Prefecture we cannot go, and we can support each other at any time.
Drenched in this downpour, the Li Clan can neither escape the rain nor the prefecture itself."
The Divine Calculator stroked his beard, looking profoundly unfathomable.
"However, I have placed karmic threads on our fellow Daoists. All good and ill fortune lies within this abacus of mine."
"The Li Clan's Yunlin and the Li Clan's Old Ancestor have already confronted Young Master Banshu.
Trapped within the Young Master's spatial rules, even the Li Clan Old Ancestor's spatial rules cannot help him escape.
We simply wait until our business is concluded, and then we will go annihilate those two."
"The Li Clan's Merit Grotto-Heaven has already been approached by Daoist Qiuyue leading his men. Daoist Qiuyue is truly decisive in his killing."
Great fortune!
With the Li Clan's two strongest individuals trapped, and the most difficult to breach Merit Grotto-Heaven fallen, what else was there to fear?
At this moment, the eyes of the over a hundred people were darting around wildly.
Now that the overall situation was set, they had to think carefully about how to secure more benefits for themselves.
Zishu Ling was equally ecstatic in her heart, though a trace of regret flashed in her eyes.
Had she known Perfected Qiuyue would conquer Merit City so easily, she should have taken the task for that side.
Now, she had handed the Merit City—the place that could boost one's prestige the most—over to Perfected Qiuyue.
"Mister, please divine if there are any arrangements inside the Immortal Seed Grotto-Heaven.
This will allow us to quickly dispatch these Li Clan juniors and then go assist Perfected Qiuyue."
Zishu Ling was impatient. Feeling the numerous cultivators behind her, her heart swelled with passion.
Almost there, almost there.
The cultivators who came on this trip were all top-tier experts.
If they served under her in the future, each could take charge of a sector on their own. Why worry about not being able to ascend to the royal court in the future?
With Zishu Ling's prompt, the Divine Calculator smiled faintly.
Flicking the abacus, how could a tiny Immortal Seed Grotto-Heaven escape his brilliant calculations?
The sound of his wrinkled hands flicking the beads gradually slowed down, but this calculation took far longer than the previous ones.
Seeing this anomaly, Zishu Ling furrowed her delicate brows tightly. "Mister, did you divine some trouble?"
"Drip..."
She felt increasingly that something was wrong.
There was no rain beneath their Spiritual power, yet the sound of a water drop echoed.
It was a bead of sweat falling onto the abacus.
"Clatter, clatter, clatter..."
It wasn't the Divine Calculator of the Southern Sea flicking the abacus; it was his hands trembling, causing the abacus beads to jump up and down.
The Divine Calculator... was trembling!
"Mister!" Zishu Ling's heart pounded violently.
"Could it be a trap inside the Immortal Seed Grotto-Heaven?"
Following the Divine Calculator's movements, she saw his neck stiffen as he slowly raised his head.
As he looked up, his eyes widened more and more.
With great difficulty, he turned his head to look at the hundred-plus cultivators who had come with them.
"No."
The Divine Calculator's originally clear old eyes now held only the murkiness that follows absolute terror.
He had divined destinies his entire life, but this time, he divined the most accurately.
Behind him, fellow Daoists were looking at him one by one.
Zishu Ling's voice grew increasingly anxious. "Mister, exactly what has happened?"
"Gulp."
The sound of the Divine Calculator swallowing hard could be heard.
"How many people came on this trip?"
"One hundred and twenty-four people."
"But..."
The Divine Calculator struggled to control his neck, afraid he wouldn't be able to stop trembling.
He felt his body swaying.
Using all his strength, he replied, "But I calculated, we have... one hundred and twenty-seven people."