I Shall Be Everlasting In the World of Immortals
Chapter 435: Fame Shakes the Eastern Region, Eve of the Decisive Battle

Chapter 435: Fame Shakes the Eastern Region, Eve of the Decisive Battle

When Lan Chang'an returned to the frontline stronghold, True Monarch Fang had already led the demonic army to retreat in an orderly manner, withdrawing dozens of li away.

Clearly, they had received news of the battle at Yuanliu City and no longer dared to continue fighting.

“True Monarch Lan, we have completed our duty.”

Several Core Formation cultivators in charge of defending the city came forward to report and returned the puppets previously entrusted to them.

Having lost their fourth-rank demon king, a demonic army led by only a single Nascent Soul cultivator had failed to breach the stronghold in a short time.

“Well done. I will request merit for you.”

Lan Chang'an put away several slightly damaged puppets without complaint, then smiled and asked:

“How did the puppets perform in the defense?”

“Reporting to True Monarch, third-rank puppets are highly effective for defending the city. Though they consume a great number of spirit stones, they greatly reduce casualties.”

“Unfortunately, such high-grade puppets are too rare. During wartime, they’re practically priceless.”

The Core Formation cultivators were very satisfied with the performance of the third-rank puppets.

Non-puppet masters couldn’t fully harness the power of puppets, especially in high-speed, chaotic battles. But in defensive warfare, it was a different story, the puppets’ sturdy materials, lack of fear, and resilience significantly reduced the losses among Righteous Dao Alliance cultivators.

“I’ll have Alliance Leader Chu try to acquire more second and third-rank puppets from the Two Sects’ territory.”

Lan Chang'an nodded with a smile, laying some groundwork.

During wartime, all sorts of war materials would skyrocket in price, puppets, talismans, and magical treasures.

Lan Chang'an planned to refine a large number of second and third-rank puppets and talismans, secretly trading them with Alliance Leader Chu in exchange for military merit.

Among them, puppet refining took the most time, but he had Puppet Master Wei to assist him and handle the majority of the crafting process.

Lan Chang'an only needed to personally refine the core components, which required a true puppet master’s soul power and secret puppet arts.

In this way, he could profit handsomely from the war, solidify his craftsmanship cultivation, and reduce casualties among the alliance’s cultivators, it was a triple win.

At the Nascent Soul stage, possessing two third-rank crafts was considered quite normal.

The true bottleneck was reaching fourth-rank proficiency.

Lan Chang'an possessed three fourth-rank crafts, and refining second to third-rank puppets and talismans could be done with ease and efficiently.

...

Dozens of li away, above the clouds.

True Monarch Fang released his Nascent Soul aura, guarding against Lan Chang'an and Lord Earthrock chasing them down in the retreat.

Fortunately, Lan Chang'an did not pursue.

Fang did not regret his earlier decision to let Lan Chang'an go.

The disastrous news from Yuanliu City had made him reassess Lan Chang'an’s strength upward.

Someone this difficult to deal with… there was no need to become sworn enemies.

In the end, it would be Beast King Valley who ruled this territory, not Nether Spring Sect.

As reinforcements, he had no direct interest in clashing with Lan Chang'an or the Righteous Dao Alliance.

Lan Chang'an stood expressionless, watching the demonic army’s retreat led by True Monarch Fang.

“Now is not the time to strike at True Monarch Fang. Regardless of the outcome, it would draw the attention of the Demonic Sect’s leader, the Underworld Demon Lord.”

Lan Chang'an harbored wariness toward True Monarch Fang as well.

As the disciple of the Demonic Path’s foremost leader and a suspected reincarnated cultivator Fang definitely had powerful means of self-preservation.

Based on available intelligence and divination, the Grand Elder of the Nether Spring Sect was one of the most threatening individuals to Lan Chang'an in the entire Eastern Region.

It was rumored that during the Demonic Path’s retreat in the Central Region years ago, the Underworld Demon Lord had used his sect’s ultimate treasure and second Nascent Soul to delay the Nascent Soul Great Cultivator for a considerable time.

...

Back at the stronghold, in his private cave residence.

Lan Chang'an set up layers of formation arrays and seals, then retrieved the sealed jade box containing True Monarch Black Feather’s Nascent Soul.

The tiny figure of a man in black robes, looking like a baby, was frail and weakened. Poison ran deep through his body, frost covered his form, and restrictive talismans sealed his movements.

“Turtle Lan! Even though I’ve fallen into your hands, I will never reveal a single secret!”

Black Feather’s Nascent Soul gritted his teeth, snarling defiantly as he struggled weakly in Lan Chang'an’s hand.

He still had the option to self-destruct his divine soul.

But a fully intact Nascent Soul spirit still had a chance of survival, many opportunities of survival, in fact.

For example, if the tide of the war shifted in favor of the Demonic Path, Beast King Valley might ransom him.

As the first Demonic Nascent Soul ever captured alive by the Righteous Dao Alliance, he was likely to be used as a bargaining chip.

And if Lan Chang'an were to fall in the future, he might be rescued outright, it was not impossible at all.

“Heh.”

Lan Chang'an didn’t bother with any conversation. He gripped the weakened Nascent Soul tightly and connected to the Nine Seal Stele in his mind.

Buzz—!

The ancient, mysterious stele lit up with a hazy white light, and that radiance flowed down Lan Chang'an’s consciousness and arm, instantly enveloping Black Feather’s Nascent Soul.

“No! This is—!”

True Monarch Black Feather instantly sensed an immense, indescribable terror. His scream was one of sheer panic as he was dragged into the stele by an overwhelming force of reincarnation law, shattered into particles in an instant.

“Eighty-five percent.”

In the final moment before his awareness vanished, Black Feather vaguely heard Lan Chang'an’s whispered murmur.

Lan Chang'an’s consciousness entered the Nine Seal Stele.

Within the engraving of the Fifth Life, the illuminated region had indeed expanded by another ten percent.

Now, only fifteen percent remained to fully light up the Fifth Life.

The Fifth Life of the Nine Seal Stele corresponded to the Deity Transformation stage.

To fully unlock it, one would need to either devour a single cultivator at the Deity Transformation stage, or consume ten Nascent Soul spiritual bodies.

Lan Chang'an’s heart stirred with anticipation. After devouring the first Nascent Soul, Master Lihuo, he unlocked the stele’s basic functions and three self-controlled reincarnation abilities.

Now he wondered if the Fifth Life was fully awakened, what new abilities might emerge?

...

Following this period, Lan Chang'an began organizing the vast ocean of fragmented memories left behind by True Monarch Black Feather.

Within Black Feather's sea of consciousness, the core secret techniques and inheritances of Beast King Valley had been sealed with powerful restrictions. Without a cultivation level far beyond his own, it would’ve been impossible to extract these through soul-searching.

However, after being devoured by the Nine Seal Stele, all such techniques, sect secrets, and even forbidden knowledge became laid bare, only requiring time to sift through the disordered fragments.

Because Lan Chang'an had not yet activated a full reincarnation transformation, he could only access this knowledge as a third-party reader, not as a direct inheritor of a past life.

Thus, unlike with Master Lihuo, he couldn’t fully awaken the Fourth Life or convert Black Feather into one of his past reincarnations to inherit his techniques, divine abilities, and every facet of his cultivation knowledge.

Even so, the knowledge and memories obtained were exceedingly valuable.

First and foremost, he acquired a complete beast-taming inheritance from Beast King Valley, including several non-transmissible secret arts.

Lan Chang'an had no intention of switching to the Beast Taming path, but this knowledge could greatly help him in training and developing the skills and talents of his own spiritual beasts, such as the Profound Water Turtle and Lord Earthrock.

Beast King Valley’s legacy spanned over ten thousand years, originally a splinter sect from a top-tier beast-taming sect in Central State. Even viewed from across the Heaven Honoured Continent, this inheritance was nearly top-tier.

The memories also included internal secrets of Beast King Valley and its strategic deployments on the demonic warfront.

However, given the risk of soul-searching and interrogation, Beast King Valley likely took precautions. Their strategies might now be adjusted.

A slight disappointment, Black Feather was not one of the valley’s core elders. He didn’t know nearly as many secrets as Elder Ten Thousand Crane would have.

Still, there was deep insight into the Black Heaven Wings, including secret arts for integrating wing-type magical treasures with cultivator bloodlines.

Unfortunately, Lan Chang'an didn’t have Black Feather’s unique bloodline, so he couldn’t replicate this technique. Not that he wanted to become a birdman, anyway.

...

After the fall of True Monarch Black Feather’s soul, the Myriad Souls Hall in Beast King Valley reacted, and the upper echelons were immediately alerted.

The reaction among their elders was a mix of rage and shock.

They had assumed Lan Chang'an would use the captured Nascent Soul as a bargaining chip, stretching things out over time.

Even if he intended to soul-search or interrogate him, that would still take time.

But while Lan Chang'an was organizing Black Feather’s memory fragments over the span of half a month, he also sent word to Alliance Leader Chu at the main battlefield of Feng Kingdom.

Among neighboring frontlines, urgent messages could be transmitted quickly, but only in the form of emergency alerts or calls for aid, brief and coded.

For detailed intelligence, it was still necessary to rely on scouts and runners.

With Black Feather perishing so swiftly, Lan Chang'an explained it thus:

“True Monarch Black Feather was unyielding. During interrogation and torture, he self-destructed his soul and perished.”

The reason was plausible enough and didn’t need to be airtight.

Lan Chang'an wasn’t worried about the Nine Seal Stele’s secret being exposed. In the cultivation world, especially among demonic and evil sects, countless soul-refining techniques and Nascent Soul-devouring methods existed.

After all, a cultivator’s Nascent Soul was a great supplement for both humans and demonic beasts.

A few days earlier.

The frontline zone corresponding to Beast King Valley was reinforced with a young Nascent Soul cultivator, replacing the fallen Black Feather.

Not only that, but in the area under Lan Chang'an’s command and its adjacent fronts, all fourth-rank demon kings and aged high-level war beasts had been withdrawn.

Lan Chang'an found this slightly regretful, he had lost the chance to bully the elderly.

In that battle, where he captured Black Feather’s Nascent Soul and destroyed Elder Ten Thousand Crane’s physical body, Lan Chang'an’s name was catapulted to fame.

His renown now extended beyond the Righteous Dao Alliance and the demonic battlefield.

It would soon resound across the entire Eastern Region.

Even the Central Region of Great Qing and the other major regions would soon learn the name of Evergreen True Monarch.

Within the three nations of the Righteous Dao Alliance, no one dared doubt that Lan Chang'an was now the second-in-command, ranked only behind Chu Tianfeng.

At the same time, public appraisal of Lord Earthrock and Fairy Xia had also risen significantly.

After all, in that battle, they had played crucial roles in the capture of True Monarch Black Feather.

Rumors began to circulate that Lan Changqing may have entered some ancient ruin or secret realm and obtained great fortune and treasures.

Otherwise, how could Lord Earthrock and Fairy Xia possess such powerful magical treasures unseen in nearby territories, as if conjured from thin air?

There were even whispers that Evergreen True Monarch might be a reincarnated mighty cultivator, otherwise, how could someone of such mediocre aptitude, starting out as a loose cultivator reach such a level?

To all these rumors, Lan Chang'an merely smiled and paid no mind.

At his current stage, the so-called “secrets of fortune” and “miraculous inheritances” no longer needed to be hidden out of fear of others’ greed.

He had already stepped into the circle of true power.

...

Half a month later.

After initially organizing True Monarch Black Feather’s memories, Lan Chang'an prepared to set off on a trip back to the Righteous Dao Alliance’s Headquarters.

At present, the battlefront region where Lan Chang'an and Fairy Xia were stationed had seen a significant reduction in pressure.

With the withdrawal of Beast King Valley’s fourth-rank demon kings and high-rank battle beasts, they had temporarily abandoned their offensive on this region.

Only some minor skirmishes remained, scout battles, small-scale frictions, and the maintenance of intelligence channels.

Even so, Lan Chang'an and Fairy Xia alone were enough to restrain the three Nascent Soul True Monarchs aligned with Beast King Valley in the region.

Beast King Valley had now shifted its primary assault front to the southern theater of Feng Kingdom.

The mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator, Alliance Leader Chu, and Sect Master Meng of Beast King Valley were both engaged along that warfront.

With the loss of two Nascent Soul combatants in a short period, Beast King Valley no longer had a clear advantage in top-tier strength. Even if the Righteous Dao Alliance’s Nascent Soul True Monarchs took the initiative to fight outside the cities, they wouldn't necessarily be outmatched.

At best, Beast King Valley retained a numerical advantage of one additional mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator.

According to intelligence, Beast King Valley had also begun recalling its elite troops and battle beasts previously dispatched to support the Seven Kingdoms Alliance, and had started mobilizing reinforcements from its rear territories.

Amid such a backdrop, Lan Chang'an felt secure enough to personally return to headquarters.

He left Lord Earthrock behind to guard the stronghold, along with several third-rank puppets.

The headquarters of the Righteous Dao Alliance wasn’t far from the frontlines, with a Nascent Soul cultivator’s travel speed, the journey wouldn’t take long.

As soon as he arrived at the mountain city where the Alliance’s headquarters was based, Yin Yuanhai who was stationed there came out to greet him personally.

“Congratulations, True Monarch Lan! Capturing and defeating two Nascent Soul cultivators of the Demonic Path, you’ve turned the tide of the war and earned unmatched merit. My master praises you endlessly, and I myself admire you deeply.”

“Had I known, I would’ve fought beside you that day…”

This time, Yin Yuanhai was far more enthusiastic and full of flattery.

Lan Chang'an simply gave a half-smile, not bothering to expose Yin Yuanhai’s insincerity.

After all, before the great battle, Yin Yuanhai had repeatedly requested to be reassigned, just to avoid remaining under Lan Chang'an’s command.

Who would’ve thought that the moment he left, Lan Chang'an would accomplish such an enormous feat?

Even True Monarch Golden Moon of Proud Moon Palace and Fairy Xia had received shares of the military merit.

Naturally, Yin Yuanhai felt some regret.

As a newly advanced Nascent Soul cultivator of less than a century, he was at the stage of desperately needing resources and opportunities, particularly battlefield merit.

“True Monarch Lan please, the headquarters has already finalized your battle merits.”

Still wearing a smile, Yin Yuanhai escorted Lan Chang'an into the mountain city.

“Greetings, True Monarch Lan!”

“Congratulations on slaying a Nascent Soul demonic cultivator!”

All along the way, cultivators near the headquarters proactively greeted and congratulated him. Many looked at him with genuine respect and admiration in their eyes.

After this war exploit, True Monarch Lan had become one of the most revered Nascent Soul cultivators across the Righteous Dao Alliance’s three nations, peerless among early-stage Nascent Soul cultivators.

Yin Yuanhai saw all of this and felt a tangle of emotions.

He recalled the first time he met Lan Chang'an, back then, he had challenged him to a duel, something laughable in retrospect.

Now, he had to face an embarrassing truth: not only could he not defeat Lan Chang'an, but he couldn’t even beat his woman or his pet.

During that duel, even Lord Earthrock hadn’t used its treasures or full power, it had clearly been holding back.

...

Upon entering the headquarters, Lan Chang'an received a massive amount of battle merits, which could be exchanged for treasures and resources.

The sheer size of his merit tally required review and confirmation by multiple elders, including Alliance Leader Chu and Six Sun True Monarch.

The merit exchange vault was supplied by all sects and cultivation clans within the alliance, including city markets and independent factions.

For sub-Nascent Soul cultivators, this treasure vault was a dream, there was no lack of Core Formation opportunities and even had some spiritual materials for forming a Nascent Soul.

However, at Lan Chang'an’s current level, very few of the items in the vault were of value to him.

Fourth-rank materials made up only a small portion.

Lan Chang'an spent his merits liberally, exchanging for the fourth-rank materials and refining components he needed.

Most of these overlapped with common puppet materials, so there was no risk of revealing his identity as a fourth-rank puppet master.

In addition, Lan Chang'an exchanged for large quantities of second and third-rank talisman and puppet materials.

With these, he could continue profiting from the war through crafting and trade, while also reinforcing battlefield supply lines.

After exiting the vault, he still had a good amount of merit left.

“True Monarch Lan, my master instructed me if there are rare materials not found in the vault, he’ll coordinate with other Nascent Soul cultivators in the alliance to help fulfill your needs.”

“Good. This jade slip contains my materials list.”

Lan Chang'an had prepared for this and handed over a jade slip.

He’d already mentioned this request in a prior letter to Alliance Leader Chu.

Knowing that Great Qing’s resources paled in comparison to Great Yuan’s, Lan Chang'an didn’t make any outrageous demands.

Aside from materials needed for constructing a future fourth-rank puppet battle formation, Lan Chang'an also wanted to refine and repair the Five Birds Venom Fire Fan, which he had obtained from Old Evil Shen.

Back then, Shen had commissioned someone to craft the fan based on blueprints for a spiritual treasure, hoping to create a top-grade magical treasure.

However, due to the difficulty of refining a top-grade magical treasure, it resulted in the final product being unsuccessful, the fan had flaws and didn’t meet expectations.

But the fan’s design perfectly suited Lan Chang'an’s wood-elemental techniques, so he planned to repair it.

The Five Birds Venom Fire Fan not only housed powerful poison fire techniques, but also contained three venomous feathered needles hidden within its structure.

If successfully refined and restored, and then paired with the three higher-quality Feathered Needles taken from Elder Ten Thousand Crane, it could become a formidable, vicious artifact with a full spectrum of offensive utility.

Moreover, the experience of refining and repairing such a complex item was itself extremely valuable.

Creating a true spiritual treasure was not something Lan Chang'an dared attempt yet.

But in the future, if he reached mid to late-stage Nascent Soul, and if conditions allowed, he might try to craft a pseudo-spiritual treasure version of the Five Birds Venom Fire Fan.

...

Lan Chang'an spent only half a day at the Righteous Dao Alliance headquarters. After exchanging a vast amount of resources, he returned to the frontline stronghold.

In the region where he and Fairy Xia were stationed, Beast King Valley had largely abandoned large-scale offensives.

Across the other warfronts, the intensity of the cultivation war had also diminished from what many had anticipated.

The main reason was that Beast King Valley had lost two Nascent Soul-level experts, and no longer possessed the strength to crush their opponents outright.

In fact, Beast King Valley had never truly wanted a full-scale war to begin with, but under the unseen hand pushing events forward, they had sunk deeper and deeper into the quagmire.

“The next few years will likely be a stage of attritional stalemate,”

Lan Chang'an, based on current intelligence and divination arts, had already foreseen this development.

And indeed, over the next three to four years, the war with the Demonic Path fell into a deadlock. Both sides continued to pour in "expendable" resources, fighting sporadically and strategically.

The Righteous Dao Alliance maintained a defensive posture, occasionally launching precision strikes, losing only a few outposts and minor cultivation cities.

As the aggressor, Beast King Valley suffered heavier losses, initially in spiritual beasts and war pets, and later in human cultivators as well.

Two years ago, Lan Chang'an launched a surprise raid into the southern warfront of Feng Kingdom, deploying the Withering Extinction Divine Light, and once again slew a fourth-rank demon king.

Beast King Valley’s Sect Master Meng flew into a rage, intent on hunting Lan Chang'an down on the spot, but was blocked by Chu Tianfeng.

During these years, a number of second and third-rank puppets began appearing across the major fortified cultivation cities of the Righteous Dao Alliance, far more than in previous wars.

Notably, True Monarch Zhang of Jin Yun Valley deployed a quasi–fourth-rank war puppet to defuse a surprise attack from Beast King Valley, where they were outnumbered.

This batch of mid-to-high-ranked puppets significantly reduced casualties among the Alliance’s cultivators.

There were rumors that Alliance Leader Chu had secretly sent agents into the Two Sects’ territory, commissioning batches of these puppets.

But other whispers claimed that True Monarch Lan was the true mastermind behind it.

Beast King Valley even hired the Unseen Gate to investigate the puppets’ source and attempted ambushes along the Two Sects' trade routes, but turned up nothing.

In this span of years, Lan Chang'an made a killing, profiting massively from the war.

Via his accumulated military merit, he obtained the fourth-rank materials he’d long sought, including rare materials needed to repair the Five Birds Venom Fire Fan.

Just last year, Lan commissioned Zhang Tianfeng to secretly refine and upgrade the damaged fan.

He also used the opportunity to offload a batch of spoils, including magical treasures and rare materials he no longer needed.

Zhang Tieshan, long used to Lan Chang'an’s secrets, became increasingly wary of his hidden strength.

Based on just the residual aura and characteristics of the looted treasures, it was clear that multiple Nascent Soul cultivators had died by Lan Chang'an’s hand, far more than publicly known.

As he needed to repair the spiritual treasure, Zhang Tianfeng was eager to accept all kinds of magical treasures and rare ores to fuel his repairs, especially for a project like the Five Birds Venom Fire Fan, which required absorbing high-grade metals and matching components.

...

Unknowingly, Lan Chang'an was now 435 years old.

This cultivation war initiated and steered by him had, at last, reached its decisive final stage.

Inside his main chamber at the stronghold, Lan Chang'an sat cross-legged, nourishing and refining the newly repaired Five Birds Venom Fire Fan.

It was an ancient-looking black feather fan, with five large feathers as its core, glowing faintly in five hues, green, blue, red, purple, and cyan.

He had also reforged the three Feathered Needles taken from Elder Ten Thousand Crane, coating them with fourth-rank hybrid venom, and hidden them within the fan’s internal mechanisms.

“Uncle Lan! News from the southern front in Feng Kingdom, confirmed intel: Beast King Valley’s Grand Elder has appeared!”

A graceful woman in a flowing green dress entered the chamber, holding a command token, it was Zhao Tan’er.

“I already know.”

Lan Chang'an ended his session and stepped out to greet the only remaining disciple of an old friend.

Zhao Tan’er had once struggled to reach late-stage Core Formation, but with Lan Chang'an’s gift of breakthrough pills and spiritual items, she had successfully advanced.

Several years ago, Lan Chang'an used his authority in the Alliance to transfer Zhao Tan’er to his frontline, both to watch over her and to help her accumulate war merit.

The front he managed was relatively safer with Beast King Valley withdrawing its main force.

Many of the influential connections among the upper ranks of the Righteous Dao Alliance were eager to send their disciples or descendants to the area guarded by True Monarch Lan.

“Based on past experiences, the Grand Elder of Beast King Valley tends to be indifferent to sect management and rarely participates in the Demonic war. However, once this elder appears on the battlefield, Beast King Valley is likely to take major action, potentially even leading to a decisive battle.”

Lan Chang'an stood atop the city wall, gazing toward the borderlands controlled by Beast King Valley.

That morning, his fourth-rank divination had sensed a subtle shift in fate.

The three Nascent Soul cultivators of the demonic side, who had long stood in balance with him, had all recently withdrawn from the frontline.

Not only that, but a large number of Foundation Establishment and Core Formation cultivators from the enemy side were also retreating en masse.

It seemed they were being relocated to the southern theater in Feng Kingdom.

Prior to this, Lan had received word from Alliance Leader Chu, asking him to prepare to reinforce the main battlefield.

If True Monarch Fang and the other two left, he and Fairy Xia would need to respond accordingly.

...

Lan Chang'an flew out from the stronghold, scanning the region with his spiritual sense to assess the situation.

At the same time, he transmitted a message to Fairy Xia to be on standby.

If anything went wrong, they would both rendezvous and reinforce the southern front.

If the main battlefield collapsed, the remaining fronts would be beyond saving.

Just as Lan Chang'an was about to meet up with Fairy Xia—

RUMBLE—

From the direction of Beast King Valley’s border, an overwhelming Nascent Soul aura erupted like a rising tide.

The oppressive pressure that followed dwarfed every Nascent Soul cultivator Lan had ever encountered on the battlefield.

Lan’s heart clenched slightly, this presence surpassed even that of the Golden Kun Old Monster he’d once faced in Great Yuan.

“Little friend Lan… Where are you off to in such a hurry? Why not stay for a chat with this old man today?”

From the distant clouds came a low rumble, like thunder muffled in cotton, as a plump, smiling old man with a round Buddha-like face emerged from the mist, eyes twinkling, staring directly at Lan Chang'an.