After a few weeks.
Neutral State Haan Di. Mainland. Dadangar subcontinent.
Aksai was in the inn room in Haan Di, having just finished his cultivation practice.
The neutral city-state had provided a peaceful respite for the past few weeks, ever since his intense fight with Loshaar and the others.
It was nighttime, and the room was dimly lit by a single lantern. As Aksai began to settle down, he sensed a disturbance in his storage ring. Focusing on his Spirit Sense, he found a communication talisman flashing insistently.
He took out the talisman, recognizing it as a sign that someone was trying to contact him over a long distance. Aksai retrieved an Array Disk and placed it in front of him. With practiced ease, he made a few hand signs, causing the Array Disk to expand around him. He soon sat at the center of a circular Spirit Array Formation filled with intricate Essence Equations.
Aksai then took out 100 Spirit Stones, placing them inside the Array Eye of the formation before positioning the communication talisman in another Array Eye. The connection was established, and the live spectral image of Nuya appeared before him.
She sat comfortably in her garden at night, the moonlight casting a gentle glow on her beautiful face. The communication-type Array Formation around her bathed her in a soft light, making her look even more enchanting.
For a moment, they looked at each other in silence. Finally, Aksai broke the ice with a smile. “Nuya, you’re looking as beautiful as ever.”
Nuya blushed slightly, appreciating the compliment. It felt natural for her to receive such words from Aksai, and she subconsciously thought it was her right. She tucked a strand of silky black hair behind her ear and met his gaze with her charming blue eyes.
“Aksai,” she began, “I contacted you today to let you know that the Big Five Sects have started to crack down on Kalingoot harder than before. They’ve dispatched many of their elders to the Dadangar Archipelago to handle the situation.
What’s even more bizarre is that the Lakir Clan has pulled away from its alliance with Kalingoot. They vanished overnight. Now the Dadangar Archipelago is in turmoil with constant battles between the Foundation Building Experts of both sides.”
Aksai listened intently as Nuya continued, detailing the recent happenings in his absence. She described how island owners associated with Kalingoot had to either flee for their lives or were brutally killed by the Big Five Sects.
Her voice was calm, but the gravity of the situation was clear.
“The Emerald Cove has been affected too,” Nuya added. “We’ve had to tighten security and lay low to avoid attracting attention. It’s a tense time for everyone involved.”
***
Aksai knew this was something that was bound to happen. The reason why he had decided to kill everyone involved in the battle outside Cavereach City was related to this.
Aksai knew he couldn’t simply kill the elders of the Big Five Sects without repercussions. That’s why he had decided to flee the scene as soon as he found out Calla was onto him. However, when he encountered Loshaar and his forces, he found some hope of taking revenge on Calla without suffering the consequences.
Aksai had decided to kill everyone involved on the battlefield for the same reason. If he were to kill members of both the righteous and demon factions, the fight between them would intensify somewhere. The Dadangar Archipelago was just the first of many regions affected by this conflict.
Of course, Aksai hadn’t planned to spare Liana at first. However, seeing that she was quite different from many of the scumbags in the Lakir clan, he decided to bet on her. This was why he influenced her to go to the Sninayun Empire.
Without the Lakir clan, the core soldier strength of Kalingoot had been severely affected. After all, the Lakir clan still possessed many Spirit Refining cultivators that could be used as foot soldiers in battle. Most importantly, these cultivators could be effectively used in battle formations.
Kalingoot had acquired many battle formations by paying a heavy price for them inside the 3rd-order cultivation cave. These battle formations could be used as the main form of attack in Kalingoot’s conflicts with the Dadangar Alliance. In fact, Kalingoot had successfully tested these formations by attacking a few islands that were part of the Alliance.
As such, Kalingoot had distributed these battle formations among many groups of Spirit Refining cultivators. The reason why Shen Ji and Kau Lou could have their subordinates use the battle formations was also due to this generous distribution initiated by Kalingoot.
The battle formations had the potential to give Kalingoot an edge in its ongoing fight against the Alliance. After all, the Foundation Building Experts could act like commanders in the war, but they alone couldn’t do much. A war needed foot soldiers as much as it needed powerhouses—maybe even more in some cases.
The bulk of the foot soldiers that Kalingoot wanted to employ in its battles against the Alliance came from the Lakir clan. The Lakir clan members were the ideal puppets and foot soldiers Kalingoot could use to expand its influence in the Dadangar seas before finally taking over the region.
However, thanks to Aksai’s influence over Liana and his decisive battle against Loshaar and Zeesham’s forces, that equation was altered to such an extent that nobody saw it coming. Firstly, Kalingoot lost its biggest contributor necessary to deploy the battle formations. Secondly, the exit of the Lakir clan created a lot of unrest within Kalingoot itself.
Kalingoot wasn’t as cohesive as the Dadangar Alliance. The only reason this organization sustained in the Dadangar Seas was because of the members’ common goal to keep the righteous sects away from claiming the cultivation resources produced in the Dadangar Seas. So when the news of the Lakir clan’s exit broke out, the cracks within the organization became even more visible.
During the last few weeks, the Big Five Sects made use of the unrest within Kalingoot and struck hard with the additional deployment of Foundation Building Experts in the Dadangar seas. This was why the sea region was so restless these days.
Of course, Aksai didn’t tell Nuya that he was the reason for the recent happenings in the seas. It was not like he had harmed his own foundations. On the contrary, his intervention had allowed Emerald Cove to take a breather. Even though the seas were restless, Aksai’s island was relatively safe. The chances of his island getting embroiled in the conflict between the righteous and demonic factions were extremely low.
As long as he and Nuya played their cards right, this conflict would not harm them. Plus, there was a small chance the conflict could benefit them instead.
At this point, Aksai also felt relieved that he had let Liana go. Her exit from Kalingoot seemed insignificant at first, but it was what set the chain reaction in motion.
Most importantly, Kalingoot had declared the Lakir clan to be its enemy after its sudden disappearance. It also did not help that Loshaar Lakir was found to be directly responsible for the deaths of the Big Five Sects’ elders, which was the root cause behind the sects’ aggressive actions.
Kalingoot felt like it was paying the price for the Lakir clan’s mistakes. So it naturally declared the clan and all its members to be the organization’s enemies. This ensured the clan would not be able to resurface anywhere in the Dadangar subcontinent.
Under pressure from both the righteous and demonic factions, the Lakir clan had only one way to survive: leave the subcontinent and reach the Shinayin Empire. As such, Aksai had no doubt that Liana would be forced to choose the only saving grace he had offered her.
Of course, Aksai hadn’t given this path to survival to Liana and her clan members entirely out of the goodness of his heart. He wanted to use her to test the authenticity of Mao’s memories.
Mao had tried to kill Aksai using his healing-type talismans. He had also planned to use Aksai to create some kind of dummy avatar of himself and live through the avatar. Even though Aksai had spoiled Mao’s plans, he needed to make sure that the information he obtained from the demonic cultivator could be trusted.
Aksai didn’t want to underestimate a notoriously famous late-stage demonic cultivator even after his death. He was perfectly capable of setting up traps in his memories for someone like Aksai. The Lakir clan members were the perfect guinea pigs for this task.
Aksai also planned to go to the Shinayin Empire in the future when his cultivation base reached a certain extent and he could no longer keep growing in the Dadangar subcontinent.
He didn’t need to follow in Liana’s footsteps to ensure the validity of Mao’s memories and the safety of using Mao’s map. As long as he could be assured that Liana had not met an accident during her three-year-long journey to the Shinayin Empire, he could be confident in using Mao’s map for himself.
After all, Aksai had a communication jade handed to him by Liana, which was a convenient way for him to know if she was alive or dead.