Chapter 481: Dao Contest

"Now?" The Penglai Dao Lord laughed. "You truly believe speed is precious in war."

"Dealing with Black Lunar isn't the hard part. What worries me are the life-preserving methods he might have; killing him by myself might take some time. And just like the Ten Great Immortal Dao Sects are of one family, the Six Great Fiendish Dao Sects have their own alliance agreement. If I can't bring Black Lunar down quickly, the Dao Lords among the Six Great Fiendish Dao Sects who are close to him are bound to come to his aid. So I'd like you to hold off his reinforcements for a while," Yaoguang said. "The Yin Lunar Sect's territory is not small. If the Penglai Immortal Sect ever gets tired of staying overseas, you could come inland and settle on the old Yin Lunar Sect grounds. The Nine Cauldrons Sect would welcome you warmly."

"I've no objection to that. But there's something you should be careful about," the Penglai Dao Lord cautioned. "The moment you achieved Dao Integration, you caused the deaths of three void Dao Lords, Unchained, Extinction and Kunpeng, directly or otherwise. At the time, you were at the critical juncture of your life, so however brutal your resistance, it fell within reason, and nobody said a word about it. But your integration is over now. If you move against Black Lunar, it will very easily make the other Dao Lords wary."

She went on, "The void Dao Lords especially. The loss of three void Dao Lords already has them panicked, and if you keep carrying yourself this openly, you may find the void Dao Lords banding together to force you out of the Dao Contest early."

"I understand." Yaoguang nodded slightly.

A top-tier Dao Lord was powerful, but not invincible. The Penglai Dao Lord could hold her own against three at once without giving ground. If five moved against her, she would be overwhelmed, and if eight or ten came at her together, her life would be in danger.

But Dao Lords of the Dao of origin were few, and short of something as momentous as the Dao Contest, that one chance at immortality, no Dao Lord would go out of his way to offend a top-tier Dao Lord like her.

Yaoguang was different. There were dozens of void Dao Lords, and each of them was his natural competitor. If he came across as too aggressive and made them feel genuinely threatened, they would certainly join forces and clear him out ahead of schedule.

"When I was achieving integration, the Black Lunar Fiend Sovereign and the Light Divine Venerable had a hand in it alongside Extinction and the others. All of them tried to interfere with my Dao Integration. Every grievance has its author and every debt its debtor, so once I've wiped out those two Dao Integration cultivators I'll stop there," Yaoguang explained.

"You want to go after the Light Divine Venerable as well?" The Penglai Dao Lord's tone turned a little helpless. "The nine great fiend sovereigns of the Six Great Fiendish Dao Sects aren't to be trifled with as it is, and if you add the ten ancestor gods on top of that... Let me say this up front. If you really enrage both those powers into joining hands against you, I won't be able to hold them off."

"These so-called alliances amount to less than they sound. The fiend sovereigns and divine venerables close to those two, or that share common interests with them, will act. The rest will absolutely stand by with their hands in their sleeves. Even if they genuinely decided to act together to get revenge... They are nineteen Dao Integration cultivators, and it should be seventeen by then; half of them taking the field would be the absolute limit." Yaoguang saw it clearly. "Between the two of us, the Central Heaven and Sovereign Radiance Dao Lords standing firmly on our side, and with the other Dao Lords of the Ten Great Immortal Dao Sects lending their strength, we could beat them back easily enough."

"So you've already thought the consequences through." The Penglai Dao Lord sighed. "They may not retaliate in the short term. But as more and more void Dao Lords return from the starry sky and learn that there's a highly aggressive threat like you here, the outcome may not be the same."

"By then I'll have refined one or two semi-immortal artifacts, and the sect-protecting grand array will likely have been upgraded to a quasi-immortal array. Let them come. I won't fear them," Yaoguang said.

The Penglai Dao Lord thought his approach was rather aggressive, but she let it go.

"Alright. There's a revenge element to it in the end. After these two fights, you'll thoroughly offend the Six Great Fiendish Dao Sects and the Ten Divine Races, but the Ten Great Immortal Dao Sects were never their allies to begin with. As for the void Dao Lords, you are their natural competitors anyway, and a fight is inevitable. It's just a matter of when it would break out. Since you've made the corresponding preparations, I won't try to talk you out of it," she told him, before estimating how long she would need to act. "I can reach the Yin Lunar Sect in about half an hour."

"I'll take the teleportation array straight to the southern domain and go on to the Yin Lunar Sect from there," Yaoguang said. "Among the Six Great Fiendish Dao Sects, the Innate Fiend Sovereign of the Heavenly Fiend Sect has always regarded himself as the leader of the Fiendish Dao, so he's certain to make a display of it. And the Yellow Springs Cult Master of the Yellow Springs Cult and the Nine Hells Fiend Sovereign of the Blood River Sect are both close to the Black Lunar Fiend Sovereign. If any of the other eight great fiend sovereigns come to reinforce him, it will be those two. Just hold them up for me."

"The Innate Fiend Sovereign, the Yellow Springs Cult Master, and the Nine Hells Fiend Sovereign. You certainly know how to pick opponents for me," the Penglai Dao Lord said.

Yaoguang could practically picture the exasperated look on her face as she rolled her eyes. He laughed. "Only long enough to slow them down. I'm sure you can do it, Dao Lord."

"Fine," the Penglai Dao Lord answered, resigned. "I'll go straight to where the Heavenly Fiend Sect borders the Yin Lunar Sect."

Yaoguang ended the call and headed straight for the teleportation array, though while he waited for it to open, he sent word to the Central Heaven Dao Lord.

It was not that he failed to understand what would come of cutting down one veteran Dao Lord after another the instant he became one himself. But he had to be ready for the worst-case scenario.

From the moment he learned that cultivation for Dao Lords of the same Dao came down to shares, he knew that he and the other Dao Lords of the void were bound to become enemies.

And once the Dao Contest broke out, it would be all too easy to hammer down the nail that stuck out.

Unfortunately, he was that nail now!

Had he not displayed sufficient strength, and had he not won the support of the Central Heaven, Sovereign Radiance and Penglai Dao Lords, the Nine Demon Race Lineages would never have reacted so mildly to his killing of the Kunpeng Demon Paragon.

The reasons? There were plenty!

He would not believe for a moment that no one wanted to know the secret behind how he had achieved Dao Integration in a matter of minutes. Beyond Dao transformation, the greatest danger during the process of Dao Integration came from human tribulation.

If the required time could be compressed to a few minutes, or an hour, a day, a month, or even a year, the risk of human tribulation would drop to nearly nothing.

Given that, if someone wanted to scheme against him, all it would need was to use it as a pretext and demand he hand over the secret; countless others would answer the call at once.

The only reason nobody had acted yet was that they were still watching, or rather that none of them wanted to be the first one to try.

So before things got to that point, he'd have to grow strong enough to weather that storm.

"The nail that sticks out gets hammered down," Yaoguang murmured.

Except deep down, he felt no sense of crisis whatsoever about what might be coming. If anything, and strangely, he was looking forward to it.

As long as he moved fast enough, every crisis would become a wellspring for his own growth, exactly as every peril he had met along the way had been. What could not break him would only make him stronger.

One day he would be like the Primordial Chaos Dao Venerable, dominating an entire era, and the world would set him apart with a name of its own, spoken with the reverence reserved for those above the Dao Integration Realm, and call him Dao Venerable Yaoguang!

"Daoist Yaoguang!"

While Yaoguang was weighing the gains and losses, the Central Heaven Dao Lord arrived in person, in haste.

"Daoist, you want to move against Black Lunar? With the Dao Contest so close at hand, if you slaughter one Dao Integration cultivator after another, I'm worried everyone will start fearing for their life, and once some schemer raises the call, many Dao Lords may attack you together. So please think thrice before attacking Black Lunar," the Central Heaven Dao Lord said quickly, trying to dissuade him.

Yaoguang's expression remained composed. "I'm aware that striking repeatedly will make many Dao Lords on the North Sea Star wary of me. But when I was achieving Dao Integration, Extinction, Kunpeng and Jade Scale came at me one after another, and Black Lunar and the Light Divine Venerable held you and Sovereign Radiance in check. They moved to harm me first. Now that I've integrated successfully, avenging that grievance is only reasonable. Even if word of it spreads, the circumstances excuse it, and it won't necessarily leave the Dao Lords wringing their hands."

"That may be so, but the Dao Contest is near, and several Dao Lords have already died because of you. If you strike again now, you'll inevitably push yourself into a corner, where every move you make could be misjudged and turn the situation into a bottomless abyss you won't be able to escape from," the Central Heaven Dao Lord said earnestly. "If you absolutely must have revenge on Black Lunar, why not wait a while longer? Another three or four hundred years at most. Even before the Gate of the Immortal Realm opens, that still counts as the accepted Dao Contest cycle, and by then battles between Dao Lords on the North Sea Star will be routine. If you move against Black Lunar then, it will hardly draw notice at all."

"Waiting three or four hundred years for the Dao Contest would make less noise, true. But by then the nine great fiend sovereigns of the Six Great Fiendish Dao Sects will have formally signed their mutual defense agreement, and if we move on Black Lunar then, the others will have to reinforce him whether they want to or not," Yaoguang explained patiently. "Right now the agreement exists as an understanding, but it was never actually signed. The fiend sovereigns who are only on middling terms with him, with no interests at stake, can stay out of it entirely. Killing him now is actually easier."

"That's true, but..." The Central Heaven Dao Lord hesitated, then said, "You're a Dao Lord. I'm sure you've already weighed all the facts, so there's no point in me saying more. Only, with the Dao Contest coming, nobody wants to be the first onto the field. Whoever goes first will be the first one ground to dust when the tide rises. Think it over."

"My mind is made up," Yaoguang answered plainly.

Seeing that, the Central Heaven Dao Lord dropped the argument. "Then I'll activate the Twelve-Fiend-God Heaven-Sealing Array right away. If it goes badly, just retreat back inside. Even if all nine great fiend sovereigns come at once, the sect will keep you safe with the strength of the Ten Great Immortal Dao Sects behind us."

Yaoguang smiled at that. The man's meaning was clear enough.

He did not support Yaoguang killing the Black Lunar Fiend Sovereign. But if the Black Lunar Fiend Sovereign and the fiend sovereigns behind him came hunting, then as long as Yaoguang made it back to Heavenly Dao Sect territory, he would gather the other Dao Lords of the Ten Great Immortal Dao Sects and stand against the nine great fiend sovereigns to the end.

"Then you have my thanks, Dao Lord," Yaoguang said with a smile.

"I'm the one who should be thanking you. If you hadn't improved the Twelve-Fiend-God Heaven-Sealing Array, I wouldn't have the confidence to say any of this," the Central Heaven Dao Lord replied, smiling as well.

With that, Yaoguang gave a fist-and-palm salute, turned, and stepped into the teleportation array, which had already come to life.

The Dao Contest!

For everyone else, the Dao Contest was a struggle for the chance to enter the Gate of the Immortal Realm, and it only reached its climax when the gate opened.

But his own Dao Contest had begun the moment he achieved Dao Integration.