With the four fierce beasts wreaking havoc and the three major races unwilling to go all out to eliminate them, dissatisfaction began to brew within the three races.
Primarily, the affiliated races were discontent. For many of them, joining the three major races was already a semi-forced decision. After the great war between the three races, they were filled with resentment due to heavy casualties. Now, with the four fierce beasts rampaging and the three major races unable to provide protection, who could tolerate a life of being a subordinate with no rewards, only losses?
However, they dared not openly resist.
They could only choose to hide, live in seclusion, or find some innate gods and demons and Daoists, sending their direct bloodline descendants or the seeds of their race to become their disciples, or even their mounts.
As long as it offered protection.
Preserving their lives was enough.
This naturally led to the three major races appearing to be on the verge of internal disintegration. When the numbers were small, it was unnoticeable. But as the numbers grew, even the luck of the three races began to fluctuate. Yet, this was indeed their fault, as they couldn't protect their affiliated races. Moreover, they couldn't afford to fall out with those innate gods, demons, and Daoists for the sake of the juniors of the relatively weaker affiliated races.
Demanding the return of those sent as disciples or mounts.
As for finding some affiliated races who wished to hide and live in seclusion, and simply exterminating them, this had been done before. However, it failed to deter the discontented affiliated races.
Instead, it further scattered their hearts and deepened their resentment.
Finally, the three major races deliberated internally and all agreed that the root of the problem lay with the four fierce beasts.
Although they did not form an alliance again, they tacitly agreed that each race would select one fierce beast as their primary target for annihilation. They then began to exterminate the fierce beasts, even bringing along the recruited innate gods, demons, and Daoists to jointly hunt them. This also served as an opportunity to test the strength of these innate gods, demons, and Daoists and gauge their willingness to contribute.
Despite suffering considerable losses in population and casualties from the previous great war, the three major races recovered quickly with the blessing of luck. Coupled with the recruitment of many innate gods, demons, and Daoists, the actual strength they could mobilize surpassed that of the time when the four fierce beasts first appeared and the three races fought independently.
If they had directly confronted the fierce beasts head-on, the latter would undoubtedly have been no match. But the key was that the fierce beasts did not engage in direct combat; they would flee.
How to describe it?
Compared to top-tier gods and demons with intelligence, dignity, and a sense of pride, the fierce beasts lacked intelligence and only possessed instinct. This paradoxically made them less likely to engage in head-on battles or fight to the death. They operated on the principle of killing and devouring if they could win, and fleeing if they could not.
This modus operandi, unconstrained by dignity or pride and solely adhering to basic survival principles, yielded a high survival rate.
For instance, Xiang Yu, if he were willing, could have escaped. However, he would be influenced by his thoughts, morals, and various other factors, making him unwilling to flee and choosing to fight to the end. The fierce beasts were not affected by such considerations.
They simply fled when they couldn't win, specifically targeting the weaker ones and preying on those they could defeat.
What was the result of these circumstances? It led to the three major races, along with the gods and demons who had pledged allegiance to them, to research methods of containment, or rather, ways to prevent the fierce beasts from escaping and keep them perpetually confined to a certain area.
Following this, formations derived from innate formations began to emerge, and through continuous practice, these formations evolved. As the power of the formations grew stronger, it became increasingly difficult for the fierce beasts to escape.
The three major races and some gods, demons, and Daoists.
All began to place importance on researching the Way of Formations.
Even the God of Destruction was no exception.
Consequently, the good days of the four fierce beasts were essentially over. The Dragon Clan, using the Myriad Dragon Formation, was the first to slay Qiongqi. Subsequently, the Phoenix Clan and the Qilin Clan, using the supreme formations derived from their respective races, also annihilated two other fierce beasts, leaving only Taotie to barely survive.
Taotie's survival was not due to its extraordinary power. It was mainly because the three major races corresponded to the four fierce beasts, making the division difficult. They decided to kill one beast per race first.
The remaining beast would be dealt with later.
Then, another problem arose: the three major races began to compete for the spoils.
With four fierce beasts and each of the three major races having killed only one, if one race killed the last one, it would appear, on the surface, that.
That race far surpassed the other two.
Driven by this desire to save face, the three major races began to fight amongst themselves when dealing with the last fierce beast, Taotie. Influenced by the demonic seed of the God of Destruction, this became the catalyst for the second Great War between the three races.
Taotie did not die; the Great War between the three races commenced.
This time, the destruction and impact of the Great War between the three races were even greater than the first. Even before the ancestors of the three races participated, the impact and destructive power already surpassed the first Great War. This was because they now possessed formations as their trump card. How to describe it? It was essentially an upgrade in weaponry.
Formations, while strengthening racial cohesion and power, also enhanced their destructive capabilities. Deploying a Myriad Dragon Formation required only ten thousand dragons, and even those with lesser bloodlines were acceptable. Yet, the entire formation could unleash power only slightly inferior to that of Ancestral Dragon.
It could be compared to Zhulong before his demise.
The Dragon Clan had hundreds of millions of descendants, with countless mixed-bloods or those with only a trace of dragon blood.
Impossible to count.
One could imagine how many Myriad Dragon Formations they could assemble. These Myriad Dragon Formations could also be stacked. Ten thousand Myriad Dragon Formations superimposed upon each other could be described as world-destroying without exaggeration. Even Ancestral Dragon would not dare to confront it directly.
Even though their formations were crude, or simply pooled the strength of the entire race, and were vastly different from supreme formations that could mobilize the power of the world, they could compensate with sheer numbers. Thus, the destructive power of this Great War between the three races was no less than that of several Hunyuan Da Luo Golden Immortals fighting without restraint.
The process was truly cataclysmic, with mountains and rivers shattering. The Five Directions Continent, originally a unified entity, crumbled and cracked due to this war. The central spiritual energy ancestral vein was damaged, and even some weak stars were affected and perished, let alone ordinary mountains and rivers.
If the world were a house, at least the floorboards would have been torn apart, and the beams would have been affected. Although it had not yet reached the standard of a dilapidated house, it certainly appeared quite perilous.
This terrifying destructive power.
Caused the numerous observing innate gods, demons, and Daoists to tremble in fear.
It also shattered the fixed perception these innate gods, demons, and Daoists had of the three major races. Previously, they believed that although the three major races were powerful, they themselves were not weak. While direct confrontation might be difficult to withstand, preserving their lives and remaining outside the conflicts of the three races was still feasible.
However, the power now displayed by the three major races, amplified by formations, was capable of annihilating them. Thus, as the Great War between the three races reached its zenith, many gods and demons began to discuss whether they should seek refuge outside the world first.
Otherwise, once the Great War between the three races subsided slightly, the members of the three major races, having seen their own greatly enhanced power, might no longer invite them to join the three races as they had in the past.
Instead, they might use force to compel them to join.
In short, they understood that the politeness of the three major races was built upon a foundation of insufficient strength. Now, with the enhancement of formations, their strength had increased, and their treatment of subordinate races revealed their true intentions.