The inherent nature of life is actually driven by self-interest and greed; those who are willing to take shortcuts do so because they are either constrained by law or by their own inner moral compass.
But at this moment, there was clearly no law or morality to speak of.
At most, there were some basic regulations, but without any enforcement or punitive bodies, what deterrence could they possibly have?
Therefore, after some non-plant spirit races discovered that directly devouring plant spirits in their blessed lands could greatly accelerate their cultivation, the clandestine hunting and assassination of plant spirits became impossible to contain.
The plant spirit race, being no fools, immediately understood the reason when they noticed a significant decrease in their numbers and received messages from dying clansmen. They began to confront the other races.
They demanded that suspected non-plant spirit races, who had allegedly hunted and devoured their clansmen, allow their dantian to be inspected.
Naturally, those with guilty consciences refused.
The two sides first engaged in a war of words, and as they argued, they began to fight. Once a fight broke out, not only were their respective strengths laid bare, but the exact level of their opened blessed lands also became crystal clear.
The plant spirit race saw that the spiritual races, whose blessed lands were merely intermediate-level when they were first opened, had, after only a few years, ascended to the status of minor worlds. How could they not understand what was happening?
All of this proved their suspicions were correct: some spiritual races were indeed targeting their plant spirit kin.
What followed was a larger-scale conflict.
The spiritual race was completely divided.
The plant spirit race even went to petition the Spirit Lord, hoping he would emerge from seclusion to preside over justice.
After the Spirit Lord emerged and understood the situation, he swiftly and decisively annihilated all the spiritual races that had ascended by devouring the plant spirits' blessed lands. He also established more stringent regulations and even formed inspection and punishment bodies, a council of elders, and so on.
However, he could not completely eliminate the deep-seated and hard-to-erase rift that had formed between the plant spirit race and the non-plant spirit races, let alone ensure harmonious coexistence.
Yet, the Spirit Lord was unwilling to abandon the fortune that the non-plant spirit races provided him. Therefore, even though he knew the rift was difficult to mend, he did not completely expel the non-plant spirit races. Apart from punishing the perpetrators and issuing stern warnings, he took no further action.
This was undoubtedly a superficial solution that failed to address the root cause.
But regardless, on the surface, the spiritual race, thanks to the Spirit Lord's timely intervention and dispensation of justice, ultimately suffered no significant damage and quickly restored stability.
The Spirit Lord then returned to his seclusion.
He also cultivated the method of blessed lands. At present, he had, through his years of accumulation, elevated his own blessed land to the level of a middle-thousand world. Once he could upgrade his middle-thousand world to a great-thousand world, he would naturally condense the Primordial Dao Fruit.
Upon successfully attaining the realm of a Primordial Da Luo Golden Immortal, possessing the power to suppress the heavens, and then preaching the Way to become a Dao Ancestor, this was likely a consensus among pioneers like Ding Yun. Thus, for the Spirit Lord at this time, the most important thing was his own breakthrough. Establishing the spiritual race was merely to acquire enough fortune to aid his ascension.
As for fairness, or whether there were hidden dangers,
it was not important at all.
If the blessed lands opened by the plant spirit race were sufficiently powerful, and devouring them all could help his middle-thousand world ascend to a great-thousand world, then perhaps even without the non-plant spirit races acting, the Spirit Lord himself would have devoured all the plant spirits.
...
Meanwhile, on the fierce beast battlefield.
The combined might that the three races could muster was undoubtedly terrifying. Even though the individual strength of each of the Four Fierce Beasts could rival that of the three clan leaders, and they would even help each other, they were still routed under the extreme circumstances of being ganged up on by the three races.
There was nothing they could do. Their strength was great,
but they couldn't withstand the entire world being against them.
Taking the Great Desolation World as an example, Hongjun Patriarch could suppress the Ancestor Witches who had set up the Twelve Heavenly Gods and Demons Array. However, he might not be able to withstand the combined forces of the Ancestor Witches setting up the Twelve Heavenly Gods and Demons Array and the Demon Race setting up the Zhou Tian Star Dou Array. Neither Yuan Shi nor Tong Tian, as Saints, could necessarily withstand the siege of hundreds of Quasi-Saints.
The reason they could dominate with an invincible demeanor
was that the Witch and Demon races would not join forces, and no one could persuade hundreds of Quasi-Saints to attack a Saint together.
But now, with the three races joining forces, and excluding their respective clan leaders who were in seclusion and not fighting, their overall strength was already not inferior to the combined forces of the Witch and Demon races. Moreover, the Four Fierce Beasts did not reach Hongjun Patriarch's level. Therefore, being beaten black and blue was entirely normal.
That they were not beaten to death was already a testament to their resilience
and the secret assistance of the God of Destruction.
Although the God of Destruction found it difficult to directly help them, helping them escape was not a problem.
However, after several epochs, the Four Fierce Beasts, through constant destruction, encirclement, and escape, still suffered severe injuries. Not only was their origin severely damaged, but their ability to escape was almost lost.
Furthermore, at this time, the God of Destruction had successfully laid many plans and hidden arrangements to disrupt the three races. The Four Fierce Beasts were no longer needed to cause trouble for the time being. To prevent the Four Fierce Beasts from being truly killed by the three races, the God of Destruction soon took advantage of their damaged origins.
Their strength was greatly diminished.
After expending considerable effort again, he resealed and suppressed them, then buried them in the original grand formation, using the formation to help them recover their origins.
They could not let them die just like that.
They might be useful again in the future.
As for the three races, shortly after the Four Fierce Beasts were sealed and suppressed by the God of Destruction, a large number of casualties began to occur within their ranks. Today, a few Qilin tribesmen died, tomorrow a few Phoenix tribesmen, or Dragon tribesmen, and those who died were all of high status.
They were direct descendants with purer bloodlines.
Upon detailed investigation, it was discovered that the few Phoenix tribesmen who died on a certain day had repeatedly clashed with some Dragon tribesmen, while those Dragon tribesmen were unharmed.
On the previous day, some had also gone missing for a period of time.
The Qilin tribesmen who died on a certain day had clashed with some Phoenix tribesmen, and some Phoenixes had also gone missing for a period of time. The Dragon tribesmen who died on a certain day had clashed with the Qilin race, and the Qilin tribesmen who died on a certain day had also clashed with some of the surviving Dragon tribesmen...
Such situations were too numerous.
Some members of the three races might have felt the process was too coincidental, wondering if there was something they didn't know.
But the members of the three races whose loved ones had died would not think so much. After all, when their siblings, descendants, parents, and elders were killed, how many could remain calm and ponder carefully.
Moreover, the three races were together at this time.
It was incredibly convenient to start fighting.
Thus, the first great war between the three races erupted.
(End of this chapter)