Chapter 1230: Severing the Retreat Path
Although the great war had concluded and the New Beginning Realm temporarily regained its tranquility, the world order, irrevocably altered, did not revert to its pre-war state simply because the conflict had ended.
The entire New Beginning Realm no longer operated under the unified governance of the Supreme Administrative Council as it had before the great chaos. The world order remained as it was at the war's conclusion, with major powers each controlling their respective territories, cleanly dividing the entire New Beginning Realm among themselves.
As the Supreme Administrative Council, once the most overtly powerful force in the New Beginning Realm, it still possessed its own territories after the war, and not inconsiderable ones at that.
However, these territories were not a single contiguous block, but multiple, varying in size. The reason for this fragmentation was that the current Supreme Administrative Council was no longer a unified entity; its various branches operated independently, each with its own Administrative Chief. Supreme Administrative Councils with greater strength naturally managed to seize larger territories, while those with less power ended up with smaller ones.
Other forces, great and small, likewise held their own territories, the size of which was, of course, absolutely correlated with their power. However, one faction was an exception: the Spirit Masters.
The death of the Spirit Master False God had caused the Spirit Master community to lose its spiritual pillar. Coupled with the tragic deaths of numerous experts in the great war, their power had plunged to its lowest ebb, rendering them utterly incapable of contending with the Underworld Office.
The surviving Spirit Masters were well aware of this, so they all retreated and completely re-contracted, hiding away. The territories they had painstakingly seized during the world's chaos were consequently all lost, leaving not a single piece of land remaining for the Spirit Masters.
Of course, this was merely what was visible on the surface. Whether the Spirit Masters were secretly recruiting fresh blood under new guises in some obscure corner of the world remained unknown.
But this was only a superficial halt. Covertly, the Underworld Office continued to investigate the whereabouts of the Spirit Masters. Just as before the world fell into chaos, although the Underworld Office didn't engage in large-scale battles with the Spirit Masters, their secret investigations into them never ceased. Once a Spirit Master was discovered, they would certainly not be let go; if a one-on-one confrontation wasn't feasible, they would resort to ganging up, employing every possible method to eliminate the discovered Spirit Master. The same mode of operation persists today.
The Talisman Order was currently also listed as an enemy by the Underworld Office. However, the Talisman Order still had the Talisman Ancestor, a True God, and a considerable number of experts. The Underworld Office, having also suffered heavy losses, temporarily dared not push the Talisman Order to the brink. Therefore, even though the Talisman Order remained in plain sight and was officially listed as a hostile force by the Underworld Office, the latter did not launch large-scale attacks against them.
Many people viewed this situation as merely temporary. After all, the animosity between the two sides was deeply entrenched, not something that could be resolved with a few words. Thus, it was only a matter of time before another war erupted between them. Current conditions simply didn't permit such action, but once the time was ripe, this war would undoubtedly arrive as scheduled.
Although the Underworld Office had temporarily refrained from waging war against the Talisman Order, the latter's territories had shrunk considerably. This wasn't a choice they wished to make, but one they were compelled to. If they didn't painfully relinquish a portion of their land for all the forces allied with the Underworld Office to gradually consume, they worried that the Underworld Office side wouldn't easily give up. There was a strong possibility they would concentrate their firepower to attack the Talisman Order. After all, the Underworld Office's side wasn't just the Underworld Office itself; once these forces were willing to pay a certain price to unite and confront the Talisman Order, it wasn't certain that the Talisman Order would be annihilated, but their losses would certainly be far greater.
Therefore, he needed to use the tactic of sacrificing territory to contain the Underworld Office's side. As long as these forces were satisfied and sated, other factions would naturally lose the inclination to continue attacking the Talisman Order, as they too needed to recover. This would allow the Talisman Order to catch its breath.
While the Underworld Office didn't openly wage war against the Talisman Order, their covert sanctions against them were utterly uncompromising. To exact maximum retribution and make the Talisman Order pay a heavy price, the Underworld Office utilized its special privilege to transform the regions governed by the Talisman Order into a land of death without reincarnation. To be more precise, people who died in areas managed by the Talisman Order could not enter the cycle of reincarnation, and newborns there had no souls.
The Talisman Order wasn't particularly concerned about the dead being unable to enter reincarnation. This was because souls unable to enter reincarnation could still advance on the ghost path, capable of shining and contributing, creating value for the Talisman Order and enhancing its power.
However, newborns without souls – this was a devastating blow to the Talisman Order. Newborns without souls were essentially living corpses, indistinguishable from vegetative states. Such newborns could neither be nurtured nor create any value for the Talisman Order; instead, they would become a burden, hindering the Talisman Order's development.
Most critically, this method employed by the Underworld Office prevented the regions managed by the Talisman Order from receiving a replenishment of fresh blood. In other words, for every person who died in the Talisman Order, there would be one less. As time passed, the living population in the Talisman Order's territories would dwindle day by day until, eventually, apart from a very few immortal cultivators, the entire area governed by the Talisman Order would inevitably become a ghastly, ghost-ridden land of death, with scarcely any living people to be seen.
Other forces would naturally find it impossible to achieve this, but for the Underworld Office, it was no difficult feat, as the Reincarnation Platform was under their control.
This method of the Underworld Office was simply severing the Talisman Order's retreat path, or rather, its future. After all, any force seeking to grow and expand cannot do so without people. Without sufficient manpower, development would become exceedingly difficult, even impossible. It's easy to imagine how ruthless this move by the Underworld Office truly was.
Naturally, the Talisman Order was utterly enraged by the Underworld Office's actions, yet they were helpless. After all, the Reincarnation Platform was controlled by the Underworld Office, not by them. If the Underworld Office chose to target them this way, there was nothing they could do.
However, the Talisman Order wasn't entirely without countermeasures. To prevent the Underworld Office's scheme from succeeding, the Talisman Order, on one hand, forbade the birth of newborns in their controlled regions. While this couldn't solve the problem at its root, it could at least minimize the burden as much as possible.
On the other hand, the Talisman Order sought every possible way to acquire fresh blood from other channels, using this method to increase their population. This was a clumsy approach, and one fraught with significant risk, but the Talisman Order couldn't conceive of any other solutions apart from this cumbersome method.
The higher echelons of the Talisman Order also knew that these two measures were merely temporary, as they couldn't fundamentally resolve the issue. Thus, while implementing these measures, the Talisman Order was simultaneously deliberating on better solutions.
It wasn't just the Talisman Order; any force allied with the Spirit Masters received similar treatment. This was a method employed by the Underworld Office to weaken hostile factions, and simultaneously, a form of retaliatory strike against them.
For the Underworld Office, this approach was purely beneficial with no downsides. Although they couldn't collect the souls of those who died within hostile territories, the laws of heaven and earth would nurture new souls through the spirits of plants and trees. Therefore, even without acquiring the souls of the deceased from these enemy factions, the Underworld Office wouldn't face a shortage of souls.
Conversely, this sanctioning method of the Underworld Office was lethal to all hostile forces, and the Underworld Office didn't need to pay any price for it. Thus, for the Underworld Office, this method truly had only advantages and no disadvantages.
As for the forces allied with the Underworld Office and those that remained neutral, they were spared such blows. However, they were greatly worried about receiving similar treatment. To prevent such a situation from actually occurring, these forces surprisingly took the initiative to invite Underworld Officials into their controlled regions to collect souls, thereby showing goodwill to the Underworld Office.
During the great war, because the Underworld Office repeatedly suffered setbacks at the hands of the Spirit Masters, even incurring immense losses, other forces witnessed all this. Consequently, their fear of the Underworld Office gradually diminished, and under such circumstances, the Underworld Office's status steadily declined.
With the conclusion of the war, the Underworld Office, as the victor, re-established its prestige in the minds of the major powers. Its previously dwindling status began to climb steadily with this re-established authority. It was precisely for this reason that these forces took the initiative to show goodwill to the Underworld Office.
Although the Underworld Office's external wars had temporarily ceased, internal struggles within the Underworld Office erupted precisely because the war had ended.
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