As a player who had achieved every accomplishment and had witnessed all of the "Endurance King's" countless escape routes, Gu Fangchen knew Gu Yuye far too well.
This man, though the ultimate, invincible schemer, would only resort to his final life-preserving trick when every backup plan failed and there was truly no other path left.
Moreover, Gu Yuye always had plenty of backup plans. He was a master at giving himself a dignified excuse, and others would often assume he had been forced into desperate circumstances.
Just like Gu Lianqian, she had died still believing that Gu Yuye's defection to the Qingman was an act of tragic necessity, a long-term sacrifice made in patience and bitterness.
Forcing this cunning old fox into a corner where he would cross his bottom line was easy.
But to drag his true face into the light before everyone, leaving him no way out, that was difficult.
Gu Fangchen wanted not only Gu Yuye's Dao of Death but his utter ruin.
Therefore, he had to prop Gu Yuye up first.
Not only could he not let Gu Yuye feel cornered, but he had to guide him toward what looked like a grand, righteous, open road, one so glorious that Gu Yuye alone could walk it.
A road that would lead him straight to the position he desired most.
Gu Yuye was no fool. Hearing Gu Fangchen repeatedly mention dragon veins and even speak of "granting him a great fortune," his heart stirred and a suspicion rose.
But he quickly suppressed it, remaining calm. His expression turned cold as he looked at Gu Fangchen and said in a deep voice,
"Dao Lord Feiwei, speak plainly. I, Gu Yuye, reached my current position step by step through real military merit. My cultivation came through tireless effort and the will of Heaven itself. I don't need anyone to grant me fortune."
His words were blunt, but Gu Fangchen's tone earlier had indeed carried a certain arrogance that provoked irritation.
Though Gu Yuye was nominally of Third Grade cultivation, no one truly regarded him as an ordinary Third Grade.
Whether his true body had ever appeared in the world was uncertain, but since all three of his avatars possessed Third Grade power, his true form's strength was far beyond that.
Among the Dao Lords, he was treated as an equal.
If someone tried to press him down, naturally he would not take it kindly.
"Hey now, don't be so hasty."
"Everyone, please hear me out."
Gu Fangchen smiled lightly, took two steps forward, swept his gaze across the assembled Dao Lords, then grew solemn as he pointed to the map.
"Don't blame me for speaking harshly, but the so-called Tenfold Dao as it stands is nothing more than a pile of loose sand, impressive in appearance, but hollow within."
At that, the Dao Lords' expressions shifted, though not too drastically.
The Sixth Division Star Lord frowned. Harsh though it was, Gu Fangchen wasn't wrong.
The Tenfold Dao had always been a coalition of separate powers. Only through shared interests and the might of the Dao Lords' absolute authority did it function at all.
In truth, it was plagued by internal conflict, lacking cohesion.
The Coal Seller, one of the primary leaders of the current operation, immediately guessed that Gu Fangchen was about to criticize him.
After hearing such an opening, he became certain.
Their two main strategies, one to incite the Qingman, the other to coordinate uprisings across the realm, were clear enough.
Who else could that "pile of loose sand" comment refer to?
This man... he had just shown off with his Mirage Array and now thought he had the right to seize command.
So impatient!
He had only been startled earlier because he hadn't seen it coming. Now that he knew it was merely a Mirage Array, did Gu Fangchen think they feared his fake Wheel of the Sea of Calamity?
The Coal Seller said coldly,
"Do you think we needed *you* to tell us that? We all know it well enough."
"The Tenfold Dao was founded upon ten distinct paths. We've all bent and compromised to make this unity work. And now you stand there, undermining our confidence, unless, of course, you have some divine ability that can make everyone one-hearted overnight?"
Gu Fangchen shook his head with a wry smile.
"If the Emotion Path could cultivate that level of unity, I'd have killed Xie Qian myself by now."
The Coal Seller snorted.
"Then what's the point of your useless talk?"
Gu Fangchen replied calmly, "When an army acts as one, there's a strategy suited for that unity."
"And for scattered sand, there's a strategy for that too."
"The Tenfold Dao is not an army. The uprisings across the land have only just begun. Xiao Yinghao's White Dragon Army, far from being weakened by the battle of Autumn Peace Road, has instead returned stronger than before, victorious and more respected than ever. If she were to divert a portion of her forces to suppress the rebellions, and if the old emperor deployed his Blood-Robe Guards, they could hold us off for at least three years."
Gu Fangchen's expression did not change as he continued his analysis.
"Meanwhile, the Sword Pavilion, now close with Gu Fangchen, holds immense influence. If Ning Songjun were to rally the cultivators, countless would respond to aid the court.
"Add to that the Grand Preceptor Xu Fu behind the throne, our window to shake Great Wei's foundation lasts only a few short years."
"Once Xu Fu reacts and coordinates with Yaoshan, it will be too late."
"We must gather every ounce of strength and strike in one blow."
"The longer we drag it out, the harder success will become."
His reasoning was sound. In the original course of events, even if players sided with the Demon Sect, Xu Fu alone could hold out for thirty years.
If things proceeded as before, the Demon Sect's chances were roughly even, fifty-fifty at best.
Victory was possible, but only barely.
After all, the Emperor of Great Wei was the Dao Lord of Constancy himself. He manipulated dynastic change to ensure the successor was one of his choosing, completing the eternal cycle of "unchanging constancy."
But the current Demon Sect didn't know that.
With Gu Fangchen's intervention, the righteous forces that should have been weakened were instead strengthened. In the short term, the Demon Sect's situation was indeed precarious, their odds of victory dropping further.
Thus they were forced to enact their backup plan, a desperate, all-or-nothing gamble.
And after Gu Fangchen's analysis, it sounded almost as if they were doomed to fail.
He looked around the room, saw the shifts in their faces, then softened his tone.
"So, though our plan seems solid, in my view, it does not suit the nature of a loose alliance."
"Ultimately, the Thousand-Year Old's plan was too far-sighted. The longer the night, the greater the chance of dreams, and of disaster."
The Demon Sect's current strategy had been devised by An Qisheng and executed under the Sixth Division Star Lord's calculations.
That so-called immortal cultivator, claiming to have lived for millennia, was thorough and meticulous, but the Demon Sect's structure was far too fragile for such a rigid plan.
A scheme that detailed left no room for error.
The margin for mistakes was far too small.
Every word of Gu Fangchen's argument reflected the sect's reality. Though his tone was biting, his reasoning was impeccable.
He seemed genuinely concerned for the cause.
Even the Coal Seller, who knew the critique had merit, refused to yield.
"You talk so much, but without a solution, it's all empty bluster."
Gu Fangchen raised an eyebrow and smiled.
"The solution... I've already given."
He lifted a hand. On the hovering map, a new line appeared.
It cut across the entire Thirteen Circuits of Jiangnan like a great dragon.
The Coal Seller froze, pupils contracting.
"This... this is the sixth dragon vein you mentioned?"
The others gasped.
They had assumed the sixth vein would be about the same size as the rest.
Since abandoned veins had long degraded into mere earth meridians, retaining only traces of residual willpower, none should have been especially large.
The one beneath the Sword Pavilion, for instance, occupied no more than the area of Dragon Hollow Lake.
But this, this hidden sixth vein, was hundreds of times greater!
The mark on the map looked as though someone had slashed the heart of Great Wei itself in two.
Great Wei held twenty-eight circuits in all, and Jiangnan comprised thirteen of them, half the empire, its prosperous core. To control the dragon vein there would be to grasp the nation's lifeblood.
In that instant, they understood why Dao Lord Feiwei dared to be so bold, dismissing their prior plan so arrogantly.
Their hearts rose and fell with that imagined dragon vein.
If it truly existed, then yes, this plan was vastly superior.
No need for endless scheming. Once that dragon vein appeared, the entire Great Wei would fall into chaos.
The Sixth Division Star Lord's expression darkened as he muttered,
"My followers once recovered a saying left behind by one of my other incarnations..."
He referred to another karmic thread of himself from a different cycle of reincarnation.
Having split himself into six long ago, and needing to conceal it from Xu Fu, he could not command his disciples directly, only leave cryptic sayings as clues.
His disciples, in turn, devoted themselves to gathering and interpreting these sayings, most of them fragmented, enigmatic, and obscure.
Even the Star Lord himself could scarcely tell which were useful and which were not.
But now, upon hearing Gu Fangchen speak of the hidden dragon vein, he recalled one:
"In the east of the Southern Dipper, the Azure Dragon shall rise."
If that were connected, then indeed, the sixth dragon vein might be real.
The Dao Lords' eyes all brightened.
"Star Lord, you mean-?"
The Sixth Division Star Lord nodded gravely.
"The sixth dragon vein truly exists. Yet I've calculated before and found no signs of any such vein in Jiangnan."
"Still, that itself is strange. Of the five known veins, not one lies in Jiangnan."
"But Jiangnan occupies half of Great Wei's territory. The absence of a vein there seems... unlikely."
Of course.
The dragon vein lay beneath the Nine Nether Yellow Springs, how could he possibly detect it?
Though the Sixth Division Star Lord was formidable, he remained of Second Grade and could not pierce the barrier between realms.
And that "Azure Dragon" in his saying likely referred to a player.
But now that the players were gone, who else could claim the title if not Gu Fangchen himself?
Suppressing his inner amusement, Gu Fangchen continued solemnly,
"As the saying goes, divine objects conceal themselves. According to the dragon vein map, this one should be the true vein of human destiny."
"It does not belong to any single dynasty but holds the accumulated fortune of the entire human race."
"Such immense fate could never be easily found."
He looked around the room, his tone deepening.
"But if one were to seize this central vein of destiny, and proclaim that whoever holds it shall rule the world, then would not the nation's fate converge upon them naturally?"
The words struck them like thunder.
Now they understood Gu Fangchen's design.
The Demon Sect's original plan was to scatter the empire's fate, letting dynastic transition and shifting hearts weaken the flow of fortune, then harvest it piece by piece.
But Gu Fangchen, he sought to draw the fortune directly to himself.
Suddenly, everything seemed clear. Yet it also felt... unsettling.
Compared to this, their old plan seemed almost timid.
Not demonic enough.
Seeing their faces change, Gu Fangchen smiled faintly. Three parts of belief were enough for him to proceed.
After all, as one who had risen into the Demon Sect's real upper echelon, he knew their weaknesses precisely.
In the game, he had not followed the Emotion Path but the Path of Righteousness,
That path recruited all sorts, from all trades, serving as the sect's intelligence and infiltration network.
It was the easiest path to join and also the fastest way to reach the core of high-level plans.
Now, though he wore the identity of an Emotion Path Dao Lord, a higher starting point, the process was the same.
Three parts truth and seven parts deception were all he needed to win trust.
To make Gu Yuye take the bait, he needed just the right measure, neither too grand nor too simple.
He turned to Gu Yuye, smiling brightly.
"Gu Yuye, now do you understand the fortune I'm offering you?"
"To be honest, our power is scattered. The more we try to make it bloom everywhere, the weaker it becomes."
"Better to gather it together, for one decisive strike."
His eyes gleamed with deep, alluring intent.
"All we need is to create a chosen child of destiny, one favored by the sixth dragon vein, and let the uprising armies rally beneath his banner. Then both hearts and fate will turn to our side."
"This person must have great renown and power enough to command belief."
"With the dragon vein's vision as proof, without any need for Qingman aid, a single call from him will shake the realm, and he will ascend the dragon throne."