At the same time as the Green Demon Realm launched its invasion.
The Earth Profound Realm reacted immediately. Most of its Mahayana-stage powerhouses vanished into the void and directly intervened to disrupt the spatial passages the Green Demon Realm was trying to form.
At the same time, within the Earth Profound Realm itself, they began constructing spatial passages leading to other subordinate small thousand realms beneath them, ready to provide support at a moment’s notice.
And that wasn’t all. The Earth Profound Realm also opened up some spatial passages leading to the Green Demon Realm’s own subordinate small thousand realms.
The higher-ups of the Earth Profound Realm planned to give back exactly what they got—by counter-invading the subordinate worlds of the Green Demon Realm.
However, they didn’t actually intend to conquer those subordinate small thousand realms while the Green Demon Realm was watching, because that just wasn’t realistic.
The Green Demon Realm had managed to successfully invade the Earth Profound Realm’s subordinate small thousand realms earlier only because they had caught everyone off guard. They used the Demonic Qi Sky-Concealing Banner to block the Earth Profound Realm’s perception and carried out the invasion in secret.
And even then, the Green Demon Realm hadn’t directly opened stable spatial passages for the invasion.
You see, forcibly opening a stable spatial passage from the outside creates an enormous disturbance. Even with the Sky-Concealing Banner’s cover, they couldn’t completely hide those fluctuations.
Back then, the Green Demon Realm’s powerhouses first opened temporary spatial rifts and sent in a batch of Nascent Soul stage Green Demons.
Those Nascent Soul stage Green Demons then built spatial altars inside the Earth Profound Realm’s subordinate small thousand realms. Only by coordinating inside and outside were they able to open a stable spatial passage.
Sure, this method was much more troublesome than directly forcing a passage open.
But the disturbance it caused was far smaller. Together with the cover of the Sky-Concealing Banner, they successfully fooled the Earth Profound Realm and secretly invaded nine of its subordinate small thousand realms.
But now that full-scale war had broken out between the two realms, the Green Demon Realm would definitely be on guard against the same trick they themselves had used. There’s no way they’d be foolish enough to let the Earth Profound Realm pull it off again.
So the Earth Profound Realm’s higher-ups only wanted to send people into the Green Demon Realm’s subordinate small thousand realms to cause chaos and distract the Green Demon Realm’s attention.
The strategies on both sides were very similar. Even though they were at a disadvantage right now, the Earth Profound Realm had no intention of just playing defense and letting the Green Demon Realm lead them around by the nose.
Once everything was out in the open, it became nearly impossible for either side’s schemes to stay hidden from the other.
Almost the very moment the Earth Profound Realm’s Mahayana-stage powerhouses entered the void, the Green Demon Realm’s Mahayana-stage powerhouses went right in after them.
The usually silent void suddenly became incredibly lively.
The moment the two sides met, without a single harsh word, they just slammed various divine abilities and immortal artifacts hard at each other.
“Divine Art: Explosive Flame Burst!”
“Divine Art: One Sword to Slay Demons!”
“Divine Art: Great Buddha’s Hand!”
“Divine Art: Demon Qilin Slash!”
For a time, divine abilities crossed back and forth, each side terrified of losing the initiative if they didn’t strike first.
In an instant, within the vast, boundless void where the Earth Profound Realm and the Green Demon Realm met, dazzling clusters of energy exploded continuously.
Attack after attack from immortal artifacts and divine abilities tore through the void, causing the entire space to shatter and twist. It felt like everyone had entered a mirror dimension.
But the Mahayana-stage powerhouses on both sides weren’t affected by this. At that moment, they had eyes only for their opponents.
On one side was pure white spiritual energy, representing creation, life, and purification. On the other was dark demonic energy, representing destruction, death, and corrosion.
The two clashed endlessly in the void, their powers intertwining and exploding, triggering a massive repulsive reaction.
This battle wasn’t a final decisive one, so it didn’t last too long. Although it looked extremely intense, thanks to the large numbers on both sides looking out for each other, no one actually fell in battle.
Once the partial spatial passages inside their respective realms had fully stabilized, the two sides very cooperatively withdrew to their own realms.
Although most of the spatial passages between them failed to fully form because of the war erupting in the void, a small number of passages did manage to stabilize and anchor themselves.
Then both sides immediately began deploying personnel nonstop—invading each other’s subordinate worlds while also reinforcing their own lower realms to defend against invasion.
And with that, the war between the Earth Profound Realm and the Green Demon Realm had truly and fully begun.
The various subordinate small thousand realms of both sides became the battlefield for cultivators below the Void Hollowing stage.
Meanwhile, after several months of chaotic fighting among Tribulation Transcendence and Mahayana stage cultivators in the outer realm battlefield, the two sides eventually reached an agreement: beings above the Tribulation Transcendence stage could no longer act freely in the outer realm battlefield.
So now, the outer realm battlefield had become a battleground for cultivators below the Tribulation Transcendence stage but above the Divinity Transformation stage.
Still, even so, the Earth Profound Realm still kept some Tribulation Transcendence and Mahayana stage powerhouses rotating on guard duty in the outer realm battlefield, just in case.
This kind of verbal agreement between the two sides had almost no binding power whatsoever. It was bound to be broken eventually.
Right now, it was a matter of which side would find a way to break the deadlock first and then strike to take down the other.
That said, this war wasn’t entirely without benefits for some cultivators.
For the cultivators of the Earth Profound Realm, slaying powerhouses of the Green Demon race, then bringing their corpses and cultivation origins back to the Earth Profound Realm to offer as sacrifices, could earn them a huge reward of world origin feedback.
And this kind of world origin feedback was nothing like the paltry amount they got from those measly demon creatures in the outer realm battlefield before.
The higher the cultivation level of the Green Demon powerhouse, the more world origin feedback they’d receive upon sacrifice.
Basically, if you sacrificed ten Green Demons of the same realm as yourself, you could directly break through one small sub-realm.
After all, some energy is lost during the sacrifice, and the Earth Profound Realm can’t possibly give back all the world origin it converts from the Green Demons to its own cultivators.
But even so, for high-level cultivators below the Mahayana stage, this was still a pretty tempting deal.
The further you go in cultivation, the higher your realm, the more massive the energy required. Sometimes, you might not even break through one small sub-realm in several thousand years.
But now, you could advance directly by killing just ten Green Demons at the same cultivation level as yourself.
It was hard not to be tempted.
And over on the Green Demon Realm’s side, it was basically the same story.
And so, high-level cultivators on both sides started forming all kinds of teams to hunt each other on the outer realm battlefield.
The same went for Earth Profound Realm cultivators below the Void Hollowing stage.
After discussions among the higher-ups of the Earth Profound Realm, they had now fully opened the spatial passages leading to the demon domains subordinate to the Green Demon Realm.
“Demon domains” was the collective name for the small thousand realms under the Green Demon Realm’s control.
Every Earth Profound Realm cultivator below the Void Hollowing stage could voluntarily head to those demon domains to hunt Green Demons, demon beasts, or even destroy demon veins and bring back the origin of those demon veins.
At the same time, each of these cultivators heading to the Green Demon Realm’s subordinate demon domains would receive a batch of first-order Purification Trees to plant wherever they could.
The Purification Tree was a special type of spiritual plant from the Earth Profound Realm. It was incredibly resilient—once planted, it would start absorbing all sorts of energy to grow.
Once it reached the third order, it could start absorbing various types of alien energy and continuously convert it into spiritual energy to fight against the demonic energy.
Even though the Earth Profound Realm’s nine small thousand realms couldn’t be retaken just yet, the higher-ups still hadn’t given up on the Purification Tree planting plan.
Even in the nine fallen small thousand realms, aside from the single city still holding out, cultivators were still wandering other areas and randomly planting Purification Trees.
In the short term, the Purification Tree planting plan might not achieve much, since the Green Demon Realm cultivators were actively removing them.
But two top-tier mid-thousand realms of equal strength fighting each other—such a war might not see a clear victor for tens of thousands of years.
And over tens of thousands of years, even some seemingly insignificant small moves could end up having unexpected effects.
But here’s the thing—both sides were at the peak below the Immortal realm. No one was dumber than the other.
If the Earth Profound Realm had a plan, the Green Demon Realm had similar plans. And their plans were even more ruthless.
The Green Demon Realm also opened spatial passages leading to the Earth Profound Realm’s subordinate small thousand realms, rampaging through those worlds and causing destruction.
Not only did the Green Demons plant similar types of demon vines in those worlds, but they even corrupted large numbers of mortal humans, turning them into mindless monsters.
The Green Demons tried to use this method to completely cut off the human race’s foundation within those small thousand realms.
Once the mortal human populations in those small thousand realms were wiped out, a few thousand years later, there would be no new cultivators to replace them in those worlds.
And by then, without the help of those grassroots cultivators from the small thousand realms, it would be far, far harder for the Earth Profound Realm alone to hold off the Green Demon Realm’s invasion.
But the Earth Profound Realm had no good solution for now. They could only ramp up their efforts to hunt down and kill the Green Demons invading their small thousand realms. They formed a special demon-hunting force, skilled in tracking, to hunt and surround Green Demons in all the lower small thousand realms.
At the same time, they also increased the intensity of their own invasion into the Green Demon Realm’s demon domains, mercilessly slaughtering the young of the Green Demon race in those domains—tit for tat—hoping to distract even more of the Green Demon Realm’s high-level attention.
Time passed quickly. In the blink of an eye, it had already been one year since the war between the two realms began.
By now, the Earth Profound Realm and the Green Demon Realm were fighting fiercely. Almost every day, cultivators fell in battle, while others surged forward rapidly amid the flames of war.
But none of this affected Ye Qingxuan.
Although Ye Qingxuan had Ye Zhaoheng and Ye Zhaoyu inquire about outside news every day to keep a rough understanding of the war’s progress,
his cultivation was still low at this point, and he couldn’t play a major role in this war.
Instead of quietly fretting inside the Qingxuan Blessed Land, he figured it was better to focus hard on his cultivation and do a good job with his logistics work.
Right now, Ye Qingxuan was in the stone pavilion outside the Qingxuan Blessed Land, having brewed some tea and waiting for Bai Zichun’s arrival.
A year had passed, and it was now time to turn in the Purification Tree planting mission.
And as the person in charge of their batch of blessed land cultivators, Bai Zichun was responsible for counting and collecting the Purification Trees produced by each blessed land and recording the cultivators’ alliance contribution points.
After many years without seeing each other, Bai Zichun still remembered Ye Qingxuan very clearly.
So, his first stop was the Qingxuan Blessed Land—Ye Qingxuan’s place.
Before coming, Bai Zichun had already sent Ye Qingxuan a message, which was why Ye Qingxuan had come out early to wait, leading to this scene.
