Am I the only one who didn't ascend?

Chapter 574 Life Will Go On
Ge Libang's speech at the Shanlei Fortress meeting soon spread far and wide through various channels, from the three western counties of Xinheng to the boundless sea in the far east of Ziwu. From the Molin Dragon Head Holy Mountain to the Zhouguo Happy Rain Forest...

The term "protracted war" instantly became the top annual hot word in the Immortal Alliance. From the rulers of various countries to the peddlers and hawkers... Whether it was casual conversations after dinner or specialized work around the hot word, they were all repeating this hot word again and again at a very fast speed, and then quickly spread the shadow of war throughout the world.

War, total war, long-term total war. These words are familiar and unfamiliar to every immortal alliance member living in the Dinghuang era.

Most people in the Immortal Alliance grew up listening to war stories. The stories of Dinghuang’s heroes still shine in every general education textbook after a thousand years. And for those living on the border of the Immortal Wilderness, the invasion of wild beasts is commonplace. War has never left.

On the other hand, the war never really penetrated every household. Even people in remote areas rarely had wild beasts invade their homes. As for people living in the hinterland of each country, they could only sigh and lament at the few casualties in the Taixu Zhaotang or in the newspapers.

Therefore, people were always caught off guard by the sudden and long-term war, and even fell into panic and confusion... So after the temporary meeting at the Mountain Fortress, all kinds of monsters and demons showed their teeth and claws. Heretical cults and ambitious politicians came one after another.

Until as time went by, people gradually realized that the so-called long-term war seemed to have always remained just a hot word, and life should still be lived as it was.

The so-called Devil of the Wilderness, the Great Demon Lord of the Beginning, had never appeared before people, and even in the Great Illusion, there was no sign of his existence. People could even take the Li Shen Powder as usual, drifting on the Taiyin River, cheering for artists in the Qinglu, searching for fresh current events in the Zhaotang... and then see some dry war reports in the front columns of some official media.

The results of each report were similar. In some scrolls, Taixu won a great victory and strangled the Demon Lord's clone. In some scrolls, Taixu temporarily retreated to seek a great victory and lured the enemy deep into the city. But no matter what kind of great victory it was, it seemed that there was no actual impact. So soon people regarded these battle reports as politicians' self-praise and making trouble out of nothing.

And just as people were becoming increasingly numb, change came quietly.

At first, people just found that the walking experience in Taixu Fantasy Land had become a little "sluggish". For example, it seemed that the time to reach the bustling waters along the Taiyin River was longer than before. The many light boats and floating islands on the waters also seemed dim. Some particularly busy waterways even had occasional boat collisions - this has almost never happened since the Taixu Departments of various countries fully implemented the new waterway coordinated management law two hundred years ago.

In this regard, the Taixu Division explained that it was because the temporary staff who operated the formation did not strictly follow the operating specifications. The relevant departments have launched a strict self-inspection to ensure that similar accidents will not occur.

This kind of high-sounding nonsense is commonplace for every member of the Immortal Alliance, so people naturally did not take it seriously after a simple complaint. However, people soon discovered that as the relevant departments of the Taixu Division of various countries carried out strict self-inspections, similar accidents became more and more frequent.

The Taiyin River became unusually long and crowded. Many Taixu practitioners from different cities were assigned to the same Taiyin River after leaving the God Realm. The various facilities in the fantasy waters also aged rapidly. Some Zhaotang Qinglu, which had only been built for a few years, showed signs of old age with mottled paint. After that, the number of accidents gradually increased.

Sometimes the entire water area suddenly lost contact with the surrounding area, and all the waterways dried up. Sometimes hundreds of Taixu practitioners were forced to exit the illusion. Even worse, some practitioners who rashly approached the forbidden area of ​​the scroll would hear sounds that did not belong to the real world in the illusion, and their souls would be polluted.

In today's Immortal Alliance, too many people's work and life are maintained in the illusory world. Small-scale fluctuations are fine, but once the amplitude of the fluctuations increases, it will naturally affect everyone.

At this point, Taixusi could no longer use the excuse of temporary workers' operational errors. Before the officials of various countries gave a clear conclusion, rumors among the people were rampant. Various conspiracy theories and all kinds of crazy people who were obsessed with conspiracy theories fully demonstrated the diversity of species at one time.

Fortunately, just before the chaos gradually brewed and broke out, the Immortal Alliance once again held a conference at the Mountain Fortress in Lingshan, which included representatives from hundreds of countries. Lu Youyou, the chief of Xian Kulin and the lord of Zhuwang, represented the Immortal Alliance and delivered a brief speech to all the people of the Immortal Alliance.

In his speech, Lu Youyou admitted that the Immortal Alliance encountered considerable difficulties in the long-term battle in the illusion. The offensive from the Taichu Demon Lord became more and more fierce, far exceeding the conventional expectations of the Immortal Alliance Taixu Mansion. To make matters worse, the Immortal Alliance expected a protracted war, which was to use strategic depth to play the production capacity advantage and weaken Taichu bit by bit. However, as the war progressed, the Taichu Demon Lord showed extraordinary destructive power.

Every time he won a certain painting, he would not only devour the painting itself, but also devour a part of the Great Illusion. This part was very small, and even though the Great Illusion Palace had invested a very strict monitoring force from the beginning, it was often difficult to detect the subtle changes in the illusion. Until a little bit accumulates into a lot, the water dripping wears away the stone.

When thousands of paintings fell into Taichu's hands, Taixu Palace suddenly realized that some losses were almost irreparable. Although the damage and weakening of Taixu Fantasy Realm was not permanent, it was at least semi-permanent, and it would require all countries to come up with a huge amount of resources to make up for it... and a huge amount of resources itself is often equal to impossible.

This is the reason for the frequent chaos in Taixu Illusion. It is neither an accident nor a conspiracy, but the result of the "long-term war" launched by Taixu Mansion Advertising World nearly a year ago.

War has always been accompanied by pain and sacrifice. In the past, the wars surrounding the Immortal Alliance were just war stories, but now, people have finally felt the pain.

However, the war was not all bad news. In the nearly one-year scroll war, the Immortal Alliance had lost more than a thousand scrolls, but they had also won nearly eight hundred battles and eliminated more than six hundred Demon Lord incarnations. Just as the Demon Lord would suffer almost permanent damage when he devoured the scroll, the incarnations that fell into the scroll also meant that the Demon Lord had lost part of his power forever.

Therefore, the only solution now is for the Immortal Alliance to show unprecedented determination, unite and cooperate, and overcome the difficulties. Only by crossing the natural barrier of the Demon Lord can the Immortal Alliance achieve a comprehensive victory in Dinghuang. Otherwise, the Immortal Alliance has no way out.

Lu Youyou's speech deliberately avoided high-sounding clichés and flashy rhetoric, so it was not really brilliant, and her frankness might not immediately resonate with hundreds of millions of people, but there was no doubt that the chief had expressed her will with great determination. After her public speech, the atmosphere within the Immortal Alliance quickly changed dramatically.

As for what happened in the Great Illusion, all countries no longer tried to hide it. In other words, the daily war reports from the Great Illusion Palace and the disaster warnings in various regions made it difficult for all countries to hide it even if they wanted to. People could clearly see how much resources the Immortal Alliance had invested in this long war and how much results they had gained. And how close the war was to them.

Many times, the flames of war seem to be ignited right next to us.

Essentially, the Great Illusion is a magnificent fairyland that instantly connects hundreds of countries in the Immortal Alliance, making the distance between thousands of miles close at hand. Along the Taiyin River, an ordinary practitioner can have a real-time conversation with people far away on Ziwu Island in the three counties in the west of Xinheng in a few seconds. Therefore, conversely, no matter where the war in the illusion is ignited, it may spread to everyone in an instant. Even if the Immortal Alliance has made strict and meticulous reinforcement and transformation on every Taixu painting that may be used as a battlefield, and has isolated the periphery of every possible battlefield... But as the illusion is gradually damaged, the Immortal Alliance still cannot guarantee everything.

Such a threat that is so close at hand will naturally breed panic. Even though illusionary disasters are often not directly fatal, and even though the actual number of deaths recorded in Taixu Mansion in the past year is only a few hundred people... the panic caused is real. And because of Lu Youyou's previous statement, the courts of various countries found it difficult to directly cover up the news, so civil chaos once again occurred one after another, making the rulers of various countries a little exhausted.

Fortunately, when the long war entered its second year and officially entered the next stage, these chaos gradually subsided.

It wasn't that the war in the illusion had made any significant progress - after a year, the Immortal Alliance had managed to maintain the expected 40:60 odds through various means, but it still lost hundreds of scrolls every day, which also meant that the illusion was becoming more and more broken every day. In many cases, the illusion's function of connecting hundreds of countries had disappeared, and the well-connected Taiyin River had long been shattered. The countries were like isolated islands on the sea, and could only look at each other from afar.

As a result, the flames of war that were ignited everywhere seemed extremely far away. It was increasingly difficult for people to obtain first-hand information about the war on the front lines and the disasters in the illusion from Taixu Zhaotang, and the traditional media would naturally guide people to be indifferent to all disasters... Therefore, it was extremely ironic that the numerous holes in the illusion actually gradually calmed people's panic.

However, the subsidence of panic does not mean that the situation has actually stabilized.

For the Immortal Alliance, the gradual decline and degradation of the illusion meant a great setback in production efficiency, and many old production management systems collapsed completely. The various political and economic problems brought about by this made the countries of the Immortal Alliance scream and scratch. For the people of various countries, the situation is that more and more people find that life seems to be getting harder and harder, it is getting harder and harder to find a job, and it is getting harder and harder to increase income.

Although the long battle with the Primordial Demon Lord took place in the distant Taixu Fantasy Land, it was closely related to everyone.

However, this was exactly what the Immortal Alliance countries had clearly foreseen when Gribang proposed a long war more than a year ago. Although in great pain, despite screaming and scratching, the Immortal Alliance gradually regrouped and adapted itself to the wartime system, successfully transitioning the war to the third year.

Starting from the third year, things gradually returned to normal.

Although the battle on the front line was still 40:60, and although the illusion was becoming increasingly degraded, almost regressing to a few hundred years ago, outside the illusion, the lives of the hundreds of millions of immortals seemed to have calmed down again, and the countries even showed signs of rebounding from the bottom and thriving.

No matter how hard it is, life must go on and will always go on.

On this day, the sun rose as usual, and the warm sunlight passed over the rolling mountains on the horizon and shone onto the lush forest.

This is Zhouguo's warm rain forest. In the eastern part of the rain forest, in the giant forest supported by countless thousand-year-old trees, there is a flower field blooming in the air. That is the largest city in the eastern part of Zhouguo, the famous tree flower city [Licheng]. Nearly nine buildings in the city are hollowed out from giant trees or branches grown from trees. And the construction of each building needs to be strictly reviewed by the commissioner of the City Lord's Mansion to ensure that it is not only safe and reliable in structure, but also surrounded by beautiful and delicate flowers.

Only in this way can a huge flower city accommodating millions of people, located in the rainforest, still be naturally harmonious everywhere.

In the southern part of Licheng, there is a towering old tree. From the middle of the tree, a nearly 1,000-meter-long branch extends straight out, connecting to the waist of another old tree, forming a natural bustling street. On this street, called [Sanzhi], there is no shortage of various Zhouguo delicacies that are approachable to the public. The most famous one is a snack shop that blooms like a flower bud on a branch.

The store is not big, but its name is extremely famous. [Li San Dao Snacks] dares to sell a bowl of vegetable paste for 88 spirit leaves in a civilian food street where the average price is only 30 or 40 spirit leaves. It is unanimously rated by local gourmets as a conscientious store that does not cheat the poor. And precisely because it does not cheat the poor, the popularity of the store has always been ordinary. Even during the fiercely competitive morning rush hour, it is often deserted.

That morning, a middle-aged man in a long gown naturally sat down in the best seat in the store, which was apparently empty.

When the shop owner saw him, he couldn't help but smile and said, "Professor Quan, long time no see."

The middle-aged man barely curled his lips, then whispered, "One serving of flower cake, one bowl of vegetable paste, and one dish of mushroom paste."

The shop owner laughed again: "Old Sanyang, it seems that Professor Quan has become prosperous again. Have you found a good job after being unemployed?"

Professor Quan looked even more reluctant, but still answered: "Yes, yes..."

"Amazing! I've always heard people say that many people who teach illusion studies lose their jobs and can only go to places like Baichengtong to drive clouds for others. You can still continue to be a professor, which is really amazing! Do you have any tricks?"

The middle-aged man finally became impatient: "Can we do it?"

When the owner heard this, he glanced at another customer in the store, a graceful woman who had been visibly uncomfortable since Professor Quan entered the store, and smiled meaningfully, "Of course I can do it. Please wait a moment. I will serve you the food."

(End of this chapter)