Astromark Province, inside an ordinary tavern.
Ian Song, disguised as an ordinary middle-aged man, sat by the window drinking alone, looking completely relaxed.
Business at this tavern was quite good; the first and second floors were almost full of customers.
However, everyone here was either a low-level cultivator or a rogue cultivator—there wasn't even a single Golden Core expert in sight.
So, the tavern was lively, with plenty of people eating, drinking, and chatting—and the main topic of conversation was Little Demon Song himself.
After deciding to go after the Prime One Church, Ian had thought carefully about how to inflict the greatest possible damage.
With his current strength and speed, he could easily wipe out five or six branch altars in a single day—but after destroying only the Crescent Province and Dragoncrest Province Branch Altars, he stopped.
It wasn't out of mercy, but for deeper reasons. In both provincial capitals, he discovered small teleportation arrays set up by the Prime One Church, each guarded by spies ready to instantly report any news back to the Main Altar.
Apparently, after suffering from slow information transfer two years ago, the Prime One Church had built these arrays.
Upon discovering the Prime One Church's teleportation arrays, Ian didn't destroy them. Instead, he let the spies send news of the branch altar destructions back to the Main Altar.
From the Prime One Church's perspective, Ian Song wasn't strong enough to face them head-on and could only vent his anger on branch altars. What they didn't know was that his real target this time was their Tribulation-realm experts—that's why he stopped after destroying just two branch altars.
Once the branch altars were destroyed, the Prime One Church had only two choices: either send their top experts to hunt him down—which was almost impossible, since the world was so vast, Ian could hide anywhere and they'd never find him.
So, their only real option was to send a huge number of Tribulation-realm experts to guard the remaining branch altars.
But Tribulation-realm experts aren't cabbages—each one sent out is one less at headquarters.
Nearly a hundred branch altars would require sending out a hundred Tribulation-realm experts.
Even with all its deep reserves, once the Prime One Church sent out a hundred Tribulation-realm experts, their Main Altar would be left dangerously empty.
The Fire God Church and Prime One Church are mortal enemies. Ian didn't believe for a second that the Prime One Church didn't have Fire God spies or sleepers inside. So if word got out that the Main Altar was empty, what would Vulcan Pi, the Fire God Church Master, do?
Would he seize the chance to attack the Prime One Church's Main Altar?
Ian figured the odds were pretty high.
After all, two years ago the Fire God Church had already taken advantage and snatched several provinces from the Prime One Church. The two sides are bound to clash sooner or later, and if Vulcan Pi hears about this, there's no way he'd let such a golden opportunity slip by.