With the native immortal and divine beast races forming a cooperative agreement, they quickly launched a thunderous assassination plan against the newly ascended five Immortal Venerables.
It was to strike with the utmost speed in the shortest possible time.
A lightning strike to kill them and reduce the threat.
To prevent leaks, they not only planned quickly but also executed faster. The plan was finalized one day and targets were chosen and struck the next.
The divine beast race was not short of Venerable-tier powerhouses.
Four or five could be fielded, so even though they knew the ascended Immortal Venerables had just broken through, a single veteran Immortal Venerable with an innate spiritual treasure might suffice, they cautiously opted for a two-on-one approach to ensure absolute success in killing them.
And then, naturally, came the assassinations.
The process needs no elaboration, and the outcome was swift and decisive. The native immortals, who had plotted with foresight against the unsuspecting ascended ones, achieved a significant victory. Though they didn't manage to eliminate all five newly ascended Immortal Venerables, they did kill three of them.
Two survived due to their mastery of evasion.
While common immortal races might not quickly learn of such events, it was easy for other Immortal Venerables to find out. Battles between Immortal Venerables, no matter how restrained, would always cause considerable disturbance. Thus, other Immortal Venerables had sensed something was amiss even before the three newly ascended Immortal Venerables met their demise.
At the same time, they had done their utmost to rush over.
Hoping to provide aid.
Unfortunately, the enemy's actions were too sudden, and coupled with pre-arranged formations to obstruct them and other measures, the reinforcements for the ascended Immortal Venerables failed. After failing, they had no means of retaliation.
Because they lacked the confidence to declare war directly on the now-united divine beast and native immortal races.
All they could do was to order the cessation of development for the new mutant virus specific medicine, and even command their subordinates skilled in this area to research viruses targeting the divine beast race.
There was no choice; they could no longer contain themselves.
Their fury was boiling over at this point.
Concurrently, there was a group even more enraged than the ascended beings: Ding Yun's colleagues. Although they competed amongst themselves and were temporarily allied with the ascended faction, they undoubtedly saw themselves as kindred spirits and a unified interest group.
The five newly ascended Immortal Venerables.
All came from their ranks, hence the three deceased Immortal Venerables also hailed from their group.
The result of finally elevating themselves to the Immortal Venerable realm only to be immediately assassinated was something they found utterly unacceptable. Consequently, they quickly contacted each other through their consciousness chips and devised a plan specifically targeting the ascended immortal race and the divine beasts.
Originally, they had no intention of specifically targeting the ascended immortal race and divine beasts, but that was no longer the case. With enmity established, how could they not target them? They were not made of clay.
Even a few of Ding Yun's colleagues acting in concert could cause significant trouble, let alone cooperation throughout the immortal realm.
Then, within less than two years, a strange illness appeared within the divine beast race. The bloodlines of all non-pure-blooded divine beasts, which were previously relatively stable, began to riot and mutate. Once these symptoms appeared, they would quickly lead to death due to the raging bloodline conflicts, their very souls annihilated.
Generally speaking, if bloodline conflicts were too severe.
It would be impossible to produce offspring.
The ability to conceive indicated that the bloodline had no major issues. This was a consensus within the divine beast race. However, this consensus was now shattered by the actions of Ding Yun's colleagues.
The most critical point was that the number of truly pure-blooded divine beasts was extremely small. Many divine beasts, perhaps the only one of their kind in existence, found no mates, making it impossible to produce pure-blooded offspring. They could only reproduce with those whose bloodlines were relatively close or had no conflicts.
Therefore, over ninety percent of divine beasts in the entire divine beast race were mixed-bloods, with genuinely pure-blooded divine beasts being quite rare.
The severity of the bloodline conflict issues, therefore.
Can be imagined.
It was almost akin to a genocidal disaster.
With the divine beast race suffering such retribution, the native immortal race could not remain unharmed. Countless native immortals perished due to the Five Decays of Heaven and Man, and innumerable direct descendants of native Immortal Venerables died due to bloodline curses.
These were all retaliatory measures.
The Five Decays of Heaven and Man were created by Ding Yun's colleagues. Based on the original poison of the Five Decays of Heaven and Man, they elevated it from a common toxin to a Law Toxin. The significant difference between a Law Toxin and a common toxin was that a Law Toxin could not truly be considered a toxin.
Instead, it was a forceful insertion of new rules into the fabric of heaven and earth.
It was just that this new rule was akin to poison.
To put it more concisely, Ding Yun's colleagues forcibly embedded this new rule of the Five Decays of Heaven and Man into the heavenly rules of the immortal realm, and this new rule was specifically targeted at pure-blooded lifeforms born in the immortal realm.
The new rule stated that native immortals who did not break through to a certain realm before a certain age would suffer the Five Decays of Heaven and Man and die. This was equivalent to placing a shackle on the native immortals who previously had almost infinite lifespans once they became immortal, with no need to worry about death.
For example, if a native immortal did not break through to Heavenly Immortal before the age of ten thousand, they would immediately suffer the Five Decays of Heaven and Man and die. The same applied if they did not reach Golden Immortal before one hundred thousand years old.
Even for Grand Unity Immortals, failure to break through to Immortal Emperor before a million years old would result in death from the Five Decays of Heaven and Man.
Only Immortal Emperors and Immortal Venerables were exceptions.
Their cultivation was too high; they could resist the rules.
Therefore, to deal with them, Ding Yun's colleagues chose another method: inflicting bloodline curses.
Since they couldn't deal with them directly.
They would deal with their descendants.
Even though inflicting bloodline curses came at a great cost, Ding Yun's colleagues had numerous ways to circumvent it, or rather, to offset it through other means.
Therefore, they did not pay much attention to the cost.
The final outcome was that they successfully cast the bloodline curses. A large number of descendants of native Immortal Venerables and Immortal Emperors, without any preparation or anticipation, suffered the curse and died, perishing almost simultaneously, leaving no opportunity for those Immortal Venerables and Emperors to save their offspring.
Then, the immortal realm was thrown into utter chaos.
Both the native immortal race and the divine beast races were enraged and driven mad. Simultaneously, although they had no evidence, they generally agreed that their predicaments were related to the ascended beings and launched retaliatory actions.
The three major powers of the immortal realm, as expected, completely forgot about the threat from the demon realm and broke into open war.
After all, when people are pushed to a certain level of anger.
They would no longer care about one thing or another.
They would only want to fight to the death.
As the immortal realm descended into complete chaos, the demon realm naturally could not afford to miss such a golden opportunity. After a private consultation among the old Demon Venerables, they decided to initiate a new round of the Immortal-Demon War. As for Ding Yun, the new Demon Venerable, she was merely notified. After all, with the immortal realm in such disarray, the old Demon Venerables did not desperately need the cooperation of the new Demon Venerable Ding Yun.
Whether she wished to join or not was her choice.
It made no difference if she didn't.
As long as the three major powers of the immortal realm remained in conflict, they were absolutely confident of winning this Immortal-Demon War. If they were to strategically plan further, such as by wooing the ascended faction in the immortal realm, then even destroying the entire native immortal race was not an impossible prospect.