Chapter 1360 Future Choice
“Over a thousand and eight hundred people…”
Sirius looked at Alec with a displeased expression.
“Sir, can you reveal the number of Divine Realm cultivators in your group?”
Alec frowned and stuck out seven fingers.
“Only seven?” Sirius asked, his brow furrowing.
“Twenty-five!” Alec looked at his own fingers with some confusion. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Uh…” Jonathan couldn’t help but feel speechless as he looked at Alec.
Alec’s age, as he claimed, was something Jonathan believed.
However, his demeanor and behavior didn’t match that of someone in their sixties.
“Twenty-five Divine Realm cultivators. Can’t they pose a threat to the Enlighteners? What kind of organization is it, really?”
Previously, whether it was Blaze’s or Seboxia’s proposals for cooperation, Jonathan had ignored them all.
In Jonathan’s eyes, he hadn’t even figured out his own little corner of Chanaea, so thinking about a global war involving numerous countries and factions seemed utterly meaningless.
But now, Jonathan had a vague premonition.
The campaign against the Enlighteners was no longer just a personal vendetta of some extremists.
It had quietly transformed into a vast network, encompassing all the world’s cultivators.
Yet for some reason, Chanaea was the last to wake up to this fact.
Many forces were now entering Chanaea, driving this final phase.
Seeing that Jonathan knew little about the Enlighteners, Alec couldn’t help but look puzzled.
After a brief hesitation, Alec spoke again.
“I suppose you already know about the composition of the Enlighteners’ thirteen families. Let me briefly explain their approximate strengths. In simple terms, each of them has a lineup of cultivators that can rival Sanctuary’s cultivators. Of course, this doesn’t take into account the Cavoid Realm cultivators within their families. If we include the Cavoid Realm, they become unbeatable.”
Alec’s simple introduction of the Enlighteners’ power had already left Jonathan feeling as if he had been hit in the throat.
Alec’s next words were like a heavy hammer striking Jonathan and Sirius in the chest.
“As for the reason why we’ve started fighting back against the Enlighteners after enduring oppression for so many years, it’s because of the continuous destruction of the world’s spiritual root. A few centuries ago, there were still very few geniuses who could break through to the Cavoid Realm. So, in order to maintain their own advantage, the Enlighteners began large-scale hunts against Cavoid Realm cultivators. Now, the Divine Realm has become the pinnacle, and the Enlighteners have set their sights on the Divine Realm and have already begun hunting down smaller factions.”
As Alec spoke, he took out a memory card from his storage ring.
“Everything you want is on this card, along with a comparison of the actions of the thirteen families three hundred years ago. Take a look, and you’ll understand why many forces around the world are starting to prepare against the Enlighteners.”
Jonathan retrieved his portable combat computer and inserted the memory card, beginning to browse through the vast amount of content.
These pieces of information opened up a completely new realm for Jonathan.
The Enlighteners’ thirteen families followed a path of pure coercion through force.
Hundreds of years ago, they united to form a massive global alliance of interests.
After the alliance was established, the thirteen families began systematically purging Cavoid Realm cultivators from many smaller factions.
This purge was rapid and extensive. Before many factions could react, nearly a third of all Cavoid Realm cultivators had been completely exterminated by the thirteen families.
The remaining two-thirds of the factions, although they noticed that something was amiss, lacked the convenient communication and transportation systems available today.
Under the massive information gap, many powerful factions spread across the world were continually eroded by the alliance of the thirteen families, acting under the Enlighteners.
By the time they wanted to resist, they realized that they were no longer capable of shaking the colossal entity that was the Enlighteners.
Even mighty forces like Sanctuary, after breaking through to the Cavoid Realm a hundred years ago, still had to pay a visit to the Collins family.
Of course, they could choose to refuse.
The thirteen families would naturally send numerous Cavoid Realm cultivators to besiege them, resulting in not just the death of a Cavoid Realm cultivator but the disappearance of the entire faction.
Now, based on the intelligence compiled by Sanctuary, a new round of purging had already begun, centered around Anglandur.
However, this time, it was targeting the Divine Realm cultivators.
Jonathan’s gaze turned ice-cold as he looked at Sirius beside him.
“It’s just as your family predicted. However, the survival paths of the thirteen families and your family, the Blackwood family, are completely different. Your family aims to complete the transformation from a cultivator family to a tech family before the complete collapse of spiritual energy in the world. Meanwhile, the Enlighteners’ thirteen families want to be the pioneers of every era. As long as they can cleanse the world of top-tier cultivators before the spiritual energy of the world deteriorates further, the thirteen families can permanently stand at the pinnacle of the world.”
Alec was now leaning comfortably nearby, sipping his coffee.
Upon hearing Jonathan’s words, he smiled slightly.
“If we follow the rules of the thirteen families, as the world’s spiritual energy continues to decline, the levels of human cultivation level will gradually decrease. However, as long as the spiritual energy allows the highest human cultivation level to drop below the God Realm, technology weapons can completely level the playing field against the thirteen families’ cultivator advantage. By that time, the Enlighteners would collapse on their own.”
Listening to Alec’s words, Sirius shook his head slightly.
“If that’s really the case, it will take at least several hundred years, even if the speed of spiritual root collapse continues to accelerate, it will still take at least three hundred years. And the thirteen families are not idiots; what we can think of, they can imagine as well. To maintain control over the entire world in the long run, the thirteen families will definitely influence the mainstream direction of world technology before the technology can level the gap between cultivators. Trying to grind down the thirteen families’ advantage with time is impossible.”
Alec looked at Sirius in surprise.
“I didn’t expect you to see these things so clearly. I remember that your family, the Blackwood family, seems to be Chanaea’s most conservative cultivator family. For you, who control many cultivation resources in Chanaea, technology should not be your first choice.”
Sirius smiled with a hint of bitterness.
“Indeed, it’s not the first choice for me, but it’s the only future choice available.”