Thus, these terrifying social contradictions were forcibly suppressed by the nobles through sheer power.
The noble shall remain noble, and the commoner shall forever be a commoner. Between these two strata, there would be no change until the day when all people in the world, all humans with bloodline abilities, degenerated to the point of losing them.
This was the future that the Human King foresaw and predicted – but judging by the rate of degeneration of bloodline abilities, the day when all those with bloodline abilities would lose them was at least hundreds of millions of years away.
The Human King could not see that far, nor could she manage that far, and therefore turned a blind eye to that future.
But in this era, something that had remained unchanged for millennia appeared – the Immortal Path was born.
In that southern land, in that desolate region where bloodline abilities were weak, the anomaly known as the Immortal Path emerged.
Commoners, by cultivating the Immortal Path, gained strength to contend with bloodline humans. Those at the fifth turn of the Core Condensation realm could even contend with humans of the twelfth-grade bloodline!
Admittedly, this was due to the weak bloodline human forces in the southern regions. A twelfth-grade bloodline human was a top noble in the southern wilderness, but in the northern lands, the human royal capital, the center of power for all humans in this world, they were merely mid-tier nobles.
The strength possessed by those in the Core Condensation and Yin Spirit realms was considered extremely fragile by the Human King and the upper echelons of nobles in the royal capital.
The Immortal Path spread so widely and did not suffer any devastating blows, nor did it experience much backlash from the nobles, purely because the noble forces in the southern wilderness were inherently weak, far inferior to those in the north.
If the Immortal Path had spread in the north, it would have been discovered by the top nobles long ago and promptly eradicated several times over.
But this did not in any way affect the Human King's judgment of the threat the Immortal Path posed to the bloodline hierarchy.
The current Immortal Path could not influence the bloodline humans of the north, but this did not mean that the future Immortal Path could not influence the nobles of the north.
The Human King had already seen clearly the fact that bloodline abilities were not progressing, only regressing, while the Immortal Path could continuously develop and advance.
This was a terrifying realization.
Currently, the Immortal Path could pacify and deter the nobles of the south.
In the future, it was likely that the upper-class nobles of the north would also be pacified by the Immortal Path.
As for the Human King herself, despite her absolute confidence that she could crush even an Immortal Path expert at the ninth turn of Core Condensation with a single palm, relying on her bloodline abilities, she wondered: but who could guarantee that the ninth turn of Core Condensation and the Great Perfection of the Nascent Soul was the end of the Immortal Path? Would there not be a next realm, and then another?
The Human King carefully observed the development of the Immortal Path and discovered that precisely because the nobles of the southern wilderness had not taken it seriously during its initial development, even dismissing it with disdain, by the time they finally understood its threat, the Immortal Path had already developed to a point where it could contend with them.
They had ultimately fallen to the Immortal Path.
The south became a paradise for the Immortal Path system. The former nobles dared not speak out even when Immortal Path cultivators rapidly recruited people in various tribes, and were oppressed by the former commoners.
Things had reached this point, and the Human King absolutely did not wish to repeat this process as the south had.
The Human King chose to order the eradication of the Immortal Path to eliminate future troubles.
It was not that the Human King did not know that the Immortal Path was superior to the bloodline path; she had understood this very clearly since she discovered the Immortal Path, even more clearly than some Immortal Path cultivators.
But any power that could not be used for her own benefit, and instead threatened her power, was useless, no matter how strong or superior it was. It had to be utterly eliminated.
The Human King also knew very well that the number of bloodline humans, and nobles, was far less than the majority of commoners. If these few nobles stood on the same track as the vast majority of commoners, could the nobles' status be maintained? This was something that could be understood with a moment's thought.
It could not be maintained.
There was no correlation between stronger bloodline abilities and greater Immortal Path aptitude; the two were unrelated. Even though the Human King was the strongest in bloodline abilities in the world, she had secretly tested her own cultivation talent and found it to be of the lowest grade.
Since there was no relationship between the two, they were on the same track. The future trajectory would inevitably lead to the nobles losing their status and declining, while the commoners, representing the majority, would rise.
This was something that the Human King's wisdom could foresee, and she clearly understood that the Immortal Path and bloodline abilities were mutually exclusive, with no possibility of peaceful coexistence.
They were enemies, not friends.
Having foreseen such a situation, the Human King, as the ruler of all humans and tens of thousands of tribes, was not a soft-hearted person. She immediately and decisively issued an order for the northern nobles to march south and exterminate the Immortal Path.
The Human King was the leader of humanity, and her orders were naturally obeyed by all nobles. Even though many nobles showed disdain for the Immortal Path, considering it an overreaction, this was only in their hearts. No noble, not even an upper-class noble, dared to speak such words before the Human King. Similarly, no northern noble wished to disobey the Human King's command.
The nobles quickly complied with the Human King's orders. They traveled from the north to the southern wilderness, intending to completely eliminate the Immortal Path.
Although the northern nobles' attitude was extremely arrogant, and although they completely disdained cultivators in terms of tactics, believing their bloodline power was sufficient to defeat all commoners,
this did not affect the fact that the northern nobles were indeed powerful.
Cultivators in the Core Condensation realm did not even possess enough strength to resist mid-tier nobles by northern standards, and even cultivators at the fifth turn of Core Condensation or in the Yin Spirit realm would be crushed by a single hand of any upper-class noble.
Just as inferior wisdom cannot overcome absolute power, just as the oppressed commoners of millions of years, united, were not even as strong as an elder in any tribe,
even if the bloodline nobles were arrogant and looked down upon cultivators, it did not change the fact that their strength was sufficient to crush all current cultivators.
This gap in strength was a disparity that no wisdom could bridge, and no number of people could compensate for.
Therefore, when the northern nobles arrived at Mount Taihang and carried out their extermination operation, no cultivator could truly resist the northern nobles.
One by one, cultivators, whether in the Yin Sha, Yang Gang, or Core Condensation realms, perished.
Before their demise, the Array Sect, established on Mount Taihang for hundreds of years and personally built by numerous Core Condensation cultivators, activated their top-tier formations, desperately trying to resist the onslaught of the northern nobles.