“This is a nice ship, it’s nice that the Patriarch let me borrow it, although he didn’t look so good… are you sure he wasn’t sick or something?”

“No honorable Golden Dragon, he was just slightly tired. He'll be fine in a few days…”

“If you say so.”

Zhang Dong nodded while turning away from Sun Shi and looking out into the distance. He and a couple of other cultivators were zooming through the clouds in a crystal ship. Thanks to the strange material it was made from, it was able to hide them from any peering eyes. It could block out their Qi and even bend light in such a way that it would be almost fully invisible. When going through the air no one would be really able to see them until it was too late.

“While we are here, how about you tell me about the place we are going to and what you know of the Emerald Phoenix Empire.”

“As you wish.”

“My Sun Lily Faction scouts are more informed, why don’t I take this over while Elder Shi rests for now?”

“What nonsense… our scouts are not inferior to yours!”

“Uh, how about you both tell me what you know instead?”

The two elders glared at each other while following Zhang Dong into the captain's cabin. There they could see the scenery passing by at an alarming rate through a small window. There was no shaking or turbulence which made it a smooth ride and allowed for ample conversations.

“We will be arriving at the City of Panhua in a day, close to it is our closest outpost that some of our sect elders are guarding.”

“City of Panhua?”

“Yes, have you heard of it?”

“No… I just expected a different-sounding name… could it be because its closer to the Eastern Empire? Ah, sorry I’m just thinking out loud.”

Zhang Dong was confused at the start that the city that they were going to didn’t have the usual sounding name. It was more in line with the cities in the Emerald Phoenix Empire than what he was used to here. Kang Yunru nodded and continued with the briefing but there wasn’t really that much information to go around.

First of all, at least half of the eastern regions had already fallen into the hands of the Emerald Phoenix Empire. This constituted all of the lower regions and part of the middle ones. Kang Yunru didn’t mention it but from Zhang Dong’s perspective, this was still an amount that the Heavenly Crane Sect could stomach. They didn’t really care or need anything from the lower regions as the sects in the middle region were the ones sending them taxes in various forms. Unless they lost the bulk of the middle districts they wouldn’t really care or feel a loss.

“So they have been stopped at this outpost close to the City of Panhua?”

“Not exactly.”

Sun Shi chimed in while Kang Yunru became silent during his explanation.

“In all honestly they should have been able to continue forward and take the outpost and the city over, for some reason they stopped with their forceful push and retreated into the territories that they had already conquered.”

“They did? Hmm… they might not have had enough resources for a prolonged siege perhaps? But they could have been other reasons, like searching for something in the lands that they already occupied or waiting for reinforcements…”

Zhang Dong spoke out to the two elders that probably knew more about tactics than he did. They just nodded without speaking, it seemed that they were mostly of the same mind.

“Some of our elders are of the mind that they didn’t have the manpower for a further push, Leader Shen wished to launch a counter-offensive due to this reason but the Leaders couldn’t reach an agreement.”

“Leader Zhong didn’t see a purpose in attacking now, we didn’t have enough information about the situation.”

“Hmph.”

The two elders continued to scoff at each other. One side wanted to quickly push back at a seemingly weakened enemy while the other didn’t see a problem in waiting. Both of them could have been equally wrong or right. From Zhang Dong’s perspective, taking back some lands would have probably been the better idea, that is if they actually had the army for it.

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As it stood now he didn’t believe that the Heavenly Crane Sect would win a large-scale counter-offensive without going all out from the start. This they would of course not do as it went against most of their core beliefs and their way of life that allowed them to exist to this day.

‘They probably could have pushed in further if they wanted, they must have been another reason for it.’

He had already asked around the Heavenly Crane Sect about all the information that they had. The Emerald Phoenix Emperor had apparently not appeared yet, at least he did not make a move. The people from that empire were different from the demi-humans, they weren’t here to play around. To them, this was probably more akin to a huge secret ground zone that was opened every hundred thousand years.

Considering that they were almost identical to the cultivating nuts in this empire this was probably the case. They had certainly been preparing for hundreds of years for this event, perhaps even thousands. In their mind probably a way to immortality existed here and even the Emperor wanted it. It wouldn’t be strange if all their strongest sects ventured here to compete for that elusive power-up.

The only problem was the bridge connecting to this world. It wouldn’t be strange if the strongest sect or in this case the royal family tried to block access to these lands. While they probably wanted some help in taking over the lands this meant more competition for them. It wouldn’t be strange that they would start infighting when discovering that treasure they were hoping for.

‘Well… not like it exists, it’s probably some lie thought out by the Overseer or the one above them. I bet they sprinkled some rumors about the location of this immortal treasure. In time they will get to the Azure Emperor's palace if they aren’t stopped…’

This was only his speculation, to confirm this he needed to capture someone that was in a higher position than a junior sect member. It wouldn’t be strange to anyone below the nascent soul level to be uninformed about the true purpose of this war. They had to listen to their elders that could snuff them out with a poke of their finger.

“We will see when we get there, do you perhaps have any idea of the numbers of Saint Emperor-level cultivators that they have?”

“Saint Emperor? So the honorable Golden Dragon does know about their strange cultivation realism.”

“I’ve heard a bit, they an early level Saint Emperor should be above a regular nascent soul master.”

“That is right, some of our elders had fallen when combating those ferocious masters.”

“Hah, I bet they just got lazy and forgot how to fight after all these years of latency.”

Kang Yunru grumbled while commenting about the deaths of his sect brothers. It seemed that mostly elders of the early and middle nascent soul realms were stationed there. They were also all old and too busy sitting in their cultivation chambers to do anything in real combat. It wasn’t strange for masters to become complacent at an advanced age, their only thought was to prolong their life and nothing else. When coming in contact with hungry battle-ready masters they were sure to fail.

“They might have to fight again soon, it would be better that we get there sooner rather than later.”

“Do you think that they will attack once more after retreating?”

“It’s possible that they just decided to rendezvous with some reinforcement, it would be better to stay vigilant, they could appear at any moment but I could also be wrong.”

The two elders nodded and after some chatting, the two left the cabin and returned to their own. This ship wasn’t that large but there was room to spare for the entire crew. With the two nascent soul masters came around five core formation experts and a few lesser servants to tend to their needs.

Thus while traveling through the lands he took a look over his system screen. There he investigated the state of his own sect. There wasn’t much to see there besides the ever-increasing number of spirit points. Ever since he took over the west side of the empire it was designated as his territory from which he was allowed to get his spirit points from.

These he received from having a good approval rating from the people living there. Perhaps it wasn’t the best of times for the people living there but it was for his spirit point farm. The citizens there just wanted to get back to their homes so their approval was particularly high whenever they were just able to return. As long as the war lasted and they felt that they needed the protection of the United Element Sect, it would probably not change.

It felt bad to use this war to get more powerful but not like he wouldn’t take care of those people after it was all over. The only problem would remain in the form of the old Emperor which he didn’t really want to face. However with the overseer huddled up there, the confrontation could have been predetermined already.

Thus time continued to pass as he examined the map and the mass of red fog in the eastern corner. Just as he expected, the biggest concentration of Qi was right outside of the cross empire bridge. Which wasn’t anything alarming but the concentration there was quite staggering. His assumption that his new enemies were treating this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reach immortality was probably true.

“One side wanted to hunt people for fun, one to gain immortality, one to find a long lost treasure to help them survive… that just leaves the ones in the north that I don’t really know the motives for… but they probably just want something like world domination…”

Soon he shot off the mapping device to just glance outside the window. Without ever being in these lands he couldn’t just teleport to the city he desired. Instead, he needed to establish a safe point where he could summon his people if he needed them. That wasn’t really the plan as his forces were busy in the north, instead he needed to somehow utilize the Heavenly Crane Sect and their vassal sects to fight for him instead.

“Well, it doesn’t seem like I will need to wait for long, a red blob is getting close to that outpost… I just hope that we can reach it in time…”