Qingxuan Realm, Southern Sea Cultivation World.
Compared to more than three hundred years ago, this vast cultivation sea region had undergone earth-shaking changes, whether in its overt power structure or the undercurrents churning beneath the surface.
The tentacles of the Immortal Palace, once a behemoth of the Demonic Path, had now deeply infiltrated every corner of the South Sea.
From the Upper Nine Islands to Middle Island and the countless Lower Islands, from open resource trade to covert intelligence networks, everything bore its profound mark.
In order to completely cleanse itself of the Demonic Path's name and integrate into—even dominate—the righteous order of the South Sea,
the Immortal Palace had made sustained efforts over the past several centuries.
They had reined in some of their excessively brutal methods, lavishly supported local cultivation clans and small-to-medium sects, and actively taken part in resisting deep-sea Demonic Beasts and safeguarding shipping routes.
More than two hundred years ago, they had even officially changed the name Immortal Palace to the far more understated "Southern Palace."
With "Immortal" becoming "Southern," a difference of but one character, they had deliberately weakened the lofty and terrifying aura that once made people tremble at the very mention of their name.
They had draped themselves in an outer layer more steeped in the traditional regional flavor of cultivation.
Though the core leadership remained unchanged, their painstaking efforts had gradually borne fruit.
To the new generation of Cultivators in the South Sea, the Demon Star Sea, and other Cultivation Worlds,
the Southern Palace was now a top-tier power in their eyes—powerful, perhaps somewhat calculating in its methods, but broadly abiding by the rules and capable of bringing stability to the Southern Sea Cultivation World.
As for its disgraceful past, it had gradually sunk beneath the dust of history. Only a