Visiting Golden Ao Island

Outside Western Penglai, hundreds of thousands of miles stretched out in a single glance with barely a trace of human habitation.

Back then, Western Penglai suffered through demonic chaos, and outer Dao ran rampant. A massive number of demonic beasts emerged from unknown origins, devouring the nearby humans and polluting the heaven and earth. As much time as had passed, survival remained difficult in many places.

It was hard to nurture immortals here, and cultivators were pitifully scarce.

Yet the heavenly court still established a province here, named Zhangren, meaning that the people here stood over a zhang tall.

This was largely because the land was barren and desolate, abounding in fierce beasts and demonic beasts. The people living in this land often needed to run long distances to find food and escape the raids and killings of fierce beasts and demonic beasts just to survive, which made them grow taller and larger.

Even though Zhangren Province was guarded by heavenly court yamens and had a great army of immortals and gods organized, its control over the province had long existed in name only. Most soldiers in the army drew pay for ghost posts; a single soldier holding ten salaries was a common occurrence, and the prefectural yamen suffered from a severe lack of troops, leaving it unable to govern the province.

A heavenly ship bearing the banner of the heavenly court sailed across the sky above Zhangren Province, its shadow leaving a continuously moving patch upon the land below that was eroded by demonic Qi.

Many Zhangren people ran swiftly beneath the shadow, actually managing to keep pace with the heavenly ship's shadow while avoiding the demonic beasts that pursued and killed them.

Up on the heavenly ship, Heavenly King Li sat within the pavilion with a leisurely demeanor,