The Hall of General Affairs sank into a long silence. No one had expected that barely half a century had passed since the last large-scale war, and the Black Scale Race had already returned to kill again.
The Black Scale Race belonged to the Scale Race, one of the Sea Race's eight major branches. They were related to the Color Scale Clan and spread across nearly the entire East Sea. This branch of the Black Scale Race was even somewhat stronger than the Color Scale Clan led by the Brocade Banner's old foe, Demon King Liuli.
At the critical juncture when Song Minghuang remained in seclusion and Song Daoling had been severely wounded, the Black Scale Race launched a massive invasion. Let alone Song Tianyuan alone—even if they threw the entire Brocade Banner into it, they would have almost no chance of victory.
"How could the Black Scale Race appear within our clan's territory?!" Song Zhexuan forced himself to his feet and walked over to the sea chart hanging behind them, his eyes fixed rigidly on its northeastern corner.
Song Shouhe replied gravely, "Do you even need to ask? The Vast Sea Merchant Association and Thousand Blades City must be pulling strings behind the scenes! Deputy Clan Head, we cannot hesitate any longer. The only one capable of saving the millions of our kin in the Soaring Dragon Archipelago now is the East Sea Alliance."
The Soaring Dragon Archipelago was the Brocade Banner's most central and fertile region in the East Sea. To meet the manpower demands of resource development, nearly eight million mortals and close to fifty thousand cultivators had been settled on the islands.
They also maintained year-round a powerful naval fleet composed of more than a hundred Ocean Battleships.
Even across the entire Dagan Cultivation World, it