North of East Heavenly King City, Yunlun Mountain Range.
The Yunlun Mountain Range stretched for tens of thousands of miles. If the surrounding mountains beyond its outskirts were counted as well, it extended as far as a hundred thousand miles. Mist and clouds wreathed the range year-round, making it seem like an immortal realm.
There was a saying: "Mist and clouds descend to the mortal world; heaven emerges from Yunlun. If not for the three hardships, it would shelter generations of descendants."
This folk rumor neatly explained the immense opportunities the Yunlun Mountain Range offered the impoverished people living beyond East Heavenly King City.
The three hardships it spoke of were natural disasters, beast disasters, and human disasters.
To most ordinary folk, Spirit Refiners were beings no different from gods.
East Heavenly King City belonged to the Spirit Refining Realm. Ordinary families could not enter the Royal City, so they could only settle outside it, yearning for a chance at immortality.
Generations rose and fell; seas turned to fields.
The families that had settled in the Yunlun Mountain Range long ago had already carved out a world of their own by relying on this mountain range.
Those who lived by mountains lived off mountains; those who lived by water lived off water.
It had to be said that, neighboring East Heavenly King City, the Yunlun Mountain Range offered ordinary people far too many chances to leap over the dragon gate.
Yet precisely because it was separated from the Spirit Refining center of the Eastern Heaven Realm, East Heavenly King City, by only a short distance, calamities were all too common.
Once disaster struck, the people would often be buried beneath it before they could wait for the timely rescue of those "immortals."
Even so, it could not stop the countless