The one hundred and sixty-first year.
The speed at which the Outer Dao spread through this world had soared to a nearly horrifying degree.
By now, not a single "living being" remained in the Far Eastern Lands of the Azure Crossing Continent. Cultivators, mortals, birds and beasts, even flowers, grasses, and trees had all become puppets of the Outer Dao.
Its reach extended from the Silver River Mountains at the easternmost edge all the way into the heart of the Far Eastern Lands.
The land completely occupied by the Outer Dao now covered an area roughly one-twentieth the size of the Chenping Continent.
And as the Outer Dao continued to expand and spread, its puppets grew ever stronger.
When the Outer Dao first began spreading from that mountain village four hundred li west of the Silver River Mountains, the mortal hunters alone had barely been able to contend with it.
On average, four or five young, able-bodied hunters could deal with a single Outer Dao Puppet.
In reality, however, it was not the hunters who surrounded the Outer Dao Puppets.
It was the Outer Dao Puppets who surrounded the hunters.
Only fifty-odd hunters had returned from the North-South Forests.
Yet they had to face more than two hundred Outer Dao Puppets in the village.
The outcome was self-evident. Without a sound, this village deep in the mountain forests was utterly destroyed.
One year later.
On the frontier of the Eastern Phoenix Dynasty, seventeen hundred li west of the Silver River Mountains.
Border-Guard Pass.
It was the greatest stronghold of the Eastern Phoenix Dynasty, and more than four hundred years had passed since its construction.
Throughout those four hundred-odd years, no foreign enemy had ever breached Border-Guard Pass.
It was an entirely ordinary day.
Atop the walls, the general guarding the