Haizhou Road.
Since Zhi Gong had led the Earth Cave Sect disciples out of this place, the Lesser Demons of Hushan Kingdom had frequently invaded the northern mountains. Fortunately, Xuan Ling later took up residence at the Dao Palace grounds as Chief, suppressing the Lesser Demons' incursions from Hushan Kingdom.
To evade the Dao Palace's searches, the Demon Race that had migrated here dug numerous underground strongholds in the northern and western forest regions. Together with the hidden tunnels left behind by the Earth Cave Sect, this caused considerable losses among the seven-seat Qi practitioners sent by the Dao Palace to investigate.
Over time, both the Dao Palace and the Haizhou Road Imperial Court turned a blind eye to the Demon Race in the north. They only issued warrants for demons that had committed grave crimes and ignored everything else.
About five years ago, the villagers near the northern mountain range of Haizhou Road began disappearing without cause. At first, there were only a few people, but later it grew to hundreds. News also came from Hushan Kingdom that some of their tribes, numbering in the thousands, would vanish overnight.
The reports made their way up layer by layer to the Third Seat. Although the Third Seat members had spent most of these recent years arguing and achieved little of substance, their stance on this matter was unusually unanimous.
Before long, Hushan Kingdom and Haizhou Road each dispatched an investigation team. Following the residual aura left by the Missing Persons, they tracked them to the northern mountain range of Haizhou Road.
The traces of the two investigation teams ended in a dense forest fifty kilometers south of Crouching Dragon Mountain. There had been no news of them since.
This thoroughly enraged a Third Realm cultivator from a Yuqing Sect branch,