Li Xinge knew nothing of what had happened in the Upper Realm.
Defeating Chu Yuehan had taken a considerable toll on him.
He had to recover as quickly as possible.
Then he would deliver the final blow to the Jiang Clan.
Northern Xu Province.
Green Cliff Fort.
This was the ancestral estate of the Zhou Clan, a rising aristocratic clan in the north.
The fort was built against a mountain, with water surrounding it on three sides.
Its walls were built from blue stone and stood several dozen feet high. Mounted with all manner of heavy defensive weapons, they were easy to defend and difficult to assault.
The Zhou Clan's history was not particularly long, spanning less than a thousand years.
Yet it had more than twenty cultivators in the qi and blood realm.
Its patriarch, Zhou Chongshan, was himself a Great Cultivator at early-stage innate.
At a single command from Lü Fengxian, the governor of Xu Province,
virtually all of southern Xu Province had immediately answered the call and changed their banners.
Northern Xu Province, however,
lay within the heartland of the Central Plains.
Great Zhou held enormous influence in northern Xu Province.
Many factions were unwaveringly loyal to Great Zhou.
The Zhou Clan was one of them.
Dusk was approaching.
Thirty li outside Green Cliff Fort,
in a dense forest,
more than a hundred figures lay silently in hiding.
They were all Li Family Disciples.
Some belonged to the direct line, some to the Main Branch, and others to collateral branches.
None were particularly old.
They had originally come to participate in the Li Clan All-Family Competition.
Then the First Elder had announced a change in the rules.
These young men of the Li Family had chosen to step onto the battlefield.
The Zhou Clan of