Three days later, Ju Hua received word to report to the main army tent. After a brief moment of thought, he set aside what he was doing, left the Zhuanshui Clan's camp, and headed for the main army tent.
If his guess was right, Immortal Jiuhua had summoned the commanders of the major clans to hold a war council.
The main army tent stood in the center of the camp, guarded on all sides by fifty thousand soldiers of the Yinglong Army. Ju Hua passed through a vast stretch of Yinglong Army tents and soon arrived inside the main army tent.
At that moment, only three people were there: Immortal Jiuhua, seated at the head of the room, and, seated to one side, an old man in a red robe and a young woman with a somewhat stern expression.
"Ah, it's Fellow Daoist Ju Hua. Please, have a seat!" Immortal Jiuhua smiled when he saw Ju Hua, then gestured toward a table and chair nearby.
"Then I won't stand on ceremony." Ju Hua cupped his hands in greeting, strode forward, and took a seat to one side.
After Ju Hua sat down, the young woman nodded to him. He returned the greeting in kind.
As for the old man in the red robe, he didn't even look at Ju Hua. Ju Hua couldn't be bothered with him either. From beginning to end, the two acted as if the other didn't exist.
The woman wore the emblem of the Heishen Clan. She was probably its commander!
The Heishen Clan was extremely powerful, one of the top great clans in the Great Xia World. The Zhuanshui Clan and the Heishen Clan were neither friends nor enemies. Over their long history, they had cooperated at times and fought at others; their relationship was incredibly complicated.
In fact, that was generally how things stood between the major clans of the Great Xia World!
The exceptions were absolute friendship or absolute hatred. Absolute friendship was rare, but absolute hatred? There was an example right in front of him!
If Ju Hua wasn't mistaken, the old man in red was from the Shaoyan Clan—and the Shaoyan Clan and Zhuanshui Clan harbored a feud as deep as the sea.
The source of their hatred had long since become unclear, but as far as Ju Hua knew, the two clans had spent countless years fighting and undermining each other.
That was exactly why the old man in red acted as if Ju Hua didn't exist!
Ju Hua could recognize that the old man in red was from the Shaoyan Clan, and the old man could naturally tell that Ju Hua belonged to the Zhuanshui Clan. Anyone attending a meeting like this, with all the major clans represented, would normally carry something connected to their own clan.
For instance, Ju Hua's clothes were embroidered with the Zhuanshui, the symbol of the Zhuanshui Clan.
After sitting for a while, Ju Hua once again turned his gaze toward the old man in red from the Shaoyan Clan. It wasn't that he was interested in the man; it was simply that the man's identity had reminded him of something.
The other clans of the Great Xia World barely appeared in Desolate Era. Some weren't mentioned at all. The Shaoyan Clan, however, had a substantial presence—only, it appeared as a major villain.
The plot of Desolate Era was quite interesting, but that wasn't what Ju Hua was thinking about now. He was thinking of the Shaoyan Clan's forefather.
Shaoyan Chou, known as the Poisonous Ugly Immortal, possessed the status of a True Immortal despite being a Celestial Immortal, and nearly stood on equal footing with the Celestial Gods and True Immortals!
Aside from a handful of monstrous geniuses, few Celestial Immortals could achieve that. But the Poisonous Ugly Immortal hadn't made it there because he was some extraordinary genius. Purely and simply, he'd been incredibly lucky!
Desolate Era mentioned that Shaoyan Chou had been born into the ancient great clan, the Shenhuo Clan, to a God-Fiend who had forced himself on a human woman.
Because of his ugly, bizarre appearance, Shaoyan Chou was rejected by his clan. He left the Shenhuo Clan and founded the Shaoyan Clan.
To Ju Hua, Shaoyan Chou's story was little more than an amusing anecdote. But one of the treasures he possessed made Ju Hua's heart stir.
The reason Ju Hua thought Shaoyan Chou was lucky was that he'd once stumbled upon an inconceivably precious treasure. It was thanks to that treasure that he'd earned a reputation rivaling that of the Celestial Gods and True Immortals despite being only a Celestial Immortal.
According to Desolate Era, the treasure was called the Nine Directions Chaos Stele!
The Nine Directions Chaos Stele came from the Nine Directions Chaos Kingdom, beyond the Three Realms. It was a prison used by a World God to extract Chaos Spirit Liquid and imprison criminals. The Nine Directions Chaos Stele also recorded seven arts, each one astonishing beyond belief!
Matters like World Gods were far too distant from Ju Hua. Based on Desolate Era alone, he couldn't tell whether the story was true. But he knew this: if the Nine Directions Chaos Stele really existed, it was undoubtedly one of the greatest opportunities in the Three Realms.
Shaoyan Chou's immense renown as a Celestial Immortal was inseparable from two powerful arts recorded on the Nine Directions Chaos Stele: Taowu Eighteen Avatars and Nine Dissolutions of Insect Beasts.
The arts aside, the true value of the Nine Directions Chaos Stele lay in the Chaos Spirit Liquid within it. The criminals imprisoned there included Ancestral Gods and Ancestral Immortals.
In the Three Realms, Ancestral Gods and Ancestral Immortals were true great powers, comparable to the Three Sovereigns of the Human Race and the leaders of the Daoist Sect and Buddhism.
To Ju Hua, even Celestial Gods and True Immortals were figures he could only look up to. The leaders of Buddhism and the Daoist Sect were on a level far beyond that!
The criminals imprisoned inside the Nine Directions Chaos Stele had all once held extraordinary status in the Nine Directions Chaos Kingdom. They also possessed countless astonishing treasures and secret arts.
In Desolate Era, the protagonist, Ji Ning, defeated a Celestial Immortal inside the Nine Directions Chaos Stele and obtained three hundred and sixty top-grade Pure Yang Immortal swords from him. Later, he even acquired the Heaven-Peering Taihao Pagoda, a Chaos Rare Treasure capable of accelerating time.
The secret arts were even more astonishing: the Nine-Horned Thunder Snake Evasion Technique, whose speed rivaled the legendary divine ability Solar Golden Rainbow, and the Ice-Fire Golden Core Tempering Technique, which could raise the rank of a Golden Core.
There were so many benefits that it was impossible to list them all.
"If it's all true, then this will be an unbelievable stroke of fortune!" Ju Hua silently told himself. Then he settled in to wait for the other clans' commanders to arrive.
It wasn't that Ju Hua didn't want the opportunity. He simply had no chance!
Besides, even if the Poisonous Ugly Immortal offered him the Nine Directions Chaos Stele, Ju Hua still wouldn't be able to claim its treasures.
Neither Celestial Gods nor Celestial Immortals could refine the Nine Directions Chaos Stele. One had to be at least a True Immortal to truly refine it!
In the Three Realms, Celestial Gods and True Immortals were equal in combat strength. But Celestial God power was still inferior to the pure Yang energy of a Pure Yang True Immortal!
The Poisonous Ugly Immortal had possessed the Nine Directions Chaos Stele for countless years and had only learned two of its arts, Taowu Eighteen Gods and Demons and Nine Dissolutions of Insect Beasts. He was still nowhere near refining it—and Ju Hua was even further from it!