The four sects' treasure ships traveled unhindered, meeting no resistance along the way.
The Demon Sect of the Southern Border did not interfere either. Only the mortals and local natives along the route raised their heads, gazing at the fleet as though it were a miracle.
When the ships flew over great mortal cities, their sky-blotting shadows fell across the streets. The people below often dropped to their knees in dark, surging crowds and kowtowed without cease.
Cultivators were, after all, exceedingly rare in this world. Even one who had only just entered the Form-Shaping realm was an untouchable "Immortal Master" in mortal eyes.
The disciples of the Taihua Sect and Three Immortals Island found it rather strange. There were mortal dynasties on the islands of the Outer Dao's East Sea too, but the islanders had long known the sects existed. They revered cultivators, yet did not fear them as the people of the Southern Border did.
At the mere sight of treasure ships crossing the sky, they fell prostrate in terror, as though beholding the wrath of heaven.
A disciple who knew the history explained: when the Demon Sect had been driven into the Southern Border, it had suppressed the local natives with near-cruel brutality.
The mortals had rebelled time and again, but this was no longer the age before the Spiritual Energy Revival. Cultivation had begun; how could mortal flesh withstand its power?
A single Dao Embryo disciple with a ritual implement could slaughter an entire city.
That gulf had driven many Southern Border natives to such grief and despair that they had hanged themselves.
After a thousand years under the Demon Sect's rule, the Southern Border's mortals had developed a fear of "Immortal Masters" carved into their very bones.
Only after the Devil Lord of All Living