"Zhao Hongtian!? What is he doing here?"
Aboard the warship, Luo Lie's expression changed abruptly when he saw the man on the dragon ship.
"He didn't go to fight Tang Jiansong's central army head-on?" Chen Yuan asked.
Luo Lie's expression darkened. "It's not a question of whether he went to fight. He isn't even Qishui City's defending general!
"Qishui City is easy to defend and hard to attack, so it has only one defending general, Gao Yunshan.
"Zhao Hongtian is the defending general of Ten Thousand Willows City, which my adoptive father is attacking. He's also a member of the Great Xia Imperial Clan.
"Now that Zhao Hongtian has appeared here, Qishui City has gone from having one eighth-level Divine Altar Realm defending general to two!"
"I'm afraid it's not as simple as one becoming two."
Chen Yuan shook his head slightly. "Look behind that dragon ship."
Following close behind the Black Dragon Ship were not only Dingnan Army warships, but also a strangely shaped warship resembling a bird.
Aboard it were three eighth-level Divine Altar Realm grandmasters, along with more than three hundred martial artists dressed in black, all with formidable auras.
"They're from the Nine Abyss Gate! They actually joined forces with the Dingnan Army!"
Luo Lie's expression had changed drastically.
"The Nine Abyss Gate, one of the Nine Martial Sects?"
As one of the Nine Martial Sects, the Nine Abyss Gate had developed in Yanzhou for over a thousand years.
Although Yanzhou was nominally close to the Central Plains, it lay on their fringe. As such, martial artists from the Nine Abyss Gate rarely traveled to the Central Plains, making the sect seem rather low-profile in its martial world.
But keeping a low profile did not mean being weak. Yanzhou was rich in produce and resources, and