Clouds and mist drifted through the air, and immortal cranes wheeled overhead.
Flying Boats shuttled among the tiers of Hanging Peaks.
Chen Cuo arrived on a cloud just as Daoyinzi returned from Kunlun. Master and disciple smiled and bowed to each other.
Chen Cuo settled back into Great Hua Mountain, cultivating and meditating without going out again. He put all worldly affairs out of his mind.
But only a few days later, turmoil broke out in Huainan.
As soon as the news spread, Qi Kingdom sent an army south to retake Huainan. Chen Kingdom reacted at once, too, calling Wu Mingche out of retirement to lead troops north in support!
Neither kingdom had expected Northern Zhou to have an army lying in wait upstream on the Huai River. It struck midway, first routing Wu Mingche, then seizing several major Huainan cities before Qi Kingdom's forces could reach them. After that, it drove the Qi army back and swallowed Huainan whole!
Meanwhile, the Creation Dao, unwilling to accept defeat, launched a covert counterattack. Many Return to Truth cultivators were among those it sent, and without Chen Cuo to hold Huainan, the region could not withstand them.
Within days, the Creation Dao had used a special method to refine Huainan, stripping Chen Cuo of his authority over the region.
Before long, his bloodline was severed as well: someone wiped out the descendants of Chen Kingdom's Imperial Clan.
Chen Cuo sighed, cast aside his stray thoughts, and devoted himself to cultivation.
But three years later, the winds and clouds abruptly changed. An army smashed through the Secret Realm's Restriction and charged straight in!
The troops looked like ordinary mortals, yet from generals down to soldiers, every movement could break through Transcendence and extinguish Mystic Methods. Once they laid down a Grand Formation, their