"Sect Master, there are too many enemies! Little Bamboo Peak is about to fall!"
"Stonefield Peak is also hanging by a thread."
"Our disciples have suffered grievous casualties!"
"The Pill Storehouse we left on the outskirts has been occupied by Insect Soldiers!"
A jumble of reports kept pouring in from every direction. In the main hall on the Mountain Gate plaza atop Nine Ridges Mountain's main peak, several cultivators in splendid robes sat solemnly in their seats, motionless as clay statues.
At the center of the hall, a man in blue robes stood before a giant sand table built from mud and sand, his face ashen. For a long time, he said nothing.
Only after a long while did he finally break the silence. "Our enemy this time is Li Chen, the newly risen Great Power of the Puppet Dao. Our West River Gate is in grave danger!"
"It seems the rumors from a few days ago were true. To think he would turn his vengeance on us. Heaven truly offers us no aid!"
This blue-robed cultivator was the current Sect Master of the West River Gate, a renowned expert at peak Core Formation.
He had thought that, since his sect lay behind the front lines and occupied neither famed mountains and great rivers nor a superior spirit peak, it could hardly catch the eye of a Great Power like Li Chen, much less draw him here to lead an assault in person.
Ordinary Core Formation and Foundation Establishment experts would find it difficult to withstand the combined strength of himself, the sect cultivators he had gathered under his command, and guest advisers from the surrounding area.
Even if the situation deteriorated and the entire Immortal Alliance could no longer hold out, they should at least have been able