Huai Province.
The lands of Jianghuai bordered the Changlang Ancient Plain in southern Li Province to the north, facing Great Li's foremost Buddhist sanctuary-the Hanging Sky Monastery. Yet immortals and Buddhists followed different paths, and the two had little contact.
To the west lay the Guanzhong region of Yong Province, separated by range upon range of mountains, including such perilous terrain as Dabie, Bailing, and Mount Xiao, as well as the seemingly endless Qinling Mountains.
In days past, True Lord Bai Yi had taken up his sword and marched west from the Subdual Dragon Terrace in Zhang Commandery of Huai Province, cleaving mountains and breaking through passes as he led his army into Yong Province. He had fought all the way into Changning, Great Feng's Imperial Capital, staining the great river with blood and strewing the wilderness with white bones to attain the Geng position.
Southward lay Wu-Yue, divided between the Wu Household and Great Peace. Beyond it lay Jian Land, home to the Dust-Sweeping Immortal Sect's Night-Replacing Blessed Land, where neither sun nor moon shone, and only starlight remained.
Martial Mu's lone mountain lay far from Upper Firmament, in southern Chu. It seldom involved itself in worldly affairs and occupied little land, holding only the distant Cloud-Dream Great Marsh beside the Flame River, which it permitted no outsiders to touch.
Ting Commandery, the Mysterious Balance Blessed Land.
The wind was bright and the air clear, the mountains clothed in lush green. Twenty-four spirit mountains stretched in an unbroken chain. Throughout the sky for ten thousand miles around, faint azure thunderbolts could be seen racing through the clouds, harmonizing wind and rain.
All four commanderies of Huai Province followed Sky Thunder. At their center, Ting Commandery housed Upper Firmament's mountain headquarters, a blessed land known as Mysterious Balance.
At its