The Northern Territory of Great Jin, the Wildlands Mountain Range.
This place was utterly unlike the spiritual beauty of the Heavenly South or the prosperity of Great Jin's heartland. The spiritual energy of heaven and earth was thin and violent, mingled with the heavy rank odor of beasts and rotting vegetation. In the endless primeval forests, ancient trees towered into the sky and vines coiled like pythons. Enormous Wildlands Beasts radiating savage demonic auras were everywhere.
Han Li became an inconspicuous streak of azure light and flew slowly at low altitude. Several days had passed since he left the site of the conflict between the Heavenly Talisman Sect and Vajra Temple. He had traveled north all the way, venturing deep into this wilderness that cultivators of Great Jin rarely entered.
"The spiritual energy here is actually this thin and impure..." Han Li frowned slightly. Only by circulating the Star Essence Soul-Refining Art could he barely refine the impure spiritual energy he drew in. He had come to seek a wondrous substance called Wildlands Spirit Milk. According to the memory fragments of those two Yin Luo Sect disciples before their deaths, it had remarkable effects on tempering the body and assisting breakthroughs through bottlenecks, and was produced only near certain tribes deep within the Wildlands Mountain Range.
After flying for roughly four hours, Han Li's spiritual sense suddenly detected a faint yet pure fluctuation of energy several miles ahead, along with... the sounds of fighting.
He suppressed his flight light and landed soundlessly on the branch of a massive tree. Concealed by green leaves, he peered through the layers of trees toward the source of the disturbance.
A fierce battle was unfolding in a relatively open clearing in the forest.
On one side were three sinister-faced cultivators in short gray jackets,