Heavenly South, Star-Magnetic Peak.
Half a year had passed since news of Han Li's return after reaching Deity Transformation had swept across Heavenly South like astral winds from the nine heavens. For the Southern Heaven Cultivation World, those six months had been a time of upheaval, intimidation, and gradual restructuring. For the Star Palace, they had been a time of relentless activity, restored authority, and the complete allegiance of its people.
The Nine Nations Alliance and Heavenly Dao Alliance, which had once rivaled the Star Palace, now existed in name alone. Upon receiving the Star Palace's decree, the remnants of the Nine Nations Alliance led by Wei Wuya had meekly surrendered control of all their core resource sites and copies of their sect archives. Their elite cultivators had also been dispersed and reorganized by the Star Palace's Heaven Division, then incorporated into the new border defense system. The sects of the Heavenly Dao Alliance had scrambled to offer declarations of submission and tribute, terrified of falling behind and inviting utter destruction.
Rogue cultivators and small and medium-sized sects had either pledged allegiance of their own accord or been absorbed and disciplined through the thunderous methods of the Star Palace's newly established Sky-Patrol Hall. There had been voices of resistance, but under the iron-blooded suppression of the Heaven Division Third Battalion and the deterrence of the palace master-who had yet to appear, but whose reputation as a Deity Transformation cultivator hung overhead like the sword of Damocles-any unrest had been no more than an ant trying to shake a tree, extinguished in an instant.
On the surface, all of Heavenly South had now been nominally unified beneath the Star Palace's banner. Its decrees could pass unhindered through every inch of the land. Its flags flew above every important spiritual mountain, ore