Dongyu Kingdom was one of the very few neutral countries in the Southern Heaven Cultivation World.
Its territory was vast, with countless spiritual veins suitable for cultivation and exceptionally abundant cultivation resources. Across the entire Heavenly South, it could easily rank among the top ten.
By rights, such favorable conditions should have led to its annexation by a major power long ago.
But as chance would have it, Dongyu Kingdom occupied a very special geographical position, wedged right between the Heavenly Dao Alliance, the Demonic Path, and the Righteous Path.
To the east, it bordered Yuanwu Kingdom, which belonged to the Heavenly Dao Alliance's sphere of influence.
To the southeast, it bordered Yue Kingdom, which the Demonic Path had occupied years earlier.
To the north and west, it bordered Huayu Kingdom, Fengdu Kingdom, and other territories under the Righteous Path.
Several decades earlier, all three major powers had wanted the country for themselves, but more than a decade of war had failed to produce a victor. In the end, they could only agree that none of them would interfere in its affairs, allowing Dongyu Kingdom to become a neutral country.
Before that agreement was reached, however, with the Heavenly Dao Alliance's tacit approval, the six great sects of Yue Kingdom-including the Covering Moon Sect, the Giant Sword Sect, and Yellow Maple Valley-had entered the country ahead of the others. To preserve their sects' legacies, they fought the local powers for territory where they could establish themselves.
For certain historical reasons, Dongyu Kingdom's native cultivation sects had fragmented into dozens of organizations of varying sizes. A fair number were conventional Righteous Path or Demonic Path sects, but even more were neutral sects, heterodox sects, and the like.
None of these sects was powerful enough to force the others into submission. As