Azure Sea, Dragon Spine Road.
Thirty-one years had passed since True Lord Cheng employed an ingenious stratagem in Year 469 of Ming to seize the islands of the Eastern Sea in succession and link their earth veins, forming Dragon Spine Road, a corridor extending out to sea. This treasured land had long since undergone changes that turned heaven and earth upside down.
More than thirty years earlier, for the sake of checks and balances, the Three Corpses had split up under the Sea-Covering Great Sage's coercive orders. Demon Corpse Gu Chen renamed Three Corpse Island Earth Yin Island, and Ten Thousand Corpses Sea Earth Yin Sea; Red Corpse Wu Lao traveled far to Fire Dragon Island and established Li Fire Sea; Glamorous Corpse Cui Ying occupied Changqing Island and established Changqing Sea. Each of the Three Corpses founded a sect, cutting an imposing figure and throwing the surrounding seas into turmoil.
At the time, those presiding over the Eastern Sea's waters were all Fourth Realm Demon Kings, with more or less dragon blood in their bodies, giving them combat strength approaching the Fifth Realm when at sea. The outsider Gu Chen himself also had Fifth Realm cultivation. Only Red Corpse and Demon Corpse, forced to split off and fend for themselves, were ordinary Fourth Realm cultivators, and they were members of the Corpse Clan from the land to boot. Under such circumstances, the two inevitably thought of forming an alliance to cope, hence the proposal for "Fish Dragon Bridge."
The Eastern Sea had many islands. Between Fire Dragon Island and Changqing Island lay an intermittent island chain stretching north to south for more than fourteen hundred li, composed of a succession of exposed islands and submerged reefs of all sizes. Some belonged to Earth Yin Sea or Golden Broth Sea,