The Heart of Blazing Flame was already in the barren lands south of Shenzhou. Jiuli in the Southern Frontier was not actually very far away.
When Chu Ge wrote this part, he had roughly followed the Miao frontier setting in Chinese Paladin. The cultivators mainly used Gu Poison and the like, while their elemental Mystic Arts were primarily fire-based. He had further fleshed it out with the customs of many different ethnic groups known in the real world, mixing in their clothing, architecture, and various traditions, giving shape to a gathering place for other peoples in a world of immortal cultivation.
Jiuli's hundred thousand mountains were difficult to travel through and had very little contact with the Central Plains. Quite a few demons lived among its inhabitants, and all sorts of unusual arts emerged in endless succession.
Using gu insects to perform the Puppet Technique was a local specialty, rather different from the puppet arts of the Central Plains.
The strongest cultivator in the Southern Frontier was known as the Gu God, another expert in late-stage Deification. That man had employed the Witchcraft Technique in such a roundabout fashion precisely to mislead Qiu Wuji into focusing her suspicions on the Gu God.
Even the Dragon Bone Land he had directed Yan Qianlie to served to reinforce this misdirection. The information he gave both the Orthodox and Demonic sides was related to Jiuli in the Southern Frontier. However the matter came to light, Shenzhou would focus only on the Southern Frontier.
If they really charged straight to the Gu God's doorstep and clashed with Jiuli in the Southern Frontier, they would have fallen into the trap. That would become a war between Shenzhou's sects and the other peoples and demons. Certain people behind the scenes would be grinning from ear to