The Hong Water stretched boundlessly, gathering the finest splendor of heaven and earth.
Mortal prefectures and cities, hanging islands and floating isles lay scattered like stars and pieces on a chessboard, extending without end.
At the very highest point, its majestic outline joining heaven and spanning earth, stood the mountain gate of the Xiantian Sect.
This Sect-tier power encompassed vast continental territories, taking virtually everything south of the Hong Water into its grasp. Countless miles of fertile soil were as good as its private farmland. It possessed several Creation Spirit Grottos alone, while the superior Spirit Veins relocated here and the blessed lands and treasure grounds conquered beyond the heavens and offered in tribute were more numerous still. Its many subsidiary residences, Lower Courtyards, and Dharma Lineage branches were beyond reckoning-a colossal power dominating the Southern Continent and gazing toward the Northern Continent. Beneath it were eight peaks, the backbone supporting this immense establishment.
The eight peaks were Qian, Kun, Zhen, Gen, Li, Kan, Dui, and Xun, named after the primordial trigrams recorded in the Book of Changes.
This scripture was said to have "passed through three ancient ages," handed down from Primordial Antiquity through High Antiquity and Former Antiquity to the present. Its origins were extraordinary, and it had long enjoyed the supreme praise of "every character a dragon, foremost among all scriptures." Whenever it appeared, it drew boundless attention. Even Dao Lords and Great Powers wished to claim it for their private collections and glimpse its profound mysteries.
Legend held that the patriarch who had revitalized the Xiantian Sect, Taixiao Yuanzhan He Guang Dao Lord, had once encountered a great stroke of fortune and seized the eight great trigrams scattered from the Book of Changes. He later refined them into the eight peaks, bolstering the fortune of the