Chapter 979: Three Battlefields

When Chen Mobai acted, slaying two Nascent Souls with a single sword strike, the fiends of the Barren Sea learned of his strength. Even without Wen Buyue's words, they knew that this Dao Child of One Yuan lived up to his reputation.

With Chen Mobai holding down the fort, Xiaoqingling became an impenetrable stronghold.

After losing two Nascent Souls and over a thousand elite troops, the Barren Sea fiends were not so foolish as to seek revenge immediately.

After all, Chen Mobai possessed immense power, a fifth-tier flying sword, and his Five Elements Dao Soldiers. Even if a perfected Nascent Soul Fiend Lord or Diao Xianlan were to arrive, they might not be able to defeat him.

Nevertheless, the invasion by the demonic and fiendish forces did not cease. The Five Elements Sect had assigned personnel to guard the two most crucial landing points in Dongwu territory, which bordered the Barren Sea, largely succeeding in repelling the invaders.

However, compared to the vast coastline, the human cultivators were still somewhat outnumbered.

After half a year of probing, the Barren Sea fiends quickly ascertained Dongwu's defensive capabilities.

The fiends began to disperse into smaller groups. The elite forces from Ten Thousand Immortals Island, led by a Minor Fiend Lord, continued to tie down the Dongwu Alliance and the main army commanded by Mo Douguang, while the rest landed along the coastline, avoiding areas guarded by cultivators.

What were difficult, unscalable cliffs for mortals were mere trifles for the fiends.

Under these circumstances, incidents of fiends causing chaos and devouring people began to occur frequently throughout Dongwu.

Areas protected by major cultivation families fared better, as the fiends that had infiltrated were typically in small squads, and could be resisted or even annihilated once discovered.

However, most major territories in Eastern Continent were sparsely populated, so mortals lived scattered across the land. And under wartime conditions, the vast majority of cultivators had sought refuge with the Five Elements Sect's grand army.

This resulted in the fiends encountering little resistance in most parts of Dongwu, leading to almost unchecked slaughter.

Demonic cultivators, in particular, gained sufficient blood sacrifices under these circumstances, causing their strength to rapidly increase.

However, this situation could not be concealed for long. The Dongwu Alliance had left some disciples within their families, who quickly reported the discoveries to the front lines.

The news of "fire in the backyard" nearly plunged the Dongwu Alliance, who were fighting the Barren Sea fiends on the ocean, into chaos.

Many small and medium-sized families had essentially brought their elite members and ancestral treasure ships to the front lines, leaving behind only the old, weak, and infirm at home.

Even with the protection of grand formations, if they encountered fiends gathering in force, it would only prolong their survival for a short while.

The major Dongwu families fared better; their grand formations were at least peak third-tier, meaning they could only be breached by Nascent Soul-level fiends.

Consequently, the Dongwu Alliance began to experience internal divisions. Some wished to lead their family members back home, a proposition naturally unwelcome to the major families led by Sun Huanglong.

Manpower was already scarce; if only the major families remained, they wouldn't even be able to deploy proper battle formations.

However, Sun Huanglong and his peers were old foxes. They directly presented this issue to the Five Elements Sect, seeking their advice.

"Seeking advice?"

After receiving the message, Chen Mobai descended via a Void Illusion, and was somewhat surprised by what Mo Douguang told him.

"Facing a matter of life and death, they have already placed themselves in the position of subordinates to the Five Elements Sect."

Mo Douguang, however, took it for granted. In the past, when Patriarch Hunyuan was alive, major sects like Huigutian and Chuixue Palace in Eastern Barren all pledged allegiance to the Five Elements Sect.

It was only after Chen Mobai emerged that all major sects in Eastern Barren, apart from the Five Elements Sect, vanished, which is why he hadn't experienced this feeling.

"Have the Dongwu Alliance send a few disciples familiar with the terrain. I'll dispatch two of my five cultivator battalions to sweep through Dongwu territory with them."

Chen Mobai stated his instructions.

This matter certainly needed to be addressed. After all, he was a kind person who couldn't bear to see human suffering, and he also needed to consider public and military morale.

Mo Douguang summoned the heads of the Dongwu Alliance and discussed the matter with them.

Upon hearing that the Five Elements Sect would indeed intervene, and that Chen Mobai himself would dispatch his personal troops, these individuals were instantly filled with gratitude.

That evening, they returned and sent eighty cultivators, mostly elites from various major Dongwu families, who collectively were familiar with the entire Dongwu region.

Chen Mobai dispatched his senior disciple, Liu Wenbai, and Yin Qingmei.

This war was likely one of the few opportunities for the Five Elements Sect to earn merits, and with his personal oversight, he brought Yin Qingmei along, in addition to Zhuo Ming.

After all, when Yin Qingmei eventually formed her Nascent Soul and received resources like the Three-Light Divine Water, there would need to be a justification.

Chen Mobai had also hinted at this to her, which made Yin Qingmei highly motivated to achieve accomplishments on the Dongwu battlefield.

After Liu Wenbai and Yin Qingmei, leading over ten thousand cultivators from the Five Elements Sect, converged with the three hundred individuals sent by the Dongwu Alliance, they split into two teams and set out to encircle and eliminate fiends in areas where they had been sighted.

Initially, operations went smoothly, with dozens of small fiend squads being eliminated.

Gradually, however, Liu Wenbai and Yin Qingmei found it increasingly difficult to locate the fiends.

Even when they did find them, it was only a handful, individuals who couldn't resist sneaking out to feed.

In response, Chen Mobai, who had been remotely observing them using his Void Illusion technique, immediately issued new instructions.

He activated the two grand formations previously set up by Zhuo Ming. Sure enough, within the formations' coverage, they detected over a dozen clusters of unusually dense spiritual energy, indicating large concentrations of fiends.

These were all hidden fiends.

Among them was even a Core Formation demonic cultivator. However, under the suppression of the grand formation, even with a powerful demonic artifact, the demonic cultivator's soul was utterly annihilated.

The remaining fiends, though they swiftly dispersed and attempted to break out, were still largely wiped out by the Five Elements Sect's army.

To Chen Mobai's surprise, however, there were still hidden fiend masters outside the range of the two grand formations.

They led several thousand fiends to intercept and reinforce these groups. However, Chen Mobai provided remote assistance and guidance, allowing Liu Wenbai and Yin Qingmei to slay another third-tier fiend.

After this battle, the infiltrating fiends completely ceased direct resistance.

They began to hide even deeper.

They even stopped seeking spiritual ley lines, focusing solely on attacking mortals.

Both fiends and demonic cultivators could enhance their strength by consuming blood food, and humans were considered the most delicious.

Chen Mobai naturally could not tolerate this.

However, Dongwu was not Eastern Barren after all, and the Heaven-Veil Earth-Net Grand Formation had not yet been deployed there.

Moreover, the two existing grand formations only covered a very small portion of Dongwu territory. While primarily defensive, they could detect large concentrations of unusual spiritual energy within their range, but not isolated, single-digit instances.

In response, Chen Mobai issued an order, instructing the Five Elements Sect's cultivator army to also disperse into smaller groups. Simultaneously, he had the Dongwu Alliance notify the mortal population to gather in safe locations, preventing them from being isolated and devoured by fiends.

The Dongwu Alliance was greatly surprised by Chen Mobai's order.

In their view, the Five Elements Sect's involvement was primarily to protect the remaining members of their major families in Dongwu. They wondered why the scope had now extended to mortals.

Some believed it was to prevent the fiends from strengthening themselves by devouring mortals.

While some thought this, others recalled the era of peace and prosperity that followed Eastern Barren's unification, leading them to believe that the Dao Child of One Yuan might genuinely be kind, and sincerely wished to protect mortals.

This realization improved Dongwu's perception of Chen Mobai even further.

If he was so good to mortals, their treatment would surely be even better should they align with him.

Even before this war began, the cultivators in Dongwu had already realized how weak their own strength was. They understood that they must pledge allegiance to a major power to survive the chaotic era descending upon Eastern Continent.

For years, the Five Elements Sect, powerful enough to easily conquer Dongwu, had consistently adhered to moral principles and etiquette, leading them to believe that Chen Mobai was a wise ruler worthy of their trust.

Many families had already considered pledging allegiance before the war even started. Dozens of letters of surrender had already reached Chen Mobai, but he had not replied to any of them after reading them.

This inaction, in turn, made the major families in Dongwu suspect that they might have fallen short in some aspects, displeasing Chen Mobai.

Consequently, facing the Barren Sea fiends this time, many families exerted great effort, aiming to leave a good impression on the Five Elements Sect.

After all, Dongwu would eventually become the territory of the Five Elements Sect. If they defended it diligently now, Chen Mobai would surely bestow more upon them, recognizing their meritorious service in protecting the land.

Perhaps even the Five Elements Sect's secret Core Formation elixirs would be made available to them.

With such thoughts in mind, Chen Mobai's order to protect mortals, though seemingly absurd to Dongwu cultivators, was still carried out.

Soon, Dongwu's mortal rulers issued orders for all mortals across the region to migrate and gather at the spiritual ley lines where the major cultivation families resided, to establish new cities.

In the past, these cultivation families would certainly not have been willing to let mortals pollute their own spiritual ley lines.

But now, things were different; they eagerly wished to gather all mortals in Dongwu under their own sect gates.

This way, once the war ended, they could use this as a reason to demonstrate that they had taken Chen Mobai's words most to heart.

However, none of these Dongwu cultivation families had any experience managing large populations of mortals. On the contrary, the more people gathered, the more chaotic things became, even leading to incidents of vagrants causing unrest.

This was because cultivators only issued commands for mortals to come, rarely considering how they would get there, the availability of food and water, or the difficulties of traversing mountains and rivers.

In fact, even more people died because of this.

Upon discovering this, Chen Mobai immediately stripped some Dongwu families of their authority over mortals and dispatched Jiang Zongheng to take full charge.

For this task, Jiang Zongheng was well-versed and experienced.

Under Chen Mobai's meticulous guidance, Jiang Zongheng surveyed the entire map of Dongwu, dividing it into twelve prefectures and counties using natural mountains and rivers as boundaries.

Subsequently, Jiang Zongheng selected eight hundred disciples who had graduated from Changsheng Academy and joined the Five Elements Sect after accompanying the army. Unlike other academies, which only taught various immortal cultivation arts, Changsheng Academy, due to Chen Mobai's insistence, also included courses on state governance.

Thus, these disciples understood the fundamentals of governance.

Leading these eight hundred disciples, Jiang Zongheng traveled to various mortal gathering places throughout Dongwu. Dispelling prejudices and promoting the Five Elements Sect's doctrines, coupled with the cultivators' formidable strength, quickly yielded immediate results.

Furthermore, in these chaotic times, the hidden fiends also began to rampage openly, compelling mortals to choose allegiance with the Five Elements Sect.

During this process of mortal migration and gathering, constant struggles also erupted between the righteous and demonic factions, with casualties on both sides.

As the Barren Sea fiends dispatched more and more personnel, the pressure on the main battlefield gradually decreased.

Chen Mobai, confident in his heaven-defying strength and invincibility below the Soul Transformation stage, simply dispatched another two cultivator battalions to suppress the fiends throughout Dongwu.

Three years passed quickly.

Great battles had erupted across the entire Eastern Continent.

On the Eastern Land border, Ye Qing, having recovered from his injuries, entered the battlefield. Relying on his fifth-tier Floating Cloud Sword, no one from the demonic path could stand in his way.

The Grand Elder of the Imperial Wind Demonic Sect, a late-stage Nascent Soul cultivator, managed to block the Floating Cloud Sword in a direct confrontation with Ye Qing, but died by Ye Qing's second blade, the Taihe Sword.

Seeing Ye Qing begin his massacre, the Corpse Disintegration Demonic Sect unleashed a seven-colored jade corpse, and with the ambush from the Grand Elders of the Xuanji, Huangbai, and Duanliu Demonic Sects, they nearly managed to assassinate Ye Qing.

However, the righteous path had more personnel.

As these hidden old demonic overlords of the demonic path emerged one by one, Nascent Soul cultivators from various Eastern Land sects also personally entered the fray.

The great war between the righteous and demonic factions thus fully erupted.

And as the demonic path exerted its strength, the fiend race also felt the time was ripe.

On a certain stormy night, a Soul Transformation black jiao from the Black Jiao Royal Court, riding on fierce winds and torrential rain, appeared above Golden Crow Immortal City.

Had it not been for the combined efforts of seven great Nascent Souls, coupled with the powerful formations of Golden Crow Immortal City, Eastern Yi would likely have fallen.

However, when the Soul Transformation black jiao made its second move, the Soul Transformation cultivator from the Grand Void Piao Miao Palace, who had been observing from the sidelines, finally intervened.

The two sides fought for three days and three nights above the Barren Sea, with no clear victor.

And when the Soul Transformation black jiao returned for a third time, a golden flame burst forth from a giant beast deep within the Barren Ruins, bordering Eastern Yi, wreaking havoc for thousands of miles.

Three of Eastern Yi's sixteen major Core Formation sects stood in the path of this Golden Flame Behemoth, and were obliterated from history.

Clearly, this was the fifth-tier Golden Flame Steed from deep within the Barren Ruins.

The Golden Flame Steed was unstoppable wherever it went, and quickly reached Golden Crow Immortal City.

However, the Grand Void Piao Miao Palace's greatest strength lay in its teleportation arrays.

Faced with this situation, True Monarch Dakong fought against two, holding out until another Soul Transformation cultivator from the Grand Void Piao Miao Palace teleported over from Southern Province.

After a year-long stalemate near Golden Crow Immortal City between the two fifth-tier fiend beasts and the two great Soul Transformation cultivators from the Grand Void Piao Miao Palace, they reached an unknown agreement and retreated.

Nevertheless, the siege of Golden Crow Immortal City by the Profound Sea fiends did not cease.

In comparison, among the three major battlefields in Eastern Continent, only Dongwu lacked a Soul Transformation cultivator.