It would not be an exaggeration to say that Patriarch Heavenly Enigma had received a blessing in disguise. After recovering his body, his combat power was a notch better than even Heavenly Premier Absolute. That made everyone even more envious.

Naturally, there was nothing Chen Feng could do for those who had died. As their souls had dissipated away, they were truly dead. Even if the Longevity Tower were to grow stronger, it would still be incapable of helping them.

“Patriarch Carefree, Patriarch Heavenly Yang, Heavenly Premier Quicksand, Patriarch Rocky, Patriarch Profound Nether, Ascendant Immortal Blackmalice, the six of you were amongst the earliest to join our alliance. All of you have also contributed greatly. As I have said before, if there are benefits to be had, I will not forget you all. Next up, I will let you fellows enter the Longevity Tower to cultivate. Additionally, each of you will be given one True law. In three years, you will be able to advance to the mid-level Ascendant Immortal stage.” Chen Feng's words caused excitement to appear on their faces.

For cultivators who had been cultivating for tens of thousands of years, the most important thing was to advance to a higher level. Rather, many would not hesitate to agree to anything, even if it meant seeing a good number of their family or sect members be killed or wounded as a result.

“Heavenly Premier Everwind, Heavenly Premier Cavernous Void, Heavenly Premier First Origin, Patriarch Twin Devices, the four of you have only just joined us. Although we are allies, you have yet to contribute. If I bring out some goodies for you, others will likely be incapable of accepting it. I hope that you seniors will not feel offended by this,” Chen Feng said with a tone of sincerity to another four Ascendant Immortals.

The four Ascendant Immortals had only just joined the East Dragon Island Alliance not too long ago. Their forces had only partic.i.p.ated in one or two battles at best.

Thus, despite the feelings of envy and their bloodshot eyes, there was nothing the four of them could do about it. This was an alliance, after all. To be blunt, these fellows had only joined the alliance in order to obtain the alliance's protection. However, getting others to give them benefits for no good reason? In their dreams.

“Ha ha ha! Island Lord Chen, don't mention it. We are an alliance here. We're all equals here. Fighting against Heavenly Firmaments Palace is the responsibility of our sects. We would have felt embarra.s.sed if we could get some benefits without having done anything first,” Heavenly Premier Everwind said with a smile.

Chen Feng did not care what was on their minds. All that mattered was that they were not disloyal. As Heavenly Firmaments Palace possessed a formidable might, a considerable number of forces had chosen to submit to it. Even some sects that had chosen to join the East Dragon Island Alliance were secretly colluding with Heavenly Firmaments Palace. Only, nothing could be done about that. Not to mention, Chen Feng did not have any proper measures against something like this. All he could do was to keep improving the strength of those on his side.

There were a few reasons as to why Chen Feng was willing to give them such benefits. Firstly, Heavenly Firmaments Palace was too strong and the number of casualties on the East Dragon Island Alliance's side was mounting. Chen Feng hoped that, by improving these fellows' strength, they would contribute even more. Secondly, Chen Feng was going to undergo his tribulation soon.

Speaking of which, it had been several hundred years since Chen Feng advanced to the Earthen Immortal stage. Advancing now was quite slow in Chen Feng's opinion. Naturally, that was only Chen Feng's opinion. When compared to the other Earthen Immortals, Chen Feng's rate of cultivation was already a defiance of Heaven. Unless the cultivator in question were to utilize some shortcuts, such as taking pills or some other means, advancing to a higher level in the Earthen Immortal stage would take at least several thousand years. And that was the standard for geniuses.

The offensive from Heavenly Firmaments Palace remained highly ferocious and the number of Earthen Immortals and Human Immortals that it sent forward became increasingly high. However, there were no movements from their Ascendant Immortals. Finding out about that, Chen Feng felt somewhat relieved. At any rate, creating low-level cultivators was very easy. Ascendant Immortals, on the other hand, was a different story. Improving the cultivation level of cultivators up to the Ascendant Immortal stage in a short time through special methods was quite difficult.

That was not to say that something like this did not exist. Only, Chen Feng did not believe that the Immortal Plane would be willing to pay the price for such a large display of might.

Chen Feng decided that he would undergo his tribulation after these Ascendant Immortals had advanced to the mid-level Ascendant Immortal stage. That way, East Dragon Island would have a more solid layer of security.

For a cultivator at Chen Feng's level, three years would pa.s.s by in the blink of an eye, but for low-level cultivators, every day was precious. Rather, it could even be life-threatening.

Due to the alliance, there was a need to expand East Dragon Island's territory. And so, East Dragon Island expanded further, its territory reaching a radius of five million li. Furthermore, that area was growing with every pa.s.sing day and countless water yaos would join East Dragon Island every day. The surface area of the ocean in Eternal World far exceeded the surface area of land. As such, the number of water yaos was not something that humans could match up against. On the other hand, their spiritual attributes were far inferior compared to humans. Those who could develop their own wisdom and cultivate to the point where they can a.s.sume human forms were one in ten thousand. Many of them – that included various water yaos – would just ignorantly absorb worldly spiritual energy as they went on with their short lives.

Back to Heavenly Firmaments Palace, it had annexed various forces and occupied a huge chunk of the Central Plains. To Chen Feng's surprise, as time went by, Heavenly Firmaments Palace's momentum gradually became subdued. Its offensive operations were no longer as furious as it was in the past. Instead, it began spreading its forces in various directions. It was able to secure more reliable results by doing so and the control it could exert over its territory increased. Seeing that made the various sects in the Central Plains even more uneasy. Given the way the situation was developing, it was just a matter of time before Heavenly Firmaments Palace conquered the entire Central Plains. The Eastern Provinces, Western Regions and Southern Seas would be even less capable of stopping Heavenly Firmaments Palace.

Due to that, some more forces came together to ask for help from those three regions. All for the sake of gathering even more power to fight Heavenly Firmaments Palace.

There were a great many cultivators and a great number of sects in Eternal World. Battles and wars would break out all the time. A large-scale war that could change everything was incredibly rare. It was something that would only happen once in several hundreds of thousands of years or even millions of years. However, this chaotic situation, where other worlds – at the level of the Immortal Plane – were interfering in Eternal World's wars was even rarer.

Although they knew that they could not simply allow Heavenly Firmaments Palace to continue annexing more territory, the cultivators from the world of cultivation also knew that this would develop into a long-term situation.

While the power that Heavenly Firmaments Palace had displayed was very formidable, it was not yet at the overwhelming level.

Only, Chen Feng did not share that view. He could already feel a formidable sense of pressure. Heavenly Firmaments Palace's offensive had indeed slowed down. One reason for that was to stabilize the situation. The other reason was that it was planning something else.

During the past three years, Chen Feng had also attempted to investigate it, but he failed to find anything.

The Sky Pillars Mountain Range. Stretching across a distance of hundreds of thousands of li, it was something of a famous mountain range in the Central Plains. It had several mountains around it shaped like circular pillars, resulting in the name the Sky Pillars Mountain Range. In the past, several medium-sized forces had occupied this mountain range. However, when the wars began, those medium-sized forces were annexed by a first-rate force that had emerged all of a sudden. Only, its victory was short-lived.

It did not take long before Heavenly Firmaments Palace then attacked the Central Plains. As this first-rate force was unwilling to submit to Heavenly Firmaments Palace, it fought back. Surprisingly, it managed to fight Heavenly Firmaments Palace for several years. In the end, though, Heavenly Firmaments Palace managed to break it and the remnant cultivators from the first-rate force went to seek refuge with other forces.

Due to that, the Sky Pillars Mountain Range became the number one stronghold for Heavenly Firmaments Palace and its forces slowly spread out into the surrounding area of the mountain range.

It was for this reason that the East Dragon Island Alliance's forces chose to focus on this stronghold. The East Dragon Island Alliance sent forth a great army, led by the Four Great Academies, to attack the Sky Pillars Mountain Range. Their objective, to destroy this stronghold of Heavenly Firmaments Palace.

This was a sneak attack, meant to take advantage of the fact that Heavenly Firmaments Palace had yet to firmly take root here. This was the Central Plains, after all. They would make use of the terrain and their numbers to beat Heavenly Firmaments Palace back.

Truth be told, there were many such places in the Central Plains. They were all at the peripheral areas of Heavenly Firmaments Palace's influence. Due to that, some of the more important locations became the targets of attack for the East Dragon Island Alliance and the other forces in the Central Plains.

Honestly, all the forces in the Central Plains were also feeling very helpless about this. If they were to do nothing about this, Heavenly Firmaments Palace would be able to continue expanding its territory. Left with no other options, the other cultivators mobilized all their power to stop Heavenly Firmaments Palace. Even so, they were unable to get much done. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Heavenly Firmaments Palace's territory was growing with every pa.s.sing day.

This time, though, the force that the East Dragon Island Alliance sent out was very strong. There were over 100 Earthen Immortals, 10,000 Human Immortals and countless Sky Human stage cultivators. Naturally, there were also Ascendant Immortals hiding amongst them. They wanted to take down the Sky Pillars Mountain Range in one fell swoop.

Lan Ling, Marquis Scarletfire, Tie Yuan, Wu Hua and others were also part of this army. Due to the immortal dao laws they obtained from Chen Feng, they had reached the Earthen Immortal stage.

Truth be told, they had only just reached the high-level Human Immortal stage not too long ago. And while they were first-rate geniuses in the world of cultivation, cultivating up to the Earthen Immortal stage would not have been easy, even for them. The issue of time aside, there was also the possibility of failure during tribulation. However, the immortal dao laws they received had changed their fates, allowing them to advance quickly and successfully overcome their Heavenly Tribulation.

This was the Heavenstealing technique. Rather, this result was because Chen Feng's cultivation base was not high enough and the Longevity Tower had not recovered its full power, otherwise Chen Feng could have entered the Immortal Plane and kill off some True Immortals before extracting the True laws within them. That way, everyone would have been able to advance to the Ascendant Immortal stage.

“Junior Sister Lan, you are more well-informed than me. Do you know which senior is secretly supporting us this time?” As they were heading forward with the army, Wu Hua asked with a smile.

Pondering the question for a moment, Lan Ling then said, “It is likely the Heavenly Premiers Everwind and Cavernous Void. That said, the result of this battle rests in our hands. In the event that the enemy does not mobilize their Ascendant Immortals, our Ascendant Immortals will not appear as well, even if we lose.”

“Sigh! To think that Heavenly Firmaments Palace has become so powerful. In the past, I had believed that our Four Great Academies were the strongest. Now, though, not even the combined might of our Four Great Academies could match Heavenly Firmaments Palace.” Feng Jian shook his head and sighed.

“Stay focused. Although our Four Great Academies have joined forces, we have made a bet with those guys from the other academies on which of us will be killing more enemies. No matter what happens, we cannot let ourselves end up in an embarra.s.sing situation,” Marquis Scarletfire said solemnly.

“Don't worry, senior brother. We will win this for certain.”

“I hope so, but the Sky Pillars Mountain Range plays host to more than just Heavenly Firmaments Palace's forces. There are also several other first-rate forces there. Number wise, they are bigger than us.”

“Don't worry, we came prepared this time. Every one of us here is an elite. Besides, we also have hidden forces with us. The plan has been made. There will be no errors.”

“Get ready to attack!” Suddenly, a thought spread out into their seas of wisdom. It was from the commander of the army, Mu Cang.

Mu Cang was a member of Absolute Academy, a peak-level Earthen Immortal. He cultivated wood-type cultivation techniques and his magic powers brimmed with vitality. Back then, he had also received an immortal dao law from Chen Feng. Thus, his cultivation base skyrocketed. There was only half a step left between him and the Ascendant Immortal stage. He had taken the initiative to join this battle as preparation to advance to the Ascendant Immortal stage.

1 li = 0.5 km