Meng Hao hadn’t originally planned to go the Eighth Mountain and Sea. His prime destination had been the Fourth Mountain and Sea. He had hoped to go there directly, or alternatively, to simply pa.s.s through the Eighth Mountain and Sea on his way.

If the latter was the only option, he would proceed to the Seventh Mountain, the Sixth Mountain, the Fifth Mountain and eventually... would reach the Fourth Mountain. He would pa.s.s through multiple Mountains and Seas to find Xu Qing... and bring her home.

But then the situation with Chu Yuyan developed, and he had been forced to change his mind. He could not proceed directly toward the Fourth Mountain. He owed Chu Yuyan far too much, and had no option other than to track down her soul and rescue her.

Therefore, he traveled not through, but to the Eighth Mountain and Sea!

Here, he had ties to both Patriarch Reliance and the Meng Clan. The Meng Clan was his mother's clan, his relatives.

And as for Patriarch Reliance, when Meng Hao found out that he was in the Eight Mountain and Sea, he had long since decided that no one would be able to prevent him from acquiring him as a mount.

Once that happened, he would be able to use Patriarch Reliance’s power to effortlessly pa.s.s through the barriers between the various Mountains and Seas!

Now, he stood in the Woodflame Society’s teleportation portal. They didn't qualify to occupy their own planet, but had instead built their sect on a huge asteroid. Because the Eighth Mountain’s political structure was a bit different than that of the Ninth Mountain, virtually all of the small sects were set up in a similar way.

“Senior, from here, you can teleport onto one of the artificial planets arrayed in the vicinity of the HeavenG.o.d Alliance. Those planets form the gateway to the HeavenG.o.d Alliance.”

Daoist Woodflame clasped hands, bowing deeply as he began to explain: “From there, you should be able to find the teleportation portal leading to the Blacksoul Society....”

Meng Hao glanced thoughtfully at the man, who during this entire time hadn’t mentioned a word about any sort of payment for the information he was giving. Suddenly, Meng Hao reached out and tapped Daoist Woodflame’s forehead, causing a bit of the Essence of Divine Flame to flow into his body.

Daoist Woodflame s.h.i.+vered slightly, and his face suddenly turned bright red, as if he were about to belch out flame. His eyes went wild with joy. Trembling, he immediately dropped to his knees.

“Senior, many thanks for your great kindness! I will never forget this for the rest of my life. Senior, if you have any demands, I will go through h.e.l.l or high water to meet them!” Daoist Woodflame was as incredibly excited as he should be, considering that he cultivated flame-attribute techniques. Now that Meng Hao had given him some of the Essence of Divine Flame, you could say that... his path toward the Dao Realm had been opened!

A gift like that was like the gift of a new life!

“The path of cultivation is murky,” Meng Hao said slowly, “and all I can give you is a lamp to light your way. How far you go will be up to you.... It all depends on yourself. Do your best.” He swished his sleeve, causing the spirit stone formation he had set up around the teleportation portal to sparkle. As the spirit stones crumbled, the power of the spell formation caused a brilliant flash of light....

When the light faded away, Meng Hao was nowhere to be seen.

However, Daoist Woodflame was still there on his knees, kowtowing.

In the Eighth Mountain and Sea, the HeavenG.o.d Alliance had staked their claim to three of the planets which orbited the mountain. That area was known as the Inner Ring!

Outside of the Inner Ring, the cultivators of the HeavenG.o.d Alliance used various Daoist magics to merge countless asteroids together into numerous artificial planets.

That was referred to as the Outer Ring.

The artificial planets in the Outer Ring were not like the four great planets, which possessed Planet Souls and could give birth to true Immortals. At most, they provided a place for cultivators to live and practice cultivation.

However, they still looked very impressive and shocking.

Roughly seventy percent of the starry sky in the Eighth Mountain and Sea fell under the jurisdiction of the HeavenG.o.d Alliance. This s.p.a.ce formed a single discrete territory and was protected by an invisible s.h.i.+eld which non-HeavenG.o.d Alliance cultivators couldn’t pa.s.s through without having the requisite ident.i.ty medallion and paying the entry tax.

The entry point was formed by a linear array of seven planets, which were the gateway to the HeavenG.o.d Alliance.

Meng Hao appeared on the third of those seven gateway planets, into an extraordinarily lively and bustling city.

There were cultivators everywhere, coming from and going to the HeavenG.o.d Alliance.

No one paid any attention at all to Meng Hao. However, a beam of light did spread out from the teleportation portal itself and sweep over him. The ident.i.ty medallion he had requested from Daoist Woodflame immediately proved itself to be useful, glittering as it concealed his true ident.i.ty.

Suddenly, Meng Hao heard an annoyed voice from off to the side. “Now that you’ve arrived, hurry up and move along. There are other people waiting.”

He looked over to see a cultivator wearing a blue and white Daoist robe, a robe which bore a special insignia that only cultivators from the HeavenG.o.d Alliance were authorized to wear.

Meng Hao’s expression was the same as ever as he stepped out of the teleportation portal and then began to make his way through the city. At a glance, he could estimate that there were hundreds of thousands of cultivators making their way to and fro on this gateway planet of the HeavenG.o.d Alliance.

“Seven planets. Millions of cultivators....” Meng Hao murmured. “With business like this, the HeavenG.o.d Alliance can make endless profit....” The deepest impression that this Eighth Mountain had left on Meng Hao so far was of the vast enormity and power of the HeavenG.o.d Alliance.

“If Lord Ji hadn’t rebelled, and the Ancient Demon Immortal Sect were still around today... then the Ninth Mountain and Sea would be just like this.” Meng Hao sighed. Although he had prepared himself mentally before coming to the Eight Mountain and Sea, he had never imagined that things would be this complicated.

It wasn’t that his task itself was complicated; rather, it was the situation and circ.u.mstances at hand. As for the Blacksoul Society, it didn’t really matter how powerful it was by itself. Even though he had seen that 2-Essences Dao Realm cultivator, it wasn’t enough to make him care.

However, he did have to care about the HeavenG.o.d Alliance as a whole. If he really did just barge into the HeavenG.o.d Alliance’s territory and wiped out the Blacksoul Society, it would cause a huge stir in the entire Eighth Mountain and Sea, and countless enemies would surely attempt to track him down and kill him.

“What a pity. If I had more time, I could handle things more smoothly. I could even start up a business and use its profits to set myself up a teleportation portal to make things easier.

“Unfortunately, there’s not enough time.... However, there are some things in life that you have to do, no matter the danger involved.... Some people need to be saved no matter what....

“It might be dangerous, but even still, how could a piddling Eighth Mountain and Sea compare to how dangerous the Windswept Realm was?!” His eyes flashed with coldness.

“I'm the future Lord of the Mountain and Sea Realm, and this is MY Realm!” He took a deep breath and didn’t hesitate for a moment longer. Striding forward, he went about making the inquiries necessary to determine the location of the Blacksoul Society’s teleportation portal.

The amount of spirit stones he had to pay left his face grim, but he soon found what he was looking for, and moments later... was there at the Blacksoul Society teleportation portal!

The Blacksoul Society wasn’t qualified to be in the Inner Ring, and was instead located on an artificial planet. However, Patriarch Blacksoul’s fame was so far-reaching that even within the HeavenG.o.d Alliance he was highly esteemed. Therefore, even though the Blacksoul Society wasn’t in the Inner Ring itself, they were still very close to it.

Furthermore, it completely occupied its own planet, of which it was the lord!

The population of their sect was not enormous, only about 300,000 cultivators. However, all of them were very loyal to the sect, and practiced magic that was related to souls. They exorcised ghosts and consumed souls; their techniques were very unique, and in general, they were a very savage and cruel bunch.

Currently, several Blacksoul Society disciples were sitting cross-legged near the planetary teleportation portal. Suddenly, the portal flickered, and the disciples looked over coldly as a white-robed figure became visible.

It was none other than Meng Hao.

As the disciples looked at him with glinting eyes, one of them coldly barked, “Who goes there? State your business!”

Meng Hao acted as if he hadn’t even heard. He stood there on the teleportation portal, looking around. Soon, he caught sight of a pitch-black cliff off in the distance, upon which were written three characters.

Blacksoul Society!

It was exactly the same image he had seen in the vision via Karmic Hexing. Furthermore... he could see a huge incense burner by that cliff!

Although there was currently no smoke emanating out from it or being sucked in, Meng Hao would never forget what it looked like.

“This is the place....” he said, his voice soft but icy.

“Do you have no tongue? Or maybe someone cut it out. Since you won’t speak, I’ll just drag your soul out of you!” Because of the brutal nature of the techniques they cultivated, most members of other sects would treat disciples like them very politely. Seeing that Meng Hao was ignoring them, they let out cold harrumphs and immediately moved to attack him.

Instantly, enraged shrieks could be heard as several evil spirits flew out toward Meng Hao as if to devour him.

Retracting his gaze from the black cliff, he said “My name is Meng Hao....”

Then he waved his hand, causing a wild wind to spring out and surge toward the Blacksoul Society cultivators.

The words Meng Hao uttered next were spoken so low that only he could hear them: “I'm here for my best friend’s soul, and... to exterminate this sect!” [1. The word I’m translating as “best friend” here is a Chinese term used specifically to describe your closest friend of the opposite gender, a friend who you “love” but not in a romantic way. When I confirmed the definition in Chinese, it ends with this: "it is a very dangerous (friends.h.i.+p) because it you don’t excercise control, you can easily cross the line from friends.h.i.+p (into something else)." When I asked Madam Deathblade about the term, she threw up in her mouth and said she hates it when people use the term because it’s “fake,” and that if I ever used that to describe another girl, she would do horrible things to me]

In that moment, the shrieking souls slammed into the wild wind, and then screamed miserably as they were ripped to shreds, completely destroyed. The cultivators behind them didn't even have a chance to be surprised. The wind swept over them and they shuddered for a moment before their flesh and blood was ripped away from their bones, which then turned into ash. Unlike the souls they had summoned, they didn’t even have a chance to scream!

All but one of them... were instantly killed in spirit and body!

There was one who survived, though. A ma.s.sive force wrapped around him, and he was dragged toward Meng Hao who, face calm, grabbed onto the top of his head and unleashed the magic of Soulsearching.

The cultivator trembled and began to froth at the mouth. The froth quickly turned red, and within the s.p.a.ce of a few breaths of time, he was completely dead. Meng Hao released his grip, and the man transformed into ash.

“A total of five teleportation portals, huh...?” Meng Hao lifted his right foot into the air and then slammed it down. Instantly, the teleportation portal beneath him shattered into bits, as did the other four teleportation portals located in other locations on the planet.

“Seal the doors, then start killing!” Meng Hao said softly. As he looked up, he saw countless enraged figures flying in his direction. At the same time, innumerable streams of divine sense flew toward him. Meng Hao’s face was calm as he began to walk forward.

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