Even the five wounded Patriarchs were staring at Meng Hao with looks of awe. His valiant and terrifying performance, and his deadly decisiveness, caused even their hearts to grow cold with fear.

Grandma Meng was there in the crowd, and she was also completely shaken. This was her own grandson who had shocked her over and over again.

“I'm not your Patriarch,” Meng Hao said coolly, looking out at all the members of the Meng Clan. “Neither am I Meng Chen. My name... is Meng Hao.

“I'm from the Fang Clan of the Ninth Mountain and Sea.” His words caused all of the Meng Clan cultivators to stare in shock. Suddenly, the five Patriarchs recalled a certain matter, and their eyes went wide.

All eyes were on Meng Hao as he began to walk toward his grandmother. People respectfully made way for him, and soon he was standing directly in front of her. An emotional look could be seen on her face as Meng Hao gazed at her softly, clasped hands and bowed deeply.

“Grandma Meng,” he said.

When the members of the Meng Clan heard him address her in the manner of a maternal grandmother, they turned their shocked gazes upon her. After a moment of thought, people began to clasp hands and bow to her.

Even the five Patriarchs did so.

After this battle, Meng Hao’s grandmother and her people truly became the primary bloodline. Those who remained alive in the Meng Clan, regardless of what bloodline they came from, voiced not a single word of dissent. In fact, they all approved, from the bottoms of their hearts.

The five Patriarchs felt the same. It made sense, considering that the Seventh Mountain and Sea had arrived, and a Mountain and Sea War was beginning. The fact that a terrifying figure like Meng Hao was there to take the lead made them feel as if they were being protected by a magic talisman.

With that talisman in place, the Meng Clan could be safe in the war, and in fact had an incredible advantage that would help them in moments of life and death. At this point, personal position and power within the clan had ceased to be important.

Strength was everything!

Grandma Meng didn’t reject Meng Hao’s words, and as such, became the acting Clan Chieftess, taking the place of the missing Grandpa Meng, and able to wield his authority. Numerous orders were transmitted. The Meng Clan had survived the battle, expelled the traitors, and now had a new lease on life.

The nine auxiliary continents were reorganized and transformed into a new clan spell formation. The ancestral mansion was also completely renovated.

Meng Hao chose to go into secluded meditation there in the Meng Clan. Although he was itching to go to the Fourth Mountain and Sea, right now the Meng Clan needed him.

Before beginning his meditation, he looked out into the starry sky. It was almost as if he could see Xu Qing, oh so far away in the Fourth Mountain and Sea. He sat there quietly for a moment, then closed his eyes, crossed his legs, and began to perform breathing exercises.

According to the Seventh Mountain and Sea’s original plan, the Meng Clan should have been wiped out by now. It was a big defeat for the invaders, and when Xiao Yihan returned to the location where their main force was garrisoned, the rift between the two Mountains and Seas, he reported what had happened. After his report was given, few questions were asked about Meng Hao, nor did anyone try to press the matter.

Meanwhile, in the HeavenG.o.d Alliance, nearly 50,000 cultivators had already gathered together into an army. Numerous powerful experts were given command positions, and they soon left the HeavenG.o.d Alliance and headed... toward the very rift where the Seventh Mountain and Sea was encamped.

The true first battle between the Eighth and Seventh Mountains and Seas was about to begin, and it was the focus of much attention. The Han Clan and the Meng Clan both dispatched cultivators to observe first hand what would happen in the battle.

It didn't take long; the fighting started three days later, right outside of the rift.

Cultivators had been pouring out nonstop through the rift from the Seventh Mountain and Sea, and by now they had a force 60-70,000 strong. When the fighting started, it was incredibly intense.

No one held back, and the sounds of battle raged constantly. The Eighth Mountain and Sea went all out, mobilizing some of their ultimate weapons and magic treasures, as did the Seventh Mountain and Sea, and the fighting went on for seven days straight. Booms filled the starry sky, and as the seven days pa.s.sed, the reek of blood spread out through nearly half of the Eighth Mountain and Sea.

Countless people died on both sides, even some Dao Realm experts. Occasionally, people chose to self-detonate, sending the sounds of explosions out in all directions.

The bitterness of the fighting was unmatched....

After seven days, the HeavenG.o.d Alliance... suffered a major defeat!

Of the 50,000 cultivators who had marched into battle, only about 2,000 returned. The casualties suffered by the Seventh Mountain and Sea were visibly less. In fact, cultivators seemed to be constantly pouring in from the Seventh Mountain and Sea, until tens of thousands of reinforcements had arrived.

That first battle completely rocked the Eighth Mountain and Sea. The sects of the HeavenG.o.d Alliance were badly shaken. What had been fought was a true battle, and the resulting loss was a very heavy blow to the HeavenG.o.d Alliance.

If that were all there were to it, it might not be a big deal. But the cultivators of the Seventh Mountain and Sea took advantage of their victory to dispatch a force of 70,000... to slaughter their way into the HeavenG.o.d Alliance.

The war... had truly begun!

Outside of the HeavenG.o.d Alliance, the Han Clan was on complete lockdown, and had cut off all communication with anyone on the outside. They focused not on attacking the enemy, but only on protecting themselves. However, the only result of that was that a month later, the Seventh Mountain and Sea attacked them.

An entire division of the Seventh Mountain and Sea’s army was sent against them.

The flames of war raged in the Eighth Mountain and Sea. There was endless slaughter and bitter fighting. Especially significant was that the cultivators of the Seventh Mountain and Sea were adept at using curse power. Furthermore, they had body cultivators, all of whom seemed virtually indestructible, and whose valiant power led to wholesale slaughter.

The cultivators of the Seventh Mountain and Sea also used enormous beasts in battle. Those beasts could unleash shocking power, and had a huge influence on the fighting.

The only force that didn't seem to be affected at all was... the Meng Clan. It was as if the Seventh Mountain and Sea viewed their territory as a restricted area. Throughout the month during which the Mountain and Sea War was fought, the Meng Clan was like a utopia. Unexpectedly... not a single cultivator from the Seventh Mountain and Sea entered that area.

Although they would occasionally pa.s.s by, whenever they did, their faces flickered and they would hasten past as quickly as possible.

This point was not lost on the Han Clan and the HeavenG.o.d Alliance. Although they were shocked, there was no time to investigate the matter, not in the face of the deadly offensive of the Seventh Mountain and Sea.

Meng Hao took it all in stride. He remained in a hidden chamber set aside for him in the Meng Clan, meditating. That chamber was of course located within the huge statue in the middle of the clan, a place where Meng Hao could sense even more of the qi flow of the Mountain and Sea Realm than before. It was of great a.s.sistance to his practice of cultivation.

He wasn’t worried at all about the war going on outside; he was focused on cultivation, and on experiencing the difference between Immortal power and Ancient mana.

He also spent time observing his 33 Soul Lamps. With every moment that pa.s.sed, they grew stronger, and Meng Hao’s desire to begin to extinguish them grew stronger as well.

Although the Meng Clan was not partic.i.p.ating in the war, they were gathering intelligence about what was happening on the outside. Those intelligence reports were pa.s.sed on to Meng Hao, which he would examine to stay up to date on what was happening. After all, Meng Hao was well-aware that everything that had occurred so far was merely the beginning.

“I'm afraid the true war... is almost here,” he murmured, thinking about how nervous and fidgety the parrot had gotten in recent days.

Things were peaceful and quiet in the Meng Clan. The clan members focused on cultivation, although they would occasionally look up into the starry sky, their eyes glinting coldly.

Time pa.s.sed. Another half a month went by. Soon, the war between the Seventh and Eighth Mountains and Seas had been going on for two months. No longer were tens of thousands of cultivators involved, but rather, hundreds of thousands. And then millions.

The starry sky rumbled constantly, to the point where it even echoed out in the Meng Clan. The reek of blood spread out everywhere. The energy of Heaven and Earth was thrown into chaos, something that any Immortal Realm cultivator could detect.

Eventually, almighty experts in the other Mountains and Seas could sense that a Mountain and Sea War was underway in the Eighth Mountain and Sea.

In fact, Meng Hao was even able to sense that the qi flow of the Mountain and Sea Realm as a whole was slowly dissipating, almost as if from sorrow.

“Is it sorrow because, despite the impending arrival of the Outsiders... there is war within?” Meng Hao murmured. “Yet you aren’t putting a stop to it... Is it that you feel the same as me, that the greater war cannot be stopped and therefore, this Mountain and Sea War is like a crash course to acclimate us to the ways of warfare?” He looked down at a jade slip, which had just been delivered by someone from the Meng Clan, a report about the war situation during the last month.

Half a month before, the teleportation planets of the HeavenG.o.d Alliance had all been destroyed, and a million cultivators from the Seventh Mountain and Sea had begun to fight their way to the center. The cultivators of the HeavenG.o.d Alliance experienced one major battle after another. Soon the war came to a deadlock, and both sides hunkered down, as if they were building up towards one final battle, a battle the conclusion of which could be predicted by no one.

However, smaller battles continued to be fought constantly.

Five days ago, the Han Clan... had been breached. After sustaining heavy casualties, the survivors had fled, but were being pursued relentlessly by the Seventh Mountain and Sea.

**

Meng Hao looked up silently into the starry sky and thought about Han Qinglei, and then, his eyes suddenly flickered.

Off in the distance, near the border of the area controlled by the Meng Clan, he saw a force of several hundred cultivators flying along at top speed. There were men and women, young and old, and all of them were injured, with looks of grief and hopelessness on their faces. Occasionally, blood would spurt out of various wounds. They were being led by two old Dao Realm cultivators, both of whom had ashen faces, and appeared to have suffered grievous injuries.

Astonis.h.i.+ngly, Han Qinglei was right behind those two old Dao Realm cultivators, a vicious expression on his face. Although he radiated killing intent, his complexion was unusually dark, as if he had been infected by a curse. His body was also very gaunt, and apparently, still in the process of being withered up.

These people were the Han Clan cultivators who had managed to flee after their clan had been destroyed.

Behind them were three enormous beasts, each one fully 3,000 meters long. They were gigantic spiders, emerald green in color and completely vicious.

Sitting atop each of the spiders were more than a thousand cultivators, whose faces were filled with coldness and contempt as they pursued the cultivators from the Han Clan. On the central-most spider, a young man sat on an emerald green throne. One of his legs was resting on the back of a trembling young woman who knelt in front of him on all fours, and his arm was wrapped around another woman, a female cultivator.

The young man’s eyes glowed with emerald light, and cruelty.

“Hear the words of the Young Lord,” he said, a cold smile twisting his lips. “I want Han Qinglei alive. As for everyone else, feed them to the giant Demon beasts!”