Chapter 679: Covert Replacement

Chapter 679: Chapter 458: Covert Replacement

It was another moonlit night. Fang Qingyuan and Bear Wind journeyed together, soaring tens of thousands of feet high. Braving the piercing cold wind, they silently hurried toward the location Cui Dong City had designated.

Five years ago, Cui Dong City had secretly visited the Qingyuan Sect for two reasons. The first was to procure supplies for the Illusion Sword Sect. The second was to trade the complete version of his sect’s secret manual, the *True Scripture of the Mirage Dragon Illusion Sword*, for a promise from Fang Qingyuan: at the right moment, he would ask Bear Wind to intervene once on his behalf.

A few days ago, Cui Dong City had sent a message to Fang Qingyuan. In it, he cryptically brought up the matter, and Fang Qingyuan, taking the hint, immediately decided to honor the agreement.

Fang Qingyuan and Bear Wind were now arriving early. Fang Qingyuan wanted to scout the area first to make sure nothing was amiss—at the very least, to confirm this wasn’t a trap laid for him and Bear Wind.

When operating in White Mountain, one could never be too careful. Even though there were no direct conflicts of interest between the Illusion Sword Alliance and the Qingyuan Sect, Fang Qingyuan believed it was essential to always have a card up his sleeve.

Therefore, Fang Qingyuan had slipped out of the Qingyuan Sect in secret more than half a month ahead of schedule. Besides Liu Xun, no one knew. After all, a Golden Core Cultivator could enter seclusion for several months at a time, so it wouldn’t seem strange even if Fang Qingyuan disappeared for half a year.

The location Cui Dong City had designated was, of course, the Thick Earth Desert. And though Fang Qingyuan was now considered one of the White Mountain People, this was his first visit to this desert in the southeasternmost part of the region.

Among all the factions in White Mountain, the Thick Earth Alliance possessed the largest territory. Its domain spanned a full million square kilometers, making it more than twice the size of the Spirit Wood Alliance’s lands.

However, though its territory was vast, there was little prime land. Mortals couldn’t survive on much of the expansive desert terrain, and their tribes gathered only where water could be found. As a result, the Cultivators of the Thick Earth Alliance were not particularly distinguished among the various factions.

The Lianshui Alliance was the opposite. Its territory was only average in size, yet its mortal population was double that of the Spirit Wood Alliance, currently holding steady at nearly thirty million. In comparison, the Spirit Wood Alliance’s population had only reached close to fifteen million after absorbing the Shandu Land.

Back when Fang Qingyuan was younger, just as the Qingyuan Sect was being founded, the sect’s Humpback Skate caravans had taken jobs that led them to the Thick Earth Desert. Because of this, Fang Qingyuan had some faint impression of the area.

In truth, there was very little interaction between the Cultivators of northern and southern White Mountain. This was because a colossal sect, the Hehuan Sect, stood between the two regions like a transverse mountain range.

The culture of the Hehuan Sect was odd. They weren’t the type to settle down and quietly develop their resources, nor were they marauders who pillaged and plundered. Instead, they were isolationists who closed their gates to indulge in their own pleasures, rarely interacting with the outside world.

The Hehuan Sect was situated right in the middle of White Mountain’s northern and southern regions. They were resistant to Cultivators from other factions passing through their territory, conducting strict inspections. They didn’t set up checkpoints to collect tolls, so over time, interactions between the northern and southern regions dwindled.

Of course, the Hehuan Sect’s two Nascent Soul Cultivators were currently stuck up on White Mountain, unable to descend. Therefore, even as Fang Qingyuan and Bear Wind flew high above the sect’s territory, its Arrays couldn’t detect them.

After departing from the Qingyuan Sect, skirting the edge of White Mountain, and crossing the territory of the Hehuan Sect, Fang Qingyuan and Bear Wind finally arrived at the battlefield where the Illusion Sword Alliance and the White Mountain Sword Sect fought against the combined forces of the Thick Earth and Sharp Gold Alliances.

The man and the beast halted among the clouds and, using the mist for cover, began to observe the situation below.

What came into view were rows of heavy, yellow Spiritual Power Protective Shields clamped down upon the earth like wok lids. These shields were linked together like a string of pearls, their brightness identical, suggesting they all belonged to a single, unified Array.

Within the Protective Shields, everything was a chaotic blur, making it impossible for outsiders to see inside. ‘But there must be a large number of Cultivators from the Thick Earth and Sharp Gold Alliances standing guard within,’ Fang Qingyuan guessed.

Tens of thousands of Protective Shields stretched for miles, standing silently in the desert. Opposite them were the encampments of the Illusion Sword Alliance and the White Mountain Sword Sect.

The camp of the Illusion Sword Alliance looked more refined, while that of the White Mountain Sword Sect was simpler, making them easy enough to distinguish.

The current situation was obvious: the Illusion Sword Alliance and the White Mountain Sword Sect were on the offensive, holding the strategic advantage, while the Thick Earth and Sharp Gold Alliances were defending and thus in a more passive position.

This situation was the complete opposite of the conflict in Northern White Mountain. There, it was the Spirit Wood Alliance and the Li Huo Alliance on the attack, with the Pill Alliance defending.

The flames of this great war had been rekindled not long after the previous conflict between the two sides had ended.

Logically, a new war shouldn’t have erupted so soon after the last one. However, at the behest of the various old ancestors on White Mountain, the factions—already holding old grudges—had once again fanned the flames of conflict.

The war had now raged for a decade, and both sides were exhausted. The biggest problem was that conflicts that should have been lightning-fast wars had instead been dragged out, becoming two massive, rotten quagmires—foul pits of mud, swamps that ceaselessly devoured flesh and blood.

The two defending factions, the Thick Earth Alliance and the Pill Alliance, performed similarly. Both were defensive stalwarts, famed for a resilience that was impossible to defeat, break, or wear down. The Spirit Wood Li Fire forces couldn’t breach Danqing Mountain; how, then, could the Illusion Sword Alliance and the White Mountain Sword Sect hope to shatter the iron wall of the united Thick Earth and Sharp Gold armies? In the grand scheme of the war, the tenacity of these two defenders was the very bedrock of the entire conflict.

But there were some differences between the two. The Pill Alliance relied on a Tier Four Array, which they had redeemed with merit points from the Great Zhou Academy during the great reward ceremony after the last War of Expansion. Its defensive capabilities were exceptionally formidable and incredibly difficult to counter. Therefore, when facing the allied forces of the Spirit Wood Li Fire—who were stronger than the two sword factions—the Pill Alliance could only passively hold their ground from start to finish, hopelessly besieged within their fortress.