Chapter 1304: Mud Swamp Demon City

"Blood Lake Old Ancestor, truly an old friend…"

Jiang Ding muttered to himself.

About three thousand years ago, a clone of Blood Lake Old Ancestor descended to the lower realm and wounded him many times, nearly beating him to death.

The Old Ancestor of Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sect was even more terrifying, mastering stronger spatial teleportation techniques, and actually descended to the Minor Thousand Worlds in his true body.

Unfortunately, fate was unkind, and he died at Zou Zou Xiyuan's hands, his divine soul even subjected to forced search.

Both of these people were at the late-stage Void Refinement realm.

"Blood Lake Corpse Mountain has the possibility of unifying the Thunder Flame Domain,"

Jiang Ding pondered.

Theoretically speaking, the Immortal Artifact Sect should intervene, not allowing unification within each domain, lest it weaken their control.

However, it is not certain.

If the Immortal Artifact Sect is currently fighting a powerful enemy, having its energy tied up and unable to attend to other matters, or if Blood Lake Corpse Mountain has bribed some elder of the Immortal Artifact Sect, or it is simply at some elder's instruction, or perhaps the scheme of another hostile Immortal Sect… any such circumstance could lead to the emergence of unification.

"If only I could catch Blood Lake Old Ancestor alone."

Jiang Ding thought quietly.

He wanted to beat Blood Lake Old Ancestor to death, then go to Blood Lake Corpse Mountain to take the immortal technique fragments.

The current obstacle is that Blood Lake Corpse Mountain has more than one Void Refinement cultivator, and its mountain gate must certainly contain terrifying sect-protecting grand formations; Jiang Ding cannot win.

"Let's talk about it later, no rush."

"The key now is gathering the materials for the Solar Sacrifice Sword Art."

After searching through the memories of the Romantic Human Demon for a moment, Jiang Ding locked onto a place called Mud Swamp Demon City.

Mud Swamp Demon City is a rogue cultivator immortal city established by a cultivator named 'Mud Swamp True Lord,' located in a place called the Sludge Swamp on the border zone between Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sect and Blood Lake Corpse Mountain.

The fact that this Mud Swamp True Lord could establish an immortal city between two great true sects without being destroyed naturally means his strength is extremely formidable.

However, strength is not the most important reason.

His strength is not enough to contend with either of the two great true sects; the reason he has not been destroyed is that Mud Swamp True Lord's escape arts are extremely powerful, and in this place called the Sludge Swamp, he has an especially heaven-blessed advantage.

Historically, both Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sect and Blood Lake Corpse Mountain have killed their way into Mud Swamp Demon City, invincible, encountering no resistance, but they were unable to find and kill Mud Swamp True Lord, and instead were taken advantage of to ambush and slaughter many subordinate forces, with countless deaths and injuries and boundless losses.

In the end, helpless, the two great true sects tacitly acknowledged the existence of Mud Swamp Immortal City.

Mud Swamp Demon City thus became a holy land for rogue cultivators; demon cultivators from the territories of the two great true sects gathered here, selling many unsavory things, and commerce flourished extremely.

Of course, Mud Swamp True Lord is not truly completely free from worldly concerns.

He must hand over eighty percent of his tribute to the Immortal Sect.

This is the basic obligation of any force in the upper realm; otherwise, great disaster will be invited.

"This place will do."

"A commercial city, with developed commerce, a gathering place for vast quantities of goods… perfectly suited for me to conduct fair transactions."

Jiang Ding sighed.

……

Following the memories from the Romantic Human Demon, passing through many places over the course of several years, Jiang Ding arrived at a boundless stretch of swampland.

The air here was filled with the stench of rot; the ground occasionally churned, and some white bones and silt rolled up, bringing out some emerald-green, extremely poisonous gases.

"Sludge Swamp…"

Jiang Ding continued walking into it, and after several months, he arrived at the center of the swampland.

Many cultivation cultivators came and went here, orderly walking toward a magnificent, grand emerald-green mud city.

This city was entirely composed of flowing green sludge, jelly-like, with decent elasticity and toughness.

In the memories of some murder-and-plunder demon cultivators Jiang Ding had inquired of, this was a third-grade material called 'Green Poison Jelly Mud,' produced in great quantities in the Sludge Swamp, later refined by Mud Swamp True Lord into a demon city, using lenient trading policies to gather vast quantities of heavenly materials and earthly treasures from all over, supplying his own cultivation.

Jiang Ding paused here, his steps faltering slightly.

He fell into contemplation; the Taiqing Flying Sword trembled slightly, and a blood-red killing intent began to surface.

"No."

"Without detailed intelligence, I cannot make a move against any Void Refinement True Lord."

Jiang Ding whispered in his heart.

Void Refinement True Lords, to be precise, have the ability to kill him.

This kind of seeing a strong expert and rushing in regardless is what Chong Chong Guang Zi, Zou Zou Xiyuan, and the others would do, not him.

Furthermore, Jiang Ding will not beat any cultivator to death without cause; no matter how terrible the other's reputation, he will confirm again before acting, just as with the Romantic Human Demon.

"In that case…"

Jiang Ding's body blurred, and a gray-robed youth with an utterly ordinary appearance emerged.

'Utterly ordinary appearance' is not a description but a statement, because his appearance was compiled from the features of several hundred million nearby people; after comparison, the most common-looking one was chosen—ordinary in every aspect, the kind you could see anywhere on the street.

"Go, gather supplies, gather intelligence."

Jiang Ding said calmly.

He could not possibly enter the lair of a Void Refinement True Lord bristling with formation traps.

This kind of Soul Transformation peak-grade nano-liquid robot clone refined by the Immortal Sect is the substitute of choice; it possesses part of Jiang Ding's memories, not involving major secrets like the lower realm and the Immortal Sect.

……

Jiang Ding walked into Mud Swamp Demon City.

There were no city walls here, only a stretch of tender green jelly-like ground, extremely tough; even body-refining cultivators weighing ten thousand jun walking on it would not cause a dent.

People came and went all around, cultivators like a tide; looking out, one could not see the end.

Among them, Qi Refining, Foundation Establishment, and Golden Core cultivators could be seen everywhere; Nascent Soul cultivators were not few, and Soul Transformation cultivators could occasionally be seen too—not like in the Minor Thousand Worlds where they were as rare as a dragon showing its head and tail.

Mud Swamp Demon City was swampland everywhere, generally barren.

To develop commerce and accumulate heavenly materials and earthly treasures for cultivation, True Lord Mire had put in tremendous effort.

He refined a massive number of "Mire Tokens"—anywhere within the domain, one could connect to a Mire Token with divine sense and browse the goods listed on it: Gong Fa, spells, cauldrons, assassins, pill-refining, talismans, spy-hunting, intelligence… everything imaginable, all-encompassing, essentially an online marketplace, far ahead of its time.

Pay a certain amount of spirit stones, and the goods could be teleported directly into the customer's hands.

If a major client wanted to stock up, or if someone else wanted to come to Mire Demon City but feared the distance or lack of safety, they only needed to feed a certain amount of heavenly materials, earthly treasures, and spirit stones into the Mire Token, and they could be teleported to Mire Demon City.

Transactions within the demon city were absolutely safe, under the protection of True Lord Mire, and the taxes collected were far less than elsewhere.

Under such convenient conditions, a great number of cultivators in the domain with trading needs gathered here—even including many cultivators from the two great True Sects.

"This true lord's rules should be related to space."

Jiang Ding guessed.

All these methods of his could be replicated by other Void Refinement true lords, but it would require laying down space formations everywhere, and the Void Refinement true lord would have to act personally—hard to spread on a large scale.

A Void Refinement true lord who walked the Dao of Space, mastering the rules of space, would find accomplishing the same things far easier.

"Space…"

"No wonder the main body gets headaches."

Jiang Ding smiled bitterly: "This kind of cultivator is generally quite strong in combat, and even stronger at running away. If you don't restrict them in advance, there's no way at all to corner them."

"Of course, I need to confirm evidence of his crimes."

"If the man really is just an ordinary businessman, then I can only consider staking out Old Ancestor Blood Lake outside Blood Lake Bone Mountain."

His figure gradually blended into the many cultivators of the demon city, no longer bearing any trace of distinction.