Chapter 295: Tianhai Alliance

After exterminating Eagle Nest Ridge in one battle, Qinghe County, which had experienced a devastation, ushered in a period of peace.

Song Qingming, who didn't find what he wanted in the Xiaoyao Sect, began his days of patient cultivation after returning to Mount Funiu. The spirit stones he obtained from Cheng Yilong also allowed him not to worry about the resources needed for cultivation for a short time.

In the previous battle of Qinghefang, the Song family also lost several cultivators, and even the biggest pillar of the Song family in the marketplace, Second Sister Song Qingwan, was seriously injured, and she wouldn't be able to take action to help with alchemy for at least a few years.

When Song Qingming went to the Xiaoyao Sect, he specially went to Yangshanfang to find healing elixirs for her. It was a pity that what he found were all first-tier low-grade elixirs. Although they would have some effect after taking them, overall, they couldn't help her shorten much of the treatment time.

Second Sister Song Qingwan had to go into closed-door healing for a long time, coupled with the death of Fourth Uncle Song Changqiu, which caused the Song family cultivators in the entire marketplace to lose their backbone, and the business of several shops of the Song family in Qinghefang was greatly affected all of a sudden.

Although the clan leader Song Changfeng immediately sent Fifteenth Aunt Song Changyue to take over the affairs of the marketplace, Song Changyue was a person of duty and didn't have much business sense. After she arrived there, although she temporarily stabilized the Song family cultivators and mortal shop assistants in the marketplace, the overall business of these shops could not be restored. Even with one more shop taken from the Lu family, the combined spirit stone income could only barely maintain the balance of payments for these industries. For a short time, the Song family couldn't expect how much profit this place would create for the family.

Qinghefang experienced a war, and the damage to the entire marketplace was very great. Under the leadership of several major Foundation Establishment families, everyone spent a full half a year repairing and patching before restoring the marketplace to its original appearance.

However, this battle of Eagle Nest Ridge also brought out some of Qinghefang's prestige. Afterward, for at least twenty years, no one had seen the traces of those bandits who murdered for money in the vicinity of Qinghefang. Many loose cultivators who did business in other marketplaces came here by reputation, just to find a relatively comfortable place to survive.

Looking at the business of other shops in the marketplace getting better and better, while all the shops of the Song family were still in a slump, at the year-end family meeting, Song Qingming finally couldn't sit still and could only transfer Shi Chun back from Fengtou Mountain, asking him to help take over this mess in Qinghefang.

After Shi Chun went to Qinghefang, he didn't disappoint Song Qingming, and the Song family's industries in Qinghefang finally slowly improved.

One year after the great battle of Eagle Nest Ridge, just when Song Qingming was immersed in cultivation on Mount Funiu, another news that surprised him a bit came. Lu Yuanfeng, who had been stationed in Qinghefang for nearly eighty years, was suddenly urgently recalled to the sect by the Xiaoyao Sect. Replacing him was a Xiaoyao Sect disciple named Feng De, who had just established his foundation.

Logically, an old-school Foundation Establishment disciple of the Xiaoyao Sect like Lu Yuanfeng would not be easily transferred away from the marketplace where he had been stationed for many years without any accidents.

At first, Song Qingming thought it was because of the incident where Qinghefang was breached that led to Lu Yuanfeng's transfer this time. It wasn't until half a month later that he personally made a trip to Taiyuan Mountain to inquire about it from the Huang family that he learned a piece of news that shocked him a bit.

It turned out that the reason Lu Yuanfeng was transferred away was because war had broken out between the Lu State in the south and the Tianhai Alliance. The two sides had already fought a great battle over the control of the two small countries around them. It seemed that the Lingyin Sect had suffered a great loss, and the battle line was slowly pushed to the vicinity of the Lu State. The Lingyin Sect was already seeking help from several surrounding countries, and the Xiaoyao Sect was also mobilizing cultivators to rush to support them.

The dozens of countries around the Fuyun Mountain Range, although they would engage in intrigue and friction on weekdays, were overall still an alliance. Facing this kind of invasion by external forces, everyone would still unite to expel the external forces.

However, the Tianhai Alliance, which could beat the Lingyin Sect to the point of seeking help everywhere, was not a force to be underestimated. They were an alliance composed of cultivators in the coastal area of southern Lu State. In the past few thousand years, the Tianhai Alliance's strength had become stronger and stronger, and it had almost integrated all the cultivation forces in the southern coastal area of Donghuangxianzhou. The alliance's strength had also far exceeded that of an ordinary major country around the Fuyun Mountain Range.

The Lingyin Sect had also fought them more than a dozen times over the years, but they were basically defeated more and won less. The current strategy was also only passive defense, never taking the initiative to attack them.

There were five Nascent Soul cultivators in the Tianhai Alliance alone, including one great cultivator in the late Nascent Soul stage. A single Lingyin Sect was far from being a match for the Tianhai Alliance. If it weren't for the fact that the many countries around the Fuyun Mountain Range had always been relatively united and would support each other, I'm afraid the Tianhai Alliance's forces would have long since penetrated deep into the hinterland of the Fuyun Mountain Range.

Around the entire Fuyun Mountain Range, besides the demonic beast force range in the north, the coastal area in the east was some forces that had not yet been integrated. The sects in this place were relatively loose, and their actions were relatively friendly. It was a place where many cultivators with cultivation achievements wanted to go to open sects. Because the place was coastal, the material resources were also relatively rich. Even many cultivators in Wei State liked to travel there after Foundation Establishment or Core Formation.

On the west side of the Fuyun Mountain Range was a sparsely populated Gobi and the Tiexi Desert. Besides using long-distance teleportation arrays, only cultivators above Core Formation had the ability to cross it. It was said that after crossing the Tiexi Desert in the west, it was the Donghuang State, the country with the strongest human strength on the Donghuangxianzhou continent. It was said that there were still Soul Transformation cultivators there, and it was the cultivation holy land of the human race on this continent. Not only were there many spiritual veins in its territory, but after more than 100,000 years of development by the human race, it was like Guyang County in Wei State, where even demonic beasts had become extinct. It was also the best place for mortals to multiply.

The south was the territory of the Tianhai Alliance. Their style of action was relatively strong, often invading the territory of the neighboring Lu State and Pei State of the Fuyun Mountain Range to the north, wanting to seize more resources. Often every few decades, a large-scale conflict would break out between the two sides. The dozens of countries around the Fuyun Mountain Range, besides fully dealing with the greatest threat—the northern demonic beast army—the second was to guard against the expansion of the Tianhai Alliance's forces in the south.

However, the Tianhai Alliance did not only have the Fuyun Mountain Range in the north as an opponent. The coastal demonic beasts were also their hidden danger. Like the northern demonic beasts, every once in a while, the demonic beasts in the Leiyuan Sea in the south would also attack the southern coastal area of Donghuangxianzhou. However, both the Tianhai Alliance and the Fuyun Mountain Range would have a tacit understanding to stop fighting during the demonic beast turmoil. After all, everyone was on the human side and would not stab each other in the back when the other party was in trouble.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 296 =====