Chapter 273: Not a Nice Place
The fight was over, and Xu Qing’s name resounded in the Eight Sect Coalition and the 137 sects that made it up.
Master Shengyun had been capable of fighting a Gold Core cultivator with a heavenly palace, and had even managed to crush the grand highness from the First Peak in Seven Blood Eyes. However, that was because that grand highness had just broken through, and had come out of seclusion before stabilizing his first heavenly palace.
Xu Qing was completely different. He had actually crushed a Gold Core expert with a fully formed heavenly palace. For something like that to happen in the Emperor-Receiving Prefecture was as rare as phoenix feathers or qilin horns.
That was especially true... considering Xu Qing still hadn’t ignited his fourth life flame.
Because of that, the attitudes of the coalition disciples began to change. Though some people were still hostile toward Xu Qing, many had come to revere him. Of that group... the female disciples made the majority. After all, as the Captain had mentioned, Xu Qing’s good looks were a trump card that surpassed his cultivation base.
Despite all that, Xu Qing didn’t leave the compound after the fight. He spent his time working on cultivation, and making sure both of his life lamps were fully integrated.
Master Seventh eventually told Xu Qing that the fight was the result of a deal between Seven Blood Eyes and the Sima Clan.
Meanwhile, the negotiations with the coalition were complete, and a final determination had been made about where Seven Blood Eyes would be located. The results were a secret, though, and not even the ordinary delegates knew the details unless Master Seventh chose to tell them.
Therefore... the Captain, Xu Qing and Third Elder Brother were naturally the first to find out.
Xu Qing was actually working on an important mission during this, his first visit to the Emperor-Receiving Prefecture. Before leaving, Zhang San had approached him with eyebrows dancing up and down, and had made Xu Qing promise to get details about where the sect would be located. That information directly related to the possibility of enormous profit.
Zhang San wanted Xu Qing to find out the borders of the new sect territory, the layout of what would be inside the borders, and also specifics about what was on the other side of the borders. As Zhang San had said, an event like this only happened once in a blue moon. Zhang San felt that the Captain wasn’t very reliable, and had thus entrusted this mission to Xu Qing. He had also repeatedly warned Xu Qing not to forget about it during the trip.
After Xu Qing got all the details, the first thing he did was transmit them to Zhang San. Then Zhang San, being the resourceful person he was, held nothing back to purchase teleportation passage to the mainland, where he barely had time to say hello to Xu Qing and the Captain before he was busy at work.
Also busy at work was Third Elder Brother. Without batting an eyelid, he started making various preparations based on the inside information.
The news soon reached the highnesses from the other mountain peaks. They knew how important news like this was, so they immediately stopped issuing dueling challenges and began doing various things to capitalize on what was happening.
Considering that, it was no surprise that the news leaked to the public fairly quickly. Once everyone knew where Seven Blood Eyes would end up, things got really crazy. People from all of the various sects in the coalition were at work. One of the results of the negotiations was a stipulation that the coalition, to show good faith, was paying for all of the costs for moving Seven Blood Eyes. It really just came down to good manners and not pushing things too far. After all, if any of the other sects found themselves in a similar negotiation, and had been too stingy in the past, they would suffer for it. Beyond that, people in the know from the various coalitions sects were able to profit handsomely because of their inside knowledge. In fact, shortly after the word started to spread, the coalition put a moratorium on real estate transactions.
At that point, the first wave of teleportations from Seven Blood Eyes began.
It started with a large group of Sixth Peak disciples. That said, South Phoenix was still the foundation of the sect, and wasn’t going to be abandoned. So only about sixty percent of the disciples came, along with Master Sixth. With them came the Sixth Peak itself.
The plan was to build an entire new city on the spot that had been set aside. It was a major undertaking, and wouldn’t just require cultivators, but also would rely on the help of mortals. Work began immediately.
Soon the second and third waves of teleportations came. On a daily basis, both disciples and mortals from Seven Blood Eyes arrived to take residence in the new city.
Seven Blood Eyes was to be located on the other side of a fork in the Everlasting Immortal Profundity River. It was connected to what had once been the Seven Sect Coalition by means of eight enormous bridges, each of which was wide enough for a hundred horse carts to cross at the same time.
Beyond that location was wilderness, from which point you could see the Supreme Arbiter Salvation Mountains.
The general layout of the city was already determined. Instead of being a square like the capital city in South Phoenix, from high above, it resembled a huge eye. One end of the city touched the Forbidden Sea, and the other was the part with the bridges connecting to the other coalition cities. A canal was dug out so that the waters of the Everlasting Immortal Profundity River made their way through Seven Blood Eyes to the sea.
The pupil of the enormous eye was where the seven mountain peaks were to be located. As before, the Seventh Peak would administer the Port District.
Because of all the construction work, Xu Qing wasn’t able to immerse himself fully in cultivation. As one of the highnesses of the Seventh Peak, there were too many responsibilities to tend to.
After the preliminary work was done creating the city, preparations began for the large-scale teleportation move, in which the majority of the common citizens and disciples would come to the city. It was such a huge undertaking that even just making the adjustments to the spell formations took an entire day. By evening, most of the teleportation portals were ready. The sect disciples who were present were keeping a close eye on everything. After all, there would soon be a vast number of mortals coming into the city. They were the foundation of Seven Blood Eyes’ economy, and as always, the sect went to great lengths to keep them safe.
In fact, that was one of Xu Qing’s main responsibilities. Working with him were the Captain and Third Elder Brother. The three of them hovered in midair, with Seven Blood Eyes on the one side with its teleportation portals in a constant state of activity, and a vast wilderness on the other side.
The massive city walls, as well as the sect’s spell formation, created a barrier between the coalition and the wilderness. However, from a high vantage point, it was possible to see that, compared to the continent of South Phoenix, the Emperor-Receiving Prefecture was actually a much more brutal place.
Furthermore, because Seven Blood Eyes was so close to the Supreme Arbiter Salvation Mountains, Xu Qing had a clear view of those mountains. They looked like the corpse of some massive beast. Dark mountain peaks rose up everywhere, and they were covered with sinister trees. The Supreme Arbiter Salvation Mountains eventually ran all the way into the sea, although that spot was so far away it wasn’t visible.
The Captain was next to Xu Qing, munching an apple. “The other end of the mountain range is where you can find the Three-Spirits Dao-Suppressing Mountain.”
Xu Qing nodded. As he studied the mountains and the horizon, the teleportation portals in the city behind him rumbled to life, and the light of teleportation shone brightly, illuminating the dome of heaven. Winds blew hard and strong, and the ground trembled. Figures emerged, fully a hundred thousand of them. From high in the sky, they almost looked like ants streaming out into the city. All sorts of facial expressions could be seen, from excitement to apprehension. To them, this was a strange new land, but it was also a place to make a new beginning.
The disciples in the crowd floated up into the air to look around. At the same time, there were already disciples assigned to keep things orderly and direct people where to go. Everyone present was from Seven Blood Eyes.
As Xu Qing was keeping a close eye on things, the sky over the Supreme Arbiter Salvation Mountains changed colors. Pink clouds suddenly roiled out, accompanied by immense pressure that caused lightning bolts to shoot down.
The high-level cultivators in Seven Blood Eyes immediately noticed it, and Sir Bloodsmelter’s face appeared in the sky, gazing in that direction.
When Xu Qing did the same, he saw something absolutely shocking and ghastly!
There were thousands of common citizens, apparently nonhumans from a small nation in the Supreme Arbiter Salvation Mountains, who were frantically running away from something. They looked skinny and emaciated, and they had looks of terror and despair on their faces.
The pink clouds swept over them. That pinkness was very gruish, like a mixture between rouge and ground meat. Transforming into the shape of a mouth, the clouds shot toward the ground. In the blink of an eye, the thousands of commoners were gobbled up. Then, crunching sounds rang out as blood rained down to the ground. It was really an appalling sight.
Xu Qing’s pupils constricted as the pink clouds seethed again, and a huge figure became visible within them.
It was a woman, fully 3,000 meters tall. She was very beautiful, with exquisite facial features, a prominent nose, sculpted cheekbones, and eyes that glittering with scintillating light. Given how close the woman was to Seven Blood Eyes, it was possible to see that her skin was covered with dark spots like that of a leopard. Her waist was very narrow, her teeth were gleaming white, and hanging from her ears were two jade stone earrings that tinkled melodiously when they moved.
Her gown was made from jade thread, and was covered with over ten thousand spirit pearls, each of which glowed brightly and emanated a powerful spirit energy. As for the jade thread, its fragrant aroma spread out for dozens of kilometers in all directions.
What was even more astonishing was that on the front of her garment was a totemic phoenix feather embroidered with hair, that glittered brightly and pulsed with a shocking godliness. As she flew along, she held out a mirror which she used to check her skin after her meal.
As she neared Seven Blood Eyes, Sir Bloodsmelter grimly said, “Halt!”
His voice echoed like thunder through the heavens, and caused the woman in the pink cloud to look up. Seeing the new Seven Blood Eyes city, she looked at Sir Bloodsmelter and sneered.
“Seven Blood Eyes? So you have a taboo treasure now? How amusing.” After stretching lazily, she turned and flew back toward the Supreme Arbiter Salvation Mountains.
The entire scene caused Xu Qing’s pupils to constrict. The woman’s brutality was shocking and her cultivation base terrifying.
“That,” said Third Elder Brother, “was August Spirit Nethersprite from the Three-Spirits Dao-Suppressing Mountain, where they keep 137 nations around just to devour their citizens, creating a living hell on earth.
“The second-highest ranking spirit from the Three-Spirits Dao-Suppressing Mountain is August Spirit Sunslaughter. The highest-ranking is August Spirit Sporelight. All three of them are in the Void Returning level, and are considered one of the top six powers in the Emperor-Receiving Prefecture. They’re unfathomably powerful. She must have come to intimidate us.”
Hearing Third Elder Brother’s words, Xu Qing looked at the distant mountains. He could already sense how brutal of a place the Emperor-Receiving Prefecture was. Although there was happiness and prosperity in the coalition, the outside world was very different. It was a vicious and ruthless place. It wasn’t a kill-or-be-killed world, but rather a kill-or-be-eaten world.
It was at this point that Xu Qing suddenly heard a gulp from off to the side. The Captain was looking in the direction August Spirit Nethersprite had disappeared, his eyes glittering.
“Those were millennium spirit resonance pearls. And that jade cloth was created using the divine ability from the extremely rare Immortal Jade Scripture. That immortal jade cloth is filled with shocking immortal energy. Eating it would lead to untold benefits. And then there’s that phoenix feather embroidered from hair. That godliness was incredible! An amazing set of clothing. My set of clothing!!”