The Boundless Sea, the Moulans

Chapter 363: The Boundless Sea, the Moulans

“So, the current state of Yue is truly chaotic enough,” Han Li suddenly said with a light chuckle.

This seemingly random comment struck the other four as profoundly cryptic, leaving them to offer only dry, forced smiles.

“Fellow Daoists, continue your chat. I’ll take another look around,” Han Li said as he stood up, his tone amiable.

“As you wish, Senior!”

“Go well, Senior!”

...

The four of them quickly and respectfully watched Han Li depart.

He casually waved a hand, then called out to Qu Hun, who had been waiting silently outside, and walked toward another stone pavilion.

...

Two hours later, Han Li stood in a corner of the mountain peak, his head lowered in contemplation.

He had just inquired about the state of the Yue Kingdom’s cultivation world with several groups of cultivators. The result could be summed up in a single word: “chaos.”

Given these circumstances, he now had two paths to choose from.

The first was to fly away on his magic tool, leaving Yue and the surrounding nations far behind to find another suitable location to continue his cultivation.

The second was to find a way to repair the ancient teleportation array, gambling on luck to see where it would send him. After all, such a massive and expensive ancient formation wouldn’t have been built underground for no reason. It had to lead to another incredibly distant location.

At first glance, the first option seemed the safer and more reliable choice.

But the more Han Li thought about it, the more he felt that this decision wasn’t much better.

To the east and west of Yue lay the demonic path’s lair, Tianluo Country, and the Righteous Alliance’s Fengdu Country, respectively. Therefore, his only viable directions were north or south.

If he fled north through Yuanwu Country, he would pass a dozen or so small and medium nations. However, the cultivation circles of these nations were clearly incapable of resisting an invasion by either the demonic or righteous paths. Some had long since become vassals of the two major powers, locked in a covert struggle for dominance. Had it not been for the fact that Tianluo and Fengdu shared very little border, a large-scale conflict would have erupted long ago.

These nations could become a battlefield between the demonic path and the Righteous Alliance at any moment, so Han Li naturally couldn’t stay.

But if he risked travelling through several more nations and continued further north, he would reach the far north of the Tian Nan region, arriving at the “Boundless Sea,” a place said to be impossible even for immortals to cross.

This sea was not only immeasurably vast and muddy, but fish could also barely survive within it. The few species that did exist were incredibly ferocious, their power no less than high-grade land demon beasts. Even a Core Formation cultivator falling into this sea would face extreme danger.

Attempting to fly across it was pure fantasy!

Legend had it that a Nascent Soul expert, driven by great curiosity about the sea’s endpoint, once prepared thoroughly and flew along its coast for over a year. Yet all he saw was endless water, without a single place to land.

By that point, over half his elixirs and spirit stones were consumed. Reluctantly, the expert had to turn back, his mission a failure. Without a supply of spiritual energy to replenish his own, even a Nascent Soul cultivator could only perish, stranded in the middle of that ocean.

Han Li certainly wasn’t foolish enough to dream of crossing that sea.

This left him with only the southern option.

To the south of Yue, passing through five or six nations like Zijin, lay a tight alliance of nine nations known as the “Nine Nations Alliance.”

This alliance was formed under the leadership of the nine nations’ cultivation circles.

Its purpose was to deal with a powerful and maddening opponent: the invading armies of “Dharma Warriors” from the Moulan Tribe.

Speaking of the Moulan Tribe and their Dharma Warriors, one must first know about the vast Moulan Grasslands that bordered the Nine Nations and the Moulan people who lived there.

The Moulan people were completely different from the Yan people of Yue, Yuanwu, and other nations. They were pure nomads, with an extremely fierce and martial culture where everyone practiced martial arts. On the Moulan Grasslands, they formed tens of thousands of tribes, large and small.

These tribes varied in size; the smallest had only a few hundred thousand people, while the largest had tens of millions.

Of course, cultivators also existed within these nomadic tribes. However, the Moulan people did not call them cultivators; they were respectfully referred to as “Dharma Warriors.”

Broadly speaking, these Dharma Warriors weren’t much different from ordinary cultivators. Their realm classification and basic techniques were extremely similar.

The only difference from outside cultivators was that before forming their core, Moulan Dharma Warriors placed little emphasis on external objects like magic tools or talismans. Instead, they cultivated the five elemental Dao techniques to an extraordinary level. They even combined these with some unique esoteric arts born on the grasslands, developing newer, more powerful, and stranger spells, forming the Moulan people’s own unique school of spellcraft. They called it: “Spiritual Art.”

Relying on these incredibly potent “Spiritual Arts,” Moulan Dharma Warriors could even match cultivators of the same rank and gain the upper hand.

Later, as the number of Moulan “Dharma Warriors” grew, so did their need for spirit vein territories and spirit stones, a demand that gradually could no longer be met by normal cultivation. After all, the Moulan Grasslands were an extremely resource-poor place for cultivation.

Thus, at some unknown point in time, the Moulan Dharma Warriors began casting their gaze on the nine nations, which were richer in spiritual energy and resources. They started frequently raiding these nations to seize spirit veins, spirit mines, and other resources that cultivators valued as dearly as their own lives.

The cultivation circles of the nine nations naturally refused to cede these resources to the cultivators they viewed as barbaric outsiders. A bloody conflict erupted.

Initially, the nine nations fought independently, and were soundly defeated by the unified Moulan coalition, losing nearly half their territory and resources.

Learning their lesson, the nine nations’ cultivation circles quickly formed the “Nine Nations Alliance” and began frequently using cunning strategies and underhanded tactics. They eventually defeated the Moulan Dharma Warriors bit by bit, reclaiming their lost lands.

But the Moulan Dharma Warriors, having just tasted the sweetness of victory, were unwilling to give up. In the endless years that followed, they remained locked in a bitter struggle with the Nine Nations Alliance. Their mutual hatred deepened with each rise in casualties, eventually spilling over into the mortal world, making the Yan and Moulan peoples sworn enemies.

Now, while the Moulan people dared not set foot in the Nine Nations territory, no Yan person would be found within a hundred li of the Moulan Grasslands.

Speaking of it, no one really knew the exact population of the Moulan Tribe.

The Moulan Grasslands were simply too vast. The Moulan tribes entangled with the Nine Nations Alliance were only a small fraction of the whole.

Although the Moulan Grasslands weren’t as utterly endless as the Black Demon Sea, the Moulan people’s traditions held that traveling from one end of the grasslands to the other by nomadic migration would take a full five years. Furthermore, “Moulan Grasslands” was merely what the Moulan called it. On the other side of the grasslands lived the Moulan people’s true sworn enemies: the “Tu Ren.”

These people, also nomads, called the vast steppe the “Tianlan Grasslands,” as their generations worshipped the legendary “Tianlan Beast” as their guardian deity.

Being fellow nomads living on the same grassland needed no other reason for the two peoples to become mortal enemies.

The warriors and cultivators of the two races had been slaughtering each other for countless generations.

At any rate, they would hold a grand battle in the center of the grasslands every hundred years. Millions of mortal warriors fought on the ground, while thousands of cultivators battled in the sky.

Of course, the ultimate victor was always decided by the battle in the sky.

Han Li knew all this from various texts and rumors.

It was also said that beyond the Moulan Grasslands lay an empire of such immense scale that it was hard to believe. Rumor had it that the entire Tian Nan region combined wasn’t even a tenth of its size.

Han Li found this rumor difficult to believe.

He simply couldn’t imagine how large a nation over ten times the size of the entire Tian Nan region would be!

Of course, all of this was irrelevant to his current plans, merely stray thoughts that surfaced unbidden in his mind.

After dismissing these miscellaneous distractions, Han Li concluded his deliberation. He didn’t think the six sects would halt their retreat in a nearby nation. They would surely turn and head for the Nine Nations Alliance.

Given the constant, low-level warfare and major battles every decade between the Nine Nations’ cultivation circle and the Moulan Dharma Warriors, the six sects would be a welcomed great boost in strength.

Of course, which specific nation within the nine they would settle in and what kind of spirit vein territory they would obtain depended on the six sects’ own abilities.

Viewed this way, unless he wanted to rejoin Yellow Maple Valley and continue being cannon fodder, he certainly couldn’t go south in the Tian Nan region either.

Although he had long been aware of these problems, thinking them over again still gave him a headache!

It seemed his only option was to first try and repair the ancient teleportation array. If he truly could fix it, then he could consider whether to actually use it.

At worst, if he didn’t like where he ended up, he could just teleport back. Of course, he would have to accept some risk!

Han Li smiled wryly to himself.