Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Following the cultivator at the Late Stage of the Celestial Immortal Realm from the Blue Sea Empire being stopped by an equally powerful demonic cultivator who had been lying in wait for just this exact situation, the state of the Blue Sea Empire showed no sign of improving, as the overall strength of the combatants involved in the struggle at the empire’s borders had already reached the limit of what the Blue Sea Empire could send out without directly compromising the overall safety of their core territory that was constantly being eyed by the other major powers from the region.

Because of this, even though the old ancestor of the Blue Sea Empire wanted to send out more people or even go to the borders himself to try and deal with the demonic cultivators, he couldn’t. Placing the Blue Sea Empire in a rather awkward position, as they did have a lot more strength to spare, but no way to use it without potentially giving their enemies a chance to strike them from behind.

For this reason, the Blue Sea Empire that had originally wanted to preserve their borders began a slow retreat under the guise of preparing for a counterattack against the demonic cultivators.

Although this kind of claim might work in the short term when it came to reassuring the different representatives from different major powers from the Southern Central Region that had been stationed inside the capital city of the Blue Sea Empire, it might end up backfiring on the Blue Sea Empire in case they couldn’t do so.

But for now, the Blue Sea Empire didn’t really care much about this, as the old ancestor just wanted to buy a bit more time for himself in the face of the demonic cultivators. Knowing that the continuous flow of resources from the Southern Central Region was important to ensure that such a counterattack was possible in the first place.

Not to mention, the old ancestor of the Blue Sea Empire was already in conversation with a few friends he had made over the years from the Southern Central Region. Hoping that he would be able to draw one of them over to lend a hand in dealing with the demonic cultivators from the Frozen Wastelands. After all, different from a local conflict between two major powers that might involve other major powers, this was against demonic cultivators that were already looked down upon and hunted throughout the continent. Teaming up to deal with demonic cultivators wouldn’t have any risks outside of the inherent risk that would come from fighting with the demonic cultivators themselves.

Still… The price needed to get someone from the Southern Central Region that had reached the Land Creation Realm to rush over to the Northern Central Region and risk their lives in a battle with demonic cultivators… Was far from low…

To be honest, the old ancestor of the Blue Sea Empire had already found several old friends of his who were willing to take on the demonic cultivators. The only problem being that their asking price was far too high. Reaching a point where it might be better for the Blue Sea Empire to just allow the demonic cultivators to take part of their territory while they remained anchored down guarding the core region of the Blue Sea Empire where the most important resources and infrastructure of the Blue Sea Empire was located.

By the time Xuan Hao and the rest of the Star Shattering Sect learnt about the situation of the Blue Sea Empire, the demonic cultivators had already managed to carve out a small space for themselves within the boundaries of the Blue Sea Empire. Marking the demonic cultivators first officially entrance into the core region of the continent.

Strangely enough, this small bit of territory that had been captured by the demonic cultivators didn’t stay in the same war-torn state it had been left in for long, as a cold wind blew across the newly captured territory and covered it in a thick layer of snow. Starting what could only be described as a slow gradual transformation of the territory that had been captured by the demonic cultivators. Molding it to become a haven for demonic cultivators, as the yin qi in the transformed territory became far more abundant than before.

Unfortunately, the change brought by the cold wind wasn’t exactly kind to mortals, as though some managed to escape death from the sudden drop in temperature, they would still have to somehow endure the eternal winter that had fallen upon them thanks to the demonic cultivators, something that was essentially impossible for them to survive without direct assistance from cultivators who could help find or breed special plants or herbs that they would be able to grow in the cold environment.

After all, though directly creating a new kind of spiritual herb by breeding different spiritual herbs might be a nearly impossible task, the same could not be said for normal crops that were rather simple for a skilled spiritual herb farmer to nurture and create a cold and frost-resistant version of. Simple enough that countless versions of normal crops could already be easily bought through the Explorer Union or any power that had a few spiritual herb farmers under them, as experimenting with normal herbs and crops was one of the main ways to train someone who wanted to become a spiritual herb farmer, as it was far cheaper than using actual spiritual herbs.

Faced with the struggle of the mortals under them, it wasn’t that surprising when most of the demonic cultivators completely ignored them and continued pushing into the Blue Sea Empire.

The few who didn’t ignore the mortals struggling were mostly weaker demonic cultivators who took full advantage of the weakened mortals to either consume them to further increase their own strength or carry out a few experiments that required test subjects. All in all, not much different from the treatment other mortals that happened to fall to the demonic cultivators ended up.

The only real difference this time around was that the mortals were disappearing at a rapid rate thanks to the temperature change that had not taken place in the other areas that had been captured by the demonic cultivators. A clear sign that transforming part of the Blue Sea Empire into an environment similar to that of the Frozen Wastelands wasn’t something that was easy for the demonic cultivators to accomplish and likely came with some kind of high price that had rendered them unwilling to transform any place other than that of territory in the central region of the continent.

No matter the case, the fact that part of the Blue Sea Empire’s territory had suddenly been transformed, did raise quite a lot of concern from the different major powers who had been eyeing the struggle between the Blue Sea Empire and the Frozen Wasteland from the side.

The reason for this concern being that the overall value of the Blue Sea Empire’s territory was being reduced with the continuous spread of this cold wind whenever the demonic cultivators made another step into the Blue Sea Empire.

Originally having wanted to sit on the side and watch the demonic cultivators tear through the Blue Sea Empire, it had now become clear that the value of the Blue Sea Empire’s vulnerable outer regions that the different major powers in the shadows had been eyeing, was being reduced to nothing with each passing second.

In the first place, though these different major powers might want to take advantage of the Blue Sea Empire’s situation to get rid of them, they all understood that it would be close to impossible for them to break through the core territory of the Blue Sea Empire with the old ancestor of the Blue Sea Empire holding down the fort.

For this reason, they had been planning to attack and take out parts of the Blue Sea Empire bordering them during the struggle between the two… But… With the demonic cultivators transforming the captured territory into a place that was painful to travel through for anyone not a demonic cultivator and close to impossible for normal mortals to survive inside of, it didn’t take long before a few secretly stepped forward to defend the assets they had been eyeing within the borders of the Blue Sea Empire.

This sudden unexpected reinforcement did catch the demonic cultivators off guard, as they found themselves struggling for a brief moment before retreating and focusing all their attention on making their way deeper into the territory of the Blue Sea Empire.

As for the old ancestor of the Blue Sea Empire… He did know who was behind this assistance and at the same time also knew the reason why this hidden support had appeared out of seemingly thin air but had nothing to say about it as it did end up helping the Blue Sea Empire in their battle against the demonic cultivators. The problem they might cause in the future becomes a problem in the future…