After waking up Gong Shuo Hong, demoting all the Demon Slayer Commandants of the Bao Lan Sheng (Azure Blue Province) branch, and sending them back to the Zhan Mo Si Headquarters on the Bì Luò Tian Zhou (Azurefall Sky Ark) escorted by the hundred private soldiers, Li Hai embarked alone on the journey to the Xia Alliance Chaotic Land.
This journey totaled four thousand seven hundred li (approximately 2,350 kilometers), which would take an ordinary person several days and nights, and they still might not reach it.
However, Li Hai, soaring through the air by stepping on it, only took a few minutes.
It was only upon truly arriving at this borderland between the Xia Meng (Chivalrous Alliance) and Great Jing that Li Hai discovered something.
It turned out that this place was an endless, boundless range of sheer cliffs and mountains, stretching out of sight both left and right, with an average height several times greater than the Great Snow Peak, the highest point of the Hong Long Mountain Range.
According to Li Hai’s visual estimation, this massive, sky-reaching mountain range, which completely separated the territories of Great Jing and the Xia Meng (Chivalrous Alliance), was at least thirty thousand zhang (approximately 90 kilometers) high.
The reason he could only estimate rather than precisely calculate was because all the mountain bodies above thirty thousand zhang in this vast mountain range were completely submerged in large, dense, dark, rolling thunderclouds.
Looking from afar, those countless clusters of immeasurable thunderclouds, with faint azure lightning constantly flickering within them,
were like rows of immortal mountains and divine peaks descending from the Heavenly Court to the mortal Realm, completely covering and enveloping the sheer cliffs below, finally extending upwards to the end of the sky, connecting to an equally boundless, immeasurable, and profoundly thick sea of lightning clouds.
Mountains and clouds merged, appearing as one with nature, making one feel as if the two were originally a single entity, and further preventing one from knowing how much higher the mountain cliffs extended above thirty thousand zhang.
Furthermore, the reason it was called a sheer cliff was because these excessively towering mountains, though called mountains, resembled more a boundless, colossal wall that had descended from the heavens, pressing heavily upon the earth.
They had almost no discernible foothills or gentle slopes, rising directly tens of thousands of zhang as dark grey mountain bodies, with a steepness approaching ninety degrees; some areas were even more exaggerated.
Logically, no matter how violent normal geological mountain-building movements were, such a mountain range should not appear, yet it had appeared, solidly sitting on the earth.
It was as if it was telling everyone who saw it a fact—that humans could never fully comprehend how miraculous the uncanny workmanship of nature could be.
And at this moment, Li Hai stood before this miraculous mountain wall; compared to it, he was as tiny as a mosquito.
It was also after coming so close to this mountain that Li Hai realized the Heaven and Earth Qi here was subtly much more volatile than in the Great Jing territory.
Especially after entering a semicircular cave carved with the words “Two Realms Mountain Pass” at the base of this boundless giant mountain, and proceeding along its winding path for twenty to thirty li, he felt even more distinctly that the volatile essence within the surrounding Heaven and Earth Qi was much, much stronger than outside the mountain.
Immersed in such a volatile and abundant Qi environment, Li Hai also felt as if continuous injections of stimulants were being administered into his body, causing his Battle Intent to surge uncontrollably in his heart, making him strongly desire to find someone for a fierce fight.
“I’ve only just stepped into the edge of the Xia Alliance Chaotic Land’s territory, and my body and mind have become so agitated and restless.”
Li Hai, walking slowly and suppressing the Battle Intent in his heart, couldn't help but ponder, “If tens of thousands of people lived here year after year, generation after generation, wouldn’t they all turn into a bunch of battle-crazed lunatics?”
Due to this clear change in himself, Li Hai couldn't help but boldly speculate that all the men, women, and children in this Xia Alliance Chaotic Land might indeed be super-aggressive, with everyone being brave and combative.
However, this was exactly what Li Hai wanted, as he now desired to fight to his heart’s content.
Meanwhile, after continuing to delve a hundred li deeper into the Two Realms Mountain and finally reaching an open-air canyon, Li Hai was astonished to discover that the information on his personal interface had undergone a clear change.
Specifically, the words “Zhengchuan Martial Arts → Void-Reality Grandmaster” in his Rank section had slowly blurred and transformed into “True Energy Martial Path → Innate Legend.”
Not only on his personal interface, Li Hai also felt that his body, as well as the surging, flowing True Force within him, had undergone some ineffable change.
Just as Li Hai was about to test the results of these various mysterious changes, a fierce roar came from the depths of the dust-filled canyon ahead of Li Hai:
“Hey! You hairy ghost, you big fool, stand there obediently and don’t move!”
“?”
Li Hai paused, then looked towards the dust-shrouded uphill section of the canyon ahead, following the sound.
Immediately, he saw that on the sandy uphill slope, about three hundred zhang (approximately 900 meters) away, stood a row of wooden stockade towers, about twenty zhang (approximately 60 meters) wide and seven or eight zhang (approximately 21-24 meters) high, blocking the entire canyon pass.
Looking from afar, the tower had a total of five levels from top to bottom, and in the railing platforms of each level, there were ten to twenty masked bandits in hemp robes holding bows, all aiming their arrows at Li Hai.
Finally, on the top open-air platform of this row of towers, stood a tall, stout, full-bearded dark-skinned man, flanked by more than a dozen heavily armored guards with arrogant auras.
Quite strangely, the Rank section on their personal interface also displayed the words “True Energy Martial Path → Acquired Tenth Rank.”
At the same time, the armored guards and the bow-wielding hemp-robed bandits on the lower levels also had various system names with the “True Energy Martial Path” prefix in their personal interface Rank sections, such as “True Energy Martial Path → Acquired Fifth Rank,” “True Energy Martial Path → Acquired Third Rank,” “True Energy Martial Path → Acquired First Rank,” and so on.
From this, Li Hai immediately understood:
“So, the Zhengchuan Martial Arts Cultivate system in the Xia Alliance Chaotic Land actually becomes what is called the True Energy Martial Path.”
While realizing this fact, he also muttered, feeling strange:
“But why couldn’t I sense these people beforehand?”
Yes, with Li Hai’s mind-sensing range, even if these people were eight thousand zhang (approximately 24 kilometers) away, he should have been able to sense them immediately.
But now, Li Hai’s mind-sensing had unknowingly compressed to only a little over a hundred zhang (approximately 300 meters), not even as far as his eyes could see.
This greatly puzzled Li Hai.
He had indeed seen in the Demon Slayer Division’s data archives that the Heaven and Earth rules of the Xia Alliance Chaotic Land were completely different from Great Jing, but he hadn't expected them to be so different.
The Heaven and Earth Qi was as volatile as a gaseous stimulant, the True Force Martial Path had become the so-called True Energy Martial Path, and even the mind-sensing range had been compressed dozens or hundreds of times by this Xia Alliance Heaven and Earth.
The appearance of these various strange phenomena made Li Hai feel as if he had Transmigrated to another world.
And the dark-skinned man on the stockade tower, seeing that Li Hai was still advancing and showed no signs of stopping, roared out as if enraged.