Immortal Palace of Eternal Life

Ba State was about two hundred thousand li away from the former Yan State in a straight line.

Whoosh—

Along the way, Liu Yu traveled at breakneck speed, and with several teleportation arrays in between, in just a few hours he entered the borders of the former Yan State. The sect was already visible in the distance.

Yan State lay at the southernmost edge of the Seven Nations Alliance. Together with Nanyu State, it formed the gateway of the Seven Nations Alliance. Farther south were the righteous path alliance and the demonic path alliance.

It was also a great nation, once one of the members of the Nine States Alliance, with strength and territory roughly comparable to the former Chu State.

This nation was completely destroyed in the Battle of Yan's Annihilation, split into many smaller states, and then divided up by the Chu State and Qi State of the time.

Back then, the five great cultivating immortality powers of Chu State occupied about half of the former Yan State's territory.

As Liu Yu's strength grew, he successively destroyed Snowfall Pavilion, Hehuan Sect, and Qingxu Sect, then forcefully subdued Crescent Moon Valley.

Nearly half of Yan State's region had, in name at least, become the territory of Yuan Yang Sect.

Qi State and Chu State were neighboring countries. With the invasion of the demonic race, both had also fallen completely, and most of their cultivating immortality powers had no choice but to retreat.

Because Liu Yu acted too quickly, the Qi State forces had not even reacted yet before nearly half of the former Yan State's territory was annexed. They could only pinch their noses and accept reality.

Fearing the fierce reputation of the "old demon qingyang," they did not act rashly. But with such a powerful neighbor, they still deeply feared him in private.

One had to admit that at this time, Yuan Yang Sect, which occupied half of the former Yan State's territory, already held the initiative against the Qi State forces allied under Rushi Temple.

Since the Immortal Abode world cultivated a Five-Spirit Fruit Tree, and since advancing to yuan ying realm had removed many of his concerns, Liu Yu had over the years gradually released some Golden Core Pills. As a result, the number of Golden Core Elders in the sect had steadily increased.

After so many years, they had accumulated more than ninety Golden Core Elders, and it was believed that in a few more years, they would break into triple digits.

As for the death warrior force, Shadow of the Sun, because they had always been operating in the dark and had no public constraints, their number of golden core cultivators was actually even higher than Yuan Yang Sect's by some margin.

After so many years, the Golden Core death warriors had already surpassed one hundred.

Unfortunately, there was a price to such forced growth. Most of these death warriors had no potential to advance further.

Or rather, the price was too great and not worth it.

If one were to forcibly cultivate them, the resources consumed in the process might even far exceed what would normally be needed to cultivate a yuan ying cultivator.

Including White Tiger, among the hundred Golden Core death warriors, only about ten had reached golden core pinnacle and still had the possibility of advancing further.

But because they had cultivated demonic arts and been rushed along like this, the difficulty of breaking through the yuan ying bottleneck was much higher than for ordinary golden core cultivators.

The role of yuan ying cultivators was naturally far beyond what golden core cultivators could compare to. Liu Yu would of course not feel heartache over this. As long as even one succeeded in the end, it would be an enormous gain.

Whoosh—

After entering the former Yan State, he flew for about another half an hour before a five-colored light barrier, like an upturned bowl, appeared before his eyes.

It was the sect-protection array, the Five-Colored Mystic Sky Formation!

Yan Kai was still only at the nascent soul early stage, so during the time Liu Yu had been away, the sect-protection array had remained in a half-activated state at all times to prevent accidents.