Following the battle at Yellow Dragon Mountain, with the three Moulan Divine Masters striking first, the spell warrior army had pushed all the way to the gates of Tiantian City in just half a month — taking everyone by surprise.
The Nine Nations Alliance, caught completely off guard, could only brace themselves to meet the enemy alone in fury and alarm.
Fortunately, Wei Woya — Grand Elder of the Alliance and one of Tiannan's three great cultivators — had just received word and arrived in the city. Relying on Tiantian City's grand protective formation, they managed to hold out for over a month against the relentless assault of the spell warrior army.
But when all three Divine Masters finally gathered together, aided by several black-robed cultivators, they deployed seven or eight massive beasts in a single push.
Before long the grand formation was shattered, and Tiantian City fell into spell warrior hands.
The bulk of the Nine Nations Alliance's forces, however, had not yet been destroyed. In the hasty retreat, they managed to withdraw all their cultivators ahead of time to Beiliang Country, which bordered Yu Country.
By then, reinforcements from the Righteous and Demonic factions as well as the Heavenly Dao Alliance had arrived.
The four great powers of Tiannan joined forces, and after several small-scale skirmishes, they temporarily checked the Moulan advance.
But both sides knew perfectly well that the true battle — the one that would decide everything — had not yet begun.
Once the Moulan seized Tiantian City, they immediately established it as the spell warriors' first stronghold in Tiannan, and wave after wave of allied spell warrior forces from various tribes on the Moulan grasslands poured in without respite.
With the exception of the Moulan's largest tribe, the Jinyang, who were occupied monitoring the Tuhu people and could not spare themselves, every other tribe dispatched their elite forces, placing all their hopes on taking Tiannan in a single campaign.
The Moulan simply waited for all allied forces to assemble, then they would launch the decisive battle to the death.
Tiannan, enjoying the advantage of fighting on home ground, naturally refused to show weakness either.
Beyond the full mobilization of the four great powers, sects outside those four also sent cultivators to join the fight. Even some independent cultivators, well aware that this battle was no ordinary affair — that it touched upon the Yan Tribe's very foothold in Tiannan — came forward of their own accord without any need for conscription.
Seeing that public morale was strong, the four great powers at once exercised a great divine ability at the border of Beiliang Country near Yu Country, erecting a massive stone city overnight to serve as a temporary stronghold against the spell warriors.
They still needed time to organize and deploy the cultivators from every sect and independent background before they could launch a coordinated campaign to drive the Moulan out of Tiannan.
For the moment, fighting between the two sides ceased — like the eerie calm before a storm. An unusual stillness settled over both camps.
It was during this lull that Han Li's reputation soared, as word of certain events spread far and wide.
He had no idea that among the Nascent Soul cultivators who survived the sea of fog at Yellow Dragon Mountain that day, there was one other besides himself — an elder surnamed Ma.
This Grand Elder of the Haoran Sect, when facing Woman Le's wind-escape technique, had been forced to abandon his physical body, escaping back to the Nine Nations Alliance with only his Nascent Soul intact.
Aside from the old man, Yingning and the Murong brothers at the Core Formation stage had also sensed the danger and fled early, returning safely.
Thus, the fact that Han Li had instantly slain a black-robed Nascent Soul cultivator became known to others.
His reputation began to rise.
As for his capture of the Spirit Control Sect's spy together with the burly man surnamed Lu and the subsequent elimination of the traitor, only high-ranking cultivators of the major powers were privy to that information. It had not leaked beyond those circles.
But what truly made Han Li's name resounding was not just this — it was the news that came from the Moulan side: Han Li had escaped from a Moulan Divine Master.
When Scholar Zhong returned to the spell warrior army having failed to kill Han Li, it actually caused quite a stir among the Moulan ranks.
To save face, the scholar naturally gave Han Li very high praise.
He said that Han Li's divine abilities were in fact slightly superior to those of an ordinary mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator.
When a Divine Master himself rendered such an assessment of Han Li, naturally no one questioned its truthfulness.
Add to that the various divine abilities Han Li had displayed during his fight with Woman Le, and the fact that he had already destroyed the physical body of the spell warrior Mu of the Tianfeng Tribe on the Moulan grasslands — his name among the spell warrior army rang three degrees louder even than among the cultivators of Tiannan.
When the Tiannan side learned of this, it caused yet another sensation, and Han Li's fame blazed three degrees brighter still.
Of course, Han Li was not the only one. Several other Nascent Soul cultivators of lesser renown also made their names during the clashes with the spell warrior army.
After all, it was only in the heat of battle that the true measure of a cultivator's power could be seen.
And amid all this, Han Li — who had been in seclusion for the better part of a year — finally recovered his full strength in a remote mountain valley in Yu Country and emerged from his hidden chamber deep within the mountain.
……
Fengtuo was a Foundation Establishment stage spell warrior of a small Moulan tribe. Though he was a revered immortal master back in his own tribe, once he arrived at the great city of Tiantian, he was nothing more than an insignificant cog in the machine.
He had just come out of a garrison post near the Beiliang Country border, leading a small squad of Qi Condensation stage spell warriors on a patrol along a route stretching several hundred li, guarding against a sudden attack by Tiannan cultivators.
He had been patrolling for nearly half a day since leaving the post. Judging by the time, the next shift of spell warriors should be arriving soon. Just another few dozen li ahead, and they could turn back.
Fengtuo mused to himself as he flew.