Hearing Bai Xiu'er's surprised cry, Ye Qin opened his eyes. A faint smile of contentment touched his lips as he watched the streaks of magical light from the artifacts of other cultivators occasionally sweep across the sky.

After an arduous flight spanning seven or eight long months, even with his resolute will, he couldn't help but feel utterly exhausted. More than half of the spirit stones and spiritual wine he carried in his storage bag had been depleted.

But fortunately, they had safely arrived at the East Sea Archipelago after traversing the vast and perilous East Sea.

Ye Qin flew for another half a day, and scattered islands, large and small, began to appear within his sight. While these were not the main islands of the East Sea Archipelago, many people already resided there.

On the slightly larger islands, small cities had even been erected, and one could see numerous figures moving about within them from the sky. Even the smaller islets, spanning several li, were inhabited by cultivators.

At Bai Xiu'er's earnest request, Ye Qin paused on one of these islands, several hundred li across and featuring a city, for a few hours.

After flying for so long, the solid feeling of the island's rock beneath her feet made Bai Xiu'er exceptionally excited. She couldn't resist playing around on the deserted beach.

Ye Qin smiled faintly, paying her no mind.

After resting on the shore for about half an hour, Ye Qin led Bai Xiu'er toward the island's sole small city on foot. It was only a few li from the beach to the city; they preferred walking over flying any further.

To Ye Qin’s surprise, this small city was constructed to mimic the secular cities of the Central Plains Continent, complete with city gates, walls, and arrow towers. Even the dozens of yellow-robed guards stationed at the gate were common soldiers, armed with ordinary iron blades, spears, long bows, and arrows. Everyone entering or exiting was subjected to questioning.

Of course, to the cultivators, these soldiers were mere window dressing; they wouldn't dare obstruct or question a cultivator even if given ten times the courage. Only outside secular mortals and the indigenous Earth Clan people were interrogated.

The captain of the gate guards stood swaggeringly by the entrance, resting his saber on his hip. Seeing Ye Qin approaching on foot, with a beautiful young woman of the Earth Clan behind him, he assumed they were mortals and moved to question them. But before he could utter a word, Ye Qin cast a casual glance in his direction. The captain instantly stiffened, his heart giving a sickening lurch, and he was unable to make a sound. Under the awestruck gazes of the soldiers, Ye Qin led Bai Xiu'er straight into the city.

The wine houses and tea stalls within the city were also predominantly filled with secular mortals and a significant number of the Earth Clan.

The attire of the Earth Clan people was quite distinctive, and it was easy to identify them by their weapons. Since they possessed no fali (magical power), they did not use cultivators' magical artifacts, relying instead on specially crafted, often crude and heavy weapons unique to the Earth Clan. These heavy implements could not be stored in a chuwudai (storage bag) without magical power. Anyone seen carrying such enormous and cumbersome weaponry on the streets could generally be identified as an Earth Clan strongman.

Naturally, in the busiest districts of the city, one could also easily spot shops dedicated to cultivators. Large, unmistakable signs hung out: "Wang Family Immortal Artifact Workshop," "Li Clan Elixir Pavilion." Occasionally, low-level Qi Refining stage cultivators could be seen entering and exiting.

In this city, cultivators, secular mortals, and the East Sea Earth Clan coexisted, which made Ye Qin marvel.

The Donghai Haiyu Tu (East Sea Maritime Map) scroll he had purchased in East Dan Town only detailed the islands passed during the sea crossing; it lacked specific information about this East Sea Archipelago.

Ye Qin considered this, then entered an immortal general store within the city. There, he purchased a map scroll titled Donghai Lie Dao (East Sea Archipelago), along with several jade slips containing historical records of the East Sea Immortals.

Unlike Ye Qin, Bai Xiu'er could not practice bigu (abstinence from grains/fasting). Her appetite was enormous, and she had grown tired of the East Sea's raw fish and monster beast meat. She found a secular restaurant in the city, ordered large platters of sizzling, fatty meat, and began stuffing her mouth with both hands.

Watching her eat with such hearty abandon brought a touch of inexplicable amusement to Ye Qin's heart. He then opened the Donghai Lie Dao scroll and began studying the situation of the East Sea Archipelago.

The map was very detailed in its markings.

It clearly indicated which islands were uninhabited, which had owners, and which territories belonged to which power.

After carefully reviewing the general layout of the map, Ye Qin fell into contemplation. The map was exceptionally thorough; even for a newcomer to the East Sea like himself, the current situation was immediately clear.

The East Sea was vast, practically boundless, and no cultivator had yet reached its end.

The portion currently under the control of Central Plains cultivators was only a small fraction, primarily the "East Sea Archipelago," which was composed of five major island clusters, scattered like stars and numbering in the countless thousands. On the map, this area was designated as a safe zone.

If one left the East Sea Archipelago and continued eastward, they would enter a region called the "Sea of Blood." This area was rampant with high-level sea beasts, and powerful cultivators and the Demon Race frequently roamed there; it was extremely dangerous.

Crossing the Sea of Blood and proceeding further east led into territory controlled by the Demon Race: the "Demon Sea." Only those cultivators who had traversed the Sea of Blood truly understood how terrifying the Demon Race was. These territories were marked on the map as areas of extreme danger, strictly forbidden.

The Central Plains cultivators and the Demon Race had been in a state of war for at least several hundred thousand years. Ever since the ancient cultivators arrived at the East Sea Archipelago, the conflict between these two powerful races had continued without cessation, albeit with intermittent pauses.

Of course, squeezed between the Central Plains cultivators and the East Sea Demons, there existed a much weaker race: the Earth Clan. Their physique differed from those of the Central Plains, leading the Central Plains cultivators to call them the Earth Clan, while the Demon Race referred to them as the "Alien Race."

The Earth Clan was a branch of the human race from the East Sea, further subdivisible into numerous smaller factions. They shared a common origin with the humans of the Central Plains, with only minor variations.

In ancient times, Earth Clan tribes were scattered across all the islands of the East Sea, engaged in constant, chaotic warfare among themselves.

Moreover, the Demon Race frequently appeared in the East Sea Archipelago, and the Earth Clan tribes were constantly subjected to bloody massacres and ravages.

Demon Race cultivators were exceptionally fierce but reproduced very slowly and were bloodthirsty. Incidents of entire Earth Clan tribes being wiped out were common. However, the demons showed no interest in occupying the tribes' islands, allowing the Earth Clan to maintain a superficial peak state during that era.

This situation changed rapidly only after the arrival of the Central Plains cultivators. The Central Plains cultivators established a "Xianque City" (Immortal Palace City) upon arriving in the East Sea Archipelago, rapidly constructing numerous stable fortress defenses, rooting themselves in the islands, advancing cautiously, and growing stronger as they swept across the various islands of the East Sea Archipelago.

The various Earth Clan tribes were utterly no match. They were forced to either pledge allegiance to the Central Plains cultivators or migrate to other, more remote islands in the East Sea, leading to rapid decline.

In truth, the Earth Clan tribes had never truly been mighty.

Fortunately, the Earth Clan possessed tenacious vitality. Despite the prolonged age of warfare between cultivators and demons, the Earth Clan still existed in large numbers on the East Sea islands.

Now, the Central Plains cultivators had long become the overlords of the East Sea Archipelago, immensely powerful. Even the Demon Race, which once roamed the East Sea unchecked, no longer dared to appear there, lest they be slaughtered by high-level cultivators, choosing instead to remain confined to their lair in the Demon Sea.

Thus, the current situation in the East Sea was a standoff between two major powers.

Ye Qin was not particularly interested in the ages-old war between cultivators and the Demon Race. With his current strength, entanglement with the Demon Race was out of the question.

What concerned him most were the cultivator factions within the East Sea Archipelago.

After all, he would be dedicating himself to cultivation here for a long time to come, and understanding the situation in the East Sea Archipelago was essential. Here, the danger did not typically come from the Demon Race, but often from fellow cultivators.

The most powerful force in the East Sea Archipelago was undoubtedly the Heavenly Dao Alliance (Tiandao Meng).

The reason Ye Qin had come to the East Sea Archipelago was due to the summons from the Heavenly Dao Alliance.

According to immortal records, the first group of legendary ancient cultivators who reached the East Sea Archipelago, in order to combat the Earth Clan strongmen and the Demon Race on the islands, established an immortal alliance known as the "Heavenly Dao Alliance."

The sheer scale of this immortal force, its profound history, and its deep-rooted strength were astonishing and unprecedented.

Throughout the long history of cultivation in the Central Plains, every legendary ancient cultivator, and even every renowned cultivator whose name was known, had once joined this Heavenly Dao Alliance.

Over tens of thousands of years of claiming islands and ceaseless combat, the cultivators of the Heavenly Dao Alliance challenged the Earth Clan and the Demon Race, purged the monstrous beasts from the islands, forced the major Earth Clan tribes into submission, and thoroughly expelled the Demon Race from the East Sea Archipelago, establishing a new order of the cultivation world there.

However, even the once-dominant Heavenly Dao Alliance could not escape the fate of division.

Approximately a hundred thousand years ago, an event supposedly shocked the entire East Sea Archipelago. For unknown reasons, a large faction of Nascent Soul and Golden Core cultivators abruptly left, breaking away from the "Heavenly Dao Alliance" to establish another cultivator force named the "Heavenly Demon Alliance" (Tianmo Meng).

Various immortal records concerning this historical split and its causes are vague and inconclusive. Speculations are numerous; some rumors suggest personal feuds and grudges between the alliance giants, while others suggest conflicts arising from unequal division of territories among the ancient cultivators. However, none of these claims have sufficient evidence. Furthermore, this history occurred too long ago to be easily verified. Outside of the core leadership of the two alliances, truly few knew the exact reasons.

What was undeniably true, however, was the constant conflict between the two alliances ever since. Due to the split in the Heavenly Dao Alliance and the defection of many high-level cultivators who established their own factions, the East Sea Archipelago saw the emergence of numerous smaller cultivation forces.

The Demon Race also took advantage of the internal strife between the two major alliances, launching several large-scale counterattacks, attempting to challenge the cultivators who had usurped their dominion and drive them out of the East Sea Archipelago.

Yet, faced with this crisis, the cultivators of the two alliances temporarily joined forces again. Over the long years, the cultivators of both alliances merged and separated repeatedly, their war against the Demon Race continuing unabated.

The incredibly powerful Demon Race failed to defeat the cultivators and was forced to retreat further into the distant Demon Sea.

After several turns of events, the East Sea Archipelago finally became a stable domain for cultivators.

Some cultivators analyzed in their texts that the immortal history of the East Sea Archipelago is the pioneering history of Central Plains cultivators, the history of the Heavenly Dao Alliance's schism, the history of cultivators challenging the Demon Race, and most profoundly, the protracted history of war between the two great races. This assessment was not wrong.

Only then did Ye Qin understand that besides the Heavenly Dao Alliance, there existed the Heavenly Demon Alliance, which stood in direct opposition, alongside numerous smaller cultivation factions.

This came as a surprise to him.

It seemed he would need to proceed with caution, avoiding entanglement in the conflicts between the major immortal alliance powers.