Han Li headed straight for Star City without delay. He passed by other islands along the way but showed no intention of stopping.
Before long, however, he noticed that the cultivators he occasionally encountered on the road all appeared to be in a great hurry. And whenever two groups of strangers crossed paths, both sides immediately adopted guarded, wary expressions, and the atmosphere would grow unbearably tense.
This made Han Li frown as he sensed the turbulent undercurrents surging beneath the surface of the Star Sea.
As he drew closer to the massive island where Star City was located, the number of cultivators traveling the same direction steadily increased. Beyond the standoffs he had already witnessed, open clashes finally began to erupt — both sides fought with ruthless abandon, clearly intent on killing one another.
At first, Han Li paid them no mind. But as the skirmishes grew more frequent, he finally realized that most of these cultivators were likely connected to the war between Star Palace and the Antistar Alliance.
Although the Antistar Alliance appeared to hold the upper hand at present, Star Palace had ruled the Star Sea for such an immense span of time that the number of sects and powers with deep ties to it was beyond counting. Under normal circumstances, those connections might be invisible — but when Star Palace's very survival hung in the balance, those forces would surely surface.
This also indicated that Star Palace had truly reached a critical juncture. After all, any power with a long history would not lightly resort to such measures unless there was no other choice.
Of course, Han Li had no intention of blindly throwing himself into the conflict between Star Palace and the Antistar Alliance without first learning the current state of affairs in the Chaos Star Sea. However, cultivators of too low a level had limited access to reliable intelligence. So although he had encountered quite a few Foundation Establishment cultivators along the way, he had not stopped to speak with any of them.
That day, he was hurtling through the sky in the form of a faint streak of azure light when his expression suddenly shifted. He turned his head and gazed into the distance.
His streak of light instantly changed course, darting toward the spot he had been watching.
At Han Li's current level of cultivation, when he pushed his movement technique to its fullest, the azure arc flickered only a few times before materializing in the air over ten li away.
He swept his gaze downward, and a half-amused, half-mocking look crossed his face.
Below him, in the low sky, an elderly man in black robes and a fierce-looking burly man were locked in combat, each wielding a treasure — a shimmering yellow flying sword and a green ring — going at each other with great vigor.
As it happened, both were at roughly mid-stage Core Formation, and their treasures were of comparable power. The fight was a dead heat.
In Han Li's estimation, barring any hidden trump cards or secret techniques, it would take the better part of a day for either side to gain a clear advantage. And even then, neither would actually be able to kill the other — most likely, one would simply retreat in frustration.
Han Li's abrupt appearance directly above their battlefield naturally startled both the old man and the burly middle-aged cultivator. Their hands faltered on their seals as they looked up.
One sweep of their spiritual sense later, both men's faces drained of color.
Although Han Li had deliberately concealed his cultivation at only early-stage Nascent Soul to avoid drawing too much attention, that was more than enough to intimidate two Core Formation cultivators.
Both men recalled their treasures almost simultaneously. The old man then hastily bowed toward Han Li from a respectful distance and asked with the utmost deference:
"This junior is Bi Xun of Soul-Falling Island. This junior greets the senior — may I ask the senior's honored name? Does the senior have any instructions for this junior?"
The burly middle-aged man, equally alarmed, also bowed repeatedly toward Han Li, his words dripping with flattery.
"You need not concern yourselves with who I am. I have simply been secluded from the world for quite some time and have a few questions to ask the pair of you," Han Li replied with his arms folded, his tone indifferent.
"If the senior has questions, this junior will answer them to the best of his ability — holding nothing back!" The moment the old man heard that Han Li merely wanted to ask questions, both he and the burly man felt a wave of relief. The old man, ever perceptive, promptly said as much.
Han Li nodded at this and, without further courtesy, began asking about the events that had unfolded in the Star Sea over the past century.
Naturally, the old man and the burly middle-aged cultivator assumed Han Li was some reclusive Nascent Soul monster who had been in closed-door cultivation for decades, and they eagerly answered one after another.
First, the long-simmering crisis involving the foreign sea demon beasts seizing the human-held outer islands and expelling human cultivators had finally erupted not long after Han Li's departure from the outer sea. A large-scale war broke out across more than a dozen islands between the human cultivators and the demon beasts.
To everyone's surprise, neither Star Palace nor the Antistar Alliance had dispatched significant forces to take part. Instead, it was the independent cultivators — those whose personal interests were heavily tied to the outer sea — along with numerous small and mid-sized sects that mustered a considerable force, engaging the demon beasts on the major islands that still possessed teleportation arrays.
In truth, what was called a "large-scale battle" amounted to human cultivators holing up on their islands, relying on the defensive restrictions installed there to fight a desperate holding action.
Naturally, anyone bold enough to join the fight was at least at the Foundation Establishment stage. It was said that tens of thousands gathered across all the islands in total, though when spread across more than a dozen islands, that still came to five or six thousand per island.
The moment the battle began, every island was besieged by a seemingly endless tide of low-level demon beasts, sealing them off completely. The human side, which had started out brimming with confidence, was doused with cold water. They proved unable to hold out for more than a handful of days — in just half a month, more than a dozen islands fell one after another.
It was said that throughout the entire affair, the high-ranking demon cultivators in their humanoid forms had not even intervened personally. The sheer, inexhaustible numbers of low-level demon beasts alone had managed to overwhelm the myriad restrictions on the islands and break through into their interiors.