The addition of An Jiaye's group had given the human domain a much more ample pool of manpower. The large number of Divine Dao cultivators afforded Jiang Chen far more options when arranging his deployments.
At several critical strongholds, he could now garrison substantial forces.
For Jiang Chen, this truly resolved a great many problems.
At present, the human domain's three most dangerous zones were as follows.
The first was the ruins of the Holy One Sect, situated near the Nandou Li tribe's Boundary Stone realm — the single most perilous region of all.
The second was the Tianchan Ancient Academy, where the teleportation array stood and which now served as the new seat of the Danxiao Ancient Sect's legacy. Due to its special relationship with Dongyan Island, it too required a heavy garrison.
The last dangerous area was the northwestern territory bordering the Kuman barbarians — a comparatively weak link. The northwest had always been under the Moon Goddess Sect's control.
During the ten years Jiang Chen had been in seclusion, the Moon Goddess Sect had leveraged Xu Qingxuan's background to expand recklessly, their territorial appetite anything but graceful. This had left Jiang Chen with a rather poor impression of them.
Xu Qingxuan had counseled them on multiple occasions, but the Moon Goddess Sect remained convinced it was harmless. Some even whispered behind her back that Xu Qingxuan had forgotten her own sect now that she had found her brother.
Xu Qingxuan could not intervene too forcefully, yet she knew her brother would certainly disapprove of the Moon Goddess Sect's internal power grabs.
Facing the imminent demonic war, the Moon Goddess Sect should have been devoting their energy to strengthening their actual combat power, not fanning out in every direction.
When her warnings proved futile, Xu Qingxuan could only resign herself. Though she still kept tabs on the Moon Goddess Sect's affairs, a rift had inevitably grown between them.
She even suspected that, when the time came, her brother would seize full control of the northwestern territory and relegate the Moon Goddess Sect to complete irrelevance.
For all their frantic expansion, what practical use were those territories? With a single word from Jiang Chen, everything they had seized could be stripped away overnight.
After all, no matter how far the Moon Goddess Sect spread, they still did not have a single Divine Dao cultivator to their name. Jiang Chen had no intention of propping them up, and the Moon Goddess Sect's hope of cultivating their own Divine Dao cultivators was a pipe dream — who knew how many years it would take, and even then, what good would it do?
Xu Qingxuan concluded that the Moon Goddess Sect had been profoundly short-sighted. There had been far better options, yet they had chosen the most foolish path.
In the current human domain, following Jiang Chen's commands and prioritizing the bigger picture was precisely what was most needed. Their territorial expansion was nothing but lines on a map, liable to vanish at any moment.
Just as Xu Qingxuan had predicted, it was not long before Jiang Chen dispatched two Divine Dao cultivators, along with a cadre of trusted subordinates, to the northwestern border to take command of the region.
On the surface, they did not strip the Moon Goddess Sect of its standing. But the moment Divine Dao cultivators moved in, their authority and influence immediately overshadowed the Moon Goddess Sect.
The territory that had belonged to Dan Flame City became this group's base of operations.
These lands had already been swallowed by the Moon Goddess Sect, but when Jiang Chen's men insisted on occupying Dan Flame City's former holdings, the Moon Goddess Sect did not dare utter a single word of protest.
Only at this point did the Moon Goddess Sect finally awaken to the wisdom behind Xu Qingxuan's earlier counsel. But by the time they came to their senses, it was already too late.
Jiang Chen had reinforced all three locations, making extensive preparations.
Of course, the highest priority remained Dongyan Island. The island was a critical channel through which the demon race could launch attacks on the human domain.
In essence, if the demons wished to invade the human domain, the Wanyuan Island route was the most convenient. Whether through the Nandou Li tribe's territory or the Kuman barbarians' lands, any other approach would require circumnavigating the entire Shenyuan Continent — a long, grueling march through far too many territories. Given the demons' current forces, they clearly lacked the strength for such a sweeping campaign.