Chapter 734: Support

**A Mortal's Journey to Immortality, Volume 5: Renowned in One Region**

Upon returning to his pavilion, Han Li found his "Senior Brother Lu" and the Fiery Dragon Child in the first-floor hall. Mu Peiling was seated beside them, accompanying them like a hostess.

Seeing Han Li enter, she immediately rose and said with a hint of concern:

"Young Master, Senior Lu and Senior Lan have been waiting for you for a long time. Has something happened?"

"It's nothing. You can go upstairs and rest for now. I need to have a good talk with the two senior brothers," Han Li said gently, giving Mu Peiling a rare smile.

"Yes, Young Master," Mu Peiling replied obediently, curtsied, and went upstairs without further questions.

Han Li watched her receding figure, very pleased with her intelligence. However, thinking of Nangong Wan, he couldn't help but sigh.

"What's this, Junior Brother Han, becoming a bit sentimental?" Lu Luo said teasingly, pleased to see Han Li return.

"Haha, Senior Brother, you jest. Senior Brother Lu and Fellow Daoist Lan are here for today's council meeting, aren't you?" Han Li replied with a faint smile, sitting down beside them unhurriedly.

"Junior Brother Han is right; we are indeed here about the Mulan people. We have already sent messages to the Alliance about this and informed other Heavenly Dao Alliance fellow daoists in the city. Most fellow daoists understand the principle that when the nest is overturned, no egg remains intact. They are all willing to help the Alliance of Nine Nations resist the Mulan vanguard before reinforcements arrive. Of course, for these Nascent Soul cultivators to take action, some compensation in spirit stones will certainly be indispensable. I believe the Alliance of Nine Nations won't be stingy on this point. After all, while the Mulan people are the common enemy of all cultivators, it's undeniable that the Alliance of Nine Nations bears the brunt," Lu Luo said slowly.

"If that's the case, what else is there to discuss? Although I, Han, have only recently advanced, I will also do my part to repel the enemy," Han Li said, nodding with a slight sense of puzzlement.

"Fellow Daoist, you don't know," the Fiery Dragon Child interjected, a hint of seriousness on his face. "Someone from both the righteous and demonic factions suddenly visited us together and spoke to us. I, Lan, found what they said quite reasonable, and we can't afford to not be cautious."

"What did they say? Surely it's not that they fear the Alliance of Nine Nations will use this opportunity to weaken the strength of our three major powers?" Han Li's eyes flickered a few times. After a light chuckle, he spoke with a half-smile.

"Oh! Junior Brother Han is indeed exceptionally intelligent; you guessed it immediately. However, it's unlikely the Alliance of Nine Nations would confront all three major powers simultaneously. Instead, they might secretly ally with one or two factions to target a specific one. This is not something our Heavenly Dao Alliance wishes to see. Otherwise, even if the Mulan spellcasters are repelled, the cultivation world won't be stable. Our Alliance absolutely cannot allow this to happen! We cannot allow the major powers in the Southern Region to become unbalanced," Lu Luo said with a wry smile after a moment of surprise.

"Oh, are the two senior brothers implying...?" Han Li asked without changing his expression, a slight curve forming on his lips.

"It's simple. Although our three major powers' cultivators can temporarily follow the Alliance of Nine Nations' command, we absolutely cannot allow them to use it as an excuse to weaken our strength. As for how to achieve this, we've had a brief discussion with people from the Six Demonic Sects and the Righteous Path. We plan to jointly negotiate feasible regulations in tomorrow's council meeting to ensure this situation doesn't arise. At the very least, regarding how many high-level cultivators our three major powers deploy, the Alliance of Nine Nations also cannot hide or conceal their own deployments or refuse to send out their sect elders to face the enemy. For this, Junior Brother Han and other fellow cultivators will need to voice your support," the Fiery Dragon Child said calmly.

"No problem. I also don't want to be secretly schemed against from behind while confronting the spellcasters," Han Li agreed without hesitation.

"That settles it then. Besides Junior Brother Han, we will also contact other fellow daoists. By then, the Beiye Sect and Huayi Sect won't be able to object to this. I hope this great war can end as soon as possible. Otherwise, who knows how many of our fellow daoists in the Southern Region will perish!" Lu Luo first let out a deep sigh, as if becoming emotional for a moment.

"Heh heh! With our cultivation, as long as we're careful, saving our lives in the great war is still achievable. The last time the Mulan people invaded, I, Lan, slaughtered many spellcasters, and it seems I'll have to go on another killing spree this time," the Fiery Dragon Child sneered, saying chillingly with a flash of murderous intent across his face.

Hearing this, Han Li glanced at the Fiery Dragon Child with a touch of surprise.

This child-like cultivator was only at the early Nascent Soul stage. However, the murderous aura emanating from him was far heavier than that of cultivators at the same level, indicating that quite a few lives had indeed been lost to him.

Lu Luo and the Fiery Dragon Child then discussed some specific details of tomorrow's council meeting with Han Li, and shared their speculations about the giant beasts and unfamiliar spellcasters that had suddenly appeared. Only then did they rise to take their leave.

Just as Han Li was seeing them to the pavilion door, Lu Luo hesitated for a moment before turning back to ask one more question:

"Junior Brother Han, how did it go, meeting that old acquaintance today?"

As Senior Brother Lu spoke, his gaze fixed on Han Li's face, as if trying to discern something from his expression.

"Nothing happened at all. We just reminisced about old times, casually recalling past events," Han Li replied without batting an eye, his expression normal.

"That's good! Then I, your senior brother, can rest assured."

Hearing this, a large part of Lu Luo's worries immediately dissipated. He grinned, exchanged a couple more words with Han Li, and then departed with the Fiery Dragon Child, feeling at ease.

Han Li stood at the pavilion door, watching them enter another nearby pavilion, seemingly going to contact other cultivators.

It appeared these two must hold other important positions within the Heavenly Dao Alliance; otherwise, why would both the council meeting and the righteous and demonic factions seek them out for representation?

Han Li rubbed his chin, pondering to himself, then turned and entered his own pavilion.

The following day, the number of Nascent Soul cultivators attending the council meeting significantly increased. Besides elders from the righteous, demonic, and Heavenly Dao Alliance factions, there were also a fair number of individual old monsters among the rogue cultivators.

This caught Kun Peng of the Beiye Sect and Madam Qi of the Huayi Sect, who were presiding over the meeting, somewhat off guard.

As a result, whether the Alliance of Nine Nations truly had other intentions or not, they were forced to agree to some conditions put forth by the cultivators.

The most important condition was that regardless of the mission requiring high-level cultivators, all four major powers must equally dispatch personnel to participate. This was to prevent any faction from scheming against or secretly harming cultivators from other powers.

What Han Li didn't expect was that the Heavenly Dao Alliance's Elder Council, composed of Nascent Soul cultivators, after receiving messages from Lu Luo and the Fiery Dragon Child and engaging in some debate, decided that each sect within the Alliance would send one Nascent Soul stage elder or several Core Formation cultivators to support Tiancheng City. Of course, due to the long journey, it would take some time for these individuals to reach Tiancheng City. In the meantime, cultivators already present, such as Lu Luo, would first follow the Alliance of Nine Nations' command to delay the Mulan offensive.

For fairness, once the reinforcements arrived, those cultivators who had already contributed significantly would be deemed to have rendered great service and could return to their respective sects without needing to participate in further battles. The newly arrived support cultivators would then take their place in confronting the subsequent major conflicts.

Now, both the Fiery Dragon Child, Lu Luo, and others, after the council meeting's discussions, had all accepted their respective missions and were proceeding to support various front lines.

Han Li, along with two other Nascent Soul cultivators, was assigned to support a strategic location on the border of the Yu Country, a place guarded by a powerful restrictive formation, accompanied by seven or eight Core Formation cultivators.

That location was a critical point that the spellcasters would have to seize during their invasion. There were more than a dozen such places along their route.

If these points were not cleared, the Mulan people would not be able to rest easy and could not be considered to have truly seized control of the occupied territories.

The Alliance of Nine Nations currently lacked the strength to engage in a decisive battle with the Mulan people. They could only rely on advantageous terrain and these restrictive formations, laid out with countless painstaking efforts, to gradually delay the advance of the spellcaster army.

Otherwise, with the flying speed of high-level Mulan spellcasters, it would only take about a month to fly from the battlefront to Tiancheng City.

The spellcaster army had not yet reached the strategic formation Han Li was assigned to support. However, the high-level cultivators guarding it consisted of only one Nascent Soul cultivator from the Alliance of Nine Nations.

Judging by the intensity of past Mulan invasions, having one Nascent Soul cultivator stationed there, coupled with the coordination of the formation and restrictions, would have been sufficient to contend with a certain number of spellcasters for a while.

But with the spellcasters' current fierce offensive, that meager force would be very difficult to resist.

The cultivators of the same stage traveling with Han Li were an old man surnamed Ma from the Haoran Pavilion of the Righteous Path Alliance, who was thin and spry, possessing an ethereal, immortal-like demeanor. The other was the green-robed, pigeon-faced old man Han Li had seen in the grand hall that day, named Gu Shuangpu.

Although Han Li only saw a spirit beast pouch tied to Gu Shuangpu's waist, the faint aura emanating from it made Han Li secretly feel a bit uncomfortable, suggesting that the spirit beast contained within was extraordinary.

Both of these cultivators were at the early Nascent Soul stage, so naturally, there was no distinction in seniority or rank among the three of them.

Fearing that the spellcaster army might launch an early assault on the strategic location they were to support, the three of them quickly discussed and decided to leave the seven or eight Core Formation cultivators behind, accelerating ahead with their extremely fast escape lights. They would let the junior Core Formation cultivators catch up along the way.

Along the way, the old man surnamed Ma was quite talkative, chatting and laughing casually with Han Li and the other cultivator as if they were going sightseeing rather than facing spellcasters in battle.

As for Gu Shuangpu of the Beast Spirit Sect, he maintained a gloomy expression and didn't utter a word for a long time, making it unclear what he was thinking.

Han Li, on the other hand, wore a smile and often chimed in with a few words with the old man Ma, giving the two of them a cultured and refined impression. Since both knew Han Li had only recently advanced to the Nascent Soul stage, they didn't particularly value his strength much.

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