The Echo Conch Kingdom and the First Sun kingdom were the only two island kingdoms of the Great Zhou Continent. And they were also the smallest kingdoms in the empire. They were even smaller than the Fenlong kingdom.
The first sun kingdom was located east of the Fenlong kingdom and was a trade ally of them. They two kingdoms were separated by the ocean for about three hundred kilometers. But the Echo conch kingdom was further south from there.
It was over a thousand kilometer away from there and was the smallest kingdom. It also had very little interaction with the rest of the kingdoms, outside of trade. It didn't have that many cultivators either, with the strongest cultivators among them being at the Nascent soul realm.
It was located over five hundred kilometers from the shore and thus had lack of certain resources. It prevented there from many cultivators being born. And since there was also not much land mass, it prevented them from growing crops too.
Their reliance was mostly on the ocean for food.
Even the cultivators depended on the ocean for their supplies of cultivation resources. After all, the aquatic beasts were an excellent source for that. But then there was the issue that fighting aquatic beasts was greatly disadvantageous for human cultivators.
Even if they could fly, there was a great chance they might lose the beast they were fighting once the beast dived deep into the water.
Despite all that, the kingdom had still survived all this time and the people living on it thrived.
Lin Mu never expected that it would be this place that Gu Yao would be hiding in all this time.
"Do you have proof of this? As far as I know, there have been no reports of suspicion about the Echo Conch kingdom. Plus, we would have known if there were any goods being routed there with Echo Conch kingdom being heavily Dependent on exports." Lin Mu said after thinking for a bit.
There was a reason why the alliance had never suspected the two island nations about being the hideout for Gu Yao and the Gu Legion. Since they were tracking the trade routes using merchants, the two island kingdoms would have been detected right away.
After all they had a very specific route of importing to them.
The First Sun kingdom was literally located next to the Fenlong kingdom, thus any anomaly would have been found instantly. All the goods also went through them.
AS for the Echo Conch kingdom, a part of their supplies came from the Fenlong kingdom as well. But a majority came from another kingdom that was located along the coast. It was the Silian Kingdom.
It was a medium sized kingdom and was under the influence of the Long Cloud sect. In fact, the Long cloud sect was located on the border of the Silian kingdom too.
With both kingdoms being in the vicinity of the Alliance powers, there was very little chance for them to be Gu Legion hideouts.
"I know about the alliance's attempt at investigating it all. And they are commendable. Unfortunately, Gu Yao took a different approach here. Instead of going his usual route of controlling everyone in the place he is hiding, he let everyone free." Jiao Fang explained.
"Then how does he get all his supplies there? We know for sure that he has been rerouting tons of supplies from the sects and kingdoms." Lin Mu asked.
"Spatial storage treasures. He's been making a fool of the local fishermen and getting them to transport jewelery that is in fact spatial storage tools. There has always been a smuggling syndicate in the island nations and along the coast, to escape the taxes, but since it is mostly composed of mortals and doesn't bring as many profits, the cultivators and sects don't get involved.
Gu Yao got a few of these smugglers acting as his henchmen. In their eyes's he's simply another smuggler that smuggles jewelery and gold.
They simply bring the resources to the border of the Silian kingdom where they get transferred to the spatial storage treasure and then sealed to make them look like normal jewelery.
They get taken into the kingdom with ease and then passed over to the fishermen who pass it over to the smugglers in the sea." Jiao Fang explained in detail.
Hearing all this, Lin Mu was at a loss for words.
'No wonder we had blank trails after a certain point… he switched over to an unsecured way to transport the resources. We never had the commoners in our sights either, thus there was little to no chance of finding them.' Lin Mu thought to himself.
The elaborate net of transport and smuggling was very smart of Gu Yao to take advantage of. But Lin Mu knew that was not all. If Gu Yao was simply hiding in the Echo Conch kingdom in the open, he would have seen it before.
"The headquarters of the Gu legion aren't in the Echo Conch kingdom, are they? They are on a different plane?" Lin Mu stated.
"Senior Lin Mu certainly guessed right. Gu Yao had long since discovered an incomplete plane in the Echo Conch kingdom. Using the formation arrays of the Northern Tribes, he expanded it and also added several teleportation channels to it.
There is no physical entry to the plane either. One can only enter with a talisman and even those only allow single entries to the plane. Only Gu Yao himself can leave the place without them.
And there are also many escape paths set up for himself." Jiao Fang replied.
Hearing this, Lin Mu's ears perked up as it meant that a few of the plans he had made earlier would now work.
A smile appeared on his face, that made Jiao Fang shiver and he had a bad feeling.
"Seems like I need to head to the Echo Conch kingdom next… time to end it. This has gone on for too long." Lin Mu spoke with a hint of excitement.
"Wait! You're gonna head there directly?" Jiao Fang was stunned.
While he had seen Lin Mu's power here, he was still unsure of whether he'd be able to go against Gu Yao.
"Yes. I don't have any reason to wait after all." Lin Mu replied.
"That will be insane! Not to mention how will you even enter the plane? Even if you manage to get a teleportation talisman from someone, it won't be useful as they monitor each person that enters and exits. They can simply stop the talisman from working." Jiao Fang said.
"Who said I need a teleportation talisman? I have other ways to get in to the plane." Lin Mu said, not explaining any further.
He didn't think it was necessary to tell Jiao Fang about his abilities beyond what he already knew. Trusting him totally was out of options too, and right now Lin Mu had already gotten all the information that he had been lacking.
"Wait! B-but—" Before Jiao Fang could say anymore though, Lin Mu had disappeared.
Knowing Gu Yao's location made most other things irrelevant. Lin Mu now had confidence in his own strength. He had already gone against several Dao Treading realm experts and was experienced with them.
Besides, having others with him there might only put him on the disadvantage as Gu Yao could possibly play some scheme that could catch him off guard. Lin Mu would have to split his attention between his allies and his enemies at the same time.
For now, Little Shrubby might be the only one who could go along with Lin Mu and be an advantage to him rather than a burden. Little Shrubby's speed was also the main factor in deciding this.
Though before heading there, Lin Mu still decided to inform his allies. But it was not to ask them to join, but for them to stay ready for the chaos that would come after Gu Yao was gone.
'I doubt the Northern Tribes would take it kindly if Gu Yao falls. Right now they are only staying put because Gu Yao's schemes have been working. If he's not there, they will have no reason to hold back. Especially since they have three Immortal Ascension realm cultivators too…' Lin Mu thought to himself.
He looked in the distance and saw a red blur approaching.
"Are we done here?" Little Shrubby asked.
"Yes… we got more than we expected here." Lin Mu replied as he took out the communication jade slip.
"Where are we going now?" Little Shrubby asked.
"Now… we go and take care of Gu Yao." Lin Mu plainly said.
Little Shrubby's eyes glowed lightly upon hearing this. He knew very well that Gu Yao was his master's enemy and needed to be killed. And whoever was his master's enemy was his enemy, too.
"Come on, time to head east." Lin Mu stated.
"Okay~" Little Shrubby said before bursting into a sprint with Lin Mu on his back.
~BOOM~
A sonic boom was heard and alerted Jiao Fang, who had been looking for Lin Mu.
~Sigh~
"He's already gone… perhaps he really might be able to get Gu Yao to die." Jiao Fang muttered to himself.
He looked around and sighed once more before leaving the sect, his destination unknown.
While Lin Mu was heading to the Echo Conch Kingdom, he held the Jade Slip and contacted Jing Luo. He didn't know if the man had left the ancestral grounds yet, but there was a great chance he had.
"LIN MU!? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" Jing Luo shouted through the jade slip.
