The young man in the emerald-green robe sat atop a huge spider, which could apparently understand the words he spoke. As soon as the words left his mouth, it roared, and a rapacious gleam appeared in its eyes.

The other two spiders also roared, which caused the energy of the entire group to surge.

Not too far off, the fleeing Han Clan cultivators heard the three roars, and their faces fell. There were even some faces which were filled with complete and utter hopelessness.

One of the two old Dao Realm cultivators next to Han Qinglei anxiously said, "Qinglei, are you sure about what you said? I must know! If you're wrong, then we're dead for sure. The Han Clan... will truly be exterminated!"

"The Meng Clan is our only hope," Han Qinglei said through gritted teeth. "Once we get there, we'll be safe!" After the invasion of the Seventh Mountain and Sea, it didn't take long before nearly everyone in the Eighth Mountain and Sea learned that the Meng Clan was not fighting in the war.

Also, the armies of the Seventh Mountain and Sea wouldn't even set foot into the area controlled by the Meng Clan. Most of the sects and clans found this unthinkable, and some even came to the conclusion that the Meng Clan had betrayed the Eight Mountain and Sea.

When the Han Clan was attacked and destroyed, Han Qinglei had watched in shock as virtually the entire Senior generation of the clan died in battle. Several of the most powerful Patriarchs were killed, and only the two 1-Essence Patriarchs had survived, both heavily wounded. They managed to lead the few survivors into escape. Of course, that slight bit of hope was granted to them only because the clan's most powerful Patriarch died to buy it for them.

However, there had been nowhere for them to run. In the boundless sea of stars, there was no hope to be found. The Eighth Mountain and Sea was fully immersed in the flames of war, with no safe haven to be found anywhere....

In that critical moment, Han Qinglei thought about the Meng Clan!

He also thought about how he had never been able to track down Meng Hao in the 33 Hells, only a random young Meng Clan cultivator. However, he refused to believe that Meng Hao could be so easily killed. After contemplating the matter later, he grew more and more sure that the young man he had encountered... was definitely connected to Meng Hao.

Then, the Meng Clan unexpectedly didn't fight in the war. Then, word began to leak out that a huge battle had been fought there just when the Seventh Mountain and Sea had arrived. That only further fueled Han Qinglei's speculations.

With nowhere else to go, he decided to bet that Meng Hao was indeed in the Meng Clan. He was gambling that everything which had occurred with the Meng Clan was because of Meng Hao.

When the surrounding Han Clan cultivators heard Han Qinglei's words, they exploded with all the speed they could manage. Rumbling sounds could be heard as they flew toward the Meng Clan's territory, the three gigantic spiders hot on their tails and growing closer by the moment.

It was only when Han Qinglei and the others reached the border of the Meng Clan's territory, that they realized the Meng Clan was surrounded by a ring... of floating bones.

Those bones had been magically organized, as if to form a literal border. This... was the true border of the Meng Clan's territory, and those bones were naturally the bones of the enemies which had invaded them.

As soon as Han Qinglei saw these bones, his mind trembled. The other Han Clan cultivators gasped. However, it was without the slightest hesitation that they all passed into Meng Clan territory.

In that instant, the three gigantic spiders sped towards them from off in the distance, then screeched to a halt at the border. Suddenly, looks of hesitation appeared in their eyes as they looked at the Meng Clan continents off in the distance.

Seeing that the spiders had stopped, the young man in the emerald-green robe frowned. Next to him was an old man who suddenly spoke in a low voice, "Young Lord, that... is the Meng Clan. Our Mountain and Sea Lord issued orders that we shouldn't provoke them lightly."

The young man snorted. He looked at the bones, then looked at the rest of the Meng Clan's territory, and at Han Qinglei and the others fleeing off into the distance. Then, a cold flicker appeared in his eyes.

"The Mountain and Sea Lord said not to provoke them lightly. He didn't say to never provoke them. Onward!" The old man hesitated in response to the coolly-spoken words. For a moment, he thought of intervening, but then considered how powerful the forces of the Seventh Mountain and Sea already were in this early stage of the war, and decided that breaching the borders of the Meng Clan probably wasn't a very big deal.

Rumbling sounds echoed out in response to the young man's words, and the three spiders immediately advanced into Meng Clan territory, where they madly pursued Han Qinglei and the others. In the blink of an eye, they were bearing down on the small group.

When the Han Clan cultivators realized that their pursuers didn't care about retaliation from the Meng Clan, their faces flickered. Before they could even react, the three giant spiders opened their mouths and spit out massive quantities of spider silk, which instantly transformed into a massive net that threatened to envelop the Han Clan cultivators.

The young man in the emerald-green robe looked on with a merciless gleam in his eyes. As for the other cultivators of the Seventh Mountain and Sea, they radiated intensely murderous auras.

The two Patriarchs from the Han Clan turned with bloodshot eyes, roaring as they prepared to fight back. However, it was at this point that suddenly... a cold snort echoed out through the void. Instantly, the descending spiderweb began to tremble and emit cracking noises. Moments later, it exploded.

The three spiders let out agonized shrieks, and didn't dare to advance any further. In fact, they even started backing up. The cultivators on their backs were shocked. Not only had that cold snort shattered the spiderweb, it left their minds reeling, and some of them even found blood oozing out of their mouths.

The Young Lord's face flickered, and suddenly, three old men appeared next to him. All of those men were in the Dao Realm, and their faces were grim as they stared at a young man who was currently materializing up ahead in the void.

That young man wore a long white robe, and looked like a scholar. However, there was also a certain ancientness to him. It was, of course, Meng Hao.

"Meng Hao!" exclaimed Han Qinglei.

"Brother Han," Meng Hao said with a slight smile. "I trust you've been well since we last met." He clasped hands and bowed.

The other Han Clan cultivators also clasped hands and bowed to Meng Hao, except for the two Patriarchs, who simply looked at him, then looked around the area. When they confirmed that Meng Hao was alone, their hearts sank, and they were just about to say something when the Young Lord in the emerald-green robe rose to his feet and spoke in a cold voice, "What outrageous gall you have! How dare you interfere with our Seventh Mountain and Sea. Meng Hao... I'll give you two choices. One, get the hell back to your Meng Clan, and I won't exterminate your people.

"Two, I wipe you and your clan off the map this very day!" This so-called Young Lord's voice was cold and sinister, and his words were wildly arrogant. In the months that he had been in the Eighth Mountain and Sea, he had seen far too many local cultivators do nothing but tremble in fear when they faced him.

Because of that, his heart had swelled with arrogance. Although he knew that his own Mountain and Sea Lord had given orders not to provoke the Meng Clan, he still looked down on them.

As soon as the words left the young man's mouth, the Han Clan cultivators' faces flickered with fear, and they thought back to the fierce fight that had ensued when their clan was attacked. This Young Lord had only been in charge of only one of many divisions in the battle to exterminate the Han Clan, however the fact that this corps contained a force of 3,000 cultivators meant that its battle strength was quite potent.

Furthermore, the Seventh Mountain and Sea clearly had the upper hand in the war, which ensured that the Young Lord was even more threatening.

The 3,000 cultivators on the backs of the spiders all rose to their feet and rotated their cultivation bases. A murderous aura exploded out, transforming into a tempest. As for the three old men surrounding the young man, they frowned, but also unleashed their cultivation bases. Those three old men were 1-Essence cultivators, not Dao Lords, but considering they represented the Seventh Mountain and Sea, almost no one in the Eighth Mountain and Sea would dare to provoke them.

"Pipe down!" Meng Hao said coolly, waving his right hand. That simple motion caused a massive pressure to weigh down from the starry sky. When the pressure slammed into the Young Lord, he screamed miserably. Blood sprayed out of his mouth, and his expression instantly changed from one of arrogance to one of astonishment.

It was as if the starry sky itself was crushing down on him. In the blink of an eye, he was on the verge of being squeezed into a shapeless mass. However, it was at this point that a gray light erupted out from him, which attempted to fight back against the pressure of the starry sky.

That gray light transformed into the image of a middle-aged man, a man in black war armor. Behind him stretched a huge starry battlefield filled with countless fighting cultivators.

"Anyone who dares to harm my dear son is seeking an early death!!" roared the man. Shockingly, he erupted with the power of a 4-Essences Dao Realm expert.

Meng Hao's face was completely expressionless, and he didn't even bother to look at the man. In fact, the man's voice was still echoing out when the gray light was shattered into pieces, and the Young Lord was crushed by the weight of the starry sky, transformed into nothing more than a bloody pulp.

It happened so quickly that the surrounding cultivators could do nothing but stare in shock.

"Y-you...."

"You actually dared to kill the son of Marquis Lu! You...." The thousands of cultivators on the spiders could barely speak they were so shocked. The three Dao Realm experts' faces went pale, and without the slightest hesitation, they charged toward Meng Hao.

They were well aware of how terrifying Marquis Lu could be, and they knew that if they didn't kill Meng Hao immediately, then the three of them would suffer his wrath. As they flew out, their cultivation bases flared to life.

"Kill this man, all of you!" The three old men's voices were laced with a secret magic that caused the three spiders to instantly roar, then pounce toward Meng Hao. The cultivators on their backs also flew out, unleashing a variety of divine abilities and magical techniques as they tried to kill Meng Hao.

The Han Clan cultivators gasped in shock as they watched Meng Hao standing up to 3,000 cultivators single-handedly.

Meng Hao looked calmly at the incoming cultivators, the three Dao Realm experts, and the three vicious spiders. His eyes flickering coldly, he slowly raised his right hand into the air and then...

Viciously clenched it!

A boom rang out, and the starry sky shuddered. It was as if an enormous hand thousands and thousands of meters wide was stretching out into the void... to grab the 3,000 cultivators!