Lin Mu felt strange that some Dao Treading realm cultivator would walk into a trap like this. 

'No… even if one did, they would be able to escape or at least create enough of a commotion that others would find out. Plus, no Dao Treading realm cultivator would be without a background here.' Lin Mu pondered.

"And what was his name? Who was he?" Lin Mu asked impatiently.

"He called himself Daoist Yulong. As for who he was, I don't know. I've never heard of any Dao Treading realm expert of his name and don't know of any sect that has anyone of that name." Tie Niu replied.

"Daoist Yulong?" Lin Mu repeated, finding the name familiar.

'It can't be that Yulong… he was a former elder of the Zither Wind sect. But he has been dead for a long time now. No… it must be someone else.' Lin Mu thought.

Lin Mu had seen the number of Dao Treading realm experts in the World Nexus and knew that other than the ones that were openly known by the world and were members of the sects, there were still a few others hidden away.

'And it can be some rouge cultivator too… after all, if they find an inheritance ground that is in a minor plane, they can hide away there for a long time.' Lin Mu concluded.

Having thought of this, Lin Mu had another questioned.

"What happened to that Daoist Yulong? Did you kill him too?" Lin Mu questioned.

"No… we aren't technically supposed to kill the ones we capture. Gu Yao prefers them to be alive. And since Daoist Yulong went along calmly with it all, even when the people of the Gu Legion came to take him, there was no conflict." Tie Niu answered.

"Huh? Didn't you find that strange? Why will a Dao Treading realm expert be so casual with it all?" Lin Mu asked, finding it clearly suspicious.

"I did indeed, and so did the people of the Gu Legion. But then the man said something to them, after which they changed their attitudes and were accepting of his words." Tie Niu clarified.

"Is that so…" Lin Mu furrowed his brows as he thought over it.

This Daoist Yulong was another new card on the battlefield that Lin Mu had no idea about. He was at the Dao Treading realm thus could have significant effects on the entire situation. Plus, each person going towards Gu Yao was another one they would have to kill.

'No, wait… could it be someone from the Northern Tribes? It would make sense that they would not do anything to him if he was from there.' Lin Mu thought to himself.

While the old woman Ku Waowen had revealed the names of the Dao Treading realm cultivator the Northerns Tribes had, there was no assurance that they would use the same name here.

'Yes, it would make sense that they were just using a fake name when they were here on the continent. There must be a reason why they came to the Iron Bull city into an obvious trap rather than going to Gu Yao directly.' Lin Mu analyzed.

Knowing that not much would come out of thinking about this needlessly, Lin Mu decided to continue the interrogation.

"And when did this Daoist Yulong come to get captured?" Lin Mu asked.

"About eight months ago. It was a surprise to us too, as before that the highest level cultivator we had captured was a Shell Genesis stage Dao Shell realm cultivator. And even then there were just two that we had captured.

The people from the Gu Legion were seemingly pleased with this and gave us a lot of resources in addition to those pills." Tie Niu replied detail.

Lin Mu made a rough timeline of events in his mind and asked more questions from Tie Niu about all that had happened in the past two years. 

'May as well take this opportunity to find out more.' Lin Mu thought to himself.

Tie Niu then started to speak and Lin Mu learned quite a lot of things, many of which were shocking.

Soon after he practiced the third stage of the True Gold body forging arts, the Gu Legion had intensified their efforts. Apparently Jingming Shang's efforts had come to fruition, and he had discovered several of Gu Yao's supply points.

The Long Cloud alliance quickly mounted an offense against these places which turned out to be none other than locations that were controlled by either the Zither Wind alliance's people or some smaller powers that were in the same fold.

They of course, didn't back down and it ended up in a full blown battle. While the Long Cloud alliance had a victory in this, and it was even known widely due to the nature of conflict where tens of thousands of people had died, it was also the spark that lit the fuse.

An official war between the Long Cloud alliance and the Zither wind alliance broke out. Earlier, while they were clashing, no official decree of war was given. But now, both parties had openly announced this to the world.

And once this happened, all hell broke loose. All bets were off and both parties started their propaganda with the Long Cloud alliance, exposing Zither Wind alliances' links to the northern tribes through Gu legion.

The Zither Wind alliance of course, denied this in the open since they didn't want the top three sects dropping their stance and attacking them outright. Plus, the top three sects were still reluctant in believing that the Northern Tribes could still mount and offense after so many defeats.

The Zither Wind alliance instead proclaimed the Gu Legion as an orthodox force and supported it, acting on its behalf as allies and saying to the world that they were simply ensuring justice won.

There was no limit to the lies and hypocrisy that were said that day, after all everything was fair in love and war.

The empire took a neutral stance in this as long as its interest were not damaged and commoners were not affected.

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