There is another important factor at play here, which no one realized. Even without having any memory of it, Li Gang unknowingly followed it due to psychological cues.
The Law of Isolation!
It could appear at any time, and there was a high chance of it occurring, since enough time had already passed for it to trigger.
Li Gang would not bet on the Immortals saving him unless he was left with no other choice. He is cautious and wouldn't gamble with his life.
It should be noted that he had already tested and confirmed that the Immortals could predict the existence of the Law of Isolation. Did you realize when he did it?
Through his psychological cues, he had been delaying things as much as possible to force the Immortals to take action soon. However, the Immortals never did anything. But why?
If the Immortals could not predict when the Law of Isolation would appear, they would have already protected Li Gang from both Monarchs by now. Because, once the Law of Isolation appeared, they wouldn't be able to do anything. They should have enough ability to generalize the patterns and know the general gap between each Law of Isolation. If they couldn't anticipate this possibility, they wouldn't be Immortals.
Despite knowing this, their failure to protect Li Gang until now proved that they were aware beforehand of exactly when the Law of Isolation would appear. That was why they never protected Li Gang—they knew the exact deadline by which his protection had to be ensured.
But that wasn't the only conclusion this test yielded. The second possible conclusion was that the Immortals weren't able to predict the Law of Isolation, yet still chose not to protect him. Under these circumstances, it could be possible that the Immortals were no longer helping him. But why wouldn't they, after investing so much in him?
Was it likely that there was some cooperation between the Immortals and the Elemental Emperor? Or could it be that they saw through Li Gang's earlier schemes and wanted to force him to expose his true capabilities? There could be many theories.
This was the second reason why Li Gang didn't want to bet on the Immortals to protect him.
Even though the Law of Isolation exists, the Immortals aren't morons!
With their abilities, they possessed the power to destroy the whole world, so couldn't they just cut off their connection to the world, mimicking the Law of Isolation?
There were only three people in the Divine Spirit World who possessed the ability to distinguish whether the Law of Isolation was real or fake:
He Fan, Jin Huang, and Wu Yuan. He Fan and Jin Huang used their perceptions, while Wu Yuan relied on his memory of the Timeless Demon God.
Kong Xuan knew the basic pattern of their appearances, but couldn't differentiate whether they were real or not. Li Gang didn't know about the existence of a Fake Law of Isolation at all.
There had been instances when the Immortals deliberately used a fake Law of Isolation right after a real one ended or right before a real one began. This was done to check whether any Warriors had figured out Law of Isolation and devised schemes to deceive them.
20th March.
After handling everything and instructing his subordinates, Lei used his Spatial Order to arrive in the Wu Dynasty.
He changed his appearance to his original body and secretly met with Guo Chen.
Guo Chen was surprised to see him there. He had already blocked all the routes to the Golden Crow Dynasty, and it shouldn't have been possible for Lei to escape that place and appear over here. He thought inwardly. 'A spatial treasure!'
He looked at him and asked solemnly, "How did you appear here?"
He was extremely wary now. If Lei had the ability to silently appear in the palace without anyone realizing, then it was a massive problem.
The four major kingdoms of the Northern Continent were equipped with large-scale formations around their royal palaces that could threaten even Rank 7 Warriors. It was this heritage that allowed them to stand toe-to-toe with Lei and Huang and cooperate on an equal footing.
Earlier, Lei hadn't possessed the ability to silently appear like this, but now he did.
Unfortunately, what Guo Chen didn't know was that Lei was a formation master and could easily crack it. Back then, he had cracked the Shu Dynasty's formation, which was how he forced their advisor, Lao Zhang, to do as he wished. Lei simply didn't wish to cause any damage to the hierarchy of the Wu Dynasty, since they were still useful to him.
Lei ignored his inquiry. He went directly to the point. "I want every piece of information about what has happened in the Wei Dynasty recently. All major and minor changes!"
Guo Chen was surprised at the sudden turn of events. He never thought Lei would have anything to do with the Wei Dynasty while his battle with Huang was ongoing in the Golden Crow Dynasty. How could anything in the Wei Dynasty, which was on the completely opposite side of the Northern Continent, even affect his interests?
He responded calmly, "I freed Wei Han from Ren Ying's control, and also helped them capture all the Demons. However, recently their leader, Mo Tiancheng, escaped and caused an outrage in the Wei Dynasty. Wei Han sent a letter to withdraw his troops in order to cope with their predicament!"
Lei frowned. "Are you sure? Nothing else?"
Guo Chen affirmed, "Nothing!"
He would obviously not talk about how he had cooperated with them to deploy Warriors at the southern border of the Shu Dynasty in order to conquer it.
Unknown to him, Lei's attention was somewhere else. "Any news on any Warrior who had been close to Ren Ying?"
Guo Chen frowned. He could not fathom Lei's thought process at this point. What was his goal?
He suddenly remembered that a Demon named Wu Meng had disappeared, and he also had connections to Ren Ying.
His expression changed. 'Could he be part of some conspiracy that none of us realized?'
He responded, "There is one in my recollection. His name is Wu Meng, a Demon who suddenly disappeared when Wei Warriors launched a sneak attack and captured most of the Demons along with their leader. According to the news and rumors I have heard, he had deep connections with Ren Ying, and he was the one who helped him connect with the Demonic Faction."
He continued, "Li Gang had some dealings with the Demons and Mo Tiancheng. He was the one who provided the Demons a foothold in the Wei Dynasty."
Lei nodded. "It cannot be Mo Tiancheng. I want Wu Meng's portrait within two days!"
Lei's thoughts were simple: if Mo Tiancheng had been captured, then he wouldn't have been able to execute Li Gang's contingency plans. So, he had no intention of wasting his time on him. He was agitated and in a hurry to find his son.
Having said that, he immediately left without another word. After getting some distance away, when he was sure that he couldn't be monitored, he used the Spatial Order and disappeared once again.
He appeared in the Wei Dynasty, at one of its seaports. There were dozens of seaports in the Wei Dynasty, and it wouldn't be easy to search them all alone.
Lei used his Spatial Order to quickly move around and personally found many people to gather information about Wu Meng. He even bribed many locals in order to obtain any possible leads.
But why specifically seaports?
Lei didn't believe that Li Gang had known about his plans beforehand. He believed it was more likely that Li Gang was simply prepared for the worst-case scenario. In order to protect his own life in case he got captured, he would use their sons as leverage against both Lei and Huang.
And the only way he could smuggle someone into the Northern Continent was through the seaports. Lei believed that Li Gang might have already set up this contingency right before his battle with the Shu Dynasty. In case that situation turned awry, he could use them as leverage to protect his life.
2 Days Later. 22nd March, 16th Year of the Great Emperor Era.
Lei collected the portrait of Wu Meng and immediately returned to the seaports. It should be noted that he would also return to the Golden Crow Dynasty once in a while in control of Shi Tian's body to check on the progress of the search there.
He distributed the portrait to a few locals in every seaport and offered them a massive reward of 10,000 Spiritual Stones if they managed to find Wu Meng.
As a result, a few of Wu Meng's seemingly loyal subordinates got swayed by greed and exposed him for the profit.
Unfortunately, Wu Meng wasn't foolish either. The moment he heard about this bounty, he dropped everything and disappeared.
By the time Lei arrived, Wu Meng had already fled.
Lei checked the surroundings. He could smell a strange odor filling the entire room. His eyes narrowed; he understood that Wu Meng had sprayed the room with some kind of chemical so that he couldn't be tracked by his scent.
Looking at one of the corners, he could see a pile of materials that had been burned to ashes. He murmured inwardly, 'He fled two days ago! It is no longer possible to trace him.'
Lei was surprised to find that all of Wu Meng's traces had been erased and masked so thoroughly that even he couldn't track him!
He wasn't familiar with Wu Meng, and as a result, he could not deduce how the man thought or what decisions he would make. Trying to find him now would only waste time, and Lei was already in a hurry!
Lei hadn't expected to meet such a troublesome person. Unfortunately, he had no other choice. In such a vast world, even with a Spatial Order, finding a single person was like finding a needle in a haystack. You couldn't do it without helpers unless you were extremely favored by luck.
Shaking his head, he gave up on Wu Meng and instead tracked down all the subordinates who had been helping the Demon all this time.
Wu Meng had controlled all twenty ports, placing his subordinates in high-ranking positions to control imports and exports, as well as keeping track of everyone who came and went!
Lei had thought Wu Meng would control at most four or five ports, but the Demon's capabilities exceeded his expectations. It also made him realize something about Li Gang. He concluded that Li Gang was an extremely cautious person with a keen eye for talent.
Putting them all in a separate room, he interrogated them. Even though he could usually see through lies, he had been deceived by Jin Bo once, so he wouldn't make the same mistake again. He would rather take extra precautions.
He asked them questions he felt they had to know:
What instructions had Wu Meng given them until now?
A list of every person Wu Meng had asked them to keep track of after he took control of the ports.
A list of every person who had entered the Northern Continent with the surname Huang or Lei.
And many other questions.
He couldn't get the complete list of people, as it had been kept by Wu Meng, who had burned it before fleeing. However, he did learn one important clue.
A Warrior with the surname Huang had appeared there. He had been sent to the Golden Crow Dynasty's Dongfang seaport.
Lei's heart immediately sank. He asked them about someone with the surname Lei, but they didn't know anything about it.
Lei's face turned solemn as he thought inwardly, 'How shrewd! That bastard knew that I could be controlled easily, so he left no clue for my son.'
Lei couldn't use a Soul Search, because he wasn't in the condition to use any soul-type secret techniques while parasitizing Shi Tian's body.