The Zhang Clan members that were present here looked with awe at their Patriarch. Their eyes were glued to his glowing form and followed his every movement. They were quite touched that their leader had made his way here in such a short amount of time. He was even risking offending the Dark Palm Sect by defending them here.
“Master…Grandpa…”
Zhang Xue called out from the side while looking at her senior uncle and her grandpa that looked to be dead. Her brother was also down on the ground not too far away from where Zhang Dong was standing. The group of juniors and elders were further in the back, which gave them a good view of what was happening down on the center stage.
After the flashing light subsided they saw that the man that caused them so much trouble was gone. He was just disintegrated out of existence by their Patriarch who made it look easy.
“Was the Patriarch always this strong?”
“So that’s the Zhang Clan’s leader…”
Huo Kong gulped after witnessing the display of power. He began thinking that he might have been too hasty in his conclusion. Maybe his father didn’t blow this senior uncle’s achievements out of proportions.
“He is far stronger now than two years ago.”
Kong’s father looked at his senior brother with sparkles in his eyes, he wanted nothing more than to ask him about the way he had managed to reach the nascent soul level in just a measly two years.
Feng Liena was also astonished like the rest, she didn’t expect Zhang Dong to rush to their rescue. Her heart didn’t flutter that much as she came to the realization that he was probably here to save his disciple. She tossed her selfish thoughts to the back of her head, now hopeful that this man would produce a miraculous outcome as he did before when they were stuck in that secret ground before.
While Zhang Dong’s allies were quite beaming with curiosity, the man in question was holding onto the purple soul gem. Nothing was left from Yang Kai, his body had turned to fine dust and was carried off by the wind by now. He glanced at the item in his hand but was also keeping his attention on the Dark Palm elder that was floating to the side. He didn’t choose to attack him just yet, but fighting could break out at any moment. He wasn’t sure what that old man was thinking about, but he was looking at him with a focused gaze. He on the other hand wanted to tend to this soul gem to help his grandpa out.
“There are a couple of things that I can overlook, but killing the sect leaders son isn’t one of them… identify yourself!”
Wu Ming sounded a lot less friendly now, this whole situation got a whole lot more troublesome the moment Yang Kai was killed. He would be held responsible for this, he wasn’t sure how the Dark Palm Patriarch would react. He probably didn’t have to worry about losing his life, his position was too high for that. Still, he could be locked up for multiple years without being able to leave the sect premises.
“Could you… wait a second? Think I have this figured out, I’ll be with you in a moment.”
The man with the white robe replied while moving over to where Zhang Jin’s body was laying. Wu Ming was taken aback by the blatant disrespect that this man was showing towards him. Was he a nascent soul grandmaster such an unimportant character? Was the giant sect that was behind him something you could insult without any worry in the world?
“You are courting death!”
The sentence that shouldn’t be used had been delivered. Wu Ming’s face was getting red and he looked like he was going to pop a vein at any moment. This person wasn’t giving him any face at all, he might have been in the nascent soul level as him but he looked far too young. He was being cautious with him, but he was slowly getting fed up with the whole thing. There was so much that this man could stomach, he was still someone that was used to a certain level of respect. This was also why his reason started getting clouded and he decided to test this man out, without gathering enough information beforehand.
Wu Ming moved his hand upwards, his palm going in front of his face as he held it vertically while keeping his fingers together. His hand began to change its coloring going from pale to black in a matter of seconds. A shadowy aura that expanded outwardly formed, it took the shape of a blade that was pointing straight up into the air.
The Dark Palm elder then swung his hand forward, the air around the shadowy blade rippled. The people in the area started coughing up blood as even though this attack didn’t look that imposing it had the backing of a nascent soul cultivation realm behind it. All the core formation seniors that were from the triforce alliance put themselves between the energy fluctuations and their junior members. Even they that were in the great circle of core formation were shivering. They were trying to muster up all their might just to block residual Qi from an attack that was aimed at someone else.
“I’ll court your mom!”
Zhang Dong shouted out, golden energy surrounded his palm in a similar way as Wu Ming’s. He delivered a backhanded slap to the incoming shadow blade. The two forces collided with each other sending some residual Qi blasts to the side. To the Dark Palm elder’s surprise, his shadow blade bent in an awkward fashion and it bounced to the side. There was a loud bang as another part of the colosseum building blew up leaving another large hole behind.
Elder Ming retreated slightly, he looked with interest to the man that pimp slapped his attack to the side. This might not have been one of his strongest techniques but it still packed a punch and had the backing of his middle stage nascent soul realm.
“I told you to wait.”
Zhang Dong glared at the man that sent some edgy shadow blade attack towards him. His focus went back to the item he was holding, his opponent was probably shocked so he would think twice before using a half-assed attack like the one that he did.
‘There were some books about soul arts in the library from the secret ground… but this is a demonic technique.’
He was quite sure that if he destroyed this gem that was holding the souls they would be set free into the surrounding. The souls should then begin searching for their old bodies as they are naturally attracted to them. But normal souls couldn’t survive outside their bodies for too long, if they didn’t find a vessel they would vanish into nothingness. If the soul was from a stronger person, or it had strong desires it could survive longer. Some then turned into vengeful ghosts or decrepit souls that haunted the lands with broken memories of their past lives.
Matt was hesitating to destroy the gem, the possibility of releasing some vicious specters was high as he didn’t think that their bodies existed in this plane anymore. He also felt that there was a possibility of saving some of the souls that were trapped in there at a later date. So instead he guided his spiritual energy into the soul gem and began searching for the soul that belonged to his grandpa. It wasn’t that hard to find as it was one of the newer ones that had been trapped in this place it also was strongly reacting to his spiritual energy as if it was drawn to it.
‘There you are…’
Matt guided the soul from the gem to Zhang Jin’s body. People were curiously looking at what this nascent soul senior was doing, he was holding a gem with three of his fingers. A golden glow appeared once more as something akin to a glowing ball flew out of the jewel and quickly embedded itself between the old man’s eyebrows.
‘Did that work?’
Matt squatted down and held up Zhang Jin, resting his head on his palm as he tried examining the ‘patient’. He could feel that the soul was back in there, but it was weakened for some reason. The man didn’t seem like he would be waking up any time soon. He wasn’t sure if the demonic art caused some damage to Zhang Jin’s soul, but he didn’t really have enough time to figure this out as the other nascent soul cultivator was regaining his composure.
“Who are you… are you from the Dragon Gate Sect? the Demon Subduing Sect?… or maybe from the Limitless Sword Society?”
Matt turned to the man and looked up to him. He had a vague idea about these organizations but didn’t know anything specific. His retainers probably thought that he already knew the power structures of the lands and didn’t bother him with things related to them. They didn’t know that this person was naturally lazy when it came to politics and would rather spend time crafting or learning new skills. This did make him recall that he needed to come up with a cool name soon though.
While the two people were staring at each other, the unmoving bodies of Zhang Jin and Zhang Liu started slowly moving. Matt had realized that he had something akin to telekinesis after reaching the nascent soul level. This was also the reason that people at this level could fly without the use of treasures.
“Hmm, who might I be? Do you really want to know… but before that, what do you intend to do with these people?”
He pointed to the people behind him with his thumb. They were, of course, the members of the triforce alliance, the group was still standing there by this time all of them were wide awake. The bodies of the two Zhang members slowly hovered towards where that group was standing, Zhang Dong didn’t feel like it would be wise to fight while his two family members were out cold.
Wu Ming looked to the group of weak cultivators, not really sure what this man’s reasoning was.
“Them? They were disrespectful of the entire sect, they deserve nothing but death… but why would you…”
A lightbulb flashed above elder Ming’s head and he looked to the hovering bodies of the two people. This man had to be related to these two, why would he bother to save them otherwise. The eighteen-year-old youth was clearly his disciple and the old man had some similar facial features to the white-haired man.
At first, this Dark Palm elder had the misconception of thinking that this man was from some powerful sect and this Zhang Liu was just some disciple he picked up. It wasn’t odd for eccentric nascent soul masters to have disciples all over the place. But this man uncharacteristically cared too much for the others involved in this drama. Normal cultivators wouldn’t go out of their way to help the entire clan of their disciples while offending other powerful cultivators. This man was willing to do it though, this made Wu Ming think that he had a more intimate relation with them. He might even be one of them!
“You’re part of them… you’re not part of any sect, are you? You’re just a rogue cultivator!”
If this was the truth than Wu Ming didn’t have to worry about anything coming back to bite him. He was mostly being cautious as to not get their sect into some drawn-out war with another equal or more powerful sect.
He glanced at the man with the white hair, then to the people in the back that heard him speak. It was clear to him that he hit the nail on the head.
“You dare hide your realm in the territory of our sect!”
Being a nascent soul realm cultivator in this lands without a strong backing was something that you couldn’t do. You had to associate yourself with someone in power otherwise, a life of constant running was the only thing that waited for you. While Wu Ming was in the middle of his monologue though Zhang Dong managed to hover his disciple and grandpa to where his allies were. His whole body then started crackling with golden lightning, his aura expanding.
“Listen up everyone, all of you return to Spirit Spring City where my Zhang Clan is located, I will join you there shortly. That is the only place where you will be safe from the Dark Palm Sect. After I’m done with a couple of things I’ll return there!”
The moment he said those words the whole area was engulfed in golden energy, lightning bolts flickered everywhere and booms of thunder resounded through the destroyed colosseum. Everyone within the vicinity gasped in shock, the other Dark Palm cultivators around the area felt an oppressive force wash over them as they found themselves losing consciousness.
Wu Ming snorted a bit as he surrounded his body with a shadowy aura, this attack that he was seeing was quite weak. It didn’t affect him at all as he was able to block it with just a plain aura shield that every cultivator at his level was able to produce. He was mostly sure that this man had no backing, he would have announced his faction by this point if he was sane.
“Do you really want to go against my Dark Palm sect? You an everyone involved will be eradicated!”
Before the man could get an answer he could feel something emerging from the brightly lit area. This something was a large fist that was crackling with golden lightning energy coming right for his head. During the exchange, you could faintly hear the man in white talking.
“I’m going against it because I know that you’d do that, you moron.”