Spirit Spring City, in the main clan building.
A large number of Zhang Clan members were being noisy. They all had solemn expressions on their faces while discussing the next plan of action. People like Zhang Zhi were here as well, he had left Moonlight city to help Zhang Dong. By the time he was going past the Zhang Clan main base, the others had already been returning here on their large flying ships. He met up with them half away and escorted them back to the main Zhang Clan city.
The Zhangs weren’t the only family here, the Huo Clan, as well as the Feng Clan elders, were all here. Their juniors were resting in other areas together with people that got injured. The individuals here were vaguely familiar with each other. The Zhang Clan members could not deny Feng Liena and Huo Qiang participation rights in this discussion as they had quite a heads up over them in cultivation. It was knowns that the two were on good terms with the Patriarch, so they mostly everyone agreed to let them participate.
“How is Elder Jin’s condition?”
Zhang Zhi asked while looking to the side to some of his family clan elders that were wearing white medical robes.
“He is stable, his body has fully recovered but…”
The person responding was quite an old looking doctor, his white beard reached all the way to his navel.
“But?”
Zhang Zhi narrowed his eyes while frowning, he didn’t like the tone of that reply.
“There are no injuries on the grand elder’s body, but he still isn’t waking up, he is in a coma, we don’t know why…”
The old man’s forehead started glistering with sweat while he was answering the sole core formation elder from their clan. He was just a simple foundation establishment elder and didn’t know what was wrong with Zhang Jin.
“It was that Yang Kai… he did something with the old man’s soul!”
Huo Qiang spoke up while slamming his fist down on a nearby table, the table not being able to contain the force and cracking into several pieces. The other people in the vicinity quieted down, while Feng Liena shook her head along with the other two core formation cultivators that were next to her.
Huo Qiao stepped forward while coughing into his hand while trying to get the attention away from his rowdy young master.
“Yes, Yang Kai from the Dark Palm Sect performed some kind of demonic technique on Zhang Jin. Luckily the Zhang Patriarch managed to return your Elder’s soul… I think. We will probably need to wait for him for a more throughout explanation.”
The Zhang family members’ eyes gleamed slightly at the mention of their favorite Patriarch, but then they remembered the situation they were in now and went back to their gloom.
“He told us to gather here, has there been any word of his whereabouts?”
The Huo elder posed the question that was on his mind, he was still apprehensive about coming here instead of the city his clan was located in. He couldn’t go against his young master’s orders though, so he followed him here.
“We tried contacting the Patriarch, but he is out of range of the communication treasure, he must have been traveling in the opposite direction of the city…”
Another side elder chimed in, the communication jades that people were using in this world had a limited range. The one that the Patriarch had was already an upgraded product. But even it wasn’t able to cover the whole area of the Azure Dragon empire that they were in, things like satellites that furthered the signal didn’t exist in this world yet.
There were devices akin to telephone towers, but they were placed by the governing sect and they would need to get their approval to use them which wasn’t possible.
“Is that so…”
“Think we’ll have to wait for Senior Dong to arrive, I trust that he will arrive just as he promised.”
Feng Liena’s sweet voice was heard from the side, the woman was sitting down with a couple of her family members. The old granny from the wind clan was already sending communications towards their own city. The information about the Dark Palm sects further movements was paramount, for now, they didn’t get anything substantial besides some rumors that didn’t go anywhere.
“That’s a given, Senior brother wouldn’t lie, if he said that he would be here he will.”
The red-haired Huo master spoke out with a cheerful tone, but this didn’t change the atmosphere in this large room. The biggest question on the mind of the people here were the Patriarch’s whereabouts. Also if he was still alive and if he was strong enough to go against this behemoth of a sect himself.
At this time, somewhere in Dark Palm Sect territory, the man that the people of Spirit Spring City were longing for was busy dodging more Qi attacks.
“You old doo-doo heads never give up, do you?”
He chucked a spear of concentrated lightning Qi at the group behind him. Three of the elders instantly reacted, they placed themselves in a triangle formation with one person on top and two on the bottom. The air rippled and an energy shield appeared, the moment the golden spear of lightning collided with the barrier, the golden light vanished and the attack faded.
The quintet of old nascent soul monsters had been chasing this man for a couple of days now. They had gotten used to his attack patterns and knew well how to deflect or defend them by this point. The long chase was slowly getting to them though, they were people that had a short fuse.
The man kept egging them on with strange insults and they couldn’t shorten the distance at all which put the group at a deadlock. Zhang Dong that was fleeing couldn’t escape but the five elders couldn’t catch up to him either. They all were nascent soul cultivators and even with Zhang Dong’s Qi reserves getting lower he could still flee for quite some time and his pursuers knew this.
“We must seize him!”
“This farce has been continuing for far too long!”
Matt moved his attention forward and looked at his system window. He set up a waypoint for a certain location and was rushing towards it. If his plan worked well, then he wouldn’t have to flee anymore and these five stooges would be dealt with, or at least busy with something else.
His enhanced vision picked up on a large structure. It was a large wall akin to the one that you would see back in China back on his mother planet. It was much wider and larger though and had large lookout towers spaced out through it.
‘There… I’m close to the border… time to give those acting skills of mine another go…’
“TIS I GRAND ELDER WU MING, LET ME THROUGH!”
At a time like this, he wished he had the cash shop, buying skills that would help him get out from situations like these would make things much easier. Still, the teleport feature would be enough for now he just needed to make his next action stick.
He flew past the large wall and ignored the lookout towers as they still belonged to the Dark Palm Sect. The people on the walls recognized him and didn’t activate the protective formation as Wu Ming was quite a famous sect elder. What he was looking for was a similar type of structure that was just one kilometer away from this wall.
“STAND WITH ME, BROTHERS AND SISTERS, LET US DESTROY THIS WEAK DEMON SUBDUING SECT. THE TIME HAS COME TO ERADICATE THESE WEAKLINGS. FOR THE DARK PALM SECT!!!”
His voice filled the whole area, anyone far and wide could hear his proclamation of war against the Demon Subduing Sect. He was still wearing the Dark Palm elder robe of Wu Ming and still had his appearance. He had flown to the bordering area of the two sects that were opposing each other. He wasn’t sure what the deal with these two powers was, but he didn’t care. The important thing was that the other party was a similarly strong faction and they were hostile with the people that were chasing him.
The four elders that were hot on Zhang Dong’s heels noticed that they had reached all the way to the border area without even noticing. He had annoyed them all well enough for them to not notice where they were headed.
“What is that person doing…”
“Oh no… he still has Wu Ming’s appearance! Quick stop him!”
There were some other Dark Palm members stationed here. This was the place that Elder Zhu was afraid of getting sent to when his spirit stone theft came to light. Not far away there was a nascent soul elder from the Dark Palm sect, he felt that there were people from his faction here so he decided to see what this was all about.
The same thing was happening on the other side on the Demon Subduing Sect’s side. There was an elder in the nascent soul realm stationed on guard duty. He snapped out of his cultivation trance as he noticed someone powerful going past the border between them and the Dark Palm sect.
“What is this? You dare break the armistice?”
The whole place started buzzing with sound. Everyone on the Demon Subduing Sects side shouted out while pointing at a Dark Palm cultivator with salt and pepper hair. The man in question stretched his hand out while gathering a large amount of spiritual energy in front of it. In no time a large blade of wind formed, it shot forward right at the wall and collided with the protective formation that was activated by the other side the moment they heard the man’s loud booming voice.
What followed was a barrage of multiple wind blades that caused the defensive formation that was able to defend against early-stage nascent soul attacks to buckle. Matt was using cultivation attacks uncharacteristic to his cultivation method as he didn’t want the Demon Subduing sect to recognize him by them later on. The Dark Palm sect already knew that he was all about lightning, but not like these two forces trusted each other to believe any kind of info that they shared.
“Multiple nascent soul elders from the Dark Palm Sect are attacking us, send help immediately!”
A request for help was sent out the moment the enemy was spotted. The people here weren’t prepared for such a huge attack though, their walls were barely holding up against one of the enemies old masters, what would happen if all of them joined in. The nascent soul master that was on the defending side managed to arrive in the nick of time.
“Divert all power to the defensive formation, we must last until the main sect sends help! We can’t let this wall fall!”
The man diverted all of his spiritual essences into the formation while placing himself at a certain spot that acted as its core. He was only one person and the other side had six people of his caliber, the only thing he could do was to burn through his Qi and hope that help would come in time.
The five people that were on Zhang Dong’s toes finally arrived, only to see their target kicking up quite a storm. Part of the defensive wall was already broken, the people on the other side were all frantically powering their defensive formation to last through this barrage.
“Happy to see you brothers and sister, don’t worry I’ve already started with our planned assault!”
The five looked at the Wu Ming imposter and were about to shout back at him, but before they could the man’s voice boomed out again.
“I WU MING FROM THE DARK PALM SECT WILL TRY TO GET TO THIS FORMATION FROM UNDERNEATH. YOU, MY FELLOW SECT MEMBERS, CONTINUE THE ASSAULT FROM HERE”
Again his voice was heard by anyone within a ten-kilometer radius. The moment he finished his sentence his body blurred and he dived into the rocky ground bellow while spinning like a bayblade. In mere moments he was gone leaving these five old people here, the group just looking at the partially damaged formation wall and the hole in the ground.
“What? …”
“We must catch him and discuss the situation with the Demon Subduing sect, he won’t be able to get past this formation alone and now he can’t run!”
The leader of the group spoke up, not sure what the man was trying to achieve. If they apprehended him they could simply clear things out with the other party, they weren’t fools so they should see it their way.
“Wait… he… he vanished? I can’t feel his Qi anymore, how can this be!”
The five looked a the hole beneath them, just a second ago they could clearly feel the man’s spiritual signature. But now, there was nothing.
“He couldn’t have just vanished, just like his disguising technique he must have used something to hide his presence, find him!”
Two of the elders dived right into the hole, he couldn’t have gotten far and his disguise was just a third rate skill. This other technique shouldn’t be a problem either is what these elders were thinking.
The two returned after a minute, their heads lowered one of them scratching his neck.
“He… he wasn’t in the hole… it didn’t even go in that deep…”