“He really did a number on these people, there is nothing left…”

Like a light bug going through a dense dark bog, Zhang Dong continued to fly towards the center of this disaster. Dark Miasma was everywhere, it blocked out the sun and made the air toxic. If he didn’t have his holy aura around his body, his clothes would start to dissolve.

The lack of fresh breathable air was also a problem, luckily he knew a technique to purify it as he went through the area. It was an old one that almost any demon hunter knew, the days as his persona flowed back into his head as he tried to compare this area to some of the demonic outbreaks he had inspected in the past.

‘I have never went through demonic Qi this thick before, it must be feeding on the spirits of the dead… their souls are crying out in rage…’

Souls were very much a reality in this world and depending on how a person died they could turn into decrepit souls of the dead. These souls were skewed reflections of their former selves. They had jumbled memories of their lives but mostly what they focused was on the moment of death.

The demonic techniques would only enhance the rage in these souls and would help them be created. These phantoms would be formed in places of massacres and could cause harm to regular people that did not know how to protect their own souls.

These decrepit souls were broken, thus they longed to be whole again. There was only one thing that they desired and that was to eat the soul energy of others. If they gained enough they could even gain sentience yet again. They would turn into powerful demonic creatures with a proper form, even humanoid ones that just lusted for more soul energy.

“Here they come…”

For someone of his level of cultivation, it was not hard to pick up these demonic souls. Some of them looked like purple wills of wisps with human faces on them, while others had already consumed each other to form some larger horrors.

Luckily Zhang Dong had a lot of practice against foes like this. They were just the type of being that he could easily dispatch just by absorbing their energies with the help of his soul core.

As he stopped a glowing orb in the middle of his chest appeared. It started spinning around to create a vortex of energy that started pulling the souls into it. Unless these decrepit souls managed to turn into proper demonic beings, he could just siphon them dry.

At the Long Clan, he was able to gain a lot of holy energy and a new technique. Here on the other hand he could increase the size of his soul core. Even though he was making good progress it didn’t bring him much joy.

Many people died here, millions of lives had been lost just because Wang Long wanted more power. In a sense, it was his fault as if he never pushed his enemy's buttons he would probably not find himself backed into a corner.

At the time he didn’t know though nor did he predict that the maniac would go through something like this. His main goal was to protect his own sect and family. It was regrettable but he already made peace with himself that he wouldn’t be able to save everyone.

Thus any of the decrepit souls were absorbed into his body. This was only residual soul energy, the person it belonged to was already dead and had probably entered the reincarnation path.

At least that was what the people of this world believed in, what actually happened to the dead he was unsure. With beings able to pull his soul into a world like this, he wouldn’t be surprised if there were more than one answer.

‘There are a lot of them… I must be getting close to ground zero.’

The further he flew the more of these souls came out of the woodworks. They were all promptly absorbed by his soul core which slowly gained more power.

Finally, he arrived at a large gate, or at least what was left of it. The symbols for the Soaring Dragon Sect were there, cracked and hard to read. When he arrived there he also started hearing strange wails which didn’t sound like the souls.

“Zombies?”

The living dead were quickly drawn to the light that he was producing. In the miasma, he could see ugly creatures that inhabited dead human corpses. The decrepit souls invaded these shells to create monsters that now wandered these lands.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

‘How many of them are there…’

Zhang Dong didn’t expect to see this many monsters here. He expected to see some kind of ruin covered by miasma, instead, he saw jumbled-up messes of flesh wandering the streets. They were quite strange, not that familiar to regular zombies, they were much thinner. It was as if they were sucked dry by something before turning to nothing but skin and bones.

‘It could have been some kind of absorption technique…’

This was his best guess, Zhang Dong could absorb various energies like lightning. This could be the same for Wang Long that had switched to a demonic cultivator. These techniques focused on robbing people of their life force and transferring it to the demonic cultivator.

It wasn’t surprising that his opponent went with a technique like that, it would give him a lot of power fast. This world was filled with life, this Empire was many times larger than the planet that he had come from. He would be surprised if there were a trillion people living here as there were many cities that housed a hundred million residents.

While the miasma was thick, Zhang Dong could peer through it if he concentrated. Thus he used his spiritual sense to scour the land in all directions and only discovered more destruction and death.

It had not been long since this place was destroyed; it didn't seem that even the Heavenly Crane Sect had checked things out here. The people that were patrolling were probably temporary guards. He wouldn’t be surprised if they rushed a team of higher cultivators after he appeared there.

They were probably looking into the demonic energies and hoping to get to the potential Soaring Dragon Sect stash later. But he knew that his opponent Wang Long would probably have lifted anything worthwhile like spirit stones.

‘He was only the grandson of the Patriarch, this doesn’t mean that he knew every hidden treasure that some of the other elders could have kept hidden away, there could be places hidden away that he didn’t get to...also…’

Zhang Dong thought that there could be potential survivors. Judging how untrusting most of the high leveled cultivators were, it wouldn’t be strange for them to create something akin to a secret lair. In those hidden away places, there still could be people, some family members of those elders that could have run there.

‘I need to do something about this miasma… it's screwing up my sensors… but first, Bob scan the area, this demonic energy should have Wang Long’s handprints all over them, create an energy profile for him!’

“Affirmative.’

After getting Bob it felt like he had a chip inside of his brain. With his help, he could do some things that went over the old system. What he now needed to do was to fly around and gather more data, this took him to a large hole that was too uniform to not have been created by some kind of explosion.

The demonic energies were the strongest here, dark lightning and poisonous rain filled the hole that was at least five kilometers in diameter. He could feel an opposing energy to the demonic one that has not yet vanished.

‘Was this the last confrontation… this energy probably belonged to a great circle nascent soul master… maybe the sect Patriarch?’

He tried looking around to find a body but there was nothing but empty space here. Some terrible technique went off here that disintegrated everything in a wide radius. It was as if someone scooped the earth out of here.

‘Energy signature of target stored in the database.’

As he was looking around he heard Bob finish up on the scan. A new tracking option in his system appeared with Wang Long’s icon.

Out of curiosity, he activated the new feature but he quickly turned it off. This was due to the whole area turning red the moment he gave it a test run. The whole space was filled with Wang Long’s evil energies, it was normal for the system to pick color everything red.

‘I got what I came for, but I can’t just leave this place like this…’

It was time to clean things up. With Wang Long's energy fingerprint in his database, he could start the hunt. Before that could happen he needed to clear out this demonic energy that was messing with his detective work.

Zhang Dong placed his palms together and he started to concentrate. A burst of holy energy erupted from his body, it spread in every direction while he remained in the epicenter of this wide-open chasm.

‘First, let me get all of these decrepit souls before I continue.’

Without opening his eyes he created a large vortex that radiated pure life energy. The beckoning effect on these life force-hungry souls would be immense. In no time, a swarm of them appeared from all sides.

It was like a tsunami of soul energy coming his way but instead of washing him away, they were sucked into the vortex where his soul core was waiting for them. They were all sucked in while the other creatures like the zombies and lesser flesh demons could not reach him so far up in the air.

The souls that grabbed ahold of the human bodies could not be absorbed. If the decrepit soul bonded with the flesh too much then purifying it would be the only way. Only creatures that kept most of their soul form would be ripe for absorption.

….

“What is the meaning of this, couldn’t you have held him up for a few hours?”

“My apologies but he just jumped in through the formation, it was like paper to him…”

The elder that Zhang Dong met before he entered the tainted land was now being chewed up by another old man. There was a whole large force of nascent soul masters here now, it was clear that they came to investigate the inside of the formation but were a bit too late.

“E-elder…”

As the leader was shouting he heard someone call to him. When he was about to reprimand this junior he noticed it as well. Inside of the formation, there was some kind of strange light shining through the miasma.

“W-what is that?”

All of them had to cover their eyes as the glow only intensified and spread all the way towards the edges of the formation. Soon they witnessed a power they would never forget…