‘Are those people? They look kind of off…’

Zhang Dong was forced to wait as the chaotic storms of elemental energies slowly cleared out. The path that was left was about one kilometer in width. When he strained his eyes he could see some strange flying objects coming his way, it was clear that one of the bridges between the empires had opened up.

‘Is this the first one… or are there more appearing now?’

He had no way of checking for this information, probably the only one that could answer his question was the Azure Emperor. They did possess a magical map of the entire empire in that one secret location. While the Long Clan was added as a side faction, the people there didn’t trust him enough for him to communicate with them.

The only person with an approval rating over 50% was the Azure Emperor. But even he had clear doubts with Zhang Dong, their relationship had just started which was understandable. Even between family members, the number would mostly cap out at 60%.

Even with his enhanced vision, he had trouble picking out their forms but then, he finally saw them. From afar they looked like normal humanoids but then the large teeth became apparent.

The person that he spotted was about two meters in height and his skin was dark yellow. His hands were covered in wraps and he was wearing something similar to a tank top shirt. Thanks to this he could see the exposed bone spikes that were coming out of his arms.

Then there was the face, the man had no hair at all instead there were some kind of strange dark bumps. His mouth even when not opened showed off a large amount of sharp yellow teeth that grind against each other constantly. It didn’t seem that this person was quite able to close it as the abundance of teeth made it impossible.

‘Is it some kind of demonic cultivator? I can’t sense any evil energy from them… it feels more like Dao of earth.’

There were other humanoids of this kind there that varied in appearance somehow. They all lacked hair and had those spiky bone appendages protruding from their bodies. He even spotted some that had a more feminine shape but still had no hair on their body. The closer they got the more they radiated earthen energy and the skin looked dried up and leathery.

“W-what is that? Why are those people coming from beyond the wall? Quickly send a message to the sect, we might be under attack!”

The people from the sect that he came from finally noticed that there was someone moving through this parted storm. From Zhang Dong’s perspective, their sect would probably take the brunt of this attack and by the energies, some of these attackers were radiating, it wouldn’t be easy to defend.

The flying objects that they came from varied. Some ships were clearly made from bones of beasts while other were actually living ones. There was one in particular that stood out, a large flying worm that had some kind of strange building on its back. This creature radiated might at the level of a nascent soul cultivator and there were more coming from that building.

‘They don’t look like the type that would be willing to talk things out, but I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover…’

Zhang Dong was willing to give these people the benefit of the doubt. Though they might look like monsters out of a horror movie, it might have just been due to how their part of the empire was created. Maybe there were other ways to go about this war, there was no rule that he needed to defeat every empire.

Some could be willing to work things out and not shed the blood of others. The cultivator types were motivated by resources that were all finite. If there was a way to share some of them to evade conflict then he was willing to haggle a bit.

Regretfully it would quickly become apparent that at least this group wasn’t willing to talk. While he was waiting for them to get closer the people from the sect that escorted him here made a break for it.

They could clearly feel the pressure that some of the beings here were giving off and decided that fleeing was the best option for survival. Contacting their sect was one thing but surviving this was another. They didn’t even look Zhang Dong’s way when they decided on this as he was clearly only an outsider.

But the people that were approaching from this bridge between empires were quick to notice this. The person that he noticed at the front turned his head towards the group of fleeing cultivators.

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He moved his hand towards his own shoulder and quickly yanked out one of those spikes that was sticking out. This bone spike increased in size in a matter of moments and soon it was clear to Zhang Dong what he was about to do.

The toothy person then took out a spear-throwing position. The right arm that he was holding this bone spear with started getting bigger. His muscles bulged out to strange proportions before he launched this projectile towards the fleeing group of cultivators.

Once thrown the bone spear produced a sonic boom and was quickly closing the gap. They clearly heard the resounding boom behind them but when they turned around it was already closing in on them. Before it fully reached them the spike burst into many slightly smaller ones, each one heading for a cultivator’s head.

“N-no!”

They cried out in horror as they tried to protect their bodies but these bone spears seemed to home in on them. Luckily for them, there was a person nearby that could protect them.

Not long after the initial sonic boom was heard it was followed by another strange sound. A certain white-robed cultivator appeared right out of nowhere between this small group and the flying projectiles. Without raising his hand he let them collide with the spirit shield that was surrounding his body.

The bone material was quite sturdy but even it wasn’t able to pierce through Zhang Dong’s natural defenses. They crumbled into tiny pieces that bounced off to the sides, when they collided with the earth below they caused small explosions.

‘Hm… about the strength of a middle stage nascent soul master, nothing I can’t handle.’

Zhang Dong just stood there and gave out a sigh. He had a decision to make, either he continued on his previous journey to follow Wang Long. If he did that, he would probably have to abandon this sect. They would probably all perish under the onslaught of these unfamiliar beings.

Then there was option two, in which he would remain here and hold them off. He wasn’t sure if there was more of them coming but normally a scouting troop would be sent out first in situations like this. Only after clearing out a path for the main forces' arrival would they venture forth through this bridge in full force.

‘If I take care of the scouting party… they might halt their advance for a while, it would also give these guys time to evacuate. Would I have been able to get to Wang Long if I didn’t get distracted…’

This was a truth that he would have to live with now. Maybe if he ignored the damage that Wang Long had done along the way, he could have gotten to him before these people arrived. Now he opened a path to more trouble.

‘No, I can just look forward, I knew that I couldn’t save everyone.’

He turned his head towards the group of people behind him.

“What are you waiting for, get out of here if you don’t want to die and pass on this message to the other sects, the empires beyond the barrier have come to take outlands, now begins the time of war.”

The other sects had no idea who these people were, if he didn’t inform them of the other empires they might think that it's just another demonic sect or something.

“Empires from beyond? War? What does elder…”

“Stop talking and go, I can’t protect you and hold them off at the same time.”

The cultivator that he was talking to, which was the main elder, quickly shut his mouth. Without replying he quickly zoomed into the distance and the people with him did the same.

As they retreated, there was another large booming sound from the bridge.

When he turned around the sky was slowly getting blacked out by a large amount of these bony projectiles. All of them were aimed at him instead of the group that was fleeing.

“You guys are quite the impatient lot…”

He at least thought that after blocking one of the projectiles they would think twice about attacking the cultivator capable of just bouncing it off with his aura. It seemed that these beings were as bloodthirsty as they looked.

‘Wish I had my dragon with me…’

Without his soul beast to perform large energy attacks, it was up to him. Luckily after paying a visit to the other world, he had learned ways of producing magical attacks with his spiritual energy. He was now able to use some of the ambient spiritual energy in the world to save up on energy.

Thus he reached out with his hand forward and quickly produced a magical diagram in the air. It was in the shape of a circle and had various strange symbols that looked like runes on it. This magical circle quickly started to spin around while giving out lightning energy, before the rain of fast-flying arrows hit him, the magical spell erupted forward.

A massive blast of lightning energy flew forward in a wide cone. The moment this energy collided with these bony spears they started crumbling under its might. The conal attack didn’t travel far as Zhang Dong’s focus was on defense first. Before that group of elders made a run for it, he felt like it would be best to not let any of these projectiles through.

This time around, the scale of his technique was quite grand. It seemed that these attackers were not fully braindead berserkers, after he managed to protect himself a second time. The large flying creature halted its advance and all the other flying ships also came to a halt. It was clear that now they were taking him as a serious threat.

‘Are the big boys coming out to play?’

After the bone rain subsided he started feeling beings with stronger spiritual energy emerging from the stronghold that that huge worm creature was carrying. While Zhang Dong was somewhat confident in his own abilities, he was not sure where his limits were at this moment.

His cultivation realm was quite new and he did not know if these beings followed the same rules as people from this empire. It was time to test if he was really ready for this coming war.