“They seem disorganized without their leader…”

An orb of shadowy energy that had a red tint to it floated towards Zhang Dong. This was what remained from the vampire look-alike that he had slain. All of the soul energy that this being sucked up was gathered there.

It was highly concentrated and seemed to still be alive, probably some of its being was still in there. It was not similar to any soul that he had ever seen before as it had its own unique fingerprint. Yet it was still made from the same energy and even though it was corrupt he could still absorb it.

This one in particular was brimming with vengeful spirits that had not been fully digested. But when he activated his own soul core they were quickly returned to the basic soul energy that all creatures had. The other creatures were already flying his way but after they saw their commander being absorbed soul and all they stopped.

“What is it? Not so brave when you can’t turn into a little soul and escape?”

It was obvious that these creatures were not easily killed and could in some way survive even if their bodies were destroyed. Probably if he didn’t have the help of his holy energy that he augmented with solar power these monsters would have been hard to kill. Even without examining their bodies, he could tell that they had good regenerative capabilities.

While this red variant of the invaders wasn’t as strong as the toothy bastards, they probably made up by being more resilient. Without the proper countermeasures, they would continue to regenerate their health even when facing off against a stronger opponent.

“You won’t be able to outlast me in a battle of attrition, now come!”

This was the perfect moment to strike, with sword in hand he took off towards the next target. When the number of enemies was greater it was smart to deliver a devastating blow to one of their generals, then their morale would crumble while he met less of a resistance.

But in this case, this was somewhat redundant. Zhang Dong's all-around strength was not something these foot soldiers could handle. The vast majority of them were around the core formation level with a handful of nascent soul equivalents here and there. Their leader that he had just slain with one swing of his sword would not pose a problem to his wife or Huo Qiang.

“Golden one… it’s the Emperor’s prey!”

One of the monsters shouted while he charged into the fray. His movements were swift and he did not plan on giving these invaders time to flee or attack. While they were shouting something about an Emperor or calling him the golden one, it was not the time for this.

The people from the Shadow Phantom Sect had a front-row seat. What unfolded before them was a one-sided battle where most of them could only see a golden blur flying around everywhere. Where the blur went hundreds of the red monsters just burst and then crumbled into dust. It was a one-sided execution as the red vampires could not contend with this degree of power.

Yet he did notice a strange similarity to the other variant of the invaders. Even though they had no chance of winning and the enemy was overwhelming them, they did not run. Instead, they continued to toss themselves towards him in a fit of rage. It was as if they didn’t care about their own lives in the slightest.

“I know that you can understand me, who is the Emperor that you spoke about? What plans do you have for these lands?”

At the end of the battle, Zhang Dong was left with one survivor. It was one of the more powerful red-skinned vampires that would be around the early nascent soul stage. At this very moment, he was holding him by the neck while trying to get him to talk. The structure of this invading empire was unknown to him so gaining some information from one of their officers would be interesting.

“Y-you… The Emperor will tear you limb from limb!”

But even though he continued to grip harder while also threatening this being with death they didn’t not talk.

“Do you really not care for your life? What was that about the golden one and being prey?”

“Y-yes, you are nothing b-but prey for slaughter, the Emperor will drink your blood and feast on your flesh… ugh…”

The ugly person that he was holding was promptly slapped by him as he was getting on his nerves. While he was not talking this didn’t mean that he would not later. His sect had many techniques that could force information out of other cultivators, if they would be successful on this creature remained to be seen.

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After a few smacks to the face, the creature was quick to quiet down. He then used his soul core to relieve this being of most of its energy before making him pass out. From his spatial ring, he brought out a large rectangular box that looked like a coffin.

The Dracula look-alike was then promptly deposited into it before he dumped him into the replica of the Dimensional Regalia. While his spatial ring could not house living creatures this spatial treasure could. In it, the monster would be forced to lay dormant until he dumped him at his sect ground. But before that happened he needed to finish up here, the Shadow Phantom Sect was still here and needed some looking into.

Though the mist that was covering this area had thinned out he could still feel vengeful spirits floating in the distance. There was quite the concentration of them in the sect, the large spire in the distance was still operational.

‘Now what do I do with you…’

Zhang Dong floated towards the somewhat damaged protective barrier that the vampire beings had been absorbing. It was truly created from soul energy and probably harvested from evil spirits. There was no corruption here, the Shadow Phantom Sect didn’t seem to be one of the evil sects yet what they were doing was quite close.

Now he needed to make a decision. He could either let them be and have the large spire in the background attract more dead spirits to these lands or he could destroy it. Without this monolith, some of the vengeful spirits could pass on.

What that entailed for them he didn’t know, while he could absorb souls' energy he did not know where all of their memories went after their passing. Perhaps these souls that he was seeing were not even part of the being that they came from. They could just be blobs of jumbled-up memories that were once a person.

The people in these lands believed in reincarnation. After a soul passed on it would have its memories erased and then reborn. Some strong individuals could retain their memories, sometimes fully but mostly partially. But was it due to the being that created this world or some kind of natural phenomenon that was even older, he had no idea.

In the distance, he could see the robed leaders of this sect. They were all wearing grayish robes with hoods that made them look like some cultist members. The most powerful of them was a really old man. Thanks to his spiritual sense he noticed that the man was a lot older than he should be.

‘His soul is close to two thousand years old, he must have been prolonging his life in some way.’

The man was on the lower end of a late stage nascent soul master. These types of prolonging techniques most of the time drained energy from the practitioner. He would not be surprised that when this man was at full strength he was much stronger. His soul was also strange, it didn’t really fit the body.

‘It’s as if the body is trying to reject the soul while slowly falling apart…’

Then he realized what kind of technique it was. This left quite the bad taste in his mouth, the old man before him had transplanted his soul into someone else's body. The body was trying to reject this soul and slowly decomposing. This kind of method would probably allow this person to prolong his life for some years, ten at most.

‘Has this old bastard been jumping from body to body for all these years…’

Zhang Dong moved towards the faint barrier that was between him and the Sect grounds. Just with a little tap of his index finger he opened up a large enough hole to slip inside. The people from the Shadow Phantom Sect were clearly stunned by this feat yet they could not do anything about it.

“W-we thank the Golden Dragon for giving us aid.”

The leader was quick to move towards his direction while clasping his hands and lowering his head. To these people that could somewhat measure the soul energy radiating from others, Zhang Dong looked like a true monster. After coming back from the other world his soul was larger than anyone.

“You there, did the owner of that body give away his body freely?”

The old man was asked a question while feeling a pressure that he had never felt before. While Zhang Dong was angry this was not something rare. Many sect members offered up their lives, some thought this was a very honorable act.

This would be true for his own people. He could imagine Zhang Zhi handing over his body if he ever asked him to. The man was already his number one fan and having your Patriarch live on inside your flesh would be the greatest honor to someone like that.

Thus he was still on the fence on what to do here. The old man could have just conditioned his people to think that giving up their bodies to the already advanced elders was the proper thing to do. But not like that sect members on the bottom could so anything if they had no power to speak of.

“Senior that is…”

“Let me ask you all, are you fine with this treatment? Do the juniors from the Shadow Phantom Sect desire to have their bodies taken to serve? Does everyone know about this fact?”

He decided to go with another approach. The old man would probably not tell him the truth but thanks to his senior aura he might be able to affect the juniors in the crowd. They might have been too afraid to speak out otherwise.

Yet, from the expressions on their faces, he knew that they were aware of this fact. No one took a step forward to go against their elders. This was their way of life and it was how they managed to survive all these thousands of years. They were afraid of change, without the old elders that made them strong their sect would not be able to survive and they would be as good as dead.

“I see, I hope that you will change your mind if you manage to survive…”

Without wanting to be stuck here for longer he zoomed over to the monolith that was giving out the strange signal. While he would not destroy it, he could make it less potent. With time the treasure would stop functioning. The people living here would have enough time to find a new way that perhaps didn’t cause their own to lose their life.