“You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

Zhang Dong was looking down a large toothy mouth that belonged to the vampire mistress. After his identity was revealed she transformed into quite the ugly monster that he was battling now. The alluring face that she once had was replaced by something that was more similar to a bat.

The monster was quite fast but not at a level that he couldn’t handle. The bigger problem was the other commander-class opponent that was hiding below ground. This one belonged to the strange mole people and each time he was about to deliver a devastating blow to the vampire lady he was interrupted.

It was the same pattern, after dodging the chomp to the face just before he could slice her head off a large number of spiky rock bullets was sent his way. The mole people could somehow travel through the earth as if it was made of water. Even when he tried to counter with his own ranged attack, he only managed to create a crater with no bodies left behind.

Even though the opponents traversed it as if it was an ocean, it was still hard rock mixed with lava. It presented a great natural barrier that protected them from harm, he would probably need to perform a more devastating attack if he wished to kill the leader.

The mole was also the one that somehow discovered his true identity. From what he knew, moles had a good sense of smell while they were practically blind. While he might not have carried the smell of humans thanks to his perfect disguise, some of the soil that he brought over was not from around here.

This was a miscalculation on his part but how should he have known that he also needed a change of clothes and perhaps a bath to infiltrate this place? Yet this would be a good learning opportunity for whenever he decided to infiltrate any further. These monsters didn’t seem to transfer information between each other too well, so his plan might still be salvageable.

‘First I need to survive though…’

After dodging a few sharp claws that had strange reddish soul energy empowering them, he was further pelted by fast-moving rocky projectiles. The mole person was a full-body refiner which made his Qi signature quite faint.

The commander class opponent was not the only mole man buried under the ground. He was skillfully using his men to fool his senses, thus he decided to rely on his AI assistant for help.

‘Bob, lock in on their leader's signature and present it on the map overlay.’

‘Affirmative.’

While visiting the hiding place of his predecessor he had learned that there might be something wrong with the system. Thus he was now unsure if he should be relying on his system. It was a hacked version of the old one but this didn’t mean that he was truly safe from the person that made the original, nor if the videos that he found at that secret ground were to be trusted.

For the time being, he needed to get rid of this problem, it seemed that this war would be the ending point of this world's scenario. If he could get through it alive he would have enough time to contemplate a strategy. Before that occurred he felt that he was free to use the system’s features to their fullest.

Thus now with a red marker on his map, he had a target to go towards. The vampire lady that was charging towards him was also a problem but first, he needed to focus on her ranged support. With a quick hand motion, he gathered energy before him, this was not a deadly attack but a quick distraction.

The whole place was bathed in a bright light that had a trace amount of holy energy. While it would not cause any lasting damage to the vampire it did stun her for a second. A second was enough time for him to charge down. While the flying opponent was shrieking loudly the moleman came to her rescue.

This time around though, Zhang Dong was ready. With the help of his sword, he performed a thrust towards the spot that the mole commander was. As he was assisting the vampire lady for a fraction of a second he remained in place and this was enough time for the sword of light to reach him.

“ARGH!”

While Zhang Dong could hear the monster's scream he was only able to wound him. Yet this was more than enough to cause him to retreat which was his plan all along. The vampire lady quickly recovered and when she spotted him floating in the air she gave chase. But now she would be in for a surprise as he intended to go through with his attacks now.

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It was clear to him that these people were similar to cultivators in some ways, one of them was their will to live and get stronger. The moleman was quick to abandon his ally after getting pierced by Zhang Dong’s sword of light that pierced through the earth. Thus he would be quite busy in trying to recover from the wound and not care about the vampire ally.

After repeatedly evading the claw attack that shredded the entire landscape along with the vampire underlings, Zhang Dong delivered a palm strike to the vampire monster’s side. This sends her flying into the nearby wall. Previously a barrage of precise rock bullets would cause him to fail but now there was nothing stopping him.

“Talpa tribe, Get back here!”

The vampire mistress shouted while also probably realizing that the molemen were on the retreat. They didn’t take orders from her and would clearly protect their own leader that was now injured.

He could not imagine his own sect members acting in this way if someone was in trouble. Some of his moral values had bled over onto his disciples and people who respected him. They would even offer up aid to ones outside their sect circle but they would still prioritize their own faction’s well-being over others.

Thus without the aid of the second commander type, the vampire lady would be in for a rude awakening. With his current skills and cultivation level, Zhang Dong wouldn’t even need to break a sweat. By utilizing his sword arts the claws that she was using were promptly cut.

By applying solar energy to go along with his holy aura the vampire was unable to regenerate her lost appendages. Even when retreating and absorbing her own followers the radiant energy that he injected into her could not be removed. Soon after a couple of exchanges she found herself with a missing leg and one leg less. Her wings were also removed which caused her to plummet down to the ground.

“Your allies have abandoned you but maybe I could spare your life if you answer a few questions.”

Zhang Dong’s map showed him that the moleman had retreated into the distance. Clearly, he had judged this to have been unfavorable to him and his tribe. Now he could try chasing after them but his capabilities of traveling underground were more limited. His opponent would probably inform the leaders about what transpired here so he didn’t have much time.

“You will pay for this, you lowly worm!”

“Sorry but I’m not into that sort of play, now we could do this the easy way or the hard way.”

He grasped the monster vampire that started to revert to her more humanoid form. She was missing some limbs and bleeding some strange dark blood. Yet even now she was showing resistance and an unwillingness to cooperate.

“The emperor will skin you alive!”

She continued to shout and thrash about until the bitter end. An attempt was made of capture yet before he could go through with it the vampire did something strange. With all of her limbs cut off and Zhang Dong ready with the prison medallion she knew what was about to happen. Before he could go through with it, her soul was shattered not by his hand but by her own.

“I will not be captured by the likes of you! The Emperor will avenge me, the great hunt will continue until these lands run red with blood!”

The body of the vampire was quick to crumble into dust the moment her soul ceased to exist. There was nothing left for his soul core to even absorb as she performed this strange technique that would bring true death to her. Without a soul remaining any chances of reincarnation or rebirth would be impossible.

He could only watch at the pile of gray sand that formed on the ground. Along with the vampire mistress' demise, the other vampires quickly went into a fit of rage. Yet there weren’t that many left and with one burst of energy, they followed their mistress into death.

“Well, this was an unfortunate turn of events… I don’t think I can catch up to those mole guys like this.”

With the monsters now all dead the stronghold that he was in felt rather empty. It was devoid of any signs of life and even now he was unable to find any survivors of the crafter-focused sect that was once here. He did manage to line his pockets with various treasures and his soul core did increase in size.

“This has left a bad taste in my mouth…”

After giving out a sigh he peeked into the replica medallion to make sure that the one prisoner that he took was still in there. While he had hoped to bring the leader over for questioning, her officer would probably be enough. He had already witnessed these monsters in action but the information that this being gave him would help him confirm his theories.

“It would probably be wise to retreat, for now, those guys will probably come back with reinforcements but before that…”

Before leaving this place he decided to leave a few presents for any of those hunt loving monsters. If he was lucky he would have fewer enemies to contend with and perhaps some more information.

With that in mind, he left a save point to travel back to later on. This place was close to what looked like an enemy camp. With his teleportation feature, he would be able to open a gate to get back here. He could also decide on another infiltration attempt after the coast was clear but for now, it was time to return to his own people and decide on a new set of plans.

“This might take longer than I thought.”

He gave this place that was devoid of life another look before his body vanished and appeared next to one of his trusted allies. It was a burly red-haired man that looked somewhat excited.

“Senior brother!”

“Hey there Qiang, how is the war effort going?”

“It’s great, I haven't had so much fun in years!”

“Fun, huh…”

The place he was in now was a battle zone. The enemies continued to come and his elders would be tested. This war didn’t seem to be close to ending and the resources of his enemies were unknown to him, only time would tell if he had made the right decisions as this battle continued.