“Zhu, we must hurry, the beasts are coming, don’t look back!”

“Why is this happening to us?”

A small group of cultivators was flying through the air. Two of them were on flying swords while the rest was tightly packed on a small flying ship. Behind them, they could hear loud screeching noises similar to what bats would sound like.

The two on the swords were core formation experts at an advanced age. In the boat were people that were wearing similar robes with the same clan symbol engraved on them. It was clear that these people were trying to flee.

“I don’t know, it doesn’t matter, we must make it to the border! My distant cousin knows one of the elders there, it's our only chance!”

The old man spoke to the old woman that he called Zhu. But she quickly shouted back at him while being worried.

“You haven’t seen him in over a hundred years, you don’t even know if he is still at the border wall, what if the sect turns their blades against us along with these monsters?”

This caused the old man’s brows to furrow but he just shook his head.

“What choice do we have? Do you wish to turn around now?”

He then pointed towards the distance where a cloud of gray mist started appearing. From within the strange sounds resonated and continued to increase in loudness. Soon the grayish coloring started to shift into a dark red while winged monsters with fangs and teeth emerged from within. Their strange shrieks caused everyone to shiver in fear.

Try they did, but their flying treasures were just not fast enough. Every second the monsters got closer and even when everyone continuously boosted the flying speed with their own cultivation but it was not enough. The creatures were gaining ground and soon they would massacre them just like they did their whole city.

“Wait what’s that?”

When all hope was lost the old man looked into the distance where the border region would be. They were nowhere near it at this point but some kind of blue light appeared out from the distance. It was followed by an earth-quaking roar and soon the true nature of this blue hue was revealed.

“A water dragon?”

The creature looked to be made from water-based spiritual energy. It was quite huge and many times larger than the ship the people were staying on. As the blue watery behemoth passed by them the old man noticed that there were several cultivators inside it.

“It’s a battle formation! Did the sects decide to do something about these monsters?”

While the old man was full of questions he also noticed that this large dragon wasn’t the only one. Soon to the side, another one appeared but instead of being made from water, it was scorching with red fire energy that was luckily being contained thanks to the water elements from the first dragon.

It was quite the spectacle, even more so when a third dragon made from earth and a fourth one made from wind energy entered the fray. They were constructs made by cultivators in a special formation and each one had the strength of an early nascent soul master.

The dragons used their breath attacks on the strange bat creatures that were following them. With them being now busy the small group of cultivators was free to make their escape. Their speedy pace had slowed down as they continued to gwack into the distance where the large-scale battle was taking place.

“Identify yourself!”

After a few moments had passed a loud voice was heard by everyone. In the direction the dragons came from, the old man heard someone call out to him. When looking at a scary-looking man that was built like a brickhouse was staring at him.

“W-we are from the Chao Clan, we had to abandon the city that had been overrun by strange human-like beasts.”

The man that he was speaking with was clearly a nascent soul master. After hearing the quick explanation he just gave out a grunt before monologuing to himself.

“Damn pests are everywhere, Is that youngster punishing me by sending me here?”

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The man’s robe was unfamiliar to him but he recognized the symbols that were attributed to the United Element’s Sect. This sect was said to be on the decline before their Patriarch was announced to be the Emperor’s blood brother.

“S-seniorr…”

The old man wanted to ask if it was okay for them to continue but the man he was talking with shrouded his body in a layer of flames and took off towards the battle. Many other cultivators with the same robes zoomed through the air while mostly ignoring them.

“E-elder, what should we do? Don’t think these people are hostile…”

The old man nodded at the person named Zhu and they soon corrected their flight path to head towards where these people came from. They came to the conclusion that this sect was their best bet at survival as they seemed to be managing the monsters that could not push further and give chase anymore.

….

“Please don’t push, we will be performing a quick examination before you are allowed to move through.”

A person dressed in a white robe shouted with the aid of their Qi. His words traveled far and wide to the mass of people that were both on the ground and in the air. Everyone was standing before a very high wall that was as tall as any skyscraper. At the highest point, a certain white-haired person appeared. He looked into the vast expanse while spreading his spiritual sense in all directions.

‘Huo Qiang’s father is doing a good job at contending with these vampire monsters, maybe I should make good use of his battle skills, he is above the other early stage elders that just managed to push through.’

A few weeks had passed since Zhang Dong’s failed infiltration attempt. With the help of some unsavory techniques, they were able to get some information from the creature that he had captured. The scientists from his sect were more than happy to experiment and test out some weapons on the creature that was susceptible to solar energy.

There were a few things that they discovered after the autopsy and questioning. One was that this creature was originally human. Yet through some strange techniques, it had become disfigured and gained the enhanced traits that it had. The consensus was that their body refining technique had changed their previous physiology at a level that even affected their children.

“The great hunt huh…”

Zhang Dong murmured to himself while watching a small group of cultivators arriving from where he sent the core formation battalion to. The resources he had were still limited, there was no way for him to just pump out more nascent soul masters without any end. Instead, he used his much larger stockpile of core formation experts.

While they were nowhere near the power level of a nascent soul master, there were ways to improve their fighting capabilities. These were with various attacking formations that he had plenty of time to improve. It was much better to gather up the core formation experts to form an elemental formation dragon than to have them wandering around the battlefields alone.

The enemies they were facing against were quite powerful. They had many leaders that were around the nascent soul level. Instead of sending his men to just be massacred, they could now be useful. While the formation was more in line with a soul beasts strength they would act as support for his own nascent soul masters,

“Patriarch!”

“Give me the report.”

“As you wish!”

While contemplating this war one of the soldiers arrived to give him more information. While the mapping feature showed him the highest concentration of the enemies, there were also various stealthy scouts scouring the area for more information.

The information came in a communication jade that he quickly crushed into powder. In it he was informed about the casualty count as well as on which clans and sects were eradicated in the process of this ‘hunt’

While the man that delivered the information removed himself he was left with lingering feelings of anger. The monsters that he was fighting with now apparently took pleasure in hunting, if the prey was strong they enjoyed it even more. But there were ones like these vampire bastards that preferred murdering the weak and defenseless.

Their leader apparently took a liking to his performance when he destroyed their first base. While he did not make his way into these lands this could change depending on how much pushback they would offer them.

Zhang Dong decided to spread out his umbrella over these lands somewhat further than he had originally intended. Thanks to this many refugees flocked from the areas that were in chaotic combat with the invaders. Luckily there was enough food to go around, at least that was easy to produce in this world.

Initially, the plan was to wait it out but things were moving faster than he expected. The creatures didn’t meet much resistance from the sects and the lands along with their people fell. It was unknown if each of these invading tribes just killed the population or enslaved them instead.

For some reason, the attackers didn’t care about the cultivation of treasures of the sect. They were more interested in satisfying their cardinal desires of hunting or slaughtering. Due to this fact, his sect was able to confiscate quite a large amount of these materials from each city they managed to liberate.

With the ever-growing resources came the increase in their strength as he could use some of them to create more nascent souls or even core formation elders. While these new experts and masters would not be as trained in their arts they were better than nothing.

“Patriarch, the elders are waiting.”

“Good, I’ll be right there.”

Another messenger arrived to inform him about the meeting that he had ordered. After some walking, he arrived at a makeshift gathering room where a bunch of the new nascent soul masters he helped create were. All eyes were on him and while in the past this would have caused him to be nervous now it almost felt natural.

“Listen up, I’m sure you know what this is about, I would have not gathered you all here otherwise.”

The old men and women that were reinvigorated with their new nascent soul strength all nodded. They all knew that soon they would be taking the fight to the monsters that were ravaging their lands, it was time to launch a counter-attack and to see if they were ready for victory.