‘Is that it? No wonder they are assured of their victory’
“Get ready, here they come, activate the soul-sapping formation when I give the signal.”
The group of cultivators that were with him looked out into the distance but they couldn’t see much in the thick fog that was approaching. It was a mass of reddish mist that looked ominous yet it didn’t seem to contain any enemies.
This was obviously due to the fact that the monsters had shifted into a soul-like form. It would not be possible for anyone not versed in soul arts to see their true appearance. These techniques were quite hard to counter as even with Qi attacks the user would not take any damage while also being able to sap away the soul energy from their enemies.
Yet in this case, they had underestimated their opponents that had Zhang Dong on their side. With his knowledge about souls and his soul core, he was more than ready to take care of these invaders. While it was hard to counter soul creatures, if you went through proper preparations it was quite easy.
“Now!”
He finally gave the order after the swarm of the monsters made their way over the trapping formation. It was placed through a large gorge that was surrounded by mountains and even though this mist was covering a lot more space, the monsters inside were more concentrated.
With the signal being given the people that were hiding in the mountains and outside the gorge started performing hand signals. Their bodies started to quickly radiate spiritual energy that was siphoned into the formation points.
At the bottom of the gorge, the earth started shining brightly with a silvery light that elongated through most of its length. Then out of nowhere shiny swords made from special energy shot out to create a prison of light.
“Fools, do you think you can contain me with this?”
The moment the prison of shiny swords formed he heard a booming voice from within. This was followed by a spiritual pressure that was akin to the horned monster he met at the fortress he destroyed.
“So you are one of the horny ones huh? Don’t think that this soul prison is ordinary!”
Some of the light swords started being pushed back by the crimson mist that turned into something that looked like blood. Yet even when it tried to push the formation was steady and stabilizing.
“How is it? You don’t seem to be able to break free.”
The formation that formed started constricting while the swords wrapped around the red mist. Even though it seemed like there was a lot of space for the mystified monsters to squeeze through, something was keeping them from moving through the gaps. Soon enough they started switching into their corporal bodies in hopes of breaking out.
“Too late for that now just become fuel for my soul core instead!”
Zhang Dong used the time that they were confused to position himself above the orb of constricting swords. He pointed out with his finger which produced a golden light. In a flash, the silver light turned golden along with the entire formation. This turned a trap into something akin to an oven and the souls of these vampires would be the ones being cooked.
“No, what is this, my strength it’s being drained away? You fools what are you doing, break through this prison at once, your lord commands it!”
The leader’s form had slowly taken shape. It reminded Zhang Dong of every other Dracula look-alike that he had seen in popular media. He was wearing a suit with a black cape that was crimson on the inside. Yet even when he was taking form his powers were being drained and flowed into Zhang Dong’s soul core.
‘Are they the soul vampires or am I one?’
Zhang Dong could hear the monsters screaming inside the constricting prison of light. The spiritual energy flowed into him and his core started to bloat up. After absorbing so much holy energy back at the Emperor’s home, he was finally equaling it out with all the soul energy he achieved through this war. After this he would need to shift towards lightning energy otherwise he was risking an imbalance of his three elements.
‘This is going well… a bit too well…’
While the sword prison that started out with a circumference of half a kilometer shrunk down by ten times, there was something fishy. To the sides, he could see some of the gray mist turning crimson and shifting into a few red vampires. This was planned beforehand as it was somewhat impossible to catch them all in one spot. Some of the minions were not caught in the initial formation and for some reason remained stationary on the outside.
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‘Why aren’t they trying to help their master, was him shouting around some kind of trick to shift the attention away from them if that’s the case…’
The formation was at its end, every sprinkle of soul had been suctioned away into his soul core yet, some stragglers remained. When looking at one in particular he realized that he had been fooled by the main vampire lord.
“Something akin to soul transfer? Is it bloodline related?”
At first, the monster took the shape of a regular underling. Yet after Zhang Dong’s gaze turned to it, the being started to shift. Its face took on the appearance of the Dracula look-alike in a matter of seconds as if he was him from the start.
There were many strange techniques in this world. During the soul absorption, there was some kind of strange signal that was sent out. He felt it slightly but recognized it too late, this was probably the essence of the vampire lord’s soul which took over one of its underlings. With the flesh being similar the stronger soul had no trouble in taking over.
“So, these tribe members of yours are nothing more than vessels?”
“Savage, you will pay for this transgression, I wanted to offer your weakened body up to the Emperor but now you will die to sustain me!”
“What’s with that Emperor of yours, is he my number one fan or something?”
While the lord of the vampires was out of his prison it didn’t mean that he was fully recovered. The invaders suffered a lot of casualties already and any normal leader would probably sound the horn to retreat. Without the soul formation there to stop them, they could probably fade away to the sides to make it hard to chase them down. Instead, the remaining soldiers started screaming loudly while tossing themselves at the people operating the formation.
“Everyone, attack!”
Zhang Jin was quick to react as it was time for phase two of the plan. The nascent soul masters were waiting for this very moment and hiding. With the enemies concentrating on the formation masters, they were susceptible to another surprise attack.
Finally, he was not the only one putting himself in the line of fire. Normally he would need to take care of the leader while constantly evading the minions. While they couldn’t cause much damage they were quite annoying, one misstep could be deadly.
About eighty percent of the vampires had been trapped in the sword prison that was close to vanishing. If they managed to clear out the remaining twenty percent then the leader would not have anyone to slip his soul into. Even though it might have looked like a godly technique to the untrained eye, there was a weakness.
As every technique that was not at the immortal grade level, this one probably had one too. Zhang Dong could only speculate as he didn’t have any specific knowledge about it. Either there was a limit of times that the vampire could use this body swap art, or there was a limited range.
Thus the battle started with the Dracula look-alike pulling out a stylish crimson rapier. It seemed that Zhang Dong would be involved in a lot of thrusting motions as the enemy switched into a fencing position. With one swift thrust, he made the space around the blade turn crimson while shooting forward at a staggering speed.
He quickly threw himself to the side but even then he felt something grazing his cheek. Strange demonic energy started to invade his body but it was quickly repelled by his holy energies that were mixed together with sun rays.
“That was fast…”
The opponent he was facing was no beginner, the speed that this weapon could produce was something reaching the height past the great circle of the nascent soul level.If he was not the bane of demonic cultivators this one attack would have been his ruin.
“How could this be, what are you?”
Dracula noticed that something was off, the moment he saw the small wound on Zhang Dong’s cheek he was assured of his victory. His devilish grin quickly turned into a frown when the gash didn’t progress further but instead vanished.
“I’m probably the only person immune to demonic arts, you won’t be able to defeat me with tricks like that.”
“We shall see you savage!”
Another high-speed thrusting attack flew his way but this time around, instead of his cheek a little bit of his hair got tangled up into it. After the second one, Zhang Dong had figured out the art. While it was something that exceeded even his perception to a point, the attack in itself wasn’t that hard to evade if he predicted where it would land.
While this sounded easy in theory it would not be possible without his keen battle senses that he had honed for some years. Thus with small bursts of flight, he started getting closer to the vampire fencer that was dancing around him, soon enough his own blade was utilized to throw out some ranged attacks to break his enemies form.
“Speed is your forte and not caring about taking damage would make you a tough opponent if you weren’t up against something like me…”
Soon the vampire lord felt a gush on his chest as Zhang Dong sunk his blade into him. Just like his speedy attacks the soul switch happened almost instantly. The husk that had his sword inside of it was nothing more than a decoy. The move happened almost at the same time as the blade hit the flesh as if it was some kind of defense mechanism to save his life.
In the distance, one of the minions started shifting into the new appearance while battling one of his sect members. The unprepared cultivator took this chance to deliver a strike of his own but the enemy did not move from its place even when wounded. Its hand made its way towards this core formation master’s throat even when Zhang Dong charged from the distance it was already too late, the sect member was already being devoured.
“Shit…”
Not even a corpse was left behind and the floating sword he was using plummeted to the ground while other sect members cleared out. While he didn’t believe that he would be able to carry out this battle without any casualties it wasn’t easy when one of your men died. With rage building up in his eyes Zhang Dong took a swing to quickly dispose of the new body only for another switch to soon occur.
“This might take a while…”
He mumbled while quickly following after the soul that quickly moved from body to body. One by one he would kill them until none remained.