The old nascent soul demon could feel life leaving his body just after receiving one hit. His ribcage was dented inwardly with a palmprint burned over his chest. He instantly could feel strange energy invading his body and it was something that he was familiar with. Yet it was too late for him to call out and warn his allies as his body was siphoned towards his attacker without him being able to resist.

“What are you doing! Stop, do you intend to go against the Demon King?”

“The Demon King? Why would I submit to someone I have never met? Only the strong survive and this king of yours has not proven himself to be stronger than me.”

Zhang Dong replied while his fingers clung to one of the demonic cultivator’s necks. While exposing his divine energies into the surroundings would give his identity away, he still could use it without being found out. If he directly injected them into his opponent's body they would be unable to tell what was happening.

Both the evil energies that these demonic cultivators used and the holy Qi Zhang Dong produced countered each other. If this was a game then both of them would do double the usual damage to each other. In a clash of these powers, the person with the more concentrated Qi would win. The clash would produce a chaotic reaction inside one's body and cause immense amounts of damage if not quickly taken care of.

“W-what is happening to him?”

“Be careful, that person isn’t simple!”

The four men that worked for the new Demon King stopped in their tracks as one of their allies started to act strange. His body started to contort in strange ways as if there was something crushing it from the outside. In a matter of moments, it crumbled revealing his nascent divinity that was unable to flee. The person that was holding him by the neck instantly absorbed this soul without leaving anything behind.

‘Oh… so I even get a list?’

Dao:

Percentage gained

Poison

8%

Shadow

5%

Wind

1%

After receiving the tip from Bob he decided to absorb the evil cultivator’s nascent divinity. He was not very versed in Poison or the Dao of Darkness so the gain was obviously higher. When it came to wind he had a higher amount of understanding and probably why he received the least.

‘I wonder if I can infinitely absorb nascent souls to receive Dao boosts? It would make more sense if the person needed to have an understanding of it that I’m not already clued in…’

The Dao was in short the origin of all things. It was a path that the Daoists followed and tried to understand to its fullest. The Daos could be divided into major and minor ones and go even beyond that. Only after understanding these underlying principles of the universe could the cultivator progress further.

At least that was how it was supposed to be. After visiting the old secret ground where his predecessor lived he was made aware of another truth. Normally he would already be able to progress into a higher realm above the nascent soul level. This realm only required the mastery of one Dao, even a lesser one should be enough. He on the other hand already knew three great ones, Holy, Lightning, and now Gravity.

‘It seems that the immortal realm requires people to comprehend multiple Dao’s at once but how many do I need to perfect?’

While he was absorbing the man’s nascent soul he could see his life flash through his eyes. It was as if he relieved some of his most vivid memories in a fraction of a second before the man perished. It was as if some of his techniques had been imprinted into his own soul now.

The Dao of the Shadow was one of the great ones that went directly up against his Holy Dao. Both of those below the Dao of Light and Dao of Darkness were origin-grade paths. Perhaps what he needed to do was to complete several greater paths to gain an understanding of one of the grander origins of this world, then the way towards the next realm would be unlocked.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

‘But before I worry about that I need to take care of these chuckleheads…’

“It won’t open!”

“Immolation Demon, are you really going against the Demon King? Do you think you can get away with this!”

“I’ve told you that I don’t know that man! How about you shut up before he kills us all?”

It was funny to see the group of nascent soul masters arguing with each other. This might have not seemed much different than an argument between regular sects but it was. Even now he could see all of these demonic cultivators spreading to the sides, no one from them trusted each other.

Even the ones that were presumably from one faction were already thinking about the most probable way to survive. After seeing how easily he reduced one of them to nothing they were warry. Normally they would attack him with the number advantage yet due to the other three masters here they were unsure of what to do.

‘They think that the mummy guy is with me, so it would be four against four in their eyes… I just need to give them a little push.’

He smiled as he didn’t have a problem taking out these mass murderers. All of them had gained their power by walking on the corpses of others. This whole island would probably be better off if they were gone and then taken under the wing of his own faction. Zhang Dong had the resources for it and was willing to take responsibility for affecting the lives of the people here.

If he just killed the leader and left nothing would really change, just another bloody battle for the leader position would take place and more people would die. The only way to stop this spiral of avarice was to take charge. It would probably take many years to change how these people thought but with time he could see them moving on.

“Now Immolation Demon, Venom Demon, Shadow Demon. All of you strike them down with me, I’ll take care of their strongest!”

“You… I knew you were planning something, don’t think you’ll be able to leave this place alive!”

“What?”

The three old men that had previously spent some time talking out a pact of non-aggression were stunned. They looked as the strange square-chinned man charged toward one of the people that belonged to the new Demon King faction, the Chaos Sect. The speed was astonishing, his strength was on another level as they realized that he was hiding it.

The collision between him and the late stage demonic cultivator caused a massive explosion and was the beginning of the end for them. They all found themselves being attacked by the other group of nascent soul masters. Even the core formation experts were pelting them with long-ranged techniques with a lot of poison.

Zhang Dong was not in a hurry, after confronting the late stage cultivator he allowed his opponent some time. If he was going to go against high-level demonic beings on this island then getting some hands-on experience was paramount. The ones that he faced as his demon hunter persona were mostly at the core formation level of power.

The man shrouded himself in some kind of veil of toxicity. Poison techniques and ones containing venom were very widespread among these demonic beings. For more orthodox cultivators this would have already been a tough barrier to get through. All the poison was one of the biggest reasons why demonic cultivators were victorious against their orthodox counterparts. Even if they lost their opponent could still succumb to the slow-working poison and die later.

“H-how!”

“Hmph!”

He swatted away a mass of poisonous needles that gave out a pungent smell. They could not get through his Qi barrier and thanks to his holy Dao even if he inhaled the fumes they would not be lethal. It was the usual way of the evil cultivator, if a person didn’t directly get infected by the poison then make them ingest it in another way.

Then if those methods failed he also noticed that his shield of spiritual energy was getting corrupted. It seemed that the dao of poison was quite strong, it would even corrode through shields made of pure spiritual energy. Only if he added something like holy energy that could repel them, it would quickly disperse and open him up for an attack.

‘We might have to create some divine treasures to reinforce everyone's spiritual energy or use the fortress as a veil against it.’

While he exchanged various blows he continued to ponder countermeasures against these people. There was even enough time to look at the others, the Immolation Demon was quite interesting. His techniques produced a somewhat different flame, he could feel that some kind of demonic energy was mixed in that would probably corrode anything that it touched.

‘Corrosion… poison… venom… curses… this won’t be that fun for the others…’

These attacks wouldn’t be hard for him to counter but there weren’t that many people able to use divine arts in his sect. Perhaps it was time to bring in some outside help for the next attack. He recalled a certain sect that he had previously helped and they still owed him big time.

‘Divine Fist Sect, was it? They should have enough people to act as backup against these guys.’

It was the sect that he helped before being blasted off to the other world. His sacrifice cost him five years of his family life. From what he knew they had managed to survive the demi-human menace and were one of the small number of sects that didn’t suffer any losses yet. They would be the perfect soldiers to aid him in the coming battle. He didn’t want to involve others but the more time Wang Long was given the worse the situation would become.

“Okay, I’ve seen enough…”

“Huh?”

The man he was fighting with was pressing forward and delivered a devastating hit that seemingly destroyed his spirit barrier. Yet instead of being able to sink the mass of poisonous needles into Zhang Dong’s flesh, his vision began splitting. It took a moment for him to realize that a black longsword appeared to slash him in two equal halves. Quickly he tried activating his escape measure yet before he could his soul started being siphoned away.

Everyone else watched in horror as the strongest member of their group had been taken out in one hit. The difference in power between Zhang Dong and a late stage nascent soul master was just that big. He could easily take them out with a single sword strike and the ones that were left here wouldn’t be different.

“Well then, let us finish this encounter, shall we?”