Dao:

Percentage gained

Poison

0.4%

Devouring

4%

Curse

2%

“And then there were three…”

Zhang Dong looked at the list of Daos that he received after absorbing the last opponent. They didn’t put up much of a battle as he was just too fast for them to react to. All of them fall to his blade and quickly had their nascent divinities absorbed into his seed.

It wasn’t a feeling he was very comfortable with, even though the people he was devouring were evil their lives still flashed before his eyes as their souls dissipated and turned into his cultivation. In reality, it was somewhat taxing on his psyche and he didn’t really want to continue absorbing the souls of these three anymore.

“I’ll give you two choices, you can live as slaves or die here.”

They were still evil beings with no remorse. If he let them be they would probably stand against his people or bring disaster to the less fortunate. It wasn’t hard for demonic cultivators to hide in some cave for a couple of years until everything was over. Then they would just go back to their murderous ways and all the damage they caused would be on his conscience. He had the option to act now and felt that it was his duty to take care of such people.

“Slave?”

“Yes, I’m sure you heard of soul contracts? Submit your souls to me, that’s the only way for me to trust you.”

As always the souls were the key to everything. If he managed to get them to submit willingly then they would be unable to against his will. After the contract of submissiveness was completed he would be able to erase their life with just a thought. However, it didn’t look that most of the participants were willing. The barrier that he hijacked was also running out of juice so two of them began to flee.

“Screw you Immolation Demon, you’re responsible for this! Don’t think you’ll be able to get away.”

There was a misunderstanding between the two masters and the Onyx Moon sect owner. They were convinced that this was some kind of plan and that Zhang Dong was part of it. They would rather take the chance and attempt an escape than to be turned into soul slaves.

One of the people shrouded himself in a bunch of dark clouds that looked like shadows while the other one produced a poisonous fog. Both of them turned around and headed in different directions. It wasn’t a bad tactic, one of them had a better chance of getting away while the other was being chased.

However, the difference between them was just far too large. Zhang Dong could clearly tell that the smoke screens that they produced were just a distraction. Inside were puppets with a tiny soul fragment to keep them similar to the main body. The real masters on the other hand were trying to shroud themselves in various ways while slowly moving toward different locations.

“It won’t work…”

He called out while pointing out with both hands. His fingers aimed for each nascent soul master and soon a ray of light shot out. This time he added his heavenly lightning energy for additional power and speed. The two rays collided with their targets which revealed their hiding spots. The moment they were injured the fakes started to fade away.

“I gave you a way out, you can only blame yourselves…”

His body blurred and the first shadowy figure’s head flew up into the air. One strike was enough for him to defeat a middle stage nascent soul master. The other one attempted to escape but as his friend, he lost his head soon after. Now only the Patriarch of the presiding sect remained. He didn’t move as he saw the bigger picture, there was no way of his surviving if he didn’t surrender.

“I… I surrender…”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Zhang Dong nodded while also siphoning away the next two nascent soul divinities. As long as he was this close there was no chance of a soul getting away. While he didn’t absorb their power instantly he stored them away for later use. Devouring souls was still something he needed to get used to.

“Good, you made a wise choice.”

Without waiting for long he flew towards the man wrapped in bandages. For the technique to work the man would need to lower his defenses yet there was something fishy. Zhang Dong wasn’t a fool and quickly noticed that an attack was coming. Suddenly from various directions, core formation experts appeared. They started chanting loudly while their leader backed away while performing some strange hand signs.

“You fool, do you really think I would just surrender my life to you!”

“Well, no not really…”

In the spot where Zhang Dong was floating a giant orb of flames appeared. It expanded to something that looked like a miniature black sun. Everything in the vicinity started to turn to ashes. The place had been abandoned by the regular citizens so only the buildings suffered.

“That’s what you get for… huh?”

“Why are you surprised? You’ve already seen what I could do, did you think I wouldn’t notice such an obvious trap formation under me?”

“But you were inside…”

“Oh, was I?”

All of them saw Zhang Dong burning up inside the mass of flames. This was just a simple replacement technique. The thing that went up in flames was just a temporary clump of Qi energy that had the outline of his body. He just quickly brought himself into a safe location while the others were focusing on the dummy.

“Your friends could fashion such puppets, so can I.”

This was one of the new uses of his absorbed Daos. The demonic cultivators were extremely good at escaping from a life-and-death situation. They could produce clones that resembled them and were somewhat intelligent. With a little blood and occult magic that was somewhat similar to the magic from the other world, it was all possible.

“No… I am the Demon of Immolation, you shall burn!”

“So you’ve going to resist until the end… I thought you demonic cultivators were supposed to be cowardly…”

This was a surprise to him. Perhaps the evil cultivators on the island were braver than the ones with whom he interacted on the mainland. Those people would certainly quickly try to backpedal and run whenever there was any trouble. These on the other hand were more combative.

‘Perhaps at this level, their minds can’t fathom being suppressed this much?’

He had also not revealed all of his trump cards. What he was using now was mostly his body refining prowess. It was just a combination of force and speed without using his Qi. It wasn’t very flashy and perhaps gave these people the idea that they had a chance.

“You? Who are yo…”

The man found himself with a sword going for his head. Even though his entire body was surrounded by a wall of flames it was of no use. He had clearly realized that there was something wrong with Zhang Dong’s actions but he would not be able to disclose the secret to anyone. Everyone below the nascent soul level was easily knocked out just by his overbearing aura, it was as if they were all waiting to be judged.

‘This isn’t good, I hoped to at least get one of these guys on my side, they could act as a spy and report to me…’

The three nascent divinities were still intact. The three demonic cultivators weren’t quite dead, they just lacked bodies to occupy. Even though he couldn’t bring them under his control earlier this didn’t mean that some information couldn’t be extracted. The nascent soul would slowly dissipate but there still was some time left.

Yet without a body to live in, they would die in the spawn of a few years. Their memories would deteriorate and most likely they would become a vengeful spirit. While information could be extracted now, their bodies were gone, and replacing them would be hard.

‘Now what should I do with them?’

After the fight, he had managed to keep the Chaos Sect’s core formation experts here. They would surely babble out what had happened here if they returned to their base. Yet he wasn’t sure if that was a problem, no one really knew who he was, and there were always strong hidden monsters on the loose.

‘Could Wang Long decide to hunt me down if they report?’

They would probably place him at the great circle level of power and thus he made a good target for spirit points. He did not know how many resources Wang Long needed, perhaps he would be unable to ignore a gift-wrapped bundle of points like him.

Fighting him one on one was something that he wanted. The more people he could exclude from this confrontation the better. Zhang Dong didn’t feel that he could lose but needed to include his sect in the plan as he was going against another faction.

His constant increase in power gave him the confidence in being able to win even against someone with a working system. This didn’t mean that he would be able to successfully lure the man out here. It was more likely that some of his goons would show up instead.

‘That wouldn’t be bad though… the more of his faction members I can take out the better…’

“Hey you there, Tong was it?”

“M-me?”

Zhang Dong looked towards the shaking cultivators and singled one out. It was the man that the grandfather and granddaughter pointed him towards. The pair was now long gone, even before he got into the pagoda tower he could feel them sneaking out of the city.

“Yes you, as you can see, your leader is no more, thus I’ll be taking over for him.”

“Taking over?”

“Yes, guide me to the treasure room.”

“Treasure room?”

“Can you only echo what I am saying?”

“E-excuse me, great senior…”

“Does anyone have anything against me becoming the new sect leader? You can go ahead and speak out now if you wish?”

As expected, anyone that was left conscious didn’t dare say anything. All of them were convinced that if they even opened their mouths they would be dead and then devoured. While it didn’t happen often, sometimes the heads of the sect were killed. This either caused the sect to be destroyed or absorbed into the faction that killed the leader.

“Long live the new Patriarch!”

“Glad that you understand. Now, capture these Chaos Sect members, I’ll decide on what to do with them later.”

“Yes, Patriarch.”

Soon the core formation experts were being carried off into the dungeon while he was going towards the treasure room. To be on the safe side he needed to prepare various countermeasures, if Wang Long really appeared to avenge his people then he needed to be ready.