“He’s a dead man…”

“Stop, he might notice, you want him to kill both of us?”

Zhang Dong was looking at the hidden messages between two cult members that were a bit higher on the totem pole. They were now looking at a trembling cultist that was begging for his life. It was the same person that had interacted with the gate patrol and apparently the man he was impersonating would normally be mad. It was due to this person not being able to take care of the situation without the cult leader being involved.

This conversation spying feature was quite handy, he didn’t know people liked to gossip so much when around others that could wipe them out with a fart. He was of course unwilling to just kill a person for trying to do their work. Not like this person was without sin but he still didn’t want to turn into a person that would murder people for no reason.

“Get up you fool, make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”

Thus he just pretended that he was preoccupied with other issues. His gaze was focused on the giant city and the various dark buildings that were mostly made of stone and bricks. The bowing cultist in question was not let off without getting tossed against the ship's wall by his aura though. He at least needed to do the absolute minimum to not give himself away. A few broken bones and collapsed organs would quickly heal for someone as strong as this man.

‘Hm, I think I’ll need to stay with this bunch of murderers for a bit longer. If I split up during the night they will know that I’m some kind of spy quickly…’

The large ship was beginning to dock at a large shipyard with multiple other flying vessels. All of them were hovering in the air and were just connected to the ground by massive chains that were thicker than a grown man’s thigh. Other unsavory demonic cultivators were slowly coming out and heading to various inns.

“This way cult leader.”

Zhang Dong nodded as another cult member appeared to guide him down. It was up to these people to get all the information and take care of all the busy work. It was already paying off that he chose this way of infiltration as he could take a good look at the inside of this grand formation.

‘It’s a layered one, there are multiple barriers with the strongest one being right around that volcano.’

Yet there wasn’t that much that he could do from this vantage point. When the time was right he would need to sneak up to every barrier. Then after interacting with it he would find out the way to disable them. There were several ways of disabling such barriers and it depended on the type it was.

From what he could tell the outer barrier was being supplied with energy by the hexagram of towers. On these, he worked from the outside but he would need to find the corresponding control nodes to truly disable them. When everything was prepared the forcefield would vanish when his troops attacked.

‘That’s the easy part, the harder ones are at the center of the city and that castle, but we can also use brute force.’

There was only so much that he could do in the few days that he had. It was the middle of the day and before it became nighttime he probably couldn’t even head into the city. Yet it didn’t seem that anyone was concerned about safety all that much. There weren’t that many guards and the Chaos Sect was showing off their power. Even now he could see them parading on the streets to forcefully make stronger cultivators appease their hubris.

‘You give them some power and they lose their mind, I wonder if any of them realize that their sect might not exist after a week…’

It was strange to see the people exert their proxy power. Even the nascent soul masters had to keep to themselves, if they killed an important family member of an elder from the strongest sect, they would have a lot of explaining to do. Some of them were also here to join up with the new giant but while they couldn’t attack any sect members from the Chaos Sect, there were other targets.

“What are you looking at?”

“You dare speak to me in that tone? Who are you to block the path of this demon!?”

He could see the guests squaring up against each other. Two groups were looking at each other with animosity in their eyes. Both sides were on edge and probably all that bottled-up rage from bowing to the upstarts was fueling their actions.

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‘Are they succumbing to their demonic nature? Some demonic cultivators are said to have things like demonic hearts or physiques that with time drive them insane. It doesn’t look like the guards will lift a finger, they will probably take the loser away later… if there is anything left that is…’

Everyone looked at the group, one side was composed of very muscular-looking individuals that had all sorts of tattoos covering their bodies. The other side on the other hand looked like some gathering of old wizards. Yet even though they were talking smack at each other nothing seemed to come of it.

‘I guess they are just blowing off some steam, no one is stupid enough to start a large brawl right after coming to the city of demons.’

“Cult leader, I have our accommodations ready, please walk this way.”

Finally one of the cult members returned with a piece of paper. On it, he could see an address to some kind of hotel. Probably the rooms were distributed depending on the worth of the strongest person. With him being a middle stage nascent soul cultivator, the hotel would probably not be the best or the worst, something in the middle.

‘This is a peculiar looking place… I hope the rooms are better than the exterior.’

After wandering through the city for around thirty minutes they finally arrived at a large spire. The thing looked like a spiky cactus made from hardened molten lava. It was quite the building that fit the gloomy city filled with murderers and thieves. On the way here he witnessed crimes being performed in broad daylight. The city guards didn’t react even when the citizens were being beaten.

They clearly had no use for the non-cultivators or people with no backing. Only when someone had some sort of token would they come to their aid. It looked like the city was also divided into smaller districts ruled by smaller clans that were similar to criminal gangs. These tokens differed between these districts which were also separated by large walls. Even the building's shape was different and the ruling gang’s characters were plastered everywhere.

‘I thought Wang Long was supposed to have united the city…’

While climbing the tower that looked like it was created in some fetish dungeon he took some time to look everywhere. This area was about in the middle of the outer city. The stronger the faction a person was with the closer to the inner city they were able to stay.

His entourage was forced to rest on the lower levels while he received one whole upper level to himself. Without wanting to bump into any other demonic masters he quickly entered his room and ordered not to be disturbed. This room at first glance didn’t look that bad but after spending time in the Azure Palace and his own well-established sect, this place looked like a dumpster.

Outside his window, he could feel the demonic energy rising in the air. The concentration of Qi was a lot higher here but it was at the level of the lower regions on the mainland. This was probably to a spirit vein existing somewhere in that volcano and being mostly contained to that area.

‘This Qi is also different, it’s corrupted with a strange demonic essence, if a person cultivates with this, they probably won’t be able to learn the usual cultivation methods. There might be a way to alter the vein but that depends on the reason for this corruption.’

While looking out at the setting sun he contemplated the validity of this invasion. When his troops arrived a lot of people would die. Even through the short walk through the city, he could see innocent people just trying to survive. They were just forced to act in a certain way due to their surroundings. Even this spiritual energy that was floating was one of the causes as it would reinforce the more animalistic nature of a human being.

‘I need to stop thinking about this or I’ll never go through with this attack…’

In his mind, it was wrong to just attack without a proper notice. People could then choose to evacuate if they were just civilians. Yet here he wasn’t sure if that would even amount to anything. The lands around the city were barren and filled with many demonic beasts, poison, and soul-sucking phantoms. The people would have more luck trying to wait out the battle instead of fleeing outside of the city.

‘I can only minimize the destruction and focus on that castle…’

Luckily the vast majority of the evil cultivators and their lackeys were in the inner district and the gaudy-looking castle. Even with the barriers in place, he could feel the evil energy radiating from afar. Thus the main plan would be to quickly make their way towards their actual enemies while the citizens fled into the underground.

The city seemed to have a vast expanse of underground tunnels all over the place. It was probably another zone that was even below the outer city in status. While it was populated by the poor it could probably shield everyone from a lot of explosions that would be happening on the outside.

‘That is if they evacuate in time… I guess it’s time to leave, the sun is down.’

While looking out through the window he identified a few points of interest. He had also spotted some of the sects and cults that had arrived wandering through the city. This was also his plan, there was no reason to abandon his disguise if it allowed him to walk through the city. Only when he arrived at the critical locations would he fade into the shadows and get to work.

‘First I need to get to those six nodes that link to the obelisks outside, then I’ll take a look at the inner city formation if I can get past it…’

His eyes gazed upwards towards the active volcano and the castle within. There his enemy resided and it was already hard for him not to just storm the entire place alone. If he could take care of Wang Long himself then no one would have to suffer…