“This subject greets the Supreme General!”

“I hope you bring good word, otherwise my father won’t be pleased…”

“My liege…”

The moment of silence caused the man sitting on a throne made of green jade to frown. The chamber he found himself in was vast, and many guards were forced to spread out as if it were empty. At this moment they were slowly reaching for their swords as if ready to punish the messenger of bad news.

“Fine, talk.”

“Y-yes Supreme General! Our armies have been forced to retreat ever since a strange master appeared.”

“The Golden Dragon was it?”

“Yes, Supreme General, the same… after driving our forces back an army of strange metallic warriors appeared which have been quickly driving our people back towards this region…”

“Are you saying that our generals can’t handle one person and some army made of puppets?”

“I…”

“I heard enough!”

The man on the throne snapped his fingers and just as the snapping sound ended the head of the man that brought the message landed on the floor. The supreme general looked at the body sprouting a fountain of blood before sprawling out on the ground with disgust. Only after another wave of his hand did two servants move forward to take care of the mess one of the soldiers made.

“I want you to bring me all the information you have on this ‘Golden Dragon’ . My father left this mission to me and I will tolerate no failure, let this be a reminder to all of you, failure is not an option!”

“Yes, Supreme General!”

A group of other men dressed in armor saluted while looking at the body and the head of one of their own being dragged away. With their spiritual sense, they could see it going towards a row of pikes that was placed in front of the supreme general’s palace. The bodies of the commanding officers that had retreated were lined up there and this one would be added to the pile. It was clear that retreat was not an option anymore, it was better to try and fight it out than return here and be beheaded by the Prince.

“Elder Brother Kong, you shouldn’t bully the generals, what if they decide to run away when we need them?”

“Yahui? Hah, they wouldn’t dare.”

“That is true, they don’t want anything to happen to their little clans and sects back home~”

A woman of immeasurable beauty approached the Supreme General from the side. No one else dared to move while the two were interacting. They continued to follow the subtitle movements of this beauty who was a forbidden fruit that they could never have.

“So this is the man that stands in your way, brother?”

“Yes…”

“Let me have him.”

“I know that look, you should take this seriously.”

“I am, do you actually think I would lose to a single man? He is just my type that’s all, I won’t play with him too much~”

“Fine, take care of it.”

“Hehe~”

Both of them were looking at a recording of one of the fights at the border. They could see the golden warrior going through their large ships and performing feats outside the norm. However, to these two he was still only a slightly larger bug than the rest.

…

“You won’t regret the decision.”

“I hope so, our sect will lose much otherwise.”

“Yes, but if you are victorious then your power will skyrocket! Try thinking about all the treasures and new powerful cultivation techniques you might gain. As you have seen, these cultivators abilities to use our Qi are greater than ours.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“This is true, if we could harness this power… we would be…”

The Patriarch from the Heavenly Crane Sect covered his mouth as he didn’t want to finish the sentence. It could be taken as a challenge to the Azure Emperor if this sect became too strong and Zhang Dong was still considered part of that faction. The group had finally come to a conclusion and decided to engage in battle and rid these lands of the Emerald Phoenix Empire.

‘Just the idea of getting a bit stronger is enough to move them, suddenly all caution flies out of the window when resources and power are involved.’

While their goals were sketchy they were willing to activate their army. Some of the Lily faction leaders would be joining the counter-offensive together with him. Both Sun Shen and Leader Zhong were part of the initial troops. He was not sure how the two would do when fighting side by side or commanding troops. Both of them hated each other's guts and this might lead to some friction.

‘The Patriarch isn’t going to move for now, and those twins won’t either… Well, this is better than nothing. I just need them to keep their soldiers busy while I take out their leaders.’

He did not have too much faith in the Heavenly Crane Sect. If he wasn’t here along with his angel army to back them up, it would have been better for them to actually bunker up at their base. However, when he was at the scene they had an ace up their sleeve. The opponents were also cultivators, when their most powerful elder was defeated their morale would plummet.

“I will excuse myself then while you prepare, we shall meet out in the field of battle.”

“As you wish, Golden Dragon, we have informed our elders about the allies from the south that wear robes made of metal.”

“Good, let us discuss tactics later.”

After a small back and forth with their Patriarch Zhang Dong decided to head back out to the field. Lucius and his squadron of golden knights would arrive in a few days from the southern region and the Heavenly Crane Sect would need some time to mobilize their forces as well.

The large war machine was now activated but it would take some time to gather all the soldiers and weapons. Soon people would be getting letters and communication jade messages that they were to assemble. This was just the first draft that required all of the sect members to gather. They were all experienced warriors and required no further training, what they just needed to do was to meet up at a specific location and wait for orders.

Zhang Dong expected this to take around a week. At such times some of the sect members would choose to flee. Not everyone was willing to risk their lives for resources and glory, without the nascent soul elders breathing down everyone's neck it would probably be impossible to progress. There weren’t that many sects like the United Element Sect that loved their Patriarch to the point of throwing themselves into harm's way blindly.

However, thanks to the recent victories the morale wasn’t low, even people that were on the fence could see a reason to fight, and a chance to make a name for themselves was possible. Deserting was always an option later but if they found themselves on the winning side, their value would skyrocket.

Even the weakest soldier would be handsomely rewarded at the end of the battles and for a lot, this was enough to take the risk. Most people saw themselves as the heroes in their story and the thought of death was a minor possibility if their side was stronger.

Time started passing as he retreated to his golden fortress. It was a good time to see how many spirit points his troops have harvested. The sum was quite staggering and would even allow him to upgrade the bastion to the next stage. For the time being, he decided to postpone the upgrade. The cost of teleporting the palace toward the Eastern Front from the North would be quite staggering.

This was one of his trump cards that he needed to hold on to, only after having enough spirit points for a two-way teleportation and the upgrade would he spend them. It was better to hold onto this load as teleporting the masters from his sect around was also a possibility. The distance was quite tremendous though and would burn through the reserves he had his forces farm for him.

News of the Heavenly Crane Sect armies on the move started reaching other people in the empire. It wasn’t something that could be hidden away, however even though the old powerful sect was on the move, someone else's name was on the end of the tongues of everyone. The name Long Dong and Golden Dragon had become even more popular among the populace.

If Zhang Dong could see his approval rating in the whole empire he would see an arrow going straight up. His popularity was skyrocketing which brought its own set of pros and cons. He could not worry about it, for now, the Emerald Phoenix Empire needed to vanish from within these lands. What would happen after this, needed to wait.

‘We do have an upper hand here…’

Zhang Dong floated in the sky and looked at the horizon. There he saw a storm approaching that in the past would make him dive inside to absorb the lightning's energies. They weren’t in range for his senses but he new that from that direction a large army of cultivators was flying in this direction. It was vastly more numerous than the ones that were trying to push into the border region.

Thanks to his map he was able to follow their every move and relay that information to his new friends. He had even produced a replica of the region to make it easier for them to devise a good strategy. While they could see the main force on the map, it wasn’t that easy to make out smaller squadrons that could have split up.

‘But what will they do, they will probably be a bit more strategic about this engagement than last time, the brute force approach didn’t work…’

Zhang Dong had prepared some surprises for his new enemies. One of them was waiting below ground for a moment to strike. It was easy to predict where the bulk of the army would arrive to place some traps and some formations. All they needed to do now was wait and let their web close around the invaders.

‘I should probably get in place too, let’s see how they fare without my help.’

He glanced at a war tent made by the Heavenly Crane Sect. Inside were four of the Lily Faction leaders discussing the battle that would transpire. He did not want to use these people as the lure but going solo against a proper army like this would not work out too well even for him. Thus until the right moment arrived he would bide his time and then strike swiftly to end it all.