“Get your asses into gear, the new elder will be arriving soon, if you don’t want to be doing laps for the rest of the day, you better be on your best behavior.”

“But Senior sister Fei, we are always on our best behavior!”

“That we are.”

“I don’t want to hear that from you Yang Rong, if I catch you sneaking into the junior sister’s side again, I’ll lob off those jewels of yours.”

“No, anything but that Senior sister Fei, I’ll be sure to behave.”

“You better, I might have been lenient with you but this elder isn’t part of the sect, he might not be as pleasant.”

“Uh… I can take thousands of beatings from you Senior sister but it loses meaning if the beatings are coming from some old man…”

“What did you say?”

“Oh… nothing Senior Sister!”

The group of young cultivators laughed while watching Yang Rong getting bonked on the head by an angry-looking Senior sister Fei. Their group was composed of people that didn’t originally belong to the United Element sect but had all integrated through the first recruitment drive. They had finished all of the basic training and were now part of the army that would set out to one of the border regions.

Their group was composed of many foundation establishment practitioners that numbered in the hundreds. They were divided into smaller squads of around twenty people with one senior core formation expert leading them. This group was the same and Lan Fei here was the leader of these dysfunctional individuals.

“Haha, Len Fei you need to learn to control your juniors, what if we get punished by the elder for your sloppy squadron?”

“It won’t happen, Senior Teng…”

“I hope it won’t!”

‘Why did I get stuck with this idiot again? Am I cursed or something, did that weird guy put something on me that one time?’

The woman recalled a moment from the past when she was kidnaped by a strange demonic cultivator. That time her life was at risk as the weirdo was performing some strange ritual. Her life was spared by a certain individual that she kept buried in her heart. After this event, she joined up with this powerful sect and managed to even reach the core formation stage.

At this stage in her life, it was possible to create her own clan or help out her father. However, there was no reason to leave this sect. Her power continued to increase and the more merits she gained, so did her position. At the moment she was considered to be an outer disciple with senior privileges.

To change her fate and prove once and for all that she was worthy, the decision to join the war had been made. The recruitment drive was very appealing and the risks weren’t that high. Some people might have not known but she knew how overprotective the Patriarch of this sect was. The places where her group would be sent would probably be easily tamable.

‘I will become an inner sect disciple and then elder, then I need to join one of the great clans to solidify my position…’

This was her thought process. Her beauty was well known and she had many suitors through which she could progress even faster. Yet she wanted to prove that she had enough talent to make it on her own. Thanks to the merits system a person could join the inner sect and integrate into one of the three great clans. The best fit for her was the Feng clan but considering that it was led by the Matriarch, she wasn’t sure if she shouldn’t go with another choice.

‘I shouldn’t get ahead of myself, this could take a few years but afterward, it’s smooth sailing for me! I’ll get a few cute disciples and live a happy life.’

She tried smiling at the person that scolded her for not keeping her people in check. The person was called Zhang Teng and was part of one of the great clans. It was the strongest faction with their Patriarch being the leader of their entire sect. This man with a face of a snake was not someone that she liked. First of all, it seemed that he had a stick up his ass with how properly he conducted himself.

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Then there were the swarms of Feng Clan women around him that always gave her death glares. Even now his entire group was composed of young and beautiful women. She didn’t know what she did to get into this position but as long as she lasted through this war then her time would come. Without having any family backing she needed to depend on her own capabilities.

“All of you gather up, the new elder is coming!”

“The new elder, do you know who he is?”

“Yes, listen to this, apparently he was a famous demon hunter in the past.”

“A demon hunter? Was he a mercenary?”

“It seems so.”

The reaction was mild, the people here started frowning as they realized that their leader was from outside the clan. An elder that didn’t have any family or sect was always suspicious. That he was forced to work as a sellsword said a few things about his character. In short, he didn’t work well with others, either through being a lone wolf or through character flaws that made him into a bad leader. Now they were stuck with a person like that, their future didn’t look good.

“Damn… why couldn’t we have gotten someone like Elder Zhi…”

“Why would he take in outer disciples like us, it was a given that we would get the dregs of the sect.”

“Hey be quiet, what if that elder hears you and decides to discipline us all…”

“Stop talking and get into formation!”

Zhang Teng shouted out which made everyone quiet down. Even though he was also only a squadron leader there was a proper pecking order for everyone. Lan Fei along with all the other leaders needed to listen to this man. Everyone took up their positions and waited for the elder to arrive. Finally, after around ten minutes the man of the hour arrived along with another nascent soul master that some of the people here were accustomed to.

“Greetings juniors, I won’t take up much of your time. Let me introduce you all to Elder Lei Yinglo, he will be the leader of this company of troops. I expect everyone to show him the proper respect.”

“Yes, Elder!”

Everyone clasped their hands while bowing, everyone except one person that was Lan Fei. Her eyes started bulging out the moment she saw that scared-up face. Was this some type of joke that the man there was trying to pull on her? It didn’t seem that anyone really knew who he was but she remembered him from the past.

‘Is it really him? Why would he hide his presence in the sect? Or… could this be the real demon hunter?’

Lan Fei recalled the white-haired man that saved her all those years before. He had revealed that Lei Yinglo was a persona that he was using. The man was able to alter his appearance so she didn’t really know what he looked like. It was possible that the man called Zhang Dong was a lot older than anyone expected. Yet the shines that he presented during that one steamy night, was not something an experienced man would be capable off.

“Senior Sister, you are staring.”

“Uh, I…”

She was poked from the side by one of her squad members that noticed that she wasn’t doing her bow properly. Even the other leaders were starting to side-eye her. All sorts of questions were going through her head now. She wanted to do nothing more than shout out his real name to see if he was really the man she knew before. Even after spending many years in this sect, there was never a time when he looked her way. Could this be some type of coincidence or was there more to it?

……

‘She is looking at me…’

Zhang Dong had gone through with his secret mission. His demon-hunter persona had been assigned to mostly a company composed of outer sect disciples. There were only a few members from the inner sect like Zhang Teng here. The plan was to join such a group where his presence was not that known, the plan was perfect but an unforeseen variable appeared.

Lan Fei, a woman that he had a fling with and the person that took his first time. He had almost forgotten of her existence in the sect that she joined almost the moment it was created. This wouldn’t really be much of a problem at all if he had decided to create a whole new image for himself.

His choice of going with Lei Yinglo was due to his notoriety. People from the Zhang Clan knew his exploits and this heightened the chances of him getting included in the war effort. There was one problem, the one person that knew his identity was here and this was Lan Fei. Even now he could see her trying to glance his way, she had clearly remembered this scar-covered face that was just a disguise.

‘Well, this certainly complicates things… I didn’t even know she was taking part in this mission.’

A patriarch didn’t really look down that much. There was no way for him to keep track of all the people from his sect. While he had the faction system this didn’t give him insights into every person in the sect. It was more of a generalized tool that allowed him to farm some spirit points and call it up for help here and there.

‘I can’t let Liena know of this… she might get a stupid idea…’

Going on a secret mission with an old girlfriend was quite suspicious. He was disguising himself while pretending to be in secluded training. If his wife noticed that he was gone on a mission it would already be bad enough, but his life would be at risk if she thought that he was cheating on her.

‘I need to calm down… I’m the Patriarch, I’ll just ignore her…’

There wasn’t much that he could do now. After arriving here with one of the other nascent soul elders he was given the reins to the company. They would all be soon sent out through the teleportation gate for their first assignment. The details of the mission were already known to him, a search and rescue.

‘I can’t worry about things like this when lives are at stake…’

He nodded while trying to evade the piercing gaze the woman was giving him. It was clear that she wanted to ask him a lot of questions but he wasn’t sure if he had the right answers for them. Thus soon their group departed for their first mission and he would again be placed into a tight bind.