Matt left the teens alone and flew in the direction of the city. His facial expression was stern as he looked in the direction that he was going. There were many enemies and he didn't know if he alone could handle them all by himself. Just flying in there without a plan wouldn't be such a good idea either. But he couldn't just let one of those horrible clan cleansings happen, they would kill every member of the clan didn't matter if it were women and children. The people in these kinds of worlds had some twisted logic and no one seemed to bat an eye about it. Did he have to change his mindset and join the other cultivators, or could he pave out his own way?
He was more in the mindset of taking out the snake's head. If he took out the so-called patriarchs from the invading clans, the others should give up. He didn't know if he should sneak up on them and try to take out one of the core formation cultivators before engaging the rest in a fight, that would probably be the smart way to do it. He also thought about shouting out to the crowd and trying the intimidation route. But if that didn't work he would have given away the element of surprise for no reason. He also could take out one of them in a show of force, then try to scare them off. Zhang Dong didn't think that he needed to defeat all of them if they retreated he wouldn't be chasing them down.
He kind of wanted to go with the diplomatic route but that was somewhat unrealistic, even more after he saw that those people even tried killing some kids that were running away. Matt as slowly trying to shift his values a bit towards the 'kill or be killed' mentality, though he was just doing the cultivation crippling instead of the killing part.
He gave out a sigh as he went from having the night of his life to now going to rescue some people he didn't really know. The only thing compelling him to do it was a skewed sense of morality that he had from his original world, the system set him up as a member of this Clan and it might be bad if he let it get eradicated. He had already learned a way to hide his aura and unless he got really close people shouldn't be able to detect him. So he straightened up, slapped both of his cheeks to pump himself up and glided towards the direction from where those kids came from.
Sometime later at Spirit Spring City.
Zhang Jin was looking at the golden shield that was flickering now, the time running out a lot sooner than expected as the invading clans increased the rates of the bombardments. The people in the city were sitting ducks and they didn't have a way to retaliate, the most powerful treasures were the ones the Patriarch had and he was now dead. They had some attacking formations to their disposal but the more powerful ones required more core formation cultivators that they didn't have, it looked bleak.
The clans that were attacking them weren't all that strong if you compared them to the Zhang Clan before their elders perished. There was the Tsai Clan, the Wong Clan, and the Wu clan. The strongest one was the Tsai Clan with their Patriarch recently breaking through to the late stage of core formation. The weakest one was the Wu Clan, their leader was just in the early stage and there were more or less just here for the scraps. The Tsai Clan came with three core formation cultivators including their patriarch, two were from the Wong Clan and the last one belonged to the Wu clan.
The six middle-aged looking men were standing together, there were three cultivators in red robes standing in the front belonging to the Tsai Clan while the other clan elders stood a bit to the side. They were looking at the weakening shield and smirked.
"It's almost time, that shield won't last for much longer. Get everyone ready and surround the city so that no one can escape."
The Tsai Clan Patriarch with the highest cultivation barked out the orders and every other clan elder headed out to inform their subordinates. Two cultivators remained in the same spot, which was the Tsai Clan patriarch and another member from his clan.
"Patriarch Fang, some of the disciples haven't returned that were supposed to hunt for any remaining Zhang Clan members."
Tsai Fang looked at his fellow clan member and just shrugged.
"They're probably having their fun, leave them we have enough clan members here to clear out this city. Punish them if they come back empty-handed though."
This cultivator was wearing a red robe with white patterns in it, it made it look fiery. His hair and eyes were also red and as you might have thought this clan's specialty was fire. The man looked on as the glowing shield got thinner and thinner due to the constant impacts, a smirk on his face while his hands were behind his back. He moved his hand to his cheek where a big scar could be seen. This scar was something he received quite a while ago when he was battling the Zhang Clan Patriarch in his younger days. To this day he couldn't forget about this disgrace. It was him that organized this event, he wanted to remove anything related to the man that injured his face.
"Hah, are you seeing this Zhang Clan Patriarch, your clan will fall and everyone will burn. Just too bad that I can't see your ugly face while this happens."
You could hear a sound akin to glass shattering as a big fireball exploded in mid-air against the shield, the defensive formation finally running out of juice. The Clans outside the city gates cheered in unison while the people inside gasped. The time has come, the Zhang clan was outnumbered and outgunned. But they wouldn't be going down without a fight, after the shield got blasted away you could see a hail of arrows getting shot from within the city, accompanied by cannon fire from magic cannons that were mounted on the city walls.
The invading cultivator core formation elders snorted and took flight on their flying swords, they held their hands up into the air as they activated a magic technique blocking the cannon fire and arrows with just the five of them. The Tsai clan Patriarch didn't feel like taking part as he just wanted to enjoy the screams and watch a good show. The arrows weren't much, the cannons might have been able to strike down a foundation establishment cultivator but to these elders, it was less than a mosquito bite.
But while the invading clans were cheering their core formation elders on, something happened. While all the powerful cultivators were focusing on defending the city's cannon fire, thunder sounded behind them. The Wong clan member suddenly had a chilly premonition as he tried to move quickly to the side, but before he knew it he felt something wedge itself into his right shoulder. It looked like a spear made of energy, all the other elders saw it lodge itself in the man's flesh exploding after impact. The man fell down to the ground, his right shoulder blow off, his right arm just dangling about while looking quite gory. The man was more or less out of commission for the rest of the fight as he was losing a lot of blood and only managed to swallow some life-saving pills before collapsing on the ground.
Soon people started turning around to watch as lightning spears collided with all of their siege weapons. Everyone was running for their dear life as they got sneak attacked from the back, the rest of the core formation elders started evading the lightning bolts but the fellow up attack was mostly aimed at the gear that soon was just a pile of scrap.
Everyone could feel an overbearing aura descending from the sky and they finally saw Zhang Dong that was holding on to one of his lightning javelins, tossing it out. The spear of lightning split into smaller ones and bombarded the cultivator weapons on the ground turning all of them into scrap wood and metal in the process. There was also a big lightning dragon wiggling around his frame, roaring in thunderous booms that made the lower level cultivators ears bleed.
"I am Zhang Dong, leave this place if you don't want to die!"
Dong said as menacingly as he could while sweating inwardly hoping that the people would just turn tail and run.