Zhang Dong left the bewildered family along with the small group of bandits. He chuckled to himself as they all had silly expressions on their faces. Probably because they were all still alive after coming across someone of his caliber.
He didn't have time to stick around and help out anymore. The reason for them being in this desolate spot was unknown to him and he would keep it that way.
Zhang Dong whizzed on his flying sword through the lands while keeping a low profile. He looked like your generic rugged cultivator with no home. The sword he was using looked shabby from the outside.
This was done on purpose to evade conflict with any other core formation cultivators. If he wore multiple high-level trinkets he could as well just write 'Rob me' on his back and wait.
'I seem to have forgotten how the world really looks outside my own sect…'
While flying as fast as a jet plane he had some time to look around these lands. He was now in Limitless Sword Society territory. He could see the usual low-level beasts roaming the lands which weren't anything out of the ordinary. But when he approached human settlements he noticed the disparity.
His plan was to evade them but with his nascent soul senses, he could peek at these smaller cities from afar. He did all of this without the worry of getting detected. What he saw there painted a picture of how the other sects saw their people or rather how they didn't see anyone besides their own worth investing in.
There was widespread famine and lawlessness. He could see ruffians and robbers roaming everywhere, maybe this was why that family was there. They might have been trying to escape from all of this.
The cities here were more akin to his territory before his sect took over. Even in the first large city, he visited all those years ago things weren't great. He almost saw people getting run over by a carriage. He was able to save them then, but this was only possible because of his high cultivation realm.
He was saddened by how people had to live here but he couldn't help them. He needed to finish his mission first. If he wasn't successful, bandits and robbers would be the least of their problems.
So Zhang Dong looked into the distance and flew off, this time around he used various aura hiding treasures along with ones that would make him hard to detect or even see.
It was thanks to having these with him that he was certain of continuing his journey forward without being detected.
This world was truly vast, even though he was limiting his speed he would be able to make a round trip around his old planet in less than a day. Even with that kind of speed, he would need a whole week to get to his destination.
Out of boredom, he started looking around. The weather kept changing one hour he could be going through snowy mountain peaks where there was nothing besides frozen ice and death. While in the next he was whizzing through tropical weather in a jungle area. He felt like he was stuck in a game and going through different biomes each time.
In reality, he was traveling through a vast expanse. Along with the spiritual energy changes that could alter the surroundings it all made sense. Many times did he want to stop and take in the scenery while relaxing. The forests and untouched lakes were truly breathtaking. Places like this just made him want to take his family and relax while taking a dip in one of the many giant lakes.
Regretfully most of such beautiful places remained untouched for a reason. Even now as he was passing through a clear lake he could see a massive shadow lurking below. If he lowered his altitude he would probably get attacked by the monster living in the deep below.
Human cultivators might have been strong but they were far from the strongest beings in these lands. Magical beasts were born stronger yet humans had more ingenuity to go further in their life. They were also much better at working in a group while beasts kept to themselves or at most stayed in small groups with an alpha ruling over them.
Zhang Dong made sure to activate his system map while going through these lands. He didn't have any luck in finding any of those strange dead zones. He wanted to get another of those cubes which could get him some information about the person who sent him here.
He still had many unanswered questions that needed to be asked. For some reason though, he had a bad premonition about the person behind it all. Everything was shrouded in mystery, there was also that secret ground. It was located in the Limitless Sword Society area which they poached from the Dark Palm Sect.
He was contemplating about taking this part of the land back into his territory, now after defeating their leader there was no reason not to be a bit brazen.
'I should probably look into it after I take care of Squidward, one thing at a time…'
He gave out a sigh while continuing with his journey. He passed the Limitless Sword Society area without many incidents. Along the way, he helped out a few people that were down on their luck. He did it with minimal effort, time was still of the essence.
One day passed and then another one. Soon he was deep into the empire and far away from home. He periodically sent some long-ranged messages to his wife thanks to his faction system. Communication jades and other devices didn't have enough range for things like this.
Even with it, there was a slight time delay between his direct messages. When using the system for communication it would look like a conversation through the internet. Both parties would see text popping up in front of them. He was limited to people that had their devotion above 90% for this which was only a handful. His wife was luckily one of them.
'I'm approaching the Divine Fist Sect territory, for now, I haven't encountered anything out of the ordinary.'
He pressed send and could see an indication that his wife had received the information. Regretfully there was a downside to this way of talking. The person receiving the DM couldn't respond normally. They had a limited array of emojis that they could click. They had thirty seconds to reply to his text.
'Thumbs up followed by a kissy face emoji, then a lot of heart emojis…'
Liena wasn't very good with picking out those and he very rarely used this system to contact anyone. Thus he sometimes had trouble understanding what his lovely wife wanted to say to him. This time there were a lot of hearts so everything must have been going well back home.
'There is still no reaction from the beacon even when I am this close…'
He grumbled while flying forward. He was lucky enough in evading any other nascent soul cultivators and was now only a few hours away from his destination. He hoped that he would figure out what happened to his new niece's grandfather after he got there.
Zhang Dong looked at his map and compared it to the map of the Azure Dragon Empire that he had in his possession. He was sure that he was in the right place, after getting through the mountain range that was in front of him he should be able to see the border walls.
'What is that?'
On the other side, he was forced to slow down. What he saw was peculiar. He could clearly see the fifty-meter large walls that continued for kilometers. This was a standard for keeping territories separate and wasn't the surprising thing that he saw.
'That's a lot of fog…'
Mist, white and thick. It was everywhere it was spilling over the walls even now and inching forward into this land bit by bit. Even with his enhanced senses, he couldn't see inside of this strange fog. He could feel small amounts of demonic qi coming off from it, he had a sinking suspicion that it was related to his favorite monster.
He examined everything from a safe distance, he wasn't alone here. He had discovered other cultivators keeping watch and they were not from the Divine Fist Sect. They were surprisingly from the Silver Spear Sect that he had beat up the leader off. This sect was one of the ones that bordered with the faction he was going towards.
They were mostly core formation and foundation establishment cultivators. These walls stretched for many kilometers in two directions, the nascent soul elder responsible for them would probably be somewhere in the middle of the border. He purposely moved to a spot where he could evade such an elder.
'If it's just them…'
He waved his hand around while his body rippled. His form faded out of existence as he blended with the surroundings. This was one of the new techniques that he had learned. It was a good technique for espionage as it rendered you invisible to people below your cultivation realm.
Zhang Dong floated gently towards the walls, using too much spiritual energy could give his position away. He remained standing in the air right before this strange white mist. All of his senses were telling him to not go in there. It was as if something in there was going to devour him whole.
It was too late to turn back though but before entering he turned to the side. There were some other cultivators floating on their swords. Before going in he decided to eavesdrop on their conversation. Maybe they would shed some light on it all, he was quite lucky as one of the junior members was just making a report to the commanding elder.
"Senior Elder, the evil fog is slowly progressing into our sect. No information is going through inside and the Divine Fist Sect isn't responding either… our scouts haven't returned either…"
He got the gist of it while listening to the report. It didn't answer any questions but he had a suspicion about how this strange fog worked. Luckily he was the right person for this job, maybe the only right person for it.
'I'm glad that I went with gold and not violet that time…'
He smirked while finally deciding to get in there. His body blurred for a moment and the white mist parted for a second as he dived in. The elder from the Silver Spear sect turned around to the spot that Zhang Dong dived in.
"Was it my imagination?"
"Elder?"
The man turned his head back to the junior member while nodding.
"Right, keep monitoring and await for our scouts to return. Keep your distance from this evil mist, I fear that it's the work of demonic cultivators. I will bring this information to the sect, we must have one of the grand elder's act!."
"Understood elder!"
No one here would go out of their way to investigate further. Most of the people were convinced that this fog was poisonous or might affect someone's mind. It was time to inform the higher-ups and have them act while they observed from outside.
It was progressing slowly and was keeping away from their side of the border so they didn't have a reason to act just yet. They still hoped that the Divine Fist Sect would take care of this problem as it was coming from their lands.
Unbeknownst to them, a certain person was already inside. His appearance started to shift into a handsome man with white hair and a robe of the same color. His eyes glowed with golden light and his body was covered with the same type of holy energy.
'I hope that I'm not too late…'