Chapter 425 (1/2)

'Are those people? They look kind of off…'

Zhang Dong was forced to wait as the chaotic storms of elemental energies slowly cleared out. The path that was left was about one kilometer in width. When he strained his eyes he could see some strange flying objects coming his way, it was clear that one of the bridges between the empires had opened up.

'Is this the first one… or are there more appearing now?'

He had no way of checking for this information, probably the only one that could answer his question was the Azure Emperor. They did possess a magical map of the entire empire in that one secret location. While the Long Clan was added as a side faction, the people there didn't trust him enough for him to communicate with them.

The only person with an approval rating over 50% was the Azure Emperor. But even he had clear doubts with Zhang Dong, their relationship had just started which was understandable. Even between family members, the number would mostly cap out at 60%.

Even with his enhanced vision, he had trouble picking out their forms but then, he finally saw them. From afar they looked like normal humanoids but then the large teeth became apparent.

The person that he spotted was about two meters in height and his skin was dark yellow. His hands were covered in wraps and he was wearing something similar to a tank top shirt. Thanks to this he could see the exposed bone spikes that were coming out of his arms.

Then there was the face, the man had no hair at all instead there were some kind of strange dark bumps. His mouth even when not opened showed off a large amount of sharp yellow teeth that grind against each other constantly. It didn't seem that this person was quite able to close it as the abundance of teeth made it impossible.

'Is it some kind of demonic cultivator? I can't sense any evil energy from them… it feels more like Dao of earth.'

There were other humanoids of this kind there that varied in appearance somehow. They all lacked hair and had those spiky bone appendages protruding from their bodies. He even spotted some that had a more feminine shape but still had no hair on their body. The closer they got the more they radiated earthen energy and the skin looked dried up and leathery.

”W-what is that? Why are those people coming from beyond the wall? Quickly send a message to the sect, we might be under attack!”

The people from the sect that he came from finally noticed that there was someone moving through this parted storm. From Zhang Dong's perspective, their sect would probably take the brunt of this attack and by the energies, some of these attackers were radiating, it wouldn't be easy to defend.

The flying objects that they came from varied. Some ships were clearly made from bones of beasts while other were actually living ones. There was one in particular that stood out, a large flying worm that had some kind of strange building on its back. This creature radiated might at the level of a nascent soul cultivator and there were more coming from that building.

'They don't look like the type that would be willing to talk things out, but I shouldn't judge a book by its cover…'

Zhang Dong was willing to give these people the benefit of the doubt. Though they might look like monsters out of a horror movie, it might have just been due to how their part of the empire was created. Maybe there were other ways to go about this war, there was no rule that he needed to defeat every empire.

Some could be willing to work things out and not shed the blood of others. The cultivator types were motivated by resources that were all finite. If there was a way to share some of them to evade conflict then he was willing to haggle a bit.

Regretfully it would quickly become apparent that at least this group wasn't willing to talk. While he was waiting for them to get closer the people from the sect that escorted him here made a break for it.

They could clearly feel the pressure that some of the beings here were giving off and decided that fleeing was the best option for survival. Contacting their sect was one thing but surviving this was another. They didn't even look Zhang Dong's way when they decided on this as he was clearly only an outsider.

But the people that were approaching from this bridge between empires were quick to notice this. The person that he noticed at the front turned his head towards the group of fleeing cultivators.

He moved his hand towards his own shoulder and quickly yanked out one of those spikes that was sticking out. This bone spike increased in size in a matter of moments and soon it was clear to Zhang Dong what he was about to do.

The toothy person then took out a spear-throwing position. The right arm that he was holding this bone spear with started getting bigger. His muscles bulged out to strange proportions before he launched this projectile towards the fleeing group of cultivators.

Once thrown the bone spear produced a sonic boom and was quickly closing the gap. They clearly heard the resounding boom behind them but when they turned around it was already closing in on them. Before it fully reached them the spike burst into many slightly smaller ones, each one heading for a cultivator's head.

”N-no!”

Not long after the initial sonic boom was heard it was followed by another strange sound. A certain white-robed cultivator appeared right out of nowhere between this small group and the flying projectiles. Without raising his hand he let them collide with the spirit shield that was surrounding his body.