“What’s happening?”

Elder Jingyi asked after feeling the whole place trembling, soon a person burst through the entrance to this meeting chamber.

“Elders! We are being attacked!”

“What!?”

All the people in this room were the heads of the Thunderball hall. All of them were gathered in this room and no one was able to notice any enemies getting closer.

“How could this be? Why wasn’t the alarm sounded?”

“They appeared out of the mist, we only detected the enemies after they started attacking the protective barrier.”

“Who are the enemies, who dare attack the Thunderball Hall?”

All the people looked at the sect member that burst through the door, the man quickly replied.

“It’s the Blood Poison Cult! They have the whole sect surrounded, they must have sneaked in during the night!”

“The Blood Poison Cult? Then it must be true, she really did betray us…”

One of the high elders commented as he recalled the Sect Leader’s granddaughter being rumored to have betrayed them. With their sudden attack right after their strongest member was poisoned this was too much of a coincidence.

“It doesn’t matter now, everyone protect the disciples, we must protect the sect, someone go inform the Sect Leader! Contact the other righteous sects, see if they will aid us in this time of need!”

The elders soon scrambled, this was a life or death situation. Everyone knew that this Evil sect of poison users would not stop until everyone was dead. Fleeing was not an option as they would just be hunted down to the end of the world.

On the outside, everyone was woken up by a blaring alarm. The outer sect elders and disciples were forced to defend themselves as they were the closest. The protective shield that was surrounding the whole mountain started cracking each time it was hit by the enemy's powerful attacks.

“That’s it, break it down, kill everyone, don’t let anyone survive, no prisoners!”

An elder from the Blood Poison Cult shouted. He was wearing a dark red robe that was surrounded by a purple haze of poisonous energy.

This was a coordinated attack. This sect came to eradicate the Thunderball hall and take their resources. Siege weapons were firing off large boulders filled with poison.

Many demonic cultivators were already in their battle formations and taking the appearances of ghastly demonic creatures. They pounded on the protective barrier with their massive claws and tendril-like appendages until it broke down.

The bloodbath soon started, the outer sect members were no match for the elite army of this sect. The disciples were quickly evacuated towards the inner sect while the elders and seniors tried to stall.

Even though this was the Thunderball Hall’s territory the protective formations and weapons didn’t slow down the approach of the enemy sect. It looked like the plans of the defenses that this sect was keeping a secret were also stolen.

It seemed that they knew where all the traps were placed and where all of the weak points were. With a lack of defensive measures the Outer Sect was quickly collapsing and people were forced to quickly evacuate into the inner sect where there was a stronger protective barrier.

“Hah, run you little roaches, you will not escape your fate!”

A large booming voice was heard by everyone, in the sky, three people were seen floating around. They were not using any treasures to float around as they didn’t have to. Each of these three had a cultivation level of a Late Stage Supreme Saint.

“Brother Ying, your Blood Poison Cult looks ferocious today, it does seem that we won’t be needed.”

The man that previously shouted was wearing a Blood Poison Cult’s robe that showed off that he was the leader. The two people that were floating next to him had other robes and were clearly not from this sect.

“I thank you brother for your words but we must stay vigilant, that Zheng Tengfei might still be alive.”

The other two men nodded. They were two sect leaders from allied demonic sects. Zheng Ting was put under a demonic bond with the Blood Poison Cult’s leader. She was brainwashed into loving him and revealed to be his perfect spy.

The cult was forced to act after they got news that this Thunderball Hall leader was close to ascending into the Saint Emperor realm. If that happened they would be surely eradicated by this righteous sect's new might.

Before that would happen they planned this out, the two Supreme Saints here were just the backup plan if the old Hall leader proved to be stronger than expected.

“You dare steal away my granddaughter!”

Soon the fight was brought over to the inner sect barrier and the Patriarch was forced to show himself. He was clearly not doing great as he was forced to stand on a floating platform.

“If it isn’t old man Tengfei, you’re not looking so good, is something wrong?”

The cult leader laughed out while the two men to his sides chuckled with him.

“Do you think you can leave here unscathed? Do you think my sect won’t put up a fight? You forget where you are!”

The old man held out a trident in front of himself and raised it up into the sky. When he did the whole lightning tower began to churn with power. The lightning bolts started being absorbed into the tower’s lightning rods as the whole tower started bursting with energy.

“Even in my weakened state, I can still operate the ancestral tower!”

“Hah, are you sure about that?”

The cult leader brought out a strange pendant and while the patriarch was ready to deliver judgment upon the enemies he activated it. The pendant glowed in red and with it, a strange tattoo appeared on Tengfei's neck.

The old man started vomiting purple smoke and quickly lost focus. The tower that was glowing brightly quickly lost its power and the lightning bolts started firing off in random directions even causing damage to the inner sect.

“Did you really think I would come here to be killed by that treasure? You forget that I’m a master of poison!”

The cult leader knew that Tengfei was the only one able to operate this huge tower of lightning. With the sect leader now down on the ground and vomiting blood, there was nothing to stop them from eradicating this sect.

“Everyone attack! That protective formation will run out of power soon, they lost their trump card!”

But while some of the lesser elders from the Thunderball Hall were trying to activate the patriarch’s trident something strange started to happen. The whole tower started rumbling and the lightning storm above became rowdy.

For a moment the cult was still outside, still attacking the protective barrier. The people only noticed a bit later that all of the lightning was being absorbed by one lightning rod on the tower. This rod soon started melting as it could not contain all of the energy and a large hole was blown from the inside.

At exactly the same moment of the protective barrier giving out the top of the tower exploded. The terrified Thunderball Hall members looked up and could see a massive pillar of bright light shooting out into the sky.

“What is that…”

“Oh no, the tower is no more and the protective formation is done for, we are all going to die!”

While the Hall members cried out in panic the cult members stopped with their approach as their leader shouted.

“Brother Ying, was this also one of your plans?”

The two Supreme Saints next to the cult leader asked as it didn’t look to be so.

“No… did you also notice?”

“Yes, there is a person in that pillar of light… the power is immense…”

“Let us attack!”

The three Supreme Saints nodded at each other as they didn’t like how this looked. It seemed that this Thunderball Hall had another secret that they didn’t know about. They all combined their attacks and fired them into the sky at the person inside of the storm.

This person was, of course, Zhang Dong. He was in a world of pain as he flew up into the sky. He ended up busting his way through this tower of electricity and entering the lightning storm himself. All of the lightning that was in the vicinity was promptly absorbed into him.

“GAHHHhhhh”

A massive shout was heard by everyone and prompted them to look up. What they saw there was a giant ball of deep blue lightning energy that looked like a sun. As this energy came to be it lit up the night. The whole place was illuminated and it looked like it was daytime.

The dark energy attack that were fired off by the Supreme Saints collided with this large ball of lightning energy but could not pierce through it. It seemed that Zhang Dong’s ascension was not going to be stopped by external factors.

He could feel it, his lightning core was being formed. It was much larger than the one that he had before and it crackled with deep blue lightning energy. This wasn’t all, there were still more foundation pillars to go as this was only a third.

A second core that was pure gold and radiated the holiest of energies was created soon after. With its creation, the deep blue ball of lightning that he was surrounded with turned to gold and gave out a burst or repulsion.

The demonic cultivators and poison users were pushed back by these holy energies. Some of them were instantly knocked out cold while others started vomiting pitch-black blood.

This was not over yet as Zhang Dong had to focus more. There was one more core to go and soon the rest of the foundation pillars started to melt and be absorbed into a new core. This one didn’t really have a color as it was translucent in nature, it was the soul core.

With one last shout, the ball of electricity turned white and everything was engulfed in it. The people had to avert their gazes while some that didn’t would be temporarily blinded.

Zhang Dong gave out a sigh of relief as the massive pain that took him over was quickly subsiding. The bright light that surrounded his body was also vanishing and he could smell the fresh air outside.

He focused on the cores that he had created. It seemed that they were the three aspects of his cultivation that were the strongest, lightning, holy element, and then his soul power. The three cores floated around each other as if they were harmonizing.

When he was ascending into the core formation realm he had momentarily lost his senses. The first thing that he noticed is his ability to fly, this was not something a core formation cultivator should be able to do.

When he checked, he could feel that his all-around power level was about half of what it was when he was a nascent soul early stage cultivator. Maybe after he digested this unique realm change, he would get even stronger.

Finally, he started glancing around and he noticed that he was surrounded from all sides. Below him were the Hall members while everywhere else there were evil-looking cultivators dressed in black robes.

Before he could ask about what was happening he heard an old man that seemed to be poisoned call out to him.

“T-that robe… that ring... is it possible… is it the great ancestor? Did you manage to survive the dreaded petrification curse?”

‘The what now?’

When petrification was mentioned he could only think back to the coffin that he found a crumbled stone statue with a spatial ring. The same ring he had around his finger as it was of a much higher caliber than the rest.

‘Does this mean that that was a person in there… but what is this situation…’

He started looking around, it seemed that he was right in the middle of a good old-fashioned sect cleansing. Apparently, he was now the ancestor of the losing side.

‘Oh boy, here we go again.’