‘“How is gramps in the fortress?’

Zhang Dong was a bit confused as he had not had much time to explain how the large creation worked. The GUI that it had was quite easy to read through as he had made it to mirror game graphical interfaces that he remembered from the old days.

Liena quickly explained how she managed to call the old man over. When he approached the same spot that she did before an icon started glowing. She just needed to push it to let Zhang Jin drop into the pilot section.

It seemed that Liena had studied up on the creations that he had built. He made sure to make everything streamlined and easy to understand. This fortress was also running on an old operating system that was made to make things easy.

Thus it was plausible for his wife to figure out a way to get Zhang Jin inside. Though the fortress was acting a bit strange after the pilot switch. It was somewhat zig zagging all over the place as if the old man was hitting random prompts while in the pilot seat.

‘This isn’t the time for questions my husband, I will hold this good-for-nothing animal off!’

Zhang Liena took off in a burst of emerald energy. The feathers from her soul beast kicked up a storm and flew at the dark purple dragon as if they were homing missiles. While her cultivation wasn’t that high she had one more trump card left behind by her dear husband.

One of the rings on her finger started glowing and quickly encased her in pure green light. Wang Long was a bit surprised by the sudden counter attack so he decided to back off for a moment. His eyes were on his system as he tried to measure his new opponent's strength.

“Wait, isn’t that?”

Wang Long’s eyes went wide after the emerald light subsided. The woman was covered in a strange form-fitting armor. It looked as if it was made from some kind of green metal and had strange glowing runic patterns that were glowing.

The first thing he did was to look at the system indicator. His enemy didn’t seem to have gotten stronger as it still only showed her as an early realm nascent soul cultivator. But for some reason, he felt that her strength had increased.

Liena noticed that her opponent was a bit stunned by her armored appearance. This item that she was wearing was a high heaven grade item that Zhang Dong had managed to finish before his disappearance.

He called it ‘power armor’ and it was a fitting name as it did enhance her spiritual levels and strength levels. It was as if she was wearing something akin to a weapon that changed her body into something fearsome.

She didn’t skip a beat as she charged at Wang Long along with her soul beast. The two collided with each other and it turned into close-range combat. While her emerald phoenix was tussling with the dragon she was exchanging blows with the man that tried to capture her.

It was clear to her that he was not versed in combat tactics as his reaction time was somewhat sluggish. Even then, she couldn’t really do much damage as a strange force field continued to bounce off any deep hitting attacks that she produced.

If she landed ten good hits, he returned one that caused her to retreat. With time the armor that she was wearing started to receive some dents from the man’s kicks and punches and she was forced back without really causing much long lasting damage.

“Hah, you’re quite feisty, can’t wait to peel that thing off you, how about we make your whole sect watch as we have some fun?”

Liena scoffed at the man’s words. It was clear to her that this person had a screw loose. The things that he said were truly vile and despicable. She wanted nothing more than to rip the vile thing from between this man’s legs and beat him to death. But it seemed that she could only stall for time as this young master was not such a simple opponent.

Zhang Dong’s first reaction was to jump in to save his wife but he needed to use this time to cultivate. If he didn’t manage to break through soon, this whole battle could turn in their opponent's direction.

Above him, he could hear massive explosions. The ground he was sitting in was constantly shaking and blasts of condensed spiritual energy were constantly raining around the whole city. The elders from his sect were giving it their all but they were up against a large force from a mighty foe.

‘I must join them…let’s do this.’

He closed his eyes and concentrated on his three cores. They were all pulsating as if they would crack at any moment. This felt quite different from when he only had a singular core. That one had just gone through the motions as he cultivated and then was transformed into his nascent soul in a rather simple way.

Here on the other hand he was dealing with three separate cores. Was he supposed to fuse them into one large core or turn them into three nascent souls instead. When concentrating he noticed that the cores were moving away from each other while a strange power started to form in the middle.

‘What is this… could a nascent soul be forming… no this is something else…’

At first, he thought that perhaps a nascent soul was starting to form but he was mistaken. It felt different and grander. He could feel that the Dao’s that he had picked up throughout the years of his travels were being excluded from the three cores. They were all traveling into the center to form something, some kind of strange-looking seed.

He had to really concentrate to be able to feel it. The size of the core was far greater, it was as if he was comparing a moon to a tennis ball. But, the more he focused on this strange pure white seed, the more it continued to grow.

After it reached a certain size the growth was halted and he felt like his body was burning up. It was time, the great circle of this strange core formation was being reached.

“Got ya!”

Liena at this moment had been caught by some strange chains and was unable to move. Her emerald phoenix was being subdued by the purple lightning dragon that was strangely similar to her husband’s golden dragon. It looked like this was as far as she could go, even the armor treasure that she was wearing had been damaged enough to reveal her face.

“I still need to have my fun with you, You’ll look nice with a collar around your neck.”

Wang Long laughed while taking out a black slave collar from his spatial ring.

“Now hold still, I don’t want to cripple you before I had my fun, normal girls break so easily but on the other hand, you should be able to take it."

“I will never submit to someone like you!”

Zhang Liena screamed out while trying to use her spiritual energy to break free. Struggle she did but even then the slave collar continued to approach. Normally restraining collars like those would not work on nascent soul masters. But for some reason she felt her cultivation being suppressed, she could tell that if that thing went around her neck something disastrous would happen.

Before this could happen a strange aura appeared out of nowhere. Both Liena and Wang Long looked to this phenomenon as from it a bright pillar of light appeared that jabbed itself right into the clouds.

These two weren’t the only ones that felt this strange aura being spread throughout the whole battlefield. All of the lower and higher masters could feel something in their very being. No one knew what it was about but to the people from the Soaring Dragon Sect, it felt very ominous.

On the other hand, the cultivators from the United Element Sect felt something entirely different. It was a strange warm fuzzy feeling as if they had just drank some warm tea.

Before anyone could realize that it was Zhang Dong going through a realm change it was already too late. The pillar of light pierced through the massive protective barrier and caused the clouds to disappear and the sun to shine in.

The rays that illuminated the world started being absorbed into this pillar of light. Soon the entire area was bathed in a wondrous golden-white color. It could not be stopped and it could not be resisted as it passed through each and every one of the cultivators that were gathered here.

Just as soon as it appeared the light was gone. It was as if it was sucked into one certain point that was still radiating light while the rest of the area was shrouded in darkness.

Like moths drawn to the fire, everyone looked to this lit-up spot. There they discovered a certain white-haired Sect Leader. The light was coming from his dantian and for a moment some of the onlookers could see the light take the form of a bright white seed.

While everyone was staring, Zhang Dong found himself outside of his armor. It had shattered into many tiny pieces the moment he managed to breakthrough. This was quite surprising as it was supposed to be able to last through a regular late stage nascent soul master’s attacks without much of a dent.

He circulated his energies through his body to check if everything was in order. The three cores were still there but there was the addition of the tiny seed in the middle. He could feel that the energies from the cores were all flowing into this seed. Even if by a tiny fraction, it continued to grow, he felt that when it finally sprouted, something astonishing would happen.

……….

“Hmmm?”

A man opened their eyes while looking in a certain direction. He was sitting on a large golden throne that was adorned with various gems. His eyes were a dark sapphire blue and matched his long sky blue hair.

“My, Emperor. Is something wrong?”

The man turned his head to the womanly voice that called out to him. It was a beautiful woman that was sitting to his left on a slightly smaller throne that wasn’t as magnificent as his.

“Mmm… it must be my imagination.”

Soon he turned his face towards a hall filled with many other powerful cultivators and raised his hand.

“Let us get this over with.”

When he gave the signal the large door leading to this throne room was opened and soon a small group of cultivators emerged from it. At the helm were two old men dressed up in magnificent robes.

The man on the left was taller and his robe was mostly white. On the back, there was an elaborate crane embroiling. The man on the right on the other hand was a bit more imposing and a somewhat familiar-looking flying dragon adorned his robe...