“Give me a report, what have our strategists come up with?”

“Greetings Patriarch!”

Zhang Dong walked into the room, in the middle there was a large holographic map with various colors on it. The side that represented his lands was colored blue while the middle where his brother the Azure Emperor resided was green. In various other locations, it was quite red with a focus on the areas connecting to the other empires.

“The region that we had managed to take from the demi-humans is stable, we have experienced an attack coming from outside but our forces were able to handle it with minimal losses, no force has attempted to travel through the bridge. We assume that the other demi-humans have informed their leaders already and are probably unwilling to risk losing forces by going through the bridge directly.”

“That does make sense, have our scouts discovered anything? Are they building up a force up north?”

“It is so Patriarch, the enemy is probably building up their forces before attempting to reclaim the area, we expect the recent skirmishes to be nothing more than scouts meant to test our forces.”

“Mhm.”

Zhang Dong nodded while looking at the map, he had wanted the enemies to just attack him through the bridge where his defenses were the strongest. Regretfully they weren’t all just brutes and were smart enough to wait for more people to arrive. It wouldn’t be strange if after they charge from the north another sizable army would appear through the bridge to attempt a pincer attack.

“Very well, concentrate on building our defenses outwardly; we can not have that location fall. How about the other regions, any words from the east side?”

“Yes Patriarch, we have received information that the sects and clans are being pushed towards the center of the empire.”

“Has the Heavenly Crane Sect moved in yet?”

“No, they have taken a passive approach but are allowing other sects to join their ranks.”

“As expected, they don’t want to spread themselves too thin without knowing the other sides full might.”

Zhang Dong nodded as the second strongest sect in the Empire was acting in a similar fashion to the strongest. They didn’t care about the lower regions or protecting them, most of their wealth was gathered in the zones with higher spiritual energy concentrations. There the spirit stone mines were more plentiful and the spirit herbs grew in abundance.

“Do we know something about the East attackers or about the ones coming from the north?”

“Yes, Patriarch, the ones to the east have identified themselves as residents of the Emerald Phoenix Empire and are very similar to our own people. They are also cultivators similar to us but their way of progressing is different.”

“I presume they have been ransacking the cities they managed to occupy?”

The person giving the report nodded as Zhang Dong was familiar with that group of people as he had spent some time in that Empire. They were a reflection of the Azure Empire so they would act the same way as the cultivators here. This was like a secret ground that became open for a short amount of time. They were like locusts that hoped to devour everything before the path home closes.

‘They have learned to cultivate in lands with lower amounts of spiritual energy, so now that they have come here they will gain a boost to their strength. I can’t move into that region before taking care of the Demi-humans and Wang Long…’

While the Emerald Phoenix Emperor and his people could not be taken lightly they were predictable. They wouldn’t push in too hard and slowly try to gather all the resources they could get their hands on. He believed that they would wait and gather information before pulling all the stops. Getting used to the increased spiritual energy would also hinder their siege as a lot of their Elders will wish to cultivate in a more favorable environment instead.

“What of the beings from the spirit sea? Have they been identified?”

“No Patriarch, we only have rumors and the map we speculate that these beings can’t function on land as we do and instead will continue to spread their influence in the uncharted waters.”

The north side of the empire was connected to a giant ocean that could not be crossed, anyone that attempted to make the trip had never come back to tell their tale. The way was clearly barred and only opened up after this scenario had started. Probably if he tried sailing those waters he would arrive in another area with those supposed fish people.

‘If they can’t reach into our lands then its fine but the only problem is…’

The map here was showing a fog of red moving from the northeast towards the northwest where Wang Long was supposed to be. When crossing over to the demonic lands there would be a possibility of running into these invaders. It was also possible for Wang Long to interact with them first.

‘It would be nice if they could just kill him for me but they will probably be nothing more than a spirit point farm…’

The sea creatures could perhaps be a perfect farm just made for a system holder. If they couldn’t come over towards the landmass then Wang Long could retreat to safety after killing a few.

‘I can’t just wait, I need to strike while the iron is hot as long as we keep winning the sect will also continue getting a morale boost.’

The United Element Sect was his faction and this feature had several uses. One of them was giving him passive spirit points by keeping everyone happy. Yet this wasn’t all as after reaching a certain threshold the whole sect would be given a power boost that was affected by their morale. During battles, he could also choose to spend points to give his people passive buffs if he so wished.

‘The more we win, the more they believe in me and give me points but if many people die then the whole thing could crumble…’

Zhang Dong disliked treating his people like numbers and statics on the screen. This was the unfortunate truth of this system he just had a general idea of how his people were doing, it was all like a strategy game. It made things easier for him to run his faction but also dehumanized the people living there.

‘I hope when this is all over, I can just put all of this to rest…’

After going through the map again he retreated to his system menu. There he accessed the faction window where he found the Golden Dong Palace. After frowning at the name he had given it he looked at the resources that were being stored there. They were steadily increasing thanks to the castle Valentine brought over and almost all of it had been transferred.

‘All of this seems too easy but this was probably done by design.’

The floating golden castle was very convenient. It was an end-game item that he received at the start of the scenario that was supposed to last for a hundred years. Probably after a few years of losing their borders, everyone would gather closer to the center of the empire, and even the invaders would not be able to contend with the nascent soul masters that had all gathered up under one banner.

Then when they counterattacked the person with the system would be able to constantly farm spirit points and finally ascend. This of course didn’t go well with him as he wasn’t really planning on ascending. Whatever was out there he didn’t really want it, spending a thousand years of his lifetime with his current family didn’t sound that bad.

‘I just hope that I’ll get a choice in all of this…’

Yet he needed to have a plan B for whenever the overlords decided to show themselves. Perhaps going above the limits that this place was created with would be the only way of saving everyone that he loved. The first step in that quest for true freedom would be taking care of Wang Long.

‘I just hope my dear ol’ brother won’t throw a fit after his treasured family relic vanishes…’

Zhang Dong thought to himself while vanishing from his current location and appearing in the palace made from golden material. He appeared in a secluded room that only he as the owner of this place could access freely. After renovating the large room he was left with something that looked similar to his old man cave.

It was somewhat similar to the area he saw at the old secret ground. A gaming desk with a lot of screens was here along with any old technology that he was able to bring over from that place. Here he could monitor all of this palace without even clicking on the screen.

“So how is it going, Bob?”

“The Golden Dong Palace is 77% operational.”

“Good, so we have enough energy to leave this place, right?”

“Affirmative.”

His AI partner had been uploaded into this flying fortress to take care of all the difficult calculations. While all of the cannons could not be automated Bob could take care of the teleporting. This required a lot of processing power and precision, if someone was to get sent into a rock their atoms would become a jumbled mess as they died almost instantly.

‘It only needed to be at 75%, that castle was worth the trouble!”

He wanted to pat himself on the back for choosing to ransack the vampire castle for valuable resources. Together with all the various building materials the destroyed sects and clans left they were able to restore this place into working order.

‘The Long Clan doesn’t seem too bothered by anything as usual…’

His flying fortress was able to somewhat monitor the Long Clan on the outside. He could tell that from the day he had entered the palace a lot of nascent soul elders had been stationed closer to his location. They were keeping tabs on him but weren’t aware of what was happening on the inside.

There was one reason that he needed to leave this place, it was impossible to fully prepare this flying fortress otherwise. Most of what was missing were the defensive structures on the outside that he could not restore without the Long Clan noticing. Everything that was upgraded was on the inside but if he didn’t want to be a flying target he needed to get those cannons ready.

‘That Goliath thing is also bothering me but… perhaps if I show my independence my dear brother will fill me in on the secret.’

With that in mind he decided to flip the switch to alert his people, it was time to take the fight to the demi-humans once more and hopefully end this whole war prematurely.