As soon as the enemy group was destroyed, the members of Zack's group that specialized in medicine quickly gathered around him to try to treat his wounded arm.

"This looks bad, really bad," one of the men said as he observed the arm.

At that moment, Zack's arm was completely burned with various purple shades around it. What had been a strong and muscular arm only an hour before was now as frail as a rotten branch.

"The good thing is that you managed to destroy almost all the corruption, and the remaining one is not dangerous for someone with your cultivation." The man told Zack

"And the bad one?" Zack asked concerned.

"It seems that you have destroyed your arm's energy channels, so you will never manage to heal it completely. At best, you will be able to grab light things, but using them for fighting is completely out of the question, "the man explained.

After hearing that, Zack felt something inside him break. He had spent most of his life fighting, and even if he knew how to use magic, he had only mastered some spells to boost his swordsmanship skills.

Seeing that his future seemed grim no matter what he did at the moment, he decided to keep all those feelings inside him for the time being until they had finished the mission. Once they were home, he would have all the time in the world to think about his future.

"Begin to inspect everything and try to find out if there was any room that we had to check. If you find any cultists, don't hesitate to kill them. " Zack ordered his men.

Splitting into couples, Zack's group searched the whole floor while destroying any dangerous items that they found and looting what they thought could be useful. A few minutes later, they found a new room had its door locked. This door was different from the other as it was made from a much more resistant material, so they couldn't get inside as easily just by breaking it.

As it looked like there could be something important inside, they decided to search through the body of the cult leader, and just like that, they found a key hanging from his neck.

"By the way, have you guys managed to see how the hell he managed to not get killed by my attack?" Zack asked as he realized that he had failed to kill that man.

"From what I saw, as soon as his wounded body touched the floor it transformed into mist before he appeared from behind another shelf to try to kill you, so I guess what you tried to kill was an illusion created with corruption or something like that." one of his men replied.

He let out a sigh after hearing that, as he realized that he had lost his arm because he had been too impatient.

After that, they used the key to the locked door, and behind it, they found what looked like the leader's quarters. Multiple shelves were filled with high-ranking materials, and a few bags were filled with energy coins, which were a form of currency that cultivators created from energy crystals obtained from the underground.

"Wow, now I understand why these people look so poor. All these coins could be used to buy at least three sets of elemental infused equipment, "Zack said as he observed the money.

Even if for a big group it couldn't be considered much, for a single person it would be enough to live without preoccupations for the rest of their lives.

"Boss, I think I have found something much more important." One of his men said as he showed a small leather book.

Zack approached to take it, and as soon as he opened it, he understood what he was looking at.

That book was the diary of the man that led the cult before they were forced to migrate. Inside it, multiple corruption-based techniques were written down, as well as his thoughts and different theories about corruption and other cultivation topics.

If the book fell into the wrong hands and could have led to the formation of a new cult, but thankfully they were able to recover it before that happened.

After the first look, Zack thought about burning it as it could be dangerous to keep it, but as he continued reading, he found some interesting topics that weren't directly related to the corruption, so maybe he could use them for something.

He continued reading as his men finished searching across the room, and when they were about to leave, he read something incredible.

"According to what the tribes said, when the battle between worlds happened, the great leader Gar was the first to become corrupted by a much purer form of this energy, becoming a hideous monster that attacked anything that crossed his path. But I think that's not exactly what happened. I think that Gar was near the limits of his cultivation and that the corruption gave him a little boost that allowed him to touch the next realm, but because his mind fell under the power of the corruption, his advancement failed. My theory is that by getting someone's mind, body, and dantian to the limit and then fueling them with pure corruption could make them evolve into something completely new. "