“Team Alpha reporting in, Patriarch!”

“Good, as you can see this place needs a lot of work, I managed to plug up most of the holes but those darn worms keep wandering back in…”

Zhang Dong had spent half a day clearing out the worm nesting space. The cavern was really huge and able to even hold large-scale ships inside of it. This seemed to have been a naturally formed underground cave that the sandworms just expanded even further.

He underestimated the characteristics of these territorial beasts. Even after all of them were gone along with their eggs, more continued to appear. It wouldn’t be strange if this was the main habitat of those monsters and they always found their way back here. It looked like they were dead set on living in this large area even if they continued to die.

For this very reason, Zhang Dong had to bring out Bahamut for some help and also place protective formations in the main tunnels. Normally it might have been a good idea to just find another place but there were reasons that he decided to stay. One of them was due to time constrictions, flying around these unknown lands would be quite tiresome.

Then there was the real reason why he wanted to stay here, it was the tunnels. They were quite huge, large enough to allow even an Argonaut class ship to go through. These tunnels went through the entire desert and he had already sent out a few probes with Bob’s Ai on them to map everything out.

These probes were able to hide their presence from the beasts roaming the tunnels. As long as they didn’t bump into one of them directly they would not be discovered. His system map was quickly becoming filled out with the underground structure and his Ai program could even point out the quickest path towards his destination.

“Leave it to us, Patriarch!”

“Quick, bring in the teleportation base, we will begin assembly now!”

A group of around twenty cultivators arrived through the small teleportation gate that he created. They brought along larger parts of a similar one and through it most of his army would be going through. For the time being all of the resources would be moved towards this area so that this war could come to a close. When the island of demons is finally captured then it would probably be all over.

‘They sure work fast… I should leave it to them.’

Another nascent soul master arrived that he wasn’t that familiar with. Huo Qiang didn’t want to be stuck in a cave if there wasn’t much fighting to be had. Zhang Zhi was also busy with other things and both of them would only move when the time was right. For the time being they needed to remain to clear out the Demi-human remnants.

Zhang Dong on the other hand needed to continue to map out these tunnels. After throwing a few more orbs forward he sped into one of the tunnels. When passing into the passage he felt the protective barrier around him that would block out even nascent soul worm beasts.

‘There are other large caves like this one, maybe I should look into those too.’

Thus for the time being he turned into a sandworm hunter. He spent a few days going through the tunnels and clearing out the large open spaces. There he would establish more bases where his people could start preparing. Even if the tunnels proved too small to travel through it didn’t matter. They could always just burst through the rocky underground and approach the main city directly. This would of course give their positions away which was something that he wanted to avoid.

“Bahamut, remain here and help clear out any of the monsters you come across.”

Finally, a week had passed since he arrived here and only a bit of time remained for this assembly to commence. Zhang Dong found himself at the edge of the desert and at the beginning of a poisonous forest. The trees looked to be alive and carnivorous, many demonic beasts that fed on the flesh of people resided here and were a natural barrier between the main demon city.

“GAO!”

His golden dragon returned to the underground while his people continued to transport resources. Within a week all of them would be here and then his battle plan could start. The only troublesome thing was his golden fortress. It could not fit through the gate, the only way of getting it here was through direct teleportation that spent spirit points.

It was quite a large number which would lower his escape chances later on. It would be able to get here but moving it back to a safe location would be impossible. Unless he found a large spirit stone mine there would be no way of running. With how this place was a barren wasteland that lacked almost any spiritual energy, that would probably not happen.

‘Could a nucleus be here somewhere? There might have been someone that started out as a demonic faction member in the past.’

There was only one chance of getting an injection of spiritual energy. If he managed to find a spawning point of a system holder then it was possible. Yet scanning the entire landmass as he did in the old days wasn’t feasible. For now, he needed to focus on the mission at hand.

‘This looks quite ominous…’

He looked at the mass of malicious energy and gave it a prod with his finger. Thanks to the various Dao’s that he absorbed he was somewhat able to keep the poison from entering his body. It was only a temporary measure as he could feel the miasma slowly working its way in. If he didn’t cleanse it with his holy energy then it would slowly fester and create problems later down the line.

“Let’s get this over with… first is this gloomy forest… then I think there is some kind of lava lake and something similar to the shadowlands I encountered before…”

Normally someone that attempted to traverse through this way would consult some travel guides. There were certain spots that were safer than others. Some strong demonic monsters were territorial and only stayed in certain specific parts. However he wasn’t here just to get to the other side, he was trying to figure out the layout while also finding a flight path for his army. Even though this was a dangerous place he didn’t believe that it could block his entire force from advancing.

“It’s better to be safe than sorry, if some capricious immortal created this place then it could prove troublesome…”

Thus finally he flung himself into the deadly mist while also wearing a different disguise. His old face was already known as people came asking about him. Before leaving the port city he had altered the protective formation. It was possible to integrate something similar to a listening device. Through this, he was informed when a few nascent soul masters paid a visit after he left. The elders there were quick to give up all the information that they desired, it seemed that they were looking for him.

Yet from the conversation that he overheard it didn’t seem that Wang Long had ordered this chase. It was more probable that some sect members were trying to investigate the disappearance of their powerful members that just vanished. Now his face would probably be plastered all over the assassination guilds with rewards.

‘Just as I expected, they fear him enough to leak the information, if I’m lucky he’ll be stuck snorting some pill dust off a girl’s behind while we attack.’

While delving through the poisonous fog he noted down the monsters in the vicinity and had Bob instantly inform his people of the topography. His system map could also work in both ways, he could relay information onto a holographic representation and send information directly. There was a slight lag but it would be enough to inform anyone that followed after him.

The monsters here were mostly up to the core formation level with some ‘beast kings’ existing occasionally. They sectioned off these forests into zones that could be avoided. After he was done with the preliminary scouting then some of his sect brothers would move in. They would draw up the safest path for the coming armada and if it was necessary then create a battle plan in which the flying ships could take out the largest monsters.

‘This miasma doesn’t go up that far so we should be safe but some of those monsters might possess ranged capabilities.’

On his way to the end, he took out some lesser creatures without them even realizing that he was there. If he wanted he could probably lay waste to the entire region by himself but then his location would become obvious. Thus he finally arrived at an area covered by shadowy night, even from here he could feel the screams of decrepit souls.

‘Wish I could just absorb them like before…’

After giving out a sigh he dived right in. Thanks to the knowledge of his soul Dao he could remain hidden even to these immaterial ghost beings. Even though he could not take in their energy directly anymore they would not be able to harm him. The strength of these specters came from their numbers and the fact that not many people understood this type of difficult Dao.

Without them being able to form into something substantial they could only slowly drain their victims of energy. This area wouldn’t prove very difficult to venture through as long as everyone remains in the vicinity of the protective formation. But he also made sure to extinguish some of the larger specters that were on the cusp of becoming something stronger. With that out of the way, he finally arrived at the cusp of the next area that was covered in magma.

It was a truly gigantic active volcano that was spewing up deadly ash into the air. But there was some kind of veil created in the gigantic city around this massive mountain that kept it at bay. The outline of the dome shape protective formation was easy to make out as the ash continued to swirl around it but was unable to pierce through.

“So that’s it… the city of demons…”

It was hard to make out due to the swirling ash and hot air but the whole inhabitable area was composed of several cities. It was said to contain around three hundred million people within itself and all of them were cruel in nature.

“This won’t be as easy as I hoped it to be…”

Even without going in, he knew that there were layers upon layers of protective spells everywhere. If he ventured another hundred meters forward he would be walking into several deadly traps. Up in the air, he could also spot a bunch of grumpy-looking Chaos Sect members that were probably clued in about the man that saved the coastal city.

‘Luckily they can’t see me yet, here goes nothing…’

While hiding his presence he slowly approached the volcanic area after scouting out the area it would finally be time to take the offensive and finish this meaningless conflict once and for all.