‘That was somewhat refreshing for some reason…’

Zhang Dong thought back to the young master he had disabled and sneaked away. Just giving him a nightmare wasn’t enough though. Inserting cultivation demons into a person of a lower realm was possible. This illusion that he fed to Jia Yang would fester and eat away at the man’s mental state.

It was a little thing he learned from the demonic faction, he would never be able to achieve the nascent soul level like this and regress. In a world ruled by power and prestige, he would be quickly overtaken by others that desired his possession and his grandfather wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

‘Still leave a bit of a bad aftertaste in my mouth, he should be thrown to jail but this should be the closest thing here.’

In reality, Zhang Dong would have rather dealt with something like this according to his old-world morals. Here on the other hand he couldn’t if he wanted to maintain good relations with the Heavenly Crane Sect. If he crippled him in an open fashion then the faction this cultivator was a part of would hold malice against him. In a time when both sides were needed to take care of a threat, this was not an option.

‘Never thought I would be making deals like this, I guess that’s war for you, never know what you might have to do to survive…’

For the time being, he could only bury this case in the back of his mind. Perhaps when all of this was over he could go after all the war criminals he encountered. Winning the exchange between empires was for now more important than the dealings of juniors. As someone at the top, his time would be better spent creating a system to not allow things like this to happen anymore. Handling everything on a case-by-case basis by himself was not feasible, he needed to create a task force and get many other people involved instead.

“Sun Ling, do you know where this person lives we need to drop her of in a safe location.”

“Yes, Senior, it's not that far from here.”

“Well then, I’ll be right behind you, and don’t worry, no one will be able to see you.”

Sun Ling clasped her hands while guiding Zhang Dong toward this woman’s own crafting abode. He kept them hidden away from any nosy Sage Lily faction members to not implicate them. After Jia Yang awoke, he would probably search for the woman that escaped, if Sun Ling was seen dropping her over at her house then it would be obvious that she was a part of the attack on the young master.

Not much happened on the way to the lady's home that she shared with a few other junior sisters. She was in a lesser zone than to which the young master belonged. This made her a perfect target as she didn’t have any proper backing than her own master that was of course below in status than Jia Yang’s grandfather.

While perhaps this visit wasn’t that productive it was eye-opening. Ever since he established his own sect he didn’t really look into that many things. He relied on the system to point out a person’s alignment to him. While no evil people were taken in there were some that were morally gray.

‘What is even good anymore, a lot of things can be skewed to fit anyone's worldview and justify even murder…’

Perhaps things weren’t as bad at his own sect but he couldn’t discount that young masters like this one could be appearing. The new generation of cultivators might have been analyzed by the system but he didn’t do the same with the older members. They were the overbearing grandfathers at the top that would strike fear into everyone.

He could also not account for new people being born with an evil alignment or it switching through their life for one reason or another. There were many things that affected this base state and it could even be switched instantly after a traumatic experience.

‘But now is not the time for this, let's continue this…’

The trip through the city continued with him getting more and more disappointed with each new reveal. He stopped interfering with the people as nothing as bad happened but the small things kept piling up. This place had a clear divide between casts and it existed everywhere. The ones born to the wrong parents had to bow their heads and it was almost impossible to change their fate.

When listening to the rumors of what was happening at the eastern fronts he realized that most of the people fighting there were expendable. All the powerful sect masters were from the various Lily factions and didn’t need to do anything. Even the nascent soul masters there were just groomed for such an occasion.

‘So that’s why a large chunk of them just want to wait here. At least it was smart for them to create backup experts for such an occasion, all the main families will be fine but the branching ones will mostly fall after this war. I bet they think that they can just rebuild as long as the tree survives, not much different than what the Azure Emperor is doing…’

After some time had passed Zhang Dong and his entourage were sitting outside another tea house. All the second-hand information that he wanted to gather was there and now he needed to make a decision. While the strongest cultivators with the best techniques were sitting on their hands, their vassal clans were dying out on the field. Probably until all of them were spent they wouldn’t act.

‘They might not even act at all, this protective formation is bad, even the demi-human emperor wouldn’t be able to easily get in here…’

He only fought against one of the emperor-level threats so he didn’t have all the data. The one that ruled over the oceans didn’t show herself yet but her troops were around the same level as the demi-humans. When taking that into consideration this place seemed like it could last out for a while before being conquered. It depended on how much spirit energy and masters they had to infuse their defenses in.

‘This place is mostly self-sufficient but sooner or later they would run out of resources.’

From his calculations and current information, he believed that they would last at least ten years, perhaps more if they had some hidden resources. This also depended on how hard the opposition wanted to go. Usually what happened was a slow siege and battle of attrition, cultivator types lived for long, thus they didn’t risk rushing into things. Perhaps if the Emperor moved by himself they wouldn’t even last a few months.

“Junior greets senior.”

‘I guess I’ll have to make a decision soon, time for the next part.’

Finally, after a few hours in the city, Sun Shi arrived once more. Together with him were various other old men that were wearing the Moon Lily faction emblems on their robes. These were far more intricate than the one's Zhang Dong and the guards were wearing.

The Lily Factions were the ones in power and they split off into quite a lot. The Sun, Moon, and Sage were only three out of ten camps. Each one had a head elder leading them to have ten feuding factions only looking out for themselves. There were exactly ten of them which made it problematic whenever any decisions needed to be made.

Each Lily could cast a vote and most of the time it was five against five with nothing being decided. There was one above them, his name was Tao Guan and he was the current sect leader. Even though he was at the top spot he couldn’t discount any of the other factions and from what he heard was also unwilling to veto a vote when it was five against five.

“Are you the Moon Lily Grand Elder?”

“That is true, Golden Dragon, I am called Sun Shen.”

He already knew that they were somehow related but Sun Shi and Sun Ling were part of the Moon Lily Clan. This whole thing was very similar to the situation back at his own sect, there they had three main factions with the Zhang, Huo, and Feng Clans that were part of the founding clans. The biggest difference was that Zhang Dong as the Patriarch carried a lot more weight there and his orders could not be denied by any of the factions.

Here, on the other hand, their leader needed to consult everyone before making any kind of decision. If he tried imposing a rule that a lot of people were against, something like an internal war could break out. It wasn’t anything new, many times did clans or sects produce people that craved to be the leader.

It was the same here, he was sure that some people in the background were already trying to come out on top of this war. Sending their competition to the front lines would be the most sensible move but could also backfire if the people sent there actually came out victorious and ended up increasing their fame.

“Your granddaughter had explained a few things to me but she couldn’t delve too much into it, so can you answer this, what do you wish me to do?”

“Of course but this isn’t the place to discuss such issues, why don’t you join me in my private abode? The other elders would be honored to meet the honorable Golden Dragon, the hero of the western front.”

“Ah, I see that I have gained some interesting titles but sure, let us depart but first let me change into something more fitting.”

After a few pleasantries he discarded his guard persona, there was no use hiding it anymore as the Moon Lily Grand Elder was there. The man looked like a gentle person and gave off pleasant vibes but he also drew in all the eyes. The smaller tea house they were sitting outside of was filled with lesser sect members. All of them lowered their heads and dared not to look at this group.

It was quite a strenuous task as strange radiant energy took over the whole place. Some of them backed off and even raised their heads to see Zhang Dong shedding his disguise. Where previously an average-looking guard was now stood a rather handsome man with long white hair. People could feel instantly that it was a powerful master and quickly bowed before him in a show of respect.