“Are you done Mr. Leigong?”

“In a moment…”

Zhang Dong was waving his hands around while some books and scripts floated towards him. Around there were some people like Beatrice and the elven folk. They were in the elven library and he was in the process of absorbing all of their knowledge.

“I’m sure you’re glad that you don’t need to touch these books anymore.”

He laughed as he remembered that in the beginning, Beatrice needed to poke the books by herself. Now with her reaching a higher realm of power he was able to move around freely and do this himself.

“There that’s the last one… do you have any more?”

“Yes oh illustrious Spirit Emperor, the secret texts are in the levels below, it would be a pleasure to lead you there!”

A beautiful elven woman prostrated herself in front of him while he tried not to laugh. He started to recall what had happened a few hours back when they arrived in this place. He was standing in the background at first and let the heroes do their thing.

He had discussed the plan with them beforehand and it looked like they had more status than a spirit like him. That would soon come out as a big mistake after they managed to get an audience with the elven monarch.

“It’s an honor to greet the Elven Queen!”

The biggest problem was that there were unwelcome guests with them. Three strapping young lads and one pink-haired princess that were clinging to the hero party. The oldest prince was the one that greeted the Queen this time around while the rest were left to kneel down.

That is, besides one white-haired person that was hanging out in the back. Due to the way he had set up his persona as a haughty and mighty Spirit Emperor he couldn’t just bow down before this woman. He did the same thing when he met the human king and he had to keep up appearances unless he wanted his act to crumble now.

This didn’t go unnoticed by the elven people around them. A large man in a pure white robe with his hands crossed over did stick out like a sore thumb.

“Show your respect to the Queen, human!”

One of the royal guards called out, it was a beautiful-looking man in a shiny golden armor. The elves in this world were matriarchal in nature, their men were mostly just used as guards. This was mostly due to the low birthrates which made the women a more valuable resource than the men. Thus they would do everything to protect their females while also putting one on the throne.

“I am no human, mortal!”

Zhang Dong keeping to his shtick delivered a direct attack to this man’s soul. He had learned a thing or two about those types of attacks during his stay here. He was unable to cultivate anything but his own soul, through the weeks he stayed here it had increased in size exponentially.

These attacks could not damage the outside shell which was the body but were devastating to the mechanism that kept it working, the soul. If someone was unable to protect themselves from a soul attack they would be paralyzed. Their body would stop functioning and they could even die if the connection was broken.

All of this could be done by putting your soul against another. These attacks had a large risk to them, they could damage the user’s soul which would cause a large backlash. A backlash was more volatile than being damaged by someone else's soul attack. This made this type of skill high-risk high reward. You were literally putting your life on the line whenever using it.

On the other hand, it was quite safe to use on anyone that had an inferior soul to the user. It made it quite a skill to take out many weaker enemies. This was now the case as Zhang Dong had to crank up the output. The other guards tried surrounding him but found themselves on their knees instead.

“Beatrice, control your spirit!”

The one shouting out was Prince Ludwig. He had quite the angry expression on his face, probably still angry about how Isabella tossed him to the side. Now he had to cling to Sakura’s thigh in hopes that his father gave him some assets that he lost.

“Silence! Before the Queen!”

Two elven women stepped out from the side. They were wearing white robes with some strange golden runic patterns. Each one had a staff, at the end a large shining gem that was radiating magical power. They slammed these staffs onto the floor to produce some kind of magical effect.

Zhang Dong felt like he had overdone it a bit with his Emperor act but luckily this magical attack was soul-based in nature as well. Because he was someone with an oversized soul with no one in this world matching up to it, it was quite ineffective.

These women mages expected their warriors to be set free from the spell that Zhang Dong produced but instead they saw it being repelled back towards them.

“How is this possible!”

They gasped while taking a step back, both of them perplexed at their magical attack not working.

“Who is that man, is he part of the hero party? But there were supposed to only be four!”

More people started arriving in the throne room. It was clear that Zhang Dong’s little soul attack had brought everyone’s attention to him. He looked unperturbed but deep inside he wanted to cry. They only came here to get help from the elves, have them lend them a few flying ships and a couple magicians.

The elven mages were really good at barriers like the one they constructed here. If they wanted to enter the demonic continent they would need the help of the elves to open the path. By how things were looking getting out of here in one piece had become the biggest concern.

“Silence mortals, you dare attack this Lightning Emperor Leigong!”

Zhang Dong decided that he might as well give it his all. He had already been quite disrespectful so there was no going back. Apologizing at this point would only show weakness and he still could use his soul attack against these weaker soldiers, the biggest problem was the Elven Queen.

She was at about the same level as the human king, trailing behind by a small amount. She would be able to defend herself against his soul attacks due to him being in his powered down state.

‘Can this be salvaged… should I tell the girls to get ready for a fight…’

He was slowly thinking that they might have to strongarm the elven faction into obeying them instead. If the diplomatic talks broke down this would be the only thing that remained. They still needed their knowledge which could also be gained by reading their secret texts. Before he could make a decision though he felt something coming his way.

The elven queen looked in his direction while squinting. She had remained silent for the whole predicament but it looked like she wanted a piece of him after her guards had failed. If she directly pitted her mana against his then he would surely lose but luck was on Zhang Dong's side.

‘Wait is she… these elves sure like the soul-based attacks...heh well come in if you wish.’

It was a direct attack against his soul world. He wasn’t sure if the Queen was just trying to test him after seeing him perform his own soul attack but he was glad that she did. Just like with the Vice-Principal before he sprung his trap. If it came to defending against such skills, there was no one who could out soul his soul.

“What!?”

The beautiful woman found herself in an open grass field. The sky above was clear with no clouds and everything looked peaceful.

She knew that she was just clashing against the unknown human that was in the hero party. There was no information about someone of that caliber so she thought that she could easily subdue him and force him to show respect. Even the heroes remained respectful but this rude man never even kneeled.

Now she was concerned, the path outside was blocked and she knew that her soul was somehow pulled into this dimension by this person.

“Who are you? … What are you?”

She shouted out with all her might as her voice echoed through the open grasslands. Her mind began connecting the dots while trying to piece everything together. There weren’t many beings in this world that were above her in might. She was already close to being a thousand years old and she had seen it all.

She was there when the previous heroes were here. She was there when they battled the previous demonic lords and there when the demon king was forced to retreat. Even then she couldn’t recall anyone that could do something like this.

“Who am I, Little one do you really need to ask?”

“This energy…”

The whole place began to rumble and the sunny sky began to become cloudy. Storm clouds approached and the wind picked up. Thunderous lightning collided with each other while the ground began to split apart. The elven woman was unable to access any of her magic, falling down on her posterior was the outcome.

“You have a lot of gall to address me in that tone of voice, mortal.”

The lightning bolts started shooting down from the sky onto the splitting earth. Soon it was like a torrent of plasma energy just descending from the sky, forming a humanoid figure.

Zhang Dong took shape as a being made from lightning energy. His face was somewhat distinguishable but he looked like a being completely made out of electricity. The huge electric giant looked down to the elven queen that was trembling down on the ground.

“S-spirit King? N-no Spirit Emperor!”

Her eyes bulged after seeing the form that was before her. This giant made from lightning was clearly giving off a strange mana signature akin to beings from the astral realm. Elves were beings close to this realm and mostly made contracts with nature spirits. Zhang Dong had shifted this energy slightly so that the elven queen would indeed think that he was a real spirit.

“I see that you have realized.”

Spirit Emperors were the highest form that a spirit could take in this world. They were beings at the very top of the pecking order and also very rarely seen. Not much information was out there about these beings which made it easier to fool others. The only consensus was that they were more powerful than anything that could be produced on this planet.

It was unheard of that a Spirit Emperor took shape amongst the mortal people. They usually only gave out some blessings like the weapons that the heroes possessed. At most they could be summoned to deliver one devastating attack, sometimes at the cost of the summoner’s own life.

“Please great spirit emperor, forgive me and my people for being so narrow-minded. Punish this mortal but please show mercy to my people.”

The woman was quick to drop down to her knees and to prostrate herself. Due to the soul interception, he could tell that she was sincere. She was mostly concerned that Zhang Dong could wipe her people out of existence.

‘Well that went better than expected, this will probably save me so much time!”

He chuckled inwardly, it was time to have a talk with this lady. After this event, he was sure that they would do anything that he required of him.