“Where did you hide your treasure?”

“I’ll never tell a righteous sect scum… ARGBLARGh…”

A dark cultivator in a robe was seen being electrocuted, his body lit up like a dark sky during a firework show. Soon he dropped down to the ground while slightly twitching, his cultivation clearly ruined.

“Damn, word spreads fast here…”

Zhang Dong glanced over to some other cowering evil cultivators. He had arrived at the third and last sect that had attacked the Thunderball Hall. His plan was to go through the sects one by one and take away all of their most precious treasures but he had miscalculated.

When he arrived at the first sect, there was still a lot of treasures around but already a large chunk of the sect members had scattered. At the second one there were even fewer people around while on the third one, there were only some old farts left behind that probably didn’t have any worth to their sects.

It was clear that the information of his arrival spread fast and they evacuated. What was left behind were only items for beginner disciples that no one cared about. The items like high-grade spirit stones that he wanted were all gone.

If he decided to give chase he could probably gain some of those riches back. The biggest problem was that there were just too many variables. It was easy to stash everything in the spatial rings among many people. With this world being this big he could spend a month looking for everyone and still not get it all.

“Slaves…”

Zhang Dong took a glance at one of the cowering cultivators. It was clear to him that they were all compelled to stay here by some kind of occult contract. While they stalled him the true masters would run away and hide.

‘I don’t have time to play hide and seek but it would be better to gain more strength.’

While thinking he started glancing at the people here. He was in the middle of a large hall that was the main chamber for the big wigs in this evil sect. There he found a small group of people that had the stench of death on them.

“You there, come here.”

He did a grasping motion towards one of the old men that was here. This one had the largest cultivation realm from them all and seemed to have been the leader. After grasping him by the neck he started scanning.

“Hm… I wonder… this might hurt…”

“W-what?”

The man asked before a strange shadowy aura descended onto him. Zhang Dong used his soul core to poke and prod at the curse that was keeping this man as a slave. All of these contracts were based on soul arts so in theory, he could be able to overpower it.

These contracts were easily produced as they only required the person affected to accept them. This could be done in many ways but most of the time it was done by a simple death threat. The evil cultivators were famous for doing this mostly out of fear of betrayal.

The man landed on the ground while grasping his chest. He convulsed for a moment before settling, the other cultivators were aghast by the presentation of torture. They thought they would be next in line but surprisingly their fellow sect member opened his eyes and stood up soon after.

“The soulbond is broken… how could this be… who are you?”

Zhang Dong just smirked a bit before crossing his arms over one another and puffing out his chest.

“It doesn't matter who I am, now tell me, where did your strongest elder escape to. I already slew your Patriarch, the one next in line is the one I am looking for.”

Zhang Dong knew that there should be some kind of number two in the sect. If he was lucky it would be one person and not a whole group. If there was a second strongest then he would probably take the bulk of the items.

“Next in line? That would probably be Elder Yuan, he was the Patriarch’s younger brother…”

“That will do, tell me where he went, you are not bound to him anymore.”

Zhang Dong proclaimed while exuding a menacing aura. The man was clearly confused, living a life as a slave did change one's outlook on life. It was hard to get rid of old habits of following orders out of fear.

“I… I will tell you senior, just swear to me that the bastard will suffer a painful death!”

Surprisingly the man did a fast 180-degree turn and turned his hate to the people that enslaved him here. Years of rage bottled up due to being stripped of their freedom. The man was unable to hold it in anymore as he started shouting as if finally he could voice his opinion.

“He will be dealt with, that I can promise you, now tell me where he went.”

After the man calmed himself down Zhang Dong received the coordinates. Apparently, they headed in the direction of something called the shadowlands. It was a place filled with shadow beasts that were hard to deal with.

“Good, this will do.”

Zhang Dong started taking off from the ground after he got his information. The sect that he had invaded was a strange one. It was deep inside the forest with many flesh-eating venus fly trap-looking monsters. The eastern-looking buildings were wrapped up in vines that were clearly alive and moving.

“I’m getting proficient at this, it's nice to have most of my power back.”

With a few motions of his hand, he produced a round sphere of energy. At each side of the sphere, there were spell circles that were slowly circling around it.

After pointing at this orb it activated. The magical circles started shooting out thin beams of light that started connecting with the cultivators that were still left alive here. Just as during his other sect attacks he robbed people of their cultivation.

They would be left alive to live out their lives as mortals. He knew how the people in this world thought but that was just a mindset born from ignorance. There was nothing wrong in living a simple fulfilling life. Everyone here could very well build up a family and start anew.

‘I hope this is the right thing…’

The only problem that he saw with this would be the people's character. He did not know if a bunch of demonic cultivators could turn over a new leaf. Would they just cause more death and destruction while harming others in hopes of regaining some of that lost power?

Would they follow the law of the land out of fright instead and live simple lives? He did not know but he was unwilling to stain his hands even more than this. There were enough people that were now dead because of him and it looked like the count would only continue to increase.

‘Shadowlands huh? There are always some shadowlands…”

Zhang Dong turned to the sky and bolted towards his destination. His system map was updated with the help of the detailed one that he received from the Thunderball Hall. That one showed him all of the points of interest like sect location and distribution of the lands.

Luckily they were in the direction that he would be heading anyway. While chasing after this sect's treasure trove he needed to go through this map. The way he would be traveling was very important as there was an easy way and a hard way.

With the map and the help of the Thunderball Hall’s Patriarch, he was given a couple of choices.

If he headed in a straight line he would be pushing it. On the way, there were many dangerous places that could not be approached by anyone below the nascent soul level. He was already there but still lagged behind his old early stage cultivation.

There were too many unknowns to try going in this fashion. He would be going through sect areas that had elders that were rumored to be Saint Emperor level. There were also a few spots with strong monsters and beasts that would also give him a run for his money.

This option was taken to the side, unless he received some information of his sect being in immediate danger he needed to look out for himself. It would not do anyone any good if he was dead or crippled during his journey back.

The best way that also took the least amount of time took him through some cities and points of interest instead. As before he still needed to cultivate, areas with lightning energies would bolster his cultivation but now a little problem arose.

Due to the fact that he now had three cores, they all needed to be nourished at about the same rate. He could not exclusively absorb lightning energy and use it as a power source. The golden core required holy energies and the soul core required ethereal energies.

He found it out the hard way after trying to absorb the thunder stones that he nabbed from the Hall. When only his lightning core started increasing in power it was quite noticeable. It was fine to absorb it for now but unless he managed a golden ratio of one-third for every core he would not be able to progress.

Luckily for him, he still had his system which would aid him in this process. Even though it did lose a lot of its functions there was something it could do for him. By absorbing spirit stones he could use the points towards the core that was missing out. This process was not very cost-effective but it was the only thing that could help him further his power level.

‘Lightning is quite easy to find, the problem will be with the two others…’

Soon he arrived at the shadowlands that were in some kind of desolate area. Thanks to his soul core he could clearly see the shadowy phantoms lurking behind every corner.

“Hm… aren’t these phantoms just decrepit souls of the dead? They should be enough to nourish my soul core…”

He rubbed his chin while glancing at some of the dark shades, one, in particular, was hiding in a tree stump.

“Come here, little guy…”

With a thump, he landed next to that tree stump and reached into it. The creature of the shades had elongated appendages which it started flailing around but the moment he utilized his soul core the shade found itself unable to move.

With some prodding here and there Zhang Dong managed to figure out the process. He opened up his mouth and a strange suction force was produced. When this force hit the shade it started siphoning away its essence.

The creature cried out in shock but soon faded away into nothingness. Zhang Dong gave out a burp before covering his mouth.

“Excuse me.”

His soul core started radiating some light as it absorbed the soul energy that this creature possessed. There was not much of it there but he could feel that he was making progress.

“I guess the shadowlands will soon just be called the lands…”