“Big sister! You are alright, I thought you’d be taken away by that monster.”

Zhang Dong smiled a bit as he saw a smaller girl with pink hair pounce on his wife.

“Calm down Nuana, I’m fine.”

The two started hugging for a moment while the younger one cried. Luckily he managed to get here in time, if not both of them would have been on the flying ship along with that perverted Wang Long.

“Big brother, is that really you?”

Zhang Dong twitched a bit as he looked down at his ‘younger sister’. The girl was always a bit strange and clingy when he was involved. While he didn’t care that much, he did spoil her just so that she would leave him alone.

“Yes, it’s me, you… haven’t really grown much since I’ve last seen you, have you been eating right?”

He moved over to the two hugging girls. While a lot of time had passed the bodies of cultivators aged slowly. Nuana was just as short as she was before but perhaps her chest had gotten slightly bigger from the last time he saw it.

“Hey! That’s mean!.”

The young girl started pouting but only received a flick to the forehead from Zhang Dong as he came over. While this was a nice moment there were other people that he wanted to see.

“Next time, you should remain in the escape pod, you could have gotten yourself and others killed.”

Nuana flinched a bit as she saw Zhang Dong frowning. He still remembered how she knocked out Zhang Liu and rushed here to help her older sister Liena. If he didn’t come along her fate would have been sealed along with her sister’s.

“I’m sorry…”

She rubbed her forehead that was somewhat red, soon all three of them descended below what used to be his home. Directly below this spot was the entrance to the Patriarch’s escape tunnels. Through them, Zhang Xue, Liu, and Feng Nuana were supposed to escape.

Before going down Zhang Dong glanced at the entire sect ground. While almost all of the city was destroyed in the large-scale battle, more than half of the sect remained intact. Its most important part that was the hidden away secret ground had already been moved along with the junior sect members.

The pocket dimension that had increased in size was large enough to house all of the young men and women that were too weak to help. The people that stayed behind were mostly the core formation elders and veteran warriors that could man the various spirit canons.

In the battles that ensued, there were casualties. It was impossible to save everyone and they were already lucky to be alive. This was mostly thanks to Zhang Dong’s faction-building feature of the system that allowed him to build up strong defenses that even a large force could not take out.

Regretfully it would be hard to repeat this task again as most of the defensive cannons had been destroyed in the large-scale battle. The floating fortress that could somewhat match a nascent soul master at the great circle level proved pivotal in holding the ten late stage nascent soul cultivators back.

It didn’t come out unscathed and repairing it would prove difficult. Zhang Dong’s crafting abode had been reset while he was shot into another world which would only make things more difficult.

Previously he would be able to copy parts in it which would make things easy, now he would be forced to do it by hand while slowly leveling up the crafting abode’s old features.

Finally, they descended below into the tunnels. While Zhang Dong knew about these tunnels as he helped design them with his mapping function, this was the first time physically being here.

This whole area was built like a maze. There were many long corridors and dead ends that were in place to confuse any pursuers. The walls were reinforced with special materials which would even give the nascent soul master some trouble to get through.

Luckily this escape route was still intact and would not require any repairs. That is if Zhang Dong decided that it was a good idea to remain here. While walking through the corridors he began to think about the future.

There were mostly two options left for him. One would be to remain here, repair the sect, and bunker down. Due to them being able to take out ten nascent soul masters, they would be considered a serious threat.

Such a threat that the Soaring Dragon Sect would actually have to use a large chunk of their resources to have a realistic chance to go against them. Luckily for Zhang Dong, his enemies also had their own problems.

The first one was the Azure Emperor that was considered the strongest cultivator in this empire. He occupied the best cultivation spot that this land had to offer. His clan might not have been the largest but they went for quality over quantity and were a force to be reckoned with.

The second was the Heavenly Crane Pavillion. They were quite a power that mirrored the strength of the Soaring Dragon Sect. For decades these big three had remained in power while never really going all out against each other out of fear of getting eradicated.

If two of them would engage in combat, there was a realistic threat of the third party using this chance to take a crown for themselves. When two sides are fighting, the third always profits. It was an old proverb from his old world and this was very true in this situation.

‘The problem remains that idiot…’

He thought while increasing his pace. Wang Long was someone whose actions he could not predict. The cultivation nuts were easy to read as they always acted in the same way. This man on the other hand could even show up the next day with a similar sized force and not care if they would all die in the process.

Him just giving up after getting socked in the face and being humiliated made a peaceful resolution mostly impossible. Zhang Dong realized that Wang Long was too far gone, he was clearly not taking this world seriously.

While he was hard to read if he counted in this world's morals, he was somewhat predictable if he accounted for his emotional outbursts. He was still a person from another world but he acted similar to the other young masters from this world. If this was some side effect of the system or his original personality was not something he knew though.

“M-master is that you?”

While going through the tunnels that were made without any shortcuts in mind, they came upon a familiar face.

“Liu, it has been a while, you look well.”

Zhang Dong smiled while nodding his head at his disciple. The handsome youth didn’t age that much due to his high core formation cultivation realm but his eyes did look somewhat sharper.

“Master, it’s really you!”

“Who else could it be!”

The one to reply was Feng Nuana that popped out from behind Zhang Dong. She quickly shrunk back though as Liu gave her quite the death glare. This made Zhang Dong remember how she knocked his disciple out cold to go ‘save’ her older sister.

“What, are you mad? It all worked out well… help big brother, Zhang Liu is bullying me!”

Liu continued to glare at Nuana who quickly ducked behind Zhang Dong. Luckily for him, his wife was close and delivered a nice blow to her younger sister’s head.

“Stop that behavior!”

“Ow… why would you hit me, big sis?”

Zhang Liena moved between Nuana and Zhang Dong. At first, he thought she was just helping him out with the silly situation but then his wife started hugging his arm while yanking him to the side. It looked like she was mad about the way her younger sister was clinging to him while hiding from Zhang Liu.

While this would normally cause him to rub his eyebrows in indignation. This time around it caused him to laugh out loud. He placed his hand on Nuana’s head and ruffled up her hair, then he moved over to Liu to give him a firm smack on the shoulder.

“Hah, never change you two.”

The two looked at Zhang Dong with big eyes as he wasn’t acting too much as a Patriarch. While he had mellowed down when interacting with his wife he mostly kept his more laid-back character in the bedroom. When he interacted with the cultivators outside he still tried to act like a proper leader.

“Is Xue together with…”

He looked to Liu who moved himself a step behind Zhang Liena as they continued down the path. Xue, his other disciple, still remained with his children. The way these walls blocked spiritual energy was even making it hard for his enhanced senses but he could somewhat feel that his kids were near.

“Yes master, she is together with little Jun and little Xue.”

“Is that so…”

While he wanted to do nothing more than to see his kids, there was a certain something that was making him slow down his pace. It had been five years since they last saw him. For him, it was only about half a year which wasn’t all that much.

For his children, on the other hand, they have lived for more than they ever saw their father. Deep inside he was worried that they would not recognize him nor accept him as their father as he was gone out of their life for far too long.

The more that he walked the heavier his legs became. It was as if someone was placing shackles on his feet the closer he got to the escape pod in which his family members were waiting for him.

Then he finally saw it, the large door behind where his children would be. It was circular in shape and was really thick. Behind it was a large straight tunnel through which the people in the pod would be shot out.

While at first it might have looked like a simple high-speed escape tunnel, there was more to it. After it went through a certain range it would accelerate and then be teleported to another location which left a dummy pod behind. The idea was to make the enemies chase after this high-speed decoy while the actual pod was transported to another location entirely.

“It’s okay, I’m with you.”

Zhang Dong spaced out for a moment and it was noticed by his wife. Liena hugged him tightly while pulling him over towards the entrance. Without resisting he nodded at his wife, while he was concerned about how his children saw him, it was more important that they were safe.

He was still their father and he would always be that. Even if they didn’t accept him at first, that didn’t mean that he didn’t love them. His task was not to be their friend but to be their father and this was something that he intended to do.

Thus with a wave of his hand, the entrance was opened up and there he saw them. Two little munchkins hugging his second disciple...