“There it is, the trail is fading. I need to hurry.”

Zhang Dong was speeding through the night. He had managed to clear things up with the Heavenly Crane Sect. After his little light show they were more than happy to let the group of Soaring Dragon Survivors go.

They were clearly mad at him but there was nothing to gain for them here. They could either let them go or fight the man that was the Azure Emperor’s brother. No one really wanted a war between any of the big three.

From what he could tell, his brother didn’t really care about this Heavenly Crane Sect that much. It seemed that he was confident in them being able to battle the other empires even on their own. Zhang Dong wasn’t that sure about that, not with Wang Long looming in the darkness.

The ladies were quite happy to leave but a bit confused about his motive. He wasn’t surprised about that as there wasn’t really anything he would gain from it. But to him they had suffered enough, he had also nabbed some of the treasures from their sect as collateral so it was not like he didn’t receive anything in return.

It was unknown to him where they were going, a branch family, maybe a secluded hiding spot only known by their sect? For this reason, he had to wait another twenty minutes to keep the Heavenly Crane Sect busy. With five nascent soul masters here, it would be hard for the granny to speed them away by herself. With a little warning to not chase after them, he then flew away while leaving the salty cultivators behind.

‘I hope they will be fine but that’s not something I should worry about.’

After one last thought towards the unlucky Soaring Dragon Sect members, he returned to the problem at hand. Wang Long’s trail was quite visible as the demonic Qi that he possessed was easy to follow now.

It took him through the vast lands of this empire thanks to which he had some time to sightsee. Even though he had gone through some adventures it was still astonishing just how large this world was.

Beasts, humans, and spirits inhabited every part of this lively world. While dangers lurked at every corner there were pockets of civilization more unique than the next one. While flying he could see some farmers, hunters, and people of the wild. Even though they were close to the place where the demonic explosion happened they were still going on with their lives as if nothing happened.

But his mood was soon soured by the knowledge of what was to come. Soon these lands would run red with the blood of these peaceful folk that had no power to protect themselves. Not everyone was a cultivator that knew the risks and was happy to take them.

The people that would suffer the most were the mortals. They would be ignored, the cultivators that once ruled them would quickly abandon their strongholds if an enemy that they could not handle arrived. They would not inform the locals about the impending doom, they would just flee first while probably hoping that the people that they used to rule would serve as a distraction.

Zhang Dong was aware of what would transpire. His sect was in the midst of claiming some strategic locations, cities with high walls or ones in mountains with natural protection were very sought after and prioritized.

He expected a lot of refugees to arrive at his lands after the fighting started so he also ordered his people to cultivate more food. Crops that were easy to grow and high in nutrition were prioritized over ones that could bring in more money. This could last for decades and the ones that had the means to sustain themselves would be the ones that survived.

‘The trails lead to this city...It doesn’t look like he traveled that far…’

The red trail brought him to one of the largest cities in the area which was quite close to ground zero. There was quite a high concentration of the red trail at a certain large building and when he arrived there he could still feel a faint demonic aura.

Of course, when he appeared in a city this populated he didn’t go unnoticed. When up in the air he could feel about ten people traveling his way, this time around though there was no nascent soul elder with them.

“We greet that honored Golden Dragon, brother of the Azure Emperor!”

“Oh?”

Zhang Dong was a bit surprised, the people here knew who he was. Word of his appearance at the old Soaring Dragon Sect location must have spread through the land. This should have been somewhat confidential information but someone along the line must have blabbered.

“If senior informed us about his coming we would have prepared a feast worth of your noble name!”

“Ah, that won’t be needed, I won’t be staying long but you could help me by answering a couple of my questions.”

“It would be a pleasure.”

The elder that he was talking to was quite cordial and he continued to bow his head while Zhang Dong descended down to what looked like to be the crime scene.

“This demonic energy, it hasn’t been fully cleared out… could you tell me what had transpired here?”

“With haste my lord!”

The old man was quick to turn to his helpers, it didn’t seem that he was really aware of what had happened here. This was quite normal as not everyone kept tabs on everything that happened in their city. Not everyone had a faction system that was able to monitor even the smallest crime outbreaks.

They worked quite fast and within ten minutes they brought over someone that was a witness. It was a person in their early thirties, while bowing they gave him their part of the story.

Apparently, there was a strange explosion, people started running out of the hotel covered in puss and blisters. It was a horrifying display, the man shivered as he described how the people's faces started melting before everyone. Luckily the demonic technique that was used here didn’t spread to people outside the building but anyone close was affected by this strange affliction.

“So that’s what happened… your hand…”

“It’s nothing my lord, pay no attention.”

The man had a bandaged up hand but while the others couldn’t see it, he could. There was invisible demonic Qi radiating from it along with Wang Long’s unique Qi fingerprint.

“Take off those bandages.”

“No my lord… you don’t need…”

“Didn’t you hear what the honored Golden Dragon said, you dare refuse!”

While Zhang Dong didn’t want to sound like another cultivation nut, he had no time for games. It was clear that the man was trying to hide his arm from everyone here. The people that had escorted him here were quick to shout at the person with a low cultivation, clearly afraid of what Zhang Dong would do if he felt dishonored.

“There is no need for shouting.”

He raised his hand and with a wave of his hand, he caused everyone to be silent. Then with another wave he made the witness float over towards him. His bandages were unwrapped by an invisible force and his disfigured arm was brought to light.

Some people that were looking from the side started gagging. The arm was black and the skin looked necrotic. There was a pungent smell along with blisters filled with pus, some were in the process of popping even now. The bandage seemed to be somewhat special as it kept the pungent smell from seeping out.

“I see, the demonic corruption has started progressing, if we don’t do something about it, then this man will die…”

“N-no please my lord, show mercy I have a family to feed… please don’t cut off my arm!”

The man started screaming as if Zhang Dong was going to butcher him on the spot. Demonic corruption was seen as a hard affliction to cure. One required special pills filled with divine energy which were quite costly and hard to come by.

Without them around, the easiest way would be to slice off the afflicted flesh as then the corruption would stop spreading. It seemed that someone was trying to help this man when they put the bandage on.

Lucky for him, Zhang Dong was probably the only person capable of instantly healing this mangled-up arm. Thus he pointed out with his finger and a gentle light flew out from it. When it collided with the demonic appendage the man that it belonged to was horrified. In his eyes, the scary elder was trying to murder him right there but death’s sweet embrace didn’t arrive.

Instead, he started feeling light-headed and the arm that had brought him nothing but pain started feeling numb. Soon the pain vanished and he could see the demonic energy vanishing.

“T-thank you senior!”

After his arm was healed the man broke down into tears. If Zhang Dong didn’t move away he felt that the person would start kissing his feet.

“That’s enough, you there.”

“Y-yes honorable Golden Dragon?”

Zhang Dong pointed to one of the people that had guided him here. It seemed that he would need to stay here a bit longer. At first, it seemed that the demonic affliction didn’t spread to other people but now it was clear that it was just slowly progressing. If he didn’t do anything about it, many more people would slowly deteriorate like this man’s arm.

“I want you to make a city-wide announcement, do you have some large gathering place? Use it to gather the people and I mean everyone, I don’t care from where they come from, tell them that it’s an order from the Golden Dragon!”

The only way to cure this was by his holy energy but it would take too long. He wasn’t sure how much of this demonic Qi had spread and how many people were infected. The fastest way would be to gather everyone in one spot and then use his radiant aura to cure them.

Regretfully he was not strong enough to cover the whole city in it. His power had increased but not to the point of his healing arts being able to cure everyone here.

‘Did that maniac do it on purpose to keep me here…’

He pondered if Wang Long was crafty enough to pull this off. His enemy didn’t seem that intelligent and mostly driven by his emotions. The possibility was there as something like this was the perfect stopping block for someone with Zhang Dong’s morals. Even though it wouldn’t take him that long to cure it, he would be giving his opponent more time to hide.

‘After I’m done with this, I’m going to kill that bastard…’

He clenched his fist while looking up to the place where the demonic aura was still stuck too. First, he needed to cleanse it and then the people that were afflicted by it.