‘They do have me outnumbered quite a bit, that is… if I allow them to get here…’

Zhang Dong floated in the air while the smoke subsided. The bone spears that were thrown his way were now nothing but smoke. These organic projectiles produce a strange-looking smoke after their destruction but it didn’t seem that it would be lethal even if he let his spirit shield down.

It seemed that the diplomatic approach was off the table, perhaps if he demonstrated some of his might to these attackers they would deem it smart to retreat. Some luck was at his side, even though this bridge was about one kilometer in width there wasn’t that much space for this army to move.

“You can’t move to the sides, now can you?”

A decision was made to produce a large wide-area attack. Before they could attack him again Zhang Dong’s aura exploded. Golden lightning bolts started to coil themselves around his arms and slowly traveled towards both his hands.

He slowly opened up his hands, his fingers spreading appart while a small orb of light appeared between them. The more he concentrated the larger this light became, from a tiny dot it expanded into something the size of a basketball. The energy was hard to contain but as he charged up he continued to compress this round sphere of light.

The cultivators that were fleeing could feel it, something was happening. Most of them were too afraid to look back, but even without doing so they could see the light bursting from behind them.

“T-this… what kind of terrible attack is that… we must flee! We will surely perish if we don’t get far enough!”

While Zhang Dong was mostly paying attention to his attack, out of the corner of his eye he could see his targets reacting to this turn of events. While they were quick to attack him beforehand, it seemed that they were now scared. Some of them even started to quickly increase their speed to get past the tunnel, it was clear that they were intelligent enough to know what his intention was.

Some of them were in luck as Zhang Dong did need some time to charge up this attack but most of them were still stuck in that bridge. It was somewhat in his favor that he appeared in this location at this point in time, it now gave him the perfect opportunity to blast these invaders.

The sphere of energy was now rumbling and pushing against his palms. He had trouble holding it in place, the energy wanted to burst through. But, this wasn’t the end of his technique, before he released it he looked forward. His eyes glowed and along with this sheen a magic circle formed in front.

This magic circle was followed by another larger one and then more. They numbered about a hundred magic circles that formed a sort of compact cone that was aimed at this gap. Only when the circles were formed did he point this orb of spiritual energy forward to release a blast of concentrated spiritual Qi.

It started off small but when it collided with the magic circle the ray of golden energy increased in size. All of these circles could slightly increase the techniques might, the more the beam traveled forward the larger it became. When it reached the last circle the beam of highly concentrated Qi shot out, its width was enough to fully encompass the one-kilometer wide gap.

A torrent of force exploded, it submerged everything in a golden glow that was a combination of Zhang Dong’s holy and lightning Dao. The screams of his enemies were quickly silenced by the massive sound of explosions that followed after.

Zhang Dong’s hands trembled slightly as he continued to pour all of his spiritual energy into this attack. His wrists were touching together while he pointed his palms at the magical circles that continued to enhance this ranged attack.

From the outside where the group of fleeing cultivators was, a massive hurricane sprung forth. It was as if a nuclear explosion went off in the distance. Any plant life and trees that were there were uprooted in a matter of seconds.

It didn’t take long, he wasn’t able to keep pumping out Qi without any end. After about fifteen seconds at the maximal output, he started to feel weaker. He couldn’t just gas himself out at the first attack thus he started to end it, the bright light started to subside and the radiance vanished after half a minute of the initial explosion of energy.

As always there was now a giant dust cloud covering the whole area. His beam attack had grazed some of the earth below and created a large crater in its wake. His aim was true as he managed to push his attack into the middle of this wide passage.

While the bridge was one kilometer in width it also possessed a ceiling. The attackers couldn’t just flee upwards to evade the attack and after the smoke had cleared he was glad to see that he had managed to deliver a devastating blow to the beings that attacked him.

‘That’s quite the devastation…’

This was probably the most devastating attack that he had ever delivered, the casualties were immense but without his old system, he would not be able to capitalize on points.

Just a moment ago the tunnel had been swarmed by many flying objects big and small, now, on the other hand, only one remained. It was the gigantic flying worm that was similar to the native sandworms living in this area. Even though it was there, it was clearly injured.

Its body that was obsidian was now covered in some strange green blood. Its front area was missing half of its head and some of those huge teeth were out in the open. Regretfully the fortress that it was carrying had managed to survive but it was also in quite a bad state.

While he couldn’t see it well, he was sure that the cultivators that were on the giant work had used all of their might and resources to somehow protect themselves from this wide area blast.

Even though he wasn’t able to kill them all, this wasn’t a concentrated attack, in his mind, it only proved that his opponents wouldn’t fare too well against him. If they barely took his long-ranged technique, how would they fare in a close-quarters combat situation?

‘They didn’t give me much of a choice but what will they do now…’

At this point, he wished that they would just retreat after his first ‘warning’ shot but instead, a blast of yellowish energy traveled his way. It came from within the crumbling fortress that was on that flying worm that was somehow still holding itself together.

‘Won’t give up that easily huh?’

Without thinking much about it, Zhang Dong propelled himself to the side. There was something about this yellowish energy that he didn’t like. It flew past him and collided with the soil behind him. While they were close to a desert at this side there still was some plant life.

But the moment this beam of light collided with the grass, he noticed a strange effect. At first, he expected the ray of light to produce some kind of explosion, instead, it caused the plant life to be petrified.

It seemed that his opponents had some tricks up their sleeves. Now instead of bone spears, he was pelted by these strange yellowish rays that could turn things to stone. Without wanting to check if he could resist this strange effect, he continued to dodge.

From what he could tell, he was getting assaulted by multiple attackers. They were quickly approaching him and he knew that they wouldn’t allow him to fire off another one of these blasts.

“I guess you don’t want to talk this out huh?”

Zhang Dong called out to the beings that were approaching him, they had abandoned the large worm and quickly pushed through the bridge to arrive on this side.

“The outlander is strong but not strong enough!”

One of the strange toothy beings shouted out. His voice was somewhat hoarse and carried a lot of animosity behind it. It did seem that these people had some intelligence but were clearly motivated by violence. Surprisingly they spoke the same language as the people from this empire, which meant that they clearly understood what he had said but decided to ignore him.

What was left of the army with thousands of warriors and flying ships, where six mad-looking humanoid monsters. They were all above the early nascent soul stage with their leader being comparable to a great circle master.

‘This cultivation is somewhat strange…’

While he could feel strength radiating from these people, it was more compact. The way they bolted towards him and used spears from their bodies as weapons was also telling.

‘Body refiners?’

While Zhang Dong was a dual cultivator with both body and Qi, most people stuck to one. These beings clearly had strong bodies, their skin looked hard as rock and they could even produce weapons from their bodies that would be considered high-rank weapons.

Even now as he was examining them, these monsters were grasping for those bone appendages and converting them to weapons. One of his enemies created a spear, while another dual blades. Another one produced a bow that looked like a combination of ligaments and cartilage for the string part.

‘I see, after seeing my ranged technique they decided to close the distance. They do have some battle sense at least.’

He had to give it to them. They quickly identified that Zhang Dong was a strong opponent with some powerful ranged attacks. While they were body refiners their strength lied mostly in close-range hand-to-hand combat. Regretfully for them, Zhang Dong was a dual refiner with quite the hard metal-like body that wouldn’t be easily broken.

It was now six against one but he could feel other beings on the back of that large creature that was still moving forward. He wasn’t sure but his instincts were telling him that the worm had some meaning. It would be best if it didn’t manage to get through the tunnel, if this was really just a scouting party then perhaps that worm and fortress were part of a base that these monsters were trying to assemble.

“So, you are determined to die here?”

He asked once more but he was not given a reply. Instead, he could see a change in one of the monster’s eyes. It was a strange sight as the middle of its pupil opened up and the strange yellowish ray of petrification was shot out.

Only now he realized that this was not a beam of light but instead some kind of strange liquid that these people shot out of their bodies through their eyes.

“That’s kind of gross...I’m not the kind of guy that likes to get covered in strange eye liquid on the first date…”

Zhang Dong was quick to dodge this high-pressure eye attack but the moment he did, his opponents pounced at him from all sides. It was finally time to unsheathe his sword, even though these people were high-level body refiners he was confident in being able to cut them down.