Zhang Dong was criminally susceptible to the cries of women, even worse if it were children involved. This all due to him becoming a father himself. It would be more reasonable to leave these people here and continue towards the main location of the Divine Fist Sect.
He might lose a lot of time if he started helping everyone along the way. The problem was that it could cost people’s lives. Even now if he didn’t intervene here five lives would have been extinguished. If he let something like this happen when being in close range of helping here, he would hate himself later on.
This was something that he had started and now he needed to see it through to the end. In his head, he now was responsible for these five people. He would need to see it through to the end, he would also be able to gain some more information after checking out their village.
“Is it here?”
“Y-yes great senior, just a bit further.”
The family head said while looking down. The five of the people that Zhang Dong saved were surrounded by a bubble of golden energy. They were flying through the air at astonishing speeds. They were quite baffled by this display of might as they had never seen a cultivator of his caliber before.
Zhang Dong had asked about their circumstances. The five had escaped from the village together after some frenzied beasts attacked it. The people in it took out quite a bit but they were overrun by the constant beast tide.
They believed that there still were people there as their village grew out of those special sunflowers. The fog wasn’t able to penetrate past those fields and some people supposedly fled towards them.
“You were speaking the truth, I can sense some people in that direction…”
He arrived at the spot where the village was and could see widespread destruction. The buildings were mostly made from wood which didn’t pose much of a problem for the enraged beasts. With the cultivation boosts, they were getting from the frenzied state it was even easier.
He could feel a large gathering of people in one particular building. The house wasn’t big but there were at least 30 people in it. Outside of it, there was a field with those sunflowers. These spiritual plants were giving off a faint divine aura, even this was apparently enough to force the mist away.
‘The mist isn’t penetrating further… no wait… it is moving slightly…’
With the help of his enhanced senses, he could tell that fog was inching further in. It was in millimeters but it was advancing. Probably in a couple of days, it would seep all the way into the field. He could also tell that the plants were slowly dying, they were not enough to combat this demonic miasma.
He pointed his finger down from the air while concentrating. The people from the side looked with interest as an electrical discharge was visible at his digit’s tip.
Soon a bolt of golden lightning shot out. It traveled with immense speed and connected with one of the beasts below. The monster exploded into dust the moment the bolt of lightning made contact with it.
The lightning didn’t just stop there, no it traveled on to the next creature closest to it. In a matter of moments the lightning starter arcing from monster to monster taking out each one in the vicinity of the village.
“Incredible…”
“Such might…”
The family of Qi Condensation cultivators couldn’t believe what they were seeing. The mass of monsters that had caused them so much trouble was dead in a couple of seconds. This master had taken them out with just one attack. It seemed as easy as breathing to him, truly unfathomable might.
“That’s all of them.”
He nodded while the people behind him had their jaws down. While they were coming to terms with his show of strength, he decided to land on that field of sunflowers. The people in the farmhouse peeked out and could tell that a master had come. One of them moved outside while the rest remained inside.
“Honorable Senior have you arrived to aid us?”
He clasped his hands while looking past Zhang Dong and clearly saw the family of five that he knew.
“Something like that, I don’t have much time. I will get to the bottom of this but for now, you will have to stay here and wait.”
Zhang Dong spoke out while the old man moved his head down, he looked a bit saddened after hearing what he had to say. He probably hoped that this mysterious elder would somehow aid them in this time of need.
“Don’t worry, you will be safe here…just wait a moment…”
He flew up into the sky and pointed both of his hands down while having his index fingers extended. His hands started moving at an astonishing speed, the people below could only see them blurring around. No one was sure what he was doing but not like they were brave enough to speak up.He was drawing lines into the earth below, strange symbols were being placed around the farm. He was drawing a formation while using the divine sunflower plants as a power source. After a moment it was all finished the formation sprung into action and pushed the mist away even further.
The village that was covered by the thick miasma was being slowly washed clean from it. Zhang Dong flew down, he took out a pill from his spatial ring and threw it at the sunflower field. He made a crushing motion with his fist which made the pill explode into many small particles. These seeped into the ground and nourished it, in a matter of seconds the plants grew twice in size while radiating, even more, divine power.
“T-this is…”
“I have placed a defensive formation around your village, it will use this field as the core. The demonic miasma won’t seep into it for the time being and the weaker demons will stay away.”
The village people would be safe against the mist and probably most of the monsters lurking outside. With the nourishing pill that he inserted into the soil, the sunflowers should last for a couple of weeks. He thought that he would have things resolved by that time.
“Well, then I must be on my way.”
He was about to go. He felt like he had done enough and the people here would be safe enough with this defensive formation. Before he could leave though, one of the villagers called out with tears in their eyes.
“Please wait senior!”
It was a young man in his twenties, his cultivation was a bit higher than the rest of the people here. The others looked at him with surprise, probably still afraid of Zhang Dong’s motives but at this point, they were willing to put their trust in him. With that they let the man speak without being frightened that Zhang Dong would take it as being rude.
“M-my wife… she has been affected by the strange fog there are also others…”
“Affected by the fog?”
He looked to the farmhouse with narrowed eyes. He had felt for life signatures but didn’t really go into it further. He inspected the insides once more but this time doing a more thorough search.
“This is…”
They were humans in there but he could feel something else, something was hiding inside of them. It was giving off a strange aura very similar to the frenzied monsters outside.
“Bring them all outside!”
He gave out the order while the villagers nodded and scrambled inside the house to bring out the affected people. The people started being brought outside, he could tell by one look that something was wrong. For one thing, they were all tied up and their mouths were even gagged.
There were four people affected, after peeking at their status with his system he could clearly see that they all had the ‘frenzied’ status. Without wasting much time he waved his hand to bring one of the bound people over.
It was the wife of the man that brought his attention to them. He didn’t remove the bindings for now while he started the examination. The people saw him walking around the floating woman while sometimes poking her body with his index finger.
“Hm… interesting…”
Zhang Dong had done extensive research in healing. It had been five years since the war was over so he had ample time. It wouldn’t be a stretch to consider him one of the best healers in the whole empire. Along with his extensive book knowledge, he had a high cultivation realm. Having a doctor or a healer reach his stage was truly rare.
“I see what the problem is… Okay everyone please stand back.”
Everyone backed away as he ordered, the only one that wasn’t going back that far was the woman’s husband. He could understand the sentiment so he didn’t say anything about it.
With a flick of a wrist, multiple silver needles shot out from his spatial ring. With another flic, the bindings were removed along with the gag. The moment that came off the woman’s maddened incoherent screams could be heard.
The people gasped slightly worried that the woman would attack someone. She wasn’t able to move though, even though the ropes were gone her whole body couldn’t move. Zhang Dong was keeping her in check with his immense spiritual energy.
The silver needles flew forward guided by him towards specific points in the woman’s body. In a matter of seconds, she looked like a pincushion. His golden energies seeped into her body soon afterward which made her shine brightly.
There was almost an immediate reaction to this treatment. The woman’s eyes bulged out and she opened her mouth wide. A thick dark mist cloud shot out from it, followed by something wicked.
Zhang Dong knew what it was as he had spotted this thing in the woman’s body. He used his holy energies to force this thing outside.
“No, you don’t!’
A specially prepared needle that was larger than the rest shot upwards. A strange high pitched sound was heard by the people. They all looked up, their eyes bulged in surprise at what they saw.
It was some kind of strange worm similar to a leech. It had no eyes but many long thin tendrils that were flailing around in all directions. The creature’s body soon crumbled into dust after getting pierced by Zhang Dong’s needle.
The woman’s body was then gently guided to the ground, her pale complexion becoming rosier after the treatment.
During the examination, he noticed some kind of bug inside the woman. The small long noodle-like appendages connected directly to her brain. The creature had taken over her body in this way. The treatment forced the strange creature to escape while the holy energies nursed her body back to health without causing brain damage.
This wasn’t an easy thing to do, one misstep and the patient could be put in a vegetable state. Luckily Zhang Dong was a proficient doctor who had treated many patients through all these years already.
“She should be fine, the creature has left her body but it might take some time before she wakes up. Now I’ll take care of the rest. There could be some side effects like short term memory loss. ”
There were three more patients and he couldn’t do this too fast as there was a probability of harming them. The more entrenched in the nervous system the creatures were the harder it became to pry them away.
‘If I had the time I could make pills to simulate this healing process. I should probably capture one of these things as a sample.’
He gave out a sigh and made the other affected by the parasitic monster float over towards him. There was no time to wait, he needed to get to the source before it was too late.