Zhang Tie's first destination was the Nine Yang Sect.
This sect, famed for its pure yang cultivation techniques, was now tightly shrouded in a blazing golden barrier. With the Sect Protecting Great Formation, the "Nine Yang Sky Burning Formation," operating at full force, even the air warped slightly from the heat. From afar, the entire mountain range looked as though it had been submerged in molten gold.
Yet to Zhang Tie, this barrier—enough to make Nascent Soul cultivators turn away—was as thin as morning mist.
He did not use any spell to break it. The space around him merely rippled slightly, and he passed through the barrier without the slightest resistance, like a drop of water merging into the sea.
The sect elders had been discussing important matters in the council hall when an invisible pressure descended like an iceberg. In their shock, they looked up and saw only a black-clad young man carrying a red coffin on his back, standing in the hall at some unknown moment.
The next instant, the leading Nascent Soul cultivator was seized in one hand. A vastly more powerful force forcibly invaded his divine sense, and the memories of his lifetime of cultivation, the sect's secrets, the restrictions on its treasury... all of them flipped past like pages caught in a gale before being ruthlessly extracted.
After searching his soul, Zhang Tie sent the Nine Yang Sect's only Nascent Soul cultivator to the underworld, then headed straight for the sect treasury.
Leaving the Nine Yang Sect, Zhang Tie turned toward the Sacred Rune Sect. Familiar with the process, he killed its Nascent Soul cultivator, looted its treasury, and casually took away the Sacred Rune Sect's talisman inheritance as well.
"Since I've moved against the righteous sects, I should treat the demonic path equally." With