Hartley could sense 5 xiantian experts approaching from multiple directions with ill intent.
He was nervous, not because he feared them, but because Zhi Ruo was here and in the line of fire. He immediately stood up, then slammed in his right palm on the table.
BOOM!!
The table turned to dust, the steaming hot dishes and utensils flew across the room, crashing against the far wall.
Furniture was going to be a hindrance to his movement in this tight space, it could be the difference between life and death.
With a shocked look on her face, Zhi Ruo went into a fit of coughing from inhaling the wooden dust swirling around.
Before she could catch her breath.
ZOOOM!
Hartley applied gravity repel to her body, this sent her moving to the left at a fast pace, she flew out about 10m in a flash. Hartely then counteracted the speed of her movement with "gravity attract."
This was a move where Hartley could use the force of gravity parallel to the ground to bring things towards him, providing the item wasn't tied or nailed down.
It worked!
Slowing down her momentum enough that as she hit the wall of the restaurant, she didn't break any bones, she only fainted.
Hartley was worried about her but didn't have the luxury to be fully concerned with her at this moment.
A 2nd layer xiantian expert came over the banister at the far end of the restaurant, he moved so quick in Hartley's direction that he left shadow-images in a straight line behind him, his steps barely making a sound as he catapulted forward.
The Bottom half of his face was masked, ninja style, he had green eyes and was clearly manipulating the wind elements.
Hartley had ample experience battling against fierce beasts, their natural animal instinct would mostly lead them into a head-on battle.
But in a fight with another human xiantian expert, one wouldn't just brainlessly move forward blindly, unless one were very confident in winning with their first strike.
Hartley squinted, readying himself, apparently this guy was very confident.
As the wind element expert was closing in from the front, Hartley sensed fire element fluctuations from behind, a fireball was released, illuminating the whole second floor with a yellow glow, whizzing at his undefended back.
The timing was superb, the fireball would arrive right after the wind element expert made his first strike.
If the strike was blocked, the wind elemental expert would use his overwhelming speed to retreat, distracting the opponent long enough for the fire ball to explode on contact with the target.
These guys seemed to have tremendous understanding between themselves, this was definitely not their first rodeo.
Also, keep in mind that the other three experts had not even shown themselves yet, Hartley knew they were lurking somewhere in the vicinity, this combination move from the first two experts was probably just to test the waters.
What they didn't know was, these waters were Shark Infested!
STEP 1: Hartley immediately went into "Sate of Focus." From that moment on, time for him was flowing at only a quarter of the normal speed.
He could now see every miniscule detail in the surroundings, he saw the wind elements forming at
feet of the dark robed expert, leaving a puff of green as he took each step.
He could see the fluttering of the man's robes, whipping around wildly, moving randomly against the wind pressure present in the natural air.
STEP 2
: Hartley applied a 10x gravity field in a five meter diameter around himself, if the gravity was any stronger, the second floor might collapse into the first floor.
STEP 3: Out of nowhere a long black blade appeared in his right hand, and his short red blade in his left.
The approaching expert had his sword held in a two handed grip, pointed forward and horizontal to the ground, prepped for his killer strike.
As the assailant entered to within five meters of Hartley, his eyes bulged with surprise, his speed halved, suddenly he had to deal with the dense gravity pushing down on his body.
He executed his killer move anyway, this was a move designed to leave no room for dodging in any direction.
"Die!"
A single word fell from the mouth of the masked attacker, he stabbed forward with his sword, it multiplied into six sword lights aimed at six different parts of the body.
One couldn't differentiate the sword light from the real sword, it was basically like six different swords stabbed forwards at the same time.
In his state of focus, Hartley could clearly see the six sword lights targeting his right kidney, his left kidney, his heart, his left shoulder, his right shoulder and his neck.
CLANG, CLANG, CLANG, CLANG, CLANG, CLANG!
The chatter of metal rang out, accompanied by flashes of bright showering sparks when the two combatants finally clashed.
With zero gravity applied to both blades, Hartley's swords swam out like a dragon, answering with a flurry of well timed defensive parries.
Three of the incoming strikes were deflected away with his short-blade in his left hand, the other strikes were stopped with his long blade in his right hand simultaneously. His swords blurring as he delivered his defensive strokes as fast as lightning, almost invisible to the naked eye.
A series of sparks exploded out each time metal met metal, that wasn't all, the genius of Hartley's defense was that he parried the strikes on his left side, towards the left, and the strikes on his right side, towards the right.
This made all the sword lights rush harmlessly to the outside of his body. Completely breaking the momentum of the attacker, leaving him standing stunned with his sword dangling in a harmless position, eyes dazed in disbelief.
STEP 4: Even though Hartley was now a 3rd layer xiantian in elemental power, his physical body was still only in the first layer xiantian realm.
It was enough.
Blue smoke-like wisps shrouded his right leg as it lashed forward.
Hartley executed a front step kick, bringing a gust of swirling wind from nowhere, blowing away dozens of tables and chairs, clearing the 2nd floor of most obstacles.
The furniture clattered and broke into splinters, colliding with the walls, leaving a thick fog of wooden dust in the air.
Hartley had just executed his typhoon kick for the first time in battle.
When the sole of his right foot made contact with the chest area of the dazed opponent, the expert flew backwards faster than he had arrived.
Blurry after-images followed his backwards trajectory, accompanied by sounds of the man's screams and broken bones echoing out.
In the blink of an eye he flew through a wooden wall at the front, shrieking out in misery. He went on to collide with the beautifully crafted Dragon Stew Restaurant signboard.
His body exploded into a mist of blood, turning the signboard into shrapnel.
A gory rain of debris and body parts fell down on those at the entrance of the restaurant, making the pedestrians below scatter wildly with panic.
Back to Hartlely.
As soon as his kick had landed on the defenceless expert, the scorching yellow fireball reached his back. He used gravity repel on the fireball, slowing it down just enough for him to use his minute movement dodging technique, slipping pass the projectile by the closest of margins.
Even though it didn't touch him, the immense heat of it scalded his right shoulder, taking a layer of his skin with it, eliciting a grunt of pain from Hartley's throat as he watched the fireball quickly following the defeated expert towards the front wall.
The people on the road outside, witnessed a man flying through the front wall of the restaurant, leaving a ragged hole behind him, then colliding with the signboard, producing a loud crash, sending splinters and droplets of blood raining down on the unprepared people.
This started a chaotic scene with everyone desperately scrambling away from the restaurant's entrance.
Boom!
One second later another big explosion shook the building with a flash of yellow, this time removing the entire front wall of the building in a eruption of fire.
People's screaming and horse neighing outside rose to a crescendo, everyone was in a panic to escape this terrible place, fully expecting another explosion to happen any second again.
Those standing on the street could see unhindered into the second floor of the restaurant, there was now no front wall.
All of this took almost 4 paragraphs to explain but from the time Hartley smashed the table he was sitting at, to the time the front of the restaurant exploded, it was only 4 seconds in real time.
Hartley had just erased a 2nd layer xiantian expert with wind element affinity in 4 steps.
Now that the 2nd floor was cleared of the annoying obstacles (tables and chairs), he could now use gravity steps, this was his technique that applied zero gravity around his body with precision split second timing, decreasing air resistance around him to multiply straight line speed exponentially.
He flashed to the back of the restaurant where the fire element 3rd layer xiantian expert had fired the fireball from. He flashed 30 meters in 0.01 seconds, that was practically a teleport. .....