With their home province visible in the distance, a sense of relief washed over the group, all had been tense expecting the worse, What the merchants had witnessed was harrowing. Some of them were knowledgeable people who knew a thing or two about martial scriptures, they knew what the dark cloaked man was using was a forbidden death technique.
The use of the dark arts to harvest people souls has been outlawed on the Aldora continent, all three prominent countries had agreed to this since the days when a devilish clan had wreaked a trail of destruction across the affiliate countries, snatching peoples soul as a cultivation device. It had cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people before all three prominent countries on the continent formed a coalition to crush the sadists once and for all..
Now if someone was even suspected of practicing the forbidden dark arts, they would be put to death and their clan disbanded. The practitioner's closest kin would be put to the sword also, to stand by and watch the dark arts gain footing on the continent was a crime in and of itself.
Hartley did not let his concentration lax, he knew from his experiences in hunting that, the moment you feel the most relieved can also be your most vulnerable moment. Trailing a hundred meters behind the carriage, he picked up some unusual fluctuations. Hartley's eyes glowed bright blue as he pushed all his senses to the limits.. He then flashed away a hundred meters ahead and quietly said to Lou Tai "we've got company, Three 3rd layer xanthians about 200 meters back on the main road."
Lou Tai felt a sense of shame about his prior performance and wanted to make amends. Qin Li walked around and joined the quiet conference and asked "What's the play?" Qin Li had a lot of confidence in Hartley, he had stayed to the end of the battle with the cloaked man unlike Lou Tai and had seen Hartley slice the formidable opponent like an overgrown vegetable, the man had been sliced so fast he couldn't react.
Qin Li eyes had bulged when Hartley had just appeared in front the man, slicing him while he was in the middle of executing a sword move. Hartley looked Lou Tai in his eyes and asked "Are you up for this?" "Yes" Lou Tai replied with a serious determined look on his face, Hartley then said "give me the signal whistle." ...
Hartley sent the carriage ahead and they picked up positions on the main road. Lou Tai and Qin Li was 20 meters behind, a 3rd layer xiantian wind elemental approached slowly, the opponent could sense the two xiantians behind Hartley. The wind expert had a long spear held pointing forward as he took slow, careful steps, he was eyeing the positions held by Qin Li and Lou Tai like a tiger sneaking up on its unwitting prey.
When the man was five meters from Hartley, Hartley blew the signal whistle twice, two short sharp screech of the whistle rang out into the silent dusk. Lou Tai immediately stood up and punched out with his left fist.
Orange and yellow billowing flames quickly formed around Lou Tai's fist, heat singed the green leaves of the trees around him, the scorching flames as big as a basketball lighted up the surrounding like a bulb.The projectile made shadows dance behind it as it shot towards the man inching menacingly forward on the left side of the street.
The man had a calm persona as he stood up from his crouch and prepared to take evasive action. A fireball casted from 25 meters away when an expert has a clear line of sight was an useless to someone at his level.... or so he thought.
Before the man could move Hartley applied a 20x gravity in a 10 meter radius, the man's feet sank down into the packed clay which constructed the main road, he grunted in surprise as he struggled against an invisible force pushing down on his body, the fireball casted from 25 meters away arrived in less than a second and the man had spent that whole time struggling against the artificial gravity.
In the end the struggling man managed to do just enough for the fireball to slip pass under the armpit of his outstretched left right hand, graze his ribs, then went whistling into the trees on the left side of the main road. The trees exploded with a flash of yellow, leaving a blaze that lighted up the twilight casting long shadows across the street.
The expert wasn't unblemished though, he screamed out like a virgin being unwillingly violated, from his lowest rib to his armpit and a portion of the underarm of his biceps had been burnt charcoal black, gripping his spear with trembling hands he saw blue sparks exploding from the other side of the street, Hartley had been pushing his star feet technique to the max and there was an improvement, it wasn't level 5 but now when Hartley moved there was a blurred blue line trailing behind his feet.
Screaming in pain the man pushed his spear in the direction of the shadow approaching from the right. Hartley swung his silver blade in his right hand like a backhanded tennis stroke holding a pose on the follow through. The flat of his blade slapped the dark spearhead with a massive Clang! making the spear-shaft bend like an Olympic pole vaulter, when the spear-shaft straightened, the butt end of the spear rifled into the man's mid section cracking a dozen ribs with a crunching sound, sending him reeling backwards, puking blood and into the flames left by the detonated fireball.
Hartley blew the signal whistle once and Qin Li and Lou Tai stepped forward and advanced to the sound track of the man's miserable screams coming from the fire, they advanced pass Hartley and moved ahead with vigilance.
The scarred face man who was a 5th layer earth element xanthian watched the whole 5 seconds of the confrontation and could not help but being impressed, he wondered why his comrade found it so hard to dodge the fireball, he had full confidence the man would easily escape harm, so he didn't interfere and at the same time he could see the capabilities of the opponents.
He had personally gone to inspect the wreckage of the bandit camp and the forest. He came to the conclusion in his mind that there must be a late phase xiantian involved in the assault. Upon further investigation he found out a group of fairly young people had left the Cosmos region after the incident.
With the mission he was entrusted, he could leave no stones un-turned, so he gave chase only barely catching up before the group had entered the Waltham province. He still had his doubts but he would rather kill 100 innocents rather than letting 1 guilty escape...