The setting sun hid behind fluffy pillows of clouds, turning them peach in the late spring evening.
Loud screaming, galloping horses, and explosions were audible on the deserted stretch of muddy road two days north of the Wawrika province, the shadows of the scattered tall trees grew long, inching eastward by the minute.
While Hartley was engaged in battle, the escorts provided by Viscount Sanzu were also locked in a brutal slaughter, the four armored soldiers charged their horses in a tight organized formation, racing towards the unarmored squad of crossbow men, swinging their heavy swords in mighty arcs, cleaving off the limbs of anyone too slow or unlucky enough to be in the way.
Blood splashed across horses and armors, a half dozen men who had abandoned their crossbows, armed themselves with swords, making futile attempts to battle mounted soldiers in close combat.
The rest scattered and fled in chaotic panic, screaming expletives as they tried to reorganize and retreat to preserve their lives, every now and then one was able to get off a single bolt from his crossbow, unfortunately for them, running and aiming a crossbow reduced the accuracy making it almost impossible to hit the target...
The relentless pursuit of the mounted soldiers continued as the damaged white carriage made its way north, still rattling through the mud at a brisk pace.
Zhi Ruo sat in a daze, broken glass still scattered across the seat beside her as if she hadn't changed position all this time, shock still apparent on her face, she had said nothing from the time Qin Li had caught up and boarded the carriage.
"He'll be safe." Qin Li assured her in an almost whisper like manner. He looked back at the road they had traveled in deep pensive thought. He of all people knew how powerful Hartley really was, but this time he also had his share of concerns.
Ryu Hang grimaced and grabbed his left shoulder from time to time, he held the reins and steered the carriage forward, grimacing at every bump on the rough road, bouncing to the rhythm of the wild beasts' clopping hooves.
After hearing the horrible screams, he was actually glad he could still feel so much pain. It meant he was alive and in better condition than those two soldiers, sweat still ran down his face as he shuddered just thinking about it.
Ever since Hartley had left the back mountains of the Lou clan, he had dominated the battles he had fought, sometimes he purposely hadn't fought with his full capabilities just to increase his battle experience.
Even when he had found himself in a disadvantageous situation, he had never felt as if his life was at massive risk.
Since meeting the black bear years ago, this was the first time he was truly scared of the outcome of a battle, this was the gritty reality of his current predicament.
The cloaked man had hoped to capture or recruit Hartley as one of his personal disciples, but after experiencing and seeing the power of this young man first hand. He now knew that his former apprentices hadn't died unfairly.
He hadn't felt danger like this in a long time, he even had to use his trump card. The three shadow demons he had been refining had to be released to fight the boy, he was now in a weakened state, fighting against the downward pressure, his feeble form was being pressed down into earth so much that he had to drop to one knee, making a deep indentation into the mud.
Under his cloak his face was now that of a sweating old bald man, full eyes sunken in on a gaunt slim face, with his leathered wrinkled and tanned skin now exposed as his true appearance.
This boy had to die now, trying to capture or recruit someone like this by force was like standing on a wobbling chair and wrapping a noose around your own neck, if the young man got any stronger than this..
Jaws clenced and brows scrunched, Hartley's naked body now shrouded in a curtain of blue stumbled and staggered like he had ingested one too many jugs of wine, his vision tilted like a small boat on the rough seas as he tried to regain his balance, swivelling his head and seeing the dark silhouettes dashing towards him trying to take advantage of his vulnerable situation, his eyes burned blue emitting a brighter glow, the blue aura shrouding his body too became a few shades brighter, winds whirled outwards as even more white steam coiled and twisted upward from his body.
The muddy ground sucked at the sole of his boots as he moved left.
The closest shadow creature that he had tried to desperately disengage from a second ago, lunged forward, swiping its sword shaped hand from wide left to wide right. The quick horizontal slash left a black line flashing behind the path of the sword-like hand, its movements accompanied by the sharp whooshing of displaced wind.
Hartley's feet got enough purchase in the mud to instinctively perform a back somersault, the deadly sword-like arm knifed through the evening air with deadly intent, whistling beneath him.
Space itself wobbled as if the void would open up then and there, it then faded away again.
Plop! Hartley's two feet slammed into the mud five meters back from the shadow creature, it was still in its crouched posture finishing the follow through of its strike.
As soon as his feet was back on solid ground, the other two shadow creatures had outflanked him, attacking simultaneously from the right and left, at this point he had to choose his poison. He dodged to the left using his minute movement technique to its maximum potential, barely managing to avoid the blow.
This was a bad decision, probably the first time in battle he had miscalculated. Hartley wanted to keep his gravity field trapping the cloaked man active, the problem was, his gravity field and his time domain couldn't overlap. If his gravity field was active he couldn't use his time domain and if his time domain was active he couldn't use his gravity field, this would be an important lesson for his struggles against the Time Keepers sect in the future.
His unwillingness to release the cloaked man cost him. The slash from the right crashed into the small of his back, an explosion of blue sparks burst out into the air, the blue aura surrounding his body dimmed to a dull shade.
"AHHH!"
Hartley screamed out in horrible pain, he was sent tumbling on a tour through the mud and foliage, creating a mini crater where he landed sending bits and pieces of mud flying everywhere, losing his short sword in the process as it flew off to the left, quivering as it stuck itself into a tree, somehow he had managed to keep hold of his long sword without impaling himself. Even though the blue star essence combined with his 3rd layer xiantian physique had protected him from the bulk of the strike, there was still a scar running across the width of his back, it was charred black emitting the smell of burning meat. Before he could come to a complete stop, the three shadow creatures were pouncing again from three different directions determined to finish him off.
Hartley had no choice but to release his gravity field and immediately activate his time domain, he called it "monochrome" the colors bled from the world 20 meters around Hartley.
All noise ceased to exist, the world around Hartley was now a quiet black and white artwork, every detail visible, everything came to a sudden stand-still. Mud particles came to a stop in mid-air, frozen in time along with the three shadow creatures, their outstretched sword arms lunging at Hartley stopped only meters away.
There was a peculiar occurrence, the frozen shadow creatures now looked like smoke, their wispy outlines had a obsidian-black crystal, resembling a beast core the size of a pigeon egg, suspended in each of their head regions glowing with a dark light.
Hartley's time domain would collapse after three seconds, he gritted his teeth and breathed hard through his nostrils as he got to his feet, fighting the excruciating pain with pure will power. He took the first second to take stock of his surroundings.
Quickly looking around Hartley noticed that he could actually see the face of the cloaked man, he actually looked like a week and feeble human now. That face! it looked so familiar, he was sure he had seen that bald gaunt face somewhere before.
Time was of the essence, he had no time to ponder such things right now.
Tick.. Tick..
Two seconds had passed, Hartley came up with a new strategy, he decided to gamble.
Before the third second was depleted, he placed himself behind the shadow creature that inflicted such pain on his body, gripped his remaining long silver sword in his right hand, and channeled all the power from the blue star fragment in his chest into the blade, the blade immediately turned blue with streaks of white steam snaking upwards.
Tick.. Tick.. Tick..
Hartley lunged forward and jabbed the sword into the head of the frozen shadow creature, with a whooosh time returned to normal, all sounds returned to the atmosphere, the suspended mud particles started their downward descent, raining back to the floor around Hartley and the shadow creatures.
Hartley immediately flicked his wrist upwards where he estimated the dark crystal should be located.
The sword flew through the top of the shadow creature's head creating a loud explosion.
Bang! for a split second everything went black, a curtain of black light escaped from the thing's head, formed a column and disappeared into the evening sky.
All three enemies made a horrific sound, you could hear the captured souls howling like dogs boarded-up in a hot house in the middle of summer. The cloaked man dropped to his knees and held his head, he bawled out like a wolf giving birth, then recalled the two shadow demons back to him, they rushed straight into his body and once again he had that shimmer of darkness, his face was a cavern of darkness under his hood again as he disappeared from the spot immediately, obviously trying to escape.
Hartley was never going to let him off that easy. Hartley didn't think the man could travel 600 meters in a second so as soon as the man blinked out of existence Hartley re-engaged his gravity field to its maximum limits. A gravity field 600 meters in diameter, with 40x gravity applied slammed down like a mountain dropping from heaven, cracking and creaking rang out as every tree in the vicinity laid down flat like nap time in a children's nursery.
Hartley stumbled around a bit, the pain in the wound on his back reignited like a fire was passing through his whole body, he had to take time to retrieve one of the rank 1 healing dans he had left and swallowed it. it took a few seconds before he could move again, so he retrieved his short sword that came free from a shattered tree.
Hartley pushed his awareness to cover his whole gravity field and picked up the fluctuations of the cloaked man about 500 meters to the west where all the trees now laid flat.
Nursing a wound and fighting against the pressure, Hartley's speed was drastically reduced, it took a dozen seconds to get there, the dark shimmer once again disappeared from the cloaked man and his feet were sunk ankle deep in the soft ground.
He struggled to stay upright. As soon as Hartley made his appearance, the man had no choice but to release his shadow demons again, the two shadow demons unhindered by the gravity field rushed at Hartley screeching like wild animals.
This time the encounter was totally different though, Hartley knew their secret. He maneuvered smartly so as to not get outflanked, patiently circling around, until he isolated just one of screeching creatures.
Under the influence of advanced state of focus, he swiped out his first set up strike with precision, the short sword in his left hand slashed from mid-right to mid-left.
As expected, the horizontal slash passed through the shadow creature, it turned smoke-like wafting away and reformed three meters to the left.
The process happened eight times slower in Hartley's eyes, so he timed it to perfection, using a high horizontal slash as soon as it reformed, smashing the dark crystal in its head and dodging the creature's vicious attack at the same time.
The bald headed man and the last shadow demon howled in pain again after another dark explosion, leaving the last creature vulnerable for a few seconds, Hartley easily finished it off without hesitation.
Hartley snarled, carefully bearing down on the whimpering bald man, blades held at the ready.
"Do you know who I am..."
A hoarse angry statement came from the old man's mouth, before he could finish this useless threat, there was a brilliant blue flash, his head went went flying off, there was no blood.
The bloodless corpse fell to the ground and twitched a couple times before it laid still.