Tentacles of hot golden rays pelted down onto the shattered earth of the barren lands.
Lines of deep cracks in the ground splintered and branched out, stretching in every direction, the crumbling top-layer of dirt formed a hexagonal mesh pattern, spanning the length of the land.
The wind propelled small columns of spiralling dust-tornadoes across the featureless landscape. Sending sprays of dust particles snaking through the atmosphere, giving everything a dreary outlook.
A withered tree with its peeling bark managed to stand proudly in this harsh landscape, albeit sloping drastically to the left.
The parched, dried out tree measured eight meters and had lost all of its leaves, it stood alone on the horizon, like a metaphor for survival in this extremely hot, and harsh hostile environment.
Twenty meters away from the slouched leaf-less tree, the air shimmered and churned around two faintly visible people, their hazy silhouettes gradually becoming solid.
Phew! Hartley exhaled as his feet hit the ground with a puff of dust, he staggered forward before regaining his balance.
Both Hartley and Zhi Ruo took a few seconds to recalibrate as they wobbled around on spaghetti legs.
Their momentary weakness passed quickly and the couple felt their strength return to its peak. Surpassing their former strength on the Aldoran continent by leaps and bounds.
They stood in place for a while and recomposed themselves, grateful to avoid the experience of another brutal acclimation period like their time in the pocket dimension..
Zhi Ruo huffed out a breath of relief towards the cloudless blue sky, releasing her tension and pent up emotions.
"We're back?" she uttered an unsure statement that sounded more like a question.
"Yes Ruo, we're finally back," Hartley said with a smile while he hugged her closely, they both felt a sense of relief and achievement.
From their current perspective, the dreary barren land has never looked so good.
The pocket dimension was a place of slaughter, one had to be combat ready at all times, it was a place without conscience or leisure.
Living outdoors and permanently being in the path of danger improved cultivation and fighting ability quickly, the side effect is that it tended to tighten one's nerves tremendously.
Everyone was always on edge, a moment of carelessness could have dire consequences. The pressure of such a reality is mentally fatiguing, and could eventually be your undoing.
It was great to be back on the continent.
For the first time in years the couple could look forward to the comforts of their manor and reuniting with friends and supporters.
Boom!
Their relief was short lived.
A presence of immense power was quickly moving their way, raising a storm of dust in its wake as it travelled through the barren land like a scud missile over the terrain.
"You rats really have some nerve, you even dare to return after desecrating the royal statue of the beast-men and destroying our sacred ground."
A thunderous voice filled with malice arrived from the distance before the speaker was even visible.
The air rippled and squirmed in front of the incoming dust trail.
Twinkling lights glinted and glittered under the harsh sun as someone approached on a cloud of shimmering green.
The person touched down onto the ground with a boom two hundred meters away, launching himself back into the sky immediately with another flash of green particles scattering behind.
Although it wasn't possible to fly with spell-weaving, a powerful spell-weaver with control of the wind element could launch themselves effortlessly over large distances.
A fraction of a second later the Rhino-faced beast-man clad in black scales, thumped down onto the ground like an earthquake.
His triangular interlocked scales that ran the length of his robust body, glistened, glinted and reflected the bright sunlight.
A blast of dust and stones erupted around his three meter frame with the impact of his landing.
He stood menacingly in the dusty swirls, a giant axe gripped in his hands and green wind elements dancing around him as he stood.
He was poised and ready for action.
Growls and grunts of other eager beast-men were getting louder and louder as they hurried to catch up to the black scaled beast-man.
The beast-man stood before Hartley and Zhi Ruo was a gold tier spell-weaver.
They had encountered him on the night they scampered to cross into the pocket dimension.
A gold tier spell-weaver was much more attuned to the elements, they could harness much more power from the dormant elements with little to no effort.
Hartley barely qualified as a silver tier spell-weaver, but had the advantage of mixing the two different cultivation systems.
He had learned the tiers of the spell-weavers and could now tell how powerful the beast-man was.
Zhi Ruo mouth twitched, her displeasure at the beast-man's grand and sudden entrance could not be concealed.
If this was ten days ago on the Aldoran continent when she'd met Drago for the first time, she would've surely cowered back in fear.
But now?
She glanced at the cloud of dust pluming behind the approaching reinforcements of beast-men and felt little to no fear.
"You annoying trash!" She screamed at the black scaled beast-man standing a few meters away.
"We came in peace and haven't killed a single beast-man, yet you are still acting this rampant before us. You better pray I don't lose my temper because I won't go easy on you." Zhi Ruo scowled through gritted teeth.
Growls of rage and discontent rose from the throat of the black scaled beast-man and a few others who were arriving on the scene.
"Insolent!" The black scaled beast-man barked at the absurd human woman.
Adrenaline pumping, the black scaled beast-man made his move without hesitation, ready to capture and torture.
Oh how he had been wishing to see these two again and his wishes were granted. He was going to snap them to pieces limb by limb and dance to the tune of their misery.
Hartley had black lines across his scrunched forehead as he glanced at the shifting flashes of lights and finger gestures from the beast-man.
After a few fluid hand gestures, the black scaled beast-man had the dormant fire elements in the air churning towards himself.
In a blink, his right arm had a red glow from elbow to finger tips.
His mammoth axe instantly glowed red with sizzling heat glaring off it.
Another few hand gestures and the beast-man legs were glowing green as he got into his attack stance.
Hartley and Zhi Ruo were stood at the edge of the beast-men's former sacred ground.
Looking around, there was still evidence of the collapsed basin and the destruction left behind by the couple when they had crossed over to the pocket dimension.
While it had been ten years in pocket dimension for the couple, Hartley remembered it was only ten days for the beast-men, and it was not enough time for frayed tempers to calm down.
Hartley had no time to tangle with this matter. He immediately engaged his time domain, instantly everything froze in place, turning the world monochrome, losing all sound and colours.
With everything frozen in stunning black and white detail.
Hartley saw a white ghost-like silhouette move from the black scaled beast-man body, slashing his giant axe from high-left to low-right with lightning speed. The earth cracked under both their feet from the pressure exuded by the brutal move.
Hartley flinched back by reflex. It was the first time he'd seen anything move in his monochrome world.
A few seconds felt like an hour in that moment.
Hartley was taken back at first, before realising the white apparition would fade away like smoke at the end of the move and restart again.
Incredulously this was a prediction of the opponent's future action.
If the black scaled beast-man was as capable as the apparition, then Hartley was glad he hadn't taken any chances.
It was time to apply a dose of ruthless pragmatism.
When it came to the beast-men Hartley knew talk was useless.
Their years of justified hatred for humans had poisoned their minds, they could not be reasoned with.
Hartley had to punish the chickens to warn the monkey.
Diplomacy would get him nowhere with the beast-men, he had to show them who had the bigger fist.
Three steps and the distance was closed, Hartley raised the open palm of his right hand, fingers pointed to the sky.
His left hand languished by his side to make three gestures quickly, a black orb crackled like electricity as it burst into existence hovering in front of the open palm of his right hand.
Hartley's black hair fluttered as his blue elemental power gushed from his palm and weaved around the crackling black energy.
His right hand came forward and rammed into the right breastplate of the black scaled beast-man.
Boom!
There was a blinding flash of blue and black lights.
Time was restored with an explosion, everyone including Zhi Ruo was swept off their feet without warning.
Shattered pieces of the beast-man scales flew everywhere like a pinata that was cracked open with a whack.
The black scaled beast-man was unconscious before he even landed.
Bang!
He crashed head first through the solitary leaf-less tree standing on the horizon, leaving a shower of splinters and shattered branches raining to the ground.
The earth rattled underfoot when the black scaled beast-man finally landed twenty meters away.
He fell like a crumpled piece of fabric onto the cracked earth, sending massive plumes of dirt and dust skywards from the crater he dug with his unconscious body.
Pieces of shattered scales continued to crumble from his body, everything around him was charred black and smouldering like ignited coal.
The rest of the beast-men gathered around, picked themselves off the ground one by one and gaped at the scene, the slower ones who were still rushing over to the scene stopped in their tracks and didn't dare to come any closer.
They collectively inhaled a cold breath and took a step back, they had all just witnessed the powerful black scaled beast-man getting slapped to sleep brutally.
A good tier spell-weaver couldn't even offer a sliver of resistance.
He laid twisted and unmoving In the smouldering crater, chest heaving up and down. Oblivious to what was taking place around him.
Everything was silent, dust swirled through the air and the whirring wind hummed a tune.
Hartley was an opponent none of them wished to fight, they were satisfied with the fact that the human looked ready to leave and wouldn't attack the rest of them.
After Zhi Ruo got to her feet, Hartley rushed over to make sure she was ok.
Zhi Ruo broke free of his grasp, turned her nose to the sky and harrumphed at the shell-shocked beast-men.
"Lets see if you carry on bullying peaceful people visiting the barren lands."
She growled as she glared down at the beast-men who were now all as docile as domesticated cats.
Hartley wrapped an arm around her waist, pushed himself into the air and soared a thousand meters in a blink. Then they disappeared in a flash of blue.
Even when the human was gone the beast-men stayed in place. Preparing to escape just in case the human was only pretending to leave.
***
The light came in from the full moon. Everyone was in the beautiful chamber of the lounge where the huge windows allowed the moonlight to illuminate the interior.
The concrete pillar in the middle of the room housed a fireplace with orange flames dancing. Not for the warmth but for stretching the light.
The shadows were relegated to the far end of the room.
"Welcome back my lord" Fu Qian dropped to a knee in a formal knight salute, followed by the rest of the elites in the room.
"Rise" Hartley instructed. "Do away with those formalities from now on." Hartley told the handsome middle aged man and the elites.
Those things had stoked his ego once, but now they were unnecessary procedures that wasted time. Hartley considered himself a much more mature man now, even if it wasn't obvious from the outside.
Hartley sat beside Zhi Ruo with a cup of wine, he sipped as he listened to reports of happenings in the country. Everything seemed to be normal.
Alric, Qin Li, Fu Jiannu, Fu Qian, the elites and the servants had eyes planted on the couple.
They all noticed something different about Hartley and Zhi Ruo, they just couldn't identify the difference. They went on a month's long secret trip and came back so different? Where did they go?