The five cultivators made it through yet another village on the way to Rantori. It had been seven months since the last two had been sent, yet no one had come back with news. Zheng Guo had sent the young boy who was exiled from his village first as an ambassador to see what the village was up to, only because of Huang Yi's insistence that there was a foreigner that didn't belong in the village preaching that things had to change. When the boy didn't return, the City Lord had sent two low disciple ranked cultivators to investigate, yet they also didn't return.
Now five three star ranked cultivators walked down the path of yet another abandoned village. They had decided to play it safe and send a runner back to Yuan City each night with news to Zheng Guo. They had gone through four abandoned villages and were a few weeks out from Rantori. After the second village they went through, they decided to pick up the pace. Jumping from tree branch to tree branch propelling themselves forward at a faster rate still.
"Target is coming from the south." Hong Zhao sent a voice transmission to the rest of his team which was spread out in a mile long line. His eyes rested on the five figures making their way past his zone. "Close perimeter in one minute." He couldn't sense or see it, but knew from the many times they had practiced the maneuver that the mile long line closed in on itself in a circle of unidentifiable cultivators all with their own set of qi blocking uniforms. They left five meters apart from each other. Hong Zhao activated his eagle vision and watched as the circle closed in on the cultivators. He then activated qi shot, the bright white energy glowed at the tip of his finger as he aimed at the first cultivator and fired.
As soon as the qi shot hit its target, he formed three qi balls and launched them to the ground under the rest of the cultivators. He watched as more qi shots hit the same cultivator, and dropped him from the tree top onto his qi balls and exploded. Blood and bone flew everywhere and the companions looked on in shock as their friend covered them. Hong Zhao watched as they spread out. He was impressed that even though their friend had just died in front of them, they were able to react so quickly. Without a second's hesitation, He marked the next cultivator with another qi shot, and others followed, making the man a pin cushion.
The remaining three set up a defensive formation. When he tried to launch another qi shot, they followed the blast and found him. Hong Zhao activated his devouring qi claws just in time to block a blow from a sword which appeared in front of him. "You dare attack an envoy from Yuan City?" The man's voice was well past condescension. "Even if you end our lives, there will be even more sent in our place!" He pushed harder with his blade, Hong Zhao launched himself backward, flipping and landing on another branch. He activated vortex thrust and launched himself back to his assailant. The man backed up just in time, as a claw left marks on his chest rather than his throat. As he was regaining his balance, Hong Zhao sent threw three qi balls under him and activated them. The man exploded with the rest of the branch and blood rained down from above.
Hong Zhao watched as his group dispatched the remaining two men in a similar fashion. He had kept the devouring qi claws as his own unique skill, but shared the rest of them with the villagers. He watched as they surrounded the other men and used qi shot to herd them into a pile of qi balls which activated the moment they were in range. Hong Zhao smiled as he saw the efficiency of the ten men he had watched train for the last six months. It took some time to break them of the mentality that fights should be one-on-one. It took even longer to teach them how to use their abilities as a single unit, instead of just chaos. It was even more infuriating since he couldn't speak to them on his own. Not many men would listen to a ten year old boy. No matter how strange he was, he was still a child. Somehow he made it work though.
"Let's head back. We're done for now."