After making use of his soul sense multiple times since getting it, Seth had discovered that there was something different about it compared to others, on the night that changed his life, he had been able to feel Rose's soul sense and locate her without her knowing a thing.
With his soul sense, Seth had the option of scanning the room before entering it which would have led to him instantly finding out whatever plan was being cooked up in there, but he didn't.
So far, Seth had had a really easy time crushing his enemies and he was really hoping for a challenge this time, hopefully, whatever trap they prepared would push him to the edge.
A blood-covered man walked into the room with a smile on his face, his left hand in the pockets of his trousers and his right hand running back and forth through his hair, he stopped walking when he was smack in the center of the room.
Fahren had prepared himself for any possible scenario, he wasn't even much surprised when the intruder arrogantly walked into the middle of the room despite the likely hood of a trap, but he was surprised when he saw how young the intruder was, he looked like he was just 20 year old yet he was already a general stage cultivator.
"Could he be a genius of one of those bloodline families", Fahren thought with a frown.
if whatever family he came from found he killed their genius, he doubted he could survive their hunts, unlike the government where the deployment of a powerful cultivator would require a lot of politics which could be subtly influenced, a powerful family could decide to send a powerful cultivator to end his life within an hour.
"This fight just became a whole lot troublesome, well let's first see what kind of a person you are, "Fahren thought with a narrowed gaze as he put his impromptu plan to fish information out of Seth in motion.
"My lord", Fahren said with a respectful bow, "we mistook you for the government forces out of ignorance and attacked you, for this, we are deeply sorry, please accept our apology," Fahren said again followed by a deep bow.
"Please accept this little gift as a token of our ....." Fahren was saying this when he was interrupted by the orange-clad man.
"Wooh man, no need to apologize, I came here specifically to kill the hammer .... ehh you guys are members of the hammer gang right?" Seth asked as he sheepishly scratched his head.
While it made sense for this guys to be the infamous hammer gang, it was still a little irresponsible of him to go on a killing spree without even confirming their identity.
Fahren was prepared to immediately begin fighting when the orange guy interrupted him, but his next question completely threw him off-guard, was this guy implying that he had just committed a massacre without even being sure he was killing the right people?
"Where did this madman come from?" Fahren thought as he immediately gave the signal for his men to activate the formation, he didn't even entertain the thought of trying to deceive the orange guy, his kind were very unpredictable and he had to kill this madman immediately.
With Fahren giving the signal, four cultivators along with Fahren immediately rushed out of the group and surrounded Seth from all four angles while the remaining cultivators immediately surrounded Seth and the four cultivators in a triangular formation and slammed their hands together as qi flowed from them into diagrams on the floor of the room and a yellow translucent barrier grew out of the ground and slowly began covering Seth and the four people surrounding him.
With this formation, Fahren's plan of killing Seth was all but assured, but this plan all hinged on one important aspect, that Seth was caught in the formation.
Fahren was ready to go all out and even sacrifice his most valuable treasure just to make sure Seth was captured in the formation, yet in the end, all his worries and plans had been for naught as Seth quietly watched the formation being activated with nothing but a curious gaze.
When Seth had been causing mayhem within the base, he had killed a ton of people yet hadn't come across a 3rd stage soldier level cultivator, but when he entered this room, he felt qi more powerful than any he had come across from four people in the room and now these four people were surrounding him.
"So you are the 3rd stage cultivators around here huh," Seth said as he observed all of them with a bright smile on his face while waiting for the formation to be completely activated.
Seth looked at the man who had spoken to him earlier, with his dark skin, thick muscles, low-cut hair along with a long scar running from his left eye down to his chin, especially with the really large hammer he was carrying, he fit the description he had gotten on the leader of the hammer gang.
"I'm a really fast guy, I hope that thing won't slow you down," Seth said with a genuinely worried look as he stared at Fahren's hammer.
"He's mad man" was the thought that went through everyone's mind after hearing Seth's words.
Seth had just turned to inspect the weapons of the other cultivators when he felt a huge force immediately slam onto his shoulders along with a suction force appearing all over his body.
"So that's what it does," Seth said as he felt the effects of the formation.
Despite having a long activation time, the effects of this formation made up for its fatal weakness.
it was a formation that drastically increased the weight of those caught within it by applying a heavy gravitational force on them, but that wasn't what made it a dreadful formation, its ability to suck out qi from the qi pathways of its victims was what made it a terrifying trap.
The difference in qi quality and amount was one of the key differences between a soldier level cultivator and a general level cultivator and now the hammer gang was hoping to severely cripple Seth fighting prowess by taking away his ability to use qi.
Seth immediately tried using his qi with his soul sense and immediately felt a pathetic force pulling onto his qi, like a newborn baby trying to pull an adult, that the formation's effect on his qi was almost nonexistent, was Seth's disappointing evaluation of it.
"A well setup formation" Seth complimented them, "but unfortunately it falls too short" Seth added with disappointment Cleary evident in his voice
" Well prepare yourselves, here I come," Seth said as he got into a running stance, this immediately had all four cultivators schooling their faces and keenly watching Seth, ready to react at any time.
Seeing them all prepared, Seth smiled and immediately shot towards the cultivators on his right, he was a man with a tall build wielding a long sword.
Seth crudely charged into his face, planning to lunch a punch at his face before he could react, but this time, his plans were doomed to fail.
The man calmly waited for Seth's approaching fist and then with finesse, he moved out of the trajectory of Seth's punch and then used the butt of his sword to hit Seth heavily in the guts which sent Seth moving backward and then with well-coordinated movements, he slashed out his qi filled sword at Seth.
Seth could see the man dodging out of the way of the punch, but he was too slow to react to it, then next thing he knew, he felt a hard pain in his stomach which sent him moving backward, Seth ignored the pain coming from his gut and tried to gain a footing when he saw a sword heading towards him.
Seth could feel the qi smoothly flowing through the sword and knew catching it with his hand was not an option, gritting his teeth, Seth gathered what little force he could squeeze out of his body given his imbalance, imbued qi in his hand, and slapped the sword on its side.
When his palm connected with the sword, the sword was slapped away, but Seth felt a searing pain shoot through his hand before he could assess the condition of his hand, he felt another presence close in on him but could do nothing a huge fist punched him straight into the air, again and again, sending him high up in the air and then he next thing he knew, a huge hammer with qi spiraling all around it slamming down on his chest sending him spiraling down to the ground.
Seth tried to gain a semblance of control over his body as it shot to the ground when he felt a searing heat approaching him, he was barely able to reinforce his body's defense with his soul sense when a huge dragon made of flame smashed into him, further speeding up his descent to the ground.
Seth hit the ground with a loud bang followed by the formation of a 20-meter-deep crater with him in its, center.