I directed the Luna sisters and Alice to first do a surprise attack on one person each and then team up to battle against the remaining guys. While I would do the same to another one of the mobs and then fight with Callum.
There was a chance to attack Callum from the shadows and take him out cold. But with him being stronger, it was much more possible for him to evade my attack. So, taking the weaker man in the 1st stage of River Consolidation down was easier.
After taking our respective positions, I took down the barrier. The moment the barrier was down, four of Callum's men were taken out cold. Callum and the remaining four men were first startled, then themselves together in a formation.
Seeing us jump out of the blue and attack him when he was supposed to be the 'predator' made him furious. But being the arrogant prick he was, he started to spout bullshit.
"What gall you have to attack me! To think you have broken into the River Consolidation realm, I should applaud your success. But even if you have succeeded in your surprise attack, the rest of us could easily overpower you."
His eyes roamed over everyone present while he was speaking. But there was a flicker of anger when they stopped at me. There were two 2nd stage and two 3rd stage River Consolidation cultivators along with Callum. He and one of the 3rd stage guys separated and attacked me. And the remaining three attacked the girls.
"You fucking scum! Did you think you were strong? Didn't you defeat me before when I was restricted to your cultivation? Now, let me show you my real strength. See if I don't break all your bones today!"
He growled and attacked me along with his lackey. Still clearly underestimating my strength, he sent his lackey to the front and struck me by unleashing his internal energy outwards.
Although his attacks were swift and forceful, it was better than fighting them in close combat together. I made shields by pushing out the stored energy from my dantian (internal energy) to block against Callum's attack and parried the close-ranged attacks from the other guy.
I had still not shown my true cultivation and was being suppressed by them, feeding onto their ego.
On the other side of the battle, the girls were fighting against three opponents. Alice was only fighting with her surface cultivation and defending all the attacks, while the Luna sisters were responsible for the attack.
From an outside perspective, it looked like the girls were being overpowered, but I knew they were not fighting to their full extent. After being in deadlock for quite a while, Alice removed her shield, and the Luna sisters erected their shields instead. The attackers thought she had exhausted her energy reserves and concentrated all their attacks on the sisters to completely overwhelm them.
They left their attention from Alice; she took this excellent opportunity to remove the cultivation inhibiting ring and attacked them at her full strength. The sudden attack overwhelmed them altogether, leaving their defence in tatters.
The Luna sisters didn't miss their chance and took an aggressive stance, attacking with all their strength. The guys screamed for help from Callum. Callum noticed the commotion and was momentarily distracted, stopping his attacks. The moment he did, I also removed my inhibitor ring and attacked the other guy.
My opponent couldn't defend properly and was hurled backwards, hitting a tree and losing consciousness. Seeing the situation getting out of control, Callum was exasperated.
"You were hiding your cultivation all this time! You dare make a fool out of me!"
Something snapped in him, and with an unbound recklessness, he attacked me head-on with his sword. He stopped using techniques and stances and just swung madly with tremendous force behind it.
Although he was acting recklessly due to his muscle memory from the many hours of training, all his attacks, if not lethal, were pretty dangerous. Because of that, I couldn't attack him even with all the holes present in his defences.
So, I just defended against his bloodthirsty barrage of attacks and waited for my reinforcements. It took some time, but the girls cleaned up their opponents and joined me to face him.
With a 4v1, it took a little more trouble to completely subdue the crazy Callum. After everyone was subdued, they were gathered together and tied up. Although I wanted to kill, I had a significant use for them. I looked at Alice and asked.
"This guy clearly had bad intentions against us, especially you. What do you want to do with them? Do you want to kill them?"
"Ki-kill them?! Yes, they wanted to harm us, bu-but we defeated them, right? Do we really have to kill them?"
She was clearly startled by my proposition. In fact, it was normal. Just a year ago, she was just a young girl living happily with her family, away from the ugliness of humans.
Even if she had hunted beasts, it was tough for her to come to terms with the killing of a human. But she had to understand it firsthand that they were people who would even resent her more instead of showing gratitude if she left them alive.
Some weeds had to be obliterated for the safety of the flowers. And I was sure that this weed called Callum would definitely try to hurt her again if she left him unattended. I patted her shoulder and said in a calm voice.
"Whatever your decision is, I will support you. But you have to be ready for the consequences of your decision."
She nodded her head solemnly, and after some thought, she asked to leave them be after paralysing them temporarily so that they could return back on their own after we had left them.
I expected this to happen from the beginning and unhesitantly made them unconscious by overwhelming their acupuncture points with my energy. The Luna sisters were also somewhat relaxed as they had not decided to leave the sect after finding the Tetraspine plant. They didn't want to create a blood feud with the Regins.
I didn't loot their rare-graded herbs as we had sufficient and took all the unique things they had. I found some mortal-graded herbs from Callum. I also found some aphrodisiac with him but hid it from Alice. I felt a wave of anger fuming inside me and wanted to kill him on the spot, but let him be.
I also found a variety of poisons from his lackeys. And one of them had a book on poisons with him. Mother had never taught us about poisons, so I could learn something new from that book. After completing our 'looting', we continued our journey to the mountain.