Deep within the Great Wildlands Forest, three tall green figures surrounded a boy with medium-length black hair and beautiful sapphire-like eyes, a boy who currently had a large smile on his handsome features as he stared up at three apocalyptic swords coming straight towards him.
Not even a few milliseconds passed when suddenly a long silence came...
And then a large flash of light shone in every direction the 3 hundred-meter long swords touched.
SHING!
A loud explosion followed as every part of the forest within tens of miles suddenly collapsed in on itself.
BOOOOOOM!
The forest floor then exploded upwards around where the three giant swords made contact with the earth!
It was absolute and pure unadulterated destruction, as everything within a few dozen miles of the sword strikes was reduced to nothing but rubble and stone, as even the trees were no longer there!
And the 3 green figures who caused all this stood victoriously while floating in the air above all this destruction.
"He should be dead now, right, Egen??" One of the Goblin Asura called Siegfried, asked with an exhausted face.
"There is no way he could've survived the combined force of 3 peak Core Formation Cultivators like us! Even a Half Step Golden Core Cultivator would have some trouble dealing with a combined strike sent from us 3 goblin Asura's!" The Goblin Asura called Egen replied with a proud look on his green-skinned face.
"What do we do about the half-dead GrandMeister Argas though?" The Goblin Asura, Biggro, asked with a worried look on his face.
"Just send him back to the city to recover for now, Biggro," Egen replied with a solemn expression. "While you do that, we need to find the remains of that human boy to bring back to the king as proof of our success."
Following the proclamations made by Egen, they were all planning to go about their objectives, but before they could...
"What do you mean by saying you're going to leave?!?!? The fun is only getting started, my little green piggies!!"
A voice that sounded like something straight from the depths of hell for the Goblin Asura's reverberated across the collapsed lands as a short figure emerged from the destruction with an elated smile on his absurdly handsome features.
"This isn't possible!!" Siegfried shouted in a tone of hysteria.
"How can any Core Formation Realm cultivator possibly survive our combined attack?!?!? This shouldn't be possible!!" Egen roared with a flabbergasted look on his face.
They conversed among themselves; however, it looked like they weren't the only ones privy to what they were talking about.
"Core Formation Realm? You are dead wrong, my little piggies! I haven't even entered the Foundation Establishment Realm yet!" Azmond said with an ever more excited look on his face.
"What??!?" The 3 Goblin Asura's shouted in unison.
"That is impossible!! You're lying! Our aura scanners clearly indicated that you were in the Core Formation Realm!" The Goblin Asura's screamed out in disbelief.
Azmond, upon hearing the bellows of the Green Piggies, flipped his gaze across all of them before he said, "Impossible things happen every single day, little piggies. It is of no concern to me whether you believe what I say or not."
His joy was now at a point of no return as he turned towards every single goblin with a look like a predator staring down its next prey.
"Entertain me, okay?!?"
"!!" "!!"
Azmond's words reached the Goblin Asura's a little too late, as he was already gone in a flash!
FWIP!
BOOOM!
He appeared behind Siegfried with a punch to the back as he was launched toward a mountain adjacent to the one the GrandMeister was imprinted on.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Another few sonic booms were heard as Siegfried was face-planted into the mountain just like the GrandMeister was, as the whole backside of the mountain imploding outwards!
"That makes two! Can't you little piggies do anything besides hugging the mountains with your faces?!?" Azmond questioned with a wide smirk.
"..." "..."
The now-only left-standing Goblin Asura's, Egen, and Biggro stood still with a stunned look on their hideous faces.
"Come on, don't get stage fright now! We have only just begun!" Azmond exclaimed.
"How about we play a little game?!?" He asked.
"??" "??"
The Goblin Asura's weren't following.
"It's a game I like to call 'Tag'! Tag the little green piggies into the mountains!" Azmond shouted with a happy smile on his face.
"!?" "!?"
They were even more confused than they were a second ago! Was this human completely insane, or what!?
However, they didn't even get the chance to mull over the topic, as Azmond continued to speak.
"You both run in two different directions, and whoever makes it further away from me gets the closest mountain to the First Green Piggie up there."
Azmond pointed up to the mountain closest to the GrandMeister's with an excited look on his face.
"We will start the game on the count of 5! So get ready to start running!"
He told the two Goblin Asura's, who were still shocked over what happened to Siegfried.
"1"
"!!" "!!"
They only snapped out of it when they heard Azmond start counting.
"We Are Being Mocked!!! By a Small Human Child, Nonetheless!!" Egen screamed out in absolute rage.
"2"
Azmond's neutral voice once again resounded in the area.
"Use everything you've got, Biggro!! Burn your life force!! Whatever the cost, we must exterminate this human!!!" Egen roared with a hint of insanity in his voice.
WAAA!
Egen and Biggro started to burn even their life force in an attempt to kill this human child.
They used everything they had as their faces and bodies started to shrivel up at an insane speed.
They refused to be humiliated by an inferior human! Every fiber of their being told them to give it everything they had, so that is what they did!
OOOM!
Egen and Biggro's aura's began to increase by an insane amount, as even the air was being altered by the energies being released by them!
And they continued to grow in power until they were infinitely close to crossing over the Golden Core Realm threshold!
"Oh? Are you trying to power up or something? How fun!! Please continue to get stronger!! It wouldn't be any fun if you were as weak as you were earlier!" Azmond exclaimed in an even more ecstatic tone.
.......
There was something crucial that the Goblin Asura's and even the GrandMeister were unaware of when they went into this battle.
And that was that the combat strength of Azmond was many times higher than what the aura scanners picked up...
The common aura scanners used by those below the Void Refining Realm and outside of affluent families were only able to read the surface energy levels of their targets.
They were not able to quantify the exact combat power of the target, only what the target was willing to show, which in this case was the energy being stored within Azmond's Qi cyclones, an energy level over 90,000.
The aura scanners could not pick up the power that Azmond held within his body and muscles, which, after three complete transformations of his body caused by insane amounts of Qi, were on a completely different level than the Peak Core Formation energy levels that were shown!
Azmond's current physical combat strength was somewhere around Peak-Early Golden Core, which may not seem that much higher than Peak Core Formation, but that assumption would be dead wrong!
Every realm further on the road of cultivation was like a chasm, a chasm that only became wider and wider the higher the realm you have achieved.
The difference in power between Peak Foundation Establishment and Core Formation Realm cultivators was like the difference between a small tadpole and a full-grown frog.
The difference in power between Peak Core Formation and Golden Core Realm cultivators was an even larger gap, a gap that many Peak Core Formation Realm cultivators could only dream of leap-frogging realms to fight in.
Azmond's current realm was only of a 1st stage Qi Condensation Cultivator, albeit a far superior Quantum Qi Condensation Cultivator.
But, nonetheless, he was a Qi Condensation cultivator all the same, a cultivator who was 2 major realms and a few minor realms away from his opponent's Realm...
And yet he was able to swat Peak Core Formation Realm cultivators away like flies!
However, such a feat was only possible thanks to his absurdly strong body, which rivaled even a Peak-Early Golden Core Realm Cultivator's body in pure destructive force!
Speaking of his physical prowess, that brought up the topic of another impossible feat that was only possible thanks to Azmond's 1000 refinement cycles completed in the Body Refinement Realm.
*******
Meanwhile, back during the fight Azmond was having with the two Goblin Asura's...
"Ho-How Can This Be? How Could we lose even after burning away all of our lifeforce?!? This is impossible!" A bloodied and collapsed Egen screamed with a look of disbelief as he stared at his fellow Asura Biggro, who was now unconscious beside him.
"..."
Azmond, who was standing without a scratch on his body, started to speak to the collapsed Egen in a condescending tone. "You ask, How? You speak in 'Impossible this' and 'Impossible that, blah blah blah," he began with a complicated look on his face.
However, his expression mellowed out a little as he continued. "Nothing is impossible in this wide, wide universe of ours. Just because you have never seen something done before doesn't make it impossible. Your feeble mind just can't accept that someone you deem inferior to you beat you as easily as I just did."
Azmond's face soured a little toward the end as he sported a dissatisfied look and said, "It is honestly quite... disappointing."
"It is so very disappointing that you green little piggies can't accept the reality that you lost... defeated so easily and yet you still think you have a chance..."
He continued his rant with a disgruntled countenance.
"Unwillingness to give up is a good quality to have, but... you aren't unwilling to give up for some greater purpose or even for yourself. You refuse to give up over some nonsensical racial pride that makes you think you are greater than everyone and everything around you." Azmond muttered with a small frown.
"???" Egen didn't understand why he was being lectured by a mere human.
"You disappointed my respect for your strength, little green piggies..." Azmond said with a sigh.
"Not that it really matters anyway since you were going to go face-first into a mountain one way or another but you could have at least gone out with some of your dignity still intact."
He 'lamented' their non-existent face for a second before his expression solidified and he resumed his jabbering.
"Oh well... Our time has come to an end, little piggie, the mountains are calling you and your friend's names!" Azmond's elated smile came back in full swing as he spoke those last words.
"..."
Egen the Goblin Asura had already fallen unconscious during the time Azmond was talking, but he would soon get a wake-up call he would never forget.
*Tap Tap*
Azmond walked over to the unconscious Goblin Asura's, grabbed them by the back of their heads, and lifted them into the air.
*Umph*
He then reeled his arms back and launched both of the Asura's toward two separate mountains.
BOOM! BOOM!
After a few sonic booms and screams resounded across the forest, both mountains imploded outwards, just like the first two.
Following the two new face molds that were planted into their very own mountains, Azmond's raspy voice was heard as he smiled a little and looked in the direction of all 4 mountains and the goblins implanted into them.
"Let's get to the really fun part, why don't we?" Azmond's devilish voice sent a chill down all 4 Goblin's spines even as they lay unconscious.