The men looked in the direction that the voice was coming from. The boy that tackled the man fell onto his butt, then quickly scooted to the side to protect his little junior sister.
"Who dares!?"
The young master looked at the old man, not knowing who he was. He had a long beard and looked intimidating, but looks could be misleading. The young master was just a lowly Qi condensation practitioner, not even that high up there at only the 8th stage. He liked spending his time drinking and partying with the ladies in the pleasure district not really one for training. That's why he glanced to one of his guards, the man looked quite experienced and was in the middle level of foundation establishment.
The guard scanned the elder with his senses, he could tell that the elderly man was also in the foundation establishment stage at a similar level that he was. But he wasn't alone here, each guard here had at least a cultivation base of foundation establishment early stage and there were five of them against just one old guy.
Taking their ages into consideration, the bodyguards were men in their forties and fifties and the opponent looked to be sixty or seventy. In this world, you could mostly tell one's strength by the cultivation level and the age. An old age gave you hints that the cultivator wasn't very talented and couldn't advance past the stage that they were currently in and would probably be stuck in it for the rest of their life. This indicated that they should be weaker than younger cultivators at the same realm as they probably had more talent and vigor.
The bodyguard gave the young master a nod, signaling him that he felt confident in taking out this elderly man. This youth wasn't stupid, he knew that it wasn't wise to offend unknown people, they could turn up to be some kind of old powerful monster. Still, you could offend risky targets but you just had to make them vanish from the face of this world.
"I'm not sure who you are old man, but you better scram."
The young master proclaimed, while hiding behind his bodyguards smirking from the back at the elder that was about to get trashed by his group.
"Oh don't mind me, I'll be on my way soon. I'll just take these children with me and we will be on our way, what say you?"
Matt didn't want to cause a scene, no one was actually dead and he could make these cultivators collapse with a wave of his finger. He was planning on remembering the youth's face, maybe getting his name out during the conversation and then have his police force bring him in. Playing a superhero was nice and all, but these people had to learn to trust the new faction in town to help them out in the future and not rely on random cultivators to help them out. He wanted to have the man serve a normal prison sentence, but things weren't that easy and the kids were also thieves.
"Heh did you hear that men, he wants to take the poor kids home."
The people that were standing there just burst out in laughter not taking the man seriously. They were feeling quite content, the man was even speaking to them respectfully probably afraid of a beating.
"Yes, you can take these kids for a mere... five hundred... no, make that a thousand spirit stones! How's that for a fair price?"
The youth just laughed to himself, no one in their right mind would cough up a thousand spirit stones for some useless orphans.
"Oh, a thousand? Wait a moment sonny...I just need to check...how about these?"
The young master raised his brow at the old man's response, it was as if he was willing to pay that amount for these street urchins. He looked at the man who was looking at a storage ring a glint in the youth's eye as he saw that thing.
'That's a high-quality spatial ring, where did that old fart get it?'
The old guy then pulled out two swords, from a glance you could tell that they weren't simple weapons and that they were made by quite the master blacksmith.
"Here you go, two high-quality perfect grade mortal swords, they should go for around five hundred maybe even six hundred spirit stones at the auction house, this should do, right?"
Everyone gasped as the old guy pulled out two shiny new swords, they were radiating that perfect grade aura and were extremely close to something at the core formation stage. The guards in the shed gulped, they wanted weapons like those but they were forced to use lower quality goods given to them by the clan they were from. This clan was the Xing Clan, which this young master belonged too.
"B-bring those treasures over..."
The young master said while staring at the two weapons, he just had to have them. Trading some brats for even one of those would be a win in his opinion.
'But where did this old man get those from and he probably has more things in that storage ring...'
The youth was already thinking about his next step, should he risk offending anyone that was behind this old man or not. The man wasn't wearing the Zhang Clan robes, so he probably wasn't with that family.
'Even if he was with them, nothing will happen if he just vanishes..."
The Xing Clan had a bandit background so they were quite ruthless in their actions. From a young age, their offsprings were taught to never allow any loss of face and to be throughout with their actions. If you saw an opportunity for getting more power, you should go for it if the situation allowed for it even if there was a risk involved.
"Here you go sonny, now I'll just take the kids and we'll be on our merry way."
The bodyguard grabbed the two blades and carried them over to the young master, the kid took one of them while the guard kept the other. Both of them could see that these were quality goods, neither of them had a weapon of this quality on their person. While the old man was walking towards the kids, seemingly thinking that the deal was made.
The Xing young master had other plans, he was going to risk this. No one should miss one old fart, and even if they do they will be long gone and can blame it on bad luck. He gave his men a hand signal which the group knew well, they went to cut off all escape routes. The elder wasn't really doing much, he was now by the kids petting the crying girl that was standing next to the boy that tackled one of the bodyguards.
"Okay kids, just follow this uncle outside I'll bring you somewhere safe."
All of the kids looked to Zhu that came along with this strange old fart, they looked to him if they could trust the man or not. The boy gave them a nod and a couple of reassuring words.
"Don't worry, you can trust this Senior."
The boy said while trying to aid his injured brother, that was badly beaten on the ground his ribs probably broken due to that last kick he received.
"Mmm, you're not willing to let the kids go? But the deal was already made young man."
The old man spoke up which prompted the kids to look at him, he was looking at the smirking young master. His men were pulling out their weapons while encircling the group some of them standing back in the case that they fled.
"You think I'm stupid, give me that ring of yours and we might let you live old fool!"
The kids started crying again, the younger ones hiding behind the older ones the grandpa in front. The old man in question looked at his hand, his high-quality store ring on one of his wrinkled fingers. He moved his hand so that the backside of his palm would face the young master, the ring visible to the youth.
"Oh, you want this little thing? How can I trust you that you would let us go after I give it to you?"
The youth was getting more and more confident in his decision, this man wasn't bringing up any outside backing into the conversation. This meant that he probably didn't really have anyone more powerful behind him but still, the old man was getting on his nerves as his tone was quite relaxed.
"Stop messing around you old fart, hand over the ring! We are done playing games!"
He nodded to one of his guards, the man charged forward. This man wasn't the strongest from the group nor the weakest. This would be a test, they wondered what the old man would do. Would he use some kind of defensive treasure, would he charge in and try his luck in hand to hand combat, or would he try to run away.
The old man didn't move from his spot at all, he just looked at the incoming warrior. The bodyguard was holding a large saber with his hand, he swung it from over top his head like he was trying to bisect the elderly man that was just standing there. His weapon whizzed through the air, the children's eyes not even being able to fathom the incoming man's movements as he used some strange movement art, appearing like a blur in their eyes.
The kids closed their eyes, they expected to see the poor grandpa getting split in half. They felt the wind pressure from the attack suddenly hit their faces, their hair getting kicked up. But that was it, they couldn't hear the old man screaming or groaning. When they opened their eyes they saw something strange, the old man was holding the saber's tip between his index and middle finger. The attacker's biceps was bulging out indicating that he was trying to push his weapon downward, but the saber wasn't budging at all.
"Ho ho, how ferocious, this grandpa almost had a heart attack, so fearsome indeed!"
The old man laughed and chuckled while the bodyguard tried his best to pull or push his saber away from the clutches of those two fingers. The elder then flicked his fingers, the saber that the man was holding got flung upward and lodged itself in his shoulder, blood spraying into the air and the man screaming out in pain.
"What are you fools waiting for, get that old fart!"
The young man screamed out, he didn't anticipate the man to be so ferocious but he still had more guards one stronger than the other, they should be able to handle one old man. The muscular men charged at the man that in return slowly walked towards them, his facial expression not really changing.
They attacked him from all directions, they had swords and spears heading for the man's weak spots, the head, the heart, the solar plexus, and even his groin. But before the weapons could land they suddenly shattered into many pieces, the shrapnel heading in the directions that the attackers made their strikes. The sharp metallic parts embedded themselves in the men's faces and bodies, quickly making them retreat and squirm out in pain.
"W-what are you idiots doing, kill him!"
The young master was fuming as he saw his men just scatter, wounds all over their bodies the old fart just standing there and grinning. The men tried standing up, but they were seasoned warriors and knew that this elder in front of them wasn't even trying hard. He was probably hiding his cultivation level and could slap them to death if he wanted to. They groaned as their young idiot of a master wasn't realizing that fact yet.
"Oh, you shouldn't be that quick to murder people young man."
Suddenly the youth felt some wind hit his face, the man just vanished and was now standing right behind him. He was holding onto the Xing Clan boy's shoulder while talking.
"Don't touch me, I'm the Xing Clan's second son! If you touch me my father will kill you and your whole family!"
The youth turned around, the old man had quite the grip on his shoulder as he felt most of his power leaving him.
"Oh shut up you caricature of a person."
*SMACK*
.
The young master was slapped on the cheek and not lightly. His body spun around his arms floppy as the youth lost all power in his limbs the moment he received the hit, he made a nice arch and hit the shacks wooden wall and crashed through it right outside. He was instantly out cold and foaming at the mouth, some of his teeth knocked out.