One by one the members of the unfortunate company of disciples were slaughtered by the powerful young man in a series of spectacular ways, his unseen ally contributing two more barrels to the cause from their hidden perch high up in the treetops.

The deadly defector threw several more spears, each a dark red shade and the length of an average man. The size reduction didn’t minimize the scope of the damage as much as Sersa had anticipated, as each person that was hit by one of these destructive projectiles was instantly run through with enough force to effectively bisect them. In all cases the spears continued on to cause small explosions in the earth or to smash directly into the trunks of trees along the fringes of the nearby forest that lay almost a hundred paces away from the copse where the battle was unfolding.

The last four disciples scattered in different directions as if it was a plan that was previously agreed upon, though each of them died within a handful of breaths as the stoic youth made liberal use of his deadly martial skill. The moment the last members of the company were killed, Sersa led a hesitant Cara toward the distant victor, whose head snapped to attention almost as soon as they began to move. This took her by surprise as she was unable to analyze her enemy’s aura until half a minute later, at which point her eyebrows visibly rose in surprise.

The sixth level of Profound Entry? The young man’s cultivation level was far lower than she had anticipated, so much so that she immediately chalked it up to the effects of some unknown talisman or Essence Fusion object. Normally the fact that his spiritual sense was more sensitive than hers meant one of two things. Either he had a higher cultivation or he was an arrayment practitioner, in which case he would have a much higher degree of spiritual sensitivity. This is just like the boy that helped me kill Meldon.

Much to her surprise the young man immediately began to flee toward the forest, the second boy dropping from the top of a nearby tree and following after him with frantic steps. The stronger of the two stopped just before the woodland borders and turned to face her with his jaw set and his sword drawn. His disposition was abruptly seized by a deathly air, and when she and Cara came to a stop some fifty paces away she felt as if she were suddenly staring into the steadfast gaze of a heartless demon.

What’s with this guy? Although she was used to interacting with people that possessed a similar nature, she couldn’t help but flinch in the face of this intimidating aura.

Disciples were raised not to view anybody but members of the organization as equal existences, for everybody else equated to lesser life forms on the level of insects. This was why they referred to the other residents of the continent as lesser peoples. Each and every sect member held boundless potential due to the fact that they practiced a core cultivation method that enabled them to grow exponentially stronger depending on how many resources they refined. As she stared at the young man before her, she questioned his motives in slaughtering fellow members of their sect and wondered whether or not they shared similar sentiments in regards to their reasons for going against the organization.

She stopped several dozen metres away from the dying camp. “We need not fight him, at least not right away.”

The young man stared directly into her studious eyes with his fearless browns, a steeliness to them that hinted at a harrowing past. Without warning he raised his right hand, conjured a man-length spear of malicious scarlet energy and hurled it toward her and Cara with a calculating glint to his decisive glare.

Sersa dashed toward her ally and snatched her up with a sweeping motion, a quick jump seeing them clear of the devastating implosion of earth that encompassed a diameter of twenty paces.

So powerful?

Two scarlet serpents suddenly exploded forth from Cara’s arms, both eyeing their enemy with blood-lusting leers that disappeared the moment that Sersa summoned a heavily condensed manifestation of the Crippling Blood Palm and sent it slicing through the young woman’s midsection without the slightest bit of warning. Projected inner essence disintegrated as both halves of the dissected corpse fell to the ground with a fountain of blood that painted Sersa as she stood between the fallen halves with a faithful indifference.

He will hear me out.

The moment after he’d used his martial skill the young cultivator had leapt several paces backwards and stabbed his hand into a dying youth, whom he then hefted upward and began to refine. Now over thirty paces away, he levelled his gaze with hers as he siphoned the last bit of inner essence from the corpse that he supported with his right arm.

“Why kill your friend?”

Watching the youth’s companion scamper off into the woods, she gave an honest shrug. “To get your attention.”

“So that’s why you saved her from my attack.” Another spear of crimson energy formed above his upraised hand. “A scumbag move, just as I’d expect from one of you psychos.”

The spear might have taken her left arm had she not shielded herself with a devious red hand of projected inner essence, which disintegrated from the force of the strike mere seconds after contact.

“I don’t wish to fight!”

“That’s what a lot of your buddies have been saying, but that’s only because they couldn’t beat me, right? Aren’t you the same?”

“Do not be mistaken.” Two manifestations of the Crippling Blood Palm appeared above her like eerie wings of demonic flesh, both at least ten paces in length. “I don’t fear you in the slightest. I just think that we might share common interests.”

“What, like siphoning the life out of people? Hate to break it to you, but I don’t do it because I enjoy it.”

“Me neither. I do it because I must.” The two hands suddenly clenched into fists and took on an aggressive stance on either side of her. “Now, what shall it be? Hear me out and gain a possible ally in your endeavors, or force my hand and see what sort of fate I have in store for you.”

She immediately regretted including the subtle threat as she watched the youth’s jaw set and his eyes narrow.

“Brud!”

She easily avoided two explosive barrels in succession and rolled her eyes in frustration. It seemed that she would have to subdue the two of these renegade disciples and force master-slave contracts onto each of them.

She sensed the young man’s aura as he rapidly passed through the heavy smokescreen that lingered in the aftermath of the subsequent explosions, surprised to see that his current speed matched her limit.

She stood her ground and swatted forward with one of her Crippling Blood Palms, though he avoided it with a skyward jump. She sent the other hand hurtling toward him with the belief that she had caught him off guard, but he surprised her by summoning a small spear of scarlet energy and kicking off of it in order to meet her attack head-on. The instant that he kicked off of the suspended mass of energy he activated what she could only describe as a more advanced version of the Scarlet Serrated Hand technique that was known to all disciples of the sect and then proceeded to smash his fist into the centre of her martial skill with a tremendous amount of force. His entire arm cloaked in a deep shade of scarlet energy, the resultant shockwave sent her robes flapping as if she’d just stepped into the worst of a terrible storm. Her martial skill disintegrated without a sound.

He appeared before her in an instant and sent a fresh spear of energy flying toward her eyes, though this one he kept within his firm grip as he continuously stabbed its vaguely transparent blade toward her neck and face. She found it relatively easy to avoid the fierce barrage, enough to tell that her opponent had extremely novice skills with the spear.

She committed to a dual activation of the Scarlet Serrated Hand, hers much less corporeal than the one that the youth had just displayed though deadly nonetheless. She read his movements and slapped the spear aside after a perfectly timed sidestep, at which point she closed in and smashed her left hand into the young man’s abdomen, which sent him crashing into a distant tree some forty paces away. As he struggled to peel himself free of the fractured mass of wood, she activated the Scarlet Serpent Summoning skill and gave life to a formidable beast that was wider than she was around the waist and over fifteen paces in length. Standing atop its undulating back, she willed it to close in on the cowering disciple that hid some hundred or so paces away from the battle.

The serpent suddenly stopped moving and she was sent tumbling forth from its back only to see that the stronger of the two had already dashed over from the tree—which fell over with a crash even as she regarded the scene with an incredulous glance—and grabbed hold of the beast’s hefty tail with arms swollen from excessive inner essence circulation. He braced his legs, spun on the spot and hurled the creature off into the forest and out of sight where a loud series of crashing sounds signified a mass of freshly broken branches some one hundred paces away.

She had barely managed to land on her feet, and now focused on steadying her breathing and stabilizing her inner essence. Although the serpents that she summoned weren’t real creatures, the specific arrangement of projected inner essence assured that they still weighed as much as the real thing.

“Hold on. I just want to talk, I swear it.”

“Said no disciples ever.” He conjured another spear of energy and held it aloft, ready to send it tearing through the air at the drop of a hat. “Let’s say that you’re telling the truth. Why should I listen to you?”

“Because,” she said carefully, “we might be able to help one another.”

“How so?”

“We want the same thing, or at least I think we do. That is, the destruction of the Bloodhand Sect.”

As she caught the glint of intrigue that crossed through his cautious gaze, she knew that she’d earned his attention.