In the time it took for two hard heartbeats, the relief felt by all at the gate two seconds prior, turned into utter panic. The late evening sky which was dimly lit by an orangie twilight was now pitch black to the point that one could barely see the outline of the person they stood next to.

Hartley's heart was calm with not a shred of panic, he recognized the familiar aura, months before he had been in this same situation and was scared shitless, this time though, after the guidance he had from Kang he had grown not just by a sub-realm but also in knowledge.....

The atmosphere smoldered with fear, horses and wild beasts panicked and struggled to break free and run wild as the nervous soldiers tried to prevent a stampede, Anguo's vociferous instructions could be heard above the din of panic as he ordered each soldier to hold their position and calm their horses. The soldiers did their best to comply while staring with trepidation into the blanket of seamless darkness.

Then ten meters south of Hartley's position, the darkness cracked like an egg, producing a grayish glow, then with a crackling sound there was a circular rip in the fabric of space about a meter off the ground revealing a dark figure whose only visible feature was his two dark pupils sitting in perfectly white eyes. Other than the gleaming hate-filled eyes, the person was just a dark silhouette stood there in mid air seeming to be far away yet still he was there seeming slightly translucent in full view of everyone present staring maliciously at Hartley,

gasps of shock and horror echoed out from the surroundings, even Qin Li and Zhi Ruo who were stood next to Hartley were slack jawed with fear-filled eyes staring at the only point of illumination in their pitch black surroundings.

"You vicious animal, today justice will be served for all the innocent blood you have shed." That horrible yet familiar grating voice sounded as if it was coming from every direction. It was none other than Song Zemin, Anguo Chen ran forward brandishing his golden token waving it in the air from side to side "Sir Hartley is now officially and affiliate of His Majesty Prince Jian Yulan." he shouted as if he was the prince himself.

Song Zemin was Furious, he ignored Anguo words and treated him with utter contempt, he had lost an assassin team and five elders, his standing in the eldest prince camp had been considerable weakened. The capital was a place of cut throat politics even between allies, everyone was positioning themselves to accomplish their own individual ambitions and needed to use the strength of the subordinates.

Song Zemin couldn't micro manage his interests in the capital, he often had to enter closed door cultivation for long periods of time, him losing so many strong subordinates left his interests in the capital in disarray, right now he couldn't give a monkey's about Prince Jian interests, he was going to kill this devil and then negotiate with the young prince after the outcome, he was a half-saint after all, even though the young prince has his own backers he couldn't imagine them being too overbearing over a youth that they haven't even met.

But Song Zemin's bad day was about to get worse, Anguo chen got flustered as he saw Song Zemin blatantly disregarding the token of the prince and was about to deliver a deadly strike, his face paled, he understood that if Song Zemin really executed a strike they might all lose their lives without any chance of retreating or retaliating, almost everyone stood rooted to the spot like statues, their despair and fear rose to maximum levels, most were witnessing the power of a half-saint for the first time. Song Zemin pulled his hand back and the air shattered with a deafening rumble, stones and random debris fluttered through the air like a flock of terrorized birds...

The minute Hartley had seen the spatial crack he engaged his advanced state of focus, he paid no attention to what was being said and immediately started to scout the spatial crack which housed the dark figure to find the most unstable regions, he located four of five weak points in the spatial crack then chose the one closest to him. Song Zemin had said his piece and was just about to make a move when Hartley engaged his time domain and froze everything in place, he could now see the unstable dark energy roiling and writhing, he placed himself infront of the spatial crack, jumped and hovered two meters off the ground then concentrated and tried to deliver the most powerful punch he could muster using the compressed circulation technique.....

When everyone was bracing for the impending strike from Song Zemin all of a sudden there were three bright blue flashes which lighted up sourrounding pitch black darkness like a flash of three consecutive lightning strikes. Then there was a massive boom and an explosion of dark energy that looked like someone had thrown a bucket of black ink covering the grayish glow to blot out Song Zemin, the inky looking dark energy contorted and roiled in an unstable manner before popping like a bubble and disappearing. Everything returned to normal as if nothing had happened. Hartley was standing right where the spatial crack was, the sky was back to normal, all the horses calmed down and all the airborne debris fell back down the ground like rain resulting in some soldiers skipping and dodging around, some ended up with superficial wounds and accepted them gladly knowing that they had escaped a disaster.

Blarg! Song Zemin puked up a mouthful of blood as he crashed through the wooden wall of his house in the mountain leaving nothing but splinters in his wake and traveled outside into the tranquil greenery to collide with a hefty oak-like ancient tree, the tree jerked and leaves began to fall like green snow from the heavens as he ricocheted onto the floor leaving a gash on the trunk of the sturdy tree, he came to a stop under the tree as attendants who heard the commotion came rushing up the mountain....

At this moment the white haired Kang was sitting at his wooden desk with both eyes closed, then suddenly they flicked open, "hahahahahahahaahahahahahah." His cackling laughter could be heard through out the whole estate. "Good, good, lets see if he dares try that again."

Anguo Chen looked at Hartley with respect, he now understood why this kid was being recruited into the circles of the prince, he regained his composure then started to issue orders to the startled soldiers. Soon everything returned to normal and not one spoke about the incident as if they weren't sure if it actually happened. Hartley, Qin Li and Zhi Ruo boarded the armored carriage with Yang Yi at the driver's seat and made their out of the Cassia province and headed towards the Papine province.....