Streaks of lightning snaked across the dark skies and the rain came down to the earth in sheets as the local soldiers were noisily making their way out of the castle and towards the gates in the muddy sodden conditions.

Hartley, Anguo Chen and commander Genk made their way through the open front doors of the almost abandoned castle with a dozen of their most elite soldiers trailing behind, the rest of the army surrounded the castle and awaited further orders.

They quickly picked up the fluctuations of several xiantians on the first floor and quickly made their way towards the room.

The four occupants of the room were nonchalantly moving around displaying utter disregard and contempt for the invading forces as they held casual conversations between themselves.

"They're here." said the dark hair man dressed in black who had stood silently behind the commander for the duration of their conversation. Commander Haiyuan got up and was moving confidently forward when an abrupt explosion of wood and stone echoed out, rending the door off its thick iron hinges and sending a hailstorm of wooden chips, splinters and smashed pebbles into the room along with a cloud of hazy dust.

The suffocating dust blotted out the pristinely furnished room before dissipating after a long few seconds.

When the dust cleared the massive silhouette of Commander Genk was standing at the opening. That towering figure could not be mistaken and brought with him an aura of overbearing dominance that gave confidence to everyone behind him.

"Hope you guys have no urgent plans because you are all coming back to Aidonia with me to answer some serious questions, willingly or unwillingly" said commander Genk as he smiled at those in the room."

The vile count Zexin was scared shitless for a moment but with a wave of a hand from the red haired man all the debris showering into the room was diverted harmlessly to the side, when the flinching count noticed the same nonchalant and confident attitude on the faces of his backers he automatically straightened his back with an arrogant snarl, gathering his wits before he stepped forward and started barking confidently.

"How dare you destroy the property of a duke you repugnant invaders, go back to your own country and let us sort out our....."

The words froze on the tip of his tongue as he felt a sudden stab of terror, he tried to abandon his tirade and retreat back behind commander Haiyuan and the others in desperation.

There was a sudden blue flash, one punch and his head exploded like a water melon, blood and brain fluid flew out in every direction, staining commander Haiyuan's face with splotches of red, even the elites behind commander Genk felt a bit squeamish at the sudden brutal sight as the count's headless corpse fell with a thud still spewing blood.

The fleeting terror etched on his face in that split second when he realized Hartley was brazen enough to act in front of his backers was imprinted vividly on the count's face before it exploded into red mush as the people from Aidonia flooded into the room.

Now Hartley was standing in the middle of the room a few steps ahead of commander Genk looking calm and serene. Commander Genk was bit surprised Hartley would sneak attack the count but thought it in the best interest of both countries to get rid of him as soon as possible so he had no complaints, even though he wouldn't advocate this type of shameless behavior personally.

It was apparent that the three confident people in the room weren't guarding against a sneak attack, Hartley had sized up the opponents strength and with hard-headed pragmatism he had decided it was best to take care of the count while the opponents guards were down, application of skills could bridge the gap between sub-realms but pure brute force wasn't going to achieve this, those two subordinates on the other side were formidable and there was a big chance the count could escape if a battle were to drag on.

In fury the red hair man reacted immediately while commander Haiyuan was in shock as he touched his fingers to his face then looked at the blood at the tip of his finger in disbelief.

He had never expected these underhanded tactics from the upstanding representatives of Aidonia. There was a crack of thunder and a streak of lightning visible outside the high windows of the room but the red hair man moved even faster, the man was approaching Hartley in a blur when Commander Genk stepped forward to intercept. The giant two-handed sword appeared in the commander's hand but before he could even get into a battle stance.....

Wack!.....

Commander Genk was sent sailing back with a muffled and somewhat surprised shriek, clattering through a wall and knocking over a few of his own elites, bringing with him a debris field of dust and broken stones as the gigantic man was sent sprawling across the tiled floor and out into the hall where he slid to a stop. The world seemed to go completely mute as their was a haunting silence that was only disrupted by the cracks of thunder coming from the heavens.

"Commander!" Anguo Chen blurted out as he tunneled through a group of shell-shocked elites and rushed to the aid of Commander Genk amidst the gawping stares of the elites, most had mouths wide open. They had never before seen someone so effortlessly swat away their commander like an annoying fly.

"None of you shall leave here today." The red hair man barked in anger as he set his sight on Hartley.

"Make him suffer," uttered commander Haiyuan cold-heartedly as he slowly recovered from the shock of what just transpired right in front of his eyes, their prized asset in helping to take over the country of Tivoli was killed right in front of him..

The disrespect of the situation was unbelievable, all he saw was a young man with balls bigger than boulders standing in front of him, he wanted this out of order youth to suffer like he had never suffered before.

"Everyone fallback!" came a loud and somewhat panicked order from Commander Genk, he was sitting on his butt outside the room with a trail of blood running down the side of his lip and staring at the occupants through the hole that he had made in the wall. All the elites were surprised to the see commander acting so out of character.

"Hartley be careful, he's a 9th layer xiantian," Commander Genk bawled out with trepidation.

With the mention of a 9th layer xiantian everyone faces paled in fright as all the elites began to scramble away from the room as if it was contaminated with some vile contagious disease.

"hmmph. You thinks it's that easy to leave, leave your lives here." The red hair man snorted and moved towards Hartley and the retreating soldiers. Another crack of thunder rumbled from the heavens. Bright blinding reddish light surged out of the man's body dyeing the room in a red hue raising the temperature enough that anyone below the 4th layer of the xiantian realm would be incinerated instantly.

Commander Haiyuan and the black robe man took cautious steps backwards even though they weren't affected by the heat.

A couple of the elites below the 4th layer instantly turned to ash as the rest chaotically tried to make their exit.

To the dismay of Commander Genk instead of retreating Hartley stepped forward to meet the man head on. The man threw punch at Hartley expecting it to swat Hartley away like his first punch had swatted away Commander Genk. The red hair man really didn't put Hartley in his eyes, if the commander couldn't take one of his attacks this youth would probably burst into to pieces.

Hartley engaged advanced state of focus and pushed his compressed circulation technique to the limit, opting not to use any of his trump cards. Hartley had had experience fighting the white hair elder in the pentagon formation so he knew what to expect from someone with power in the 9th layer of the xiantian realm. He relished this opportunity to go toe to toe with the opponent to see how much he had improved since stepping into the 8th layer.

Three brilliant blue pulses of light cut through the red hue of the room as both fists met.

Boom!

The two fists collided and exploded like a barrel full of gun-powder. The air rippled with power, wrenching open the fabric of space itself and sent roaring shock-waves pulsing out shattering the walls of the building sending debris flying off into the distance and ejecting every single occupant in the room out into the muddy castle grounds under the rainy skies.

After the flash of light and dust cleared, horrific wails and moans could be heard ringing out as the elites from Aidonia found themselves wallowing around in the mud like pigs, all of them bar none were suffering from broken bones, some even had missing limbs.

Commander Genk found himself among the men outside face down in the mud, Anguo Chen had a dizzy spell as he laid on his back in the mud staring at the dark sky with the rain streaking over his face.

Commaner Haiyuan and the black robe man found themselves ejected from the building at the opposite end of the castle grounds to where the Aidonia forces were. They were dazed as they slowly recovered from the whiplash effect when they hit the ground leaving them with bruised and bloody faces.

When everybody looked back to the castle.....

Half of the stone structure was missing and the rest was slowly crumbling as bits and pieces were falling down slowly like a house of cards around the two people who stood staring at each other in the wreckage.

Everyone including Commander Haiyuan and his subordinate watched the two combatants with astounded gazes, to their disbelief, this was an epic showdown between two powerhouses below the saint realm and one of them was the youth he had so wanted to torture a minute ago. How was this even possible? No one could believe that it was Hartley who actually stood toe to toe with a 9th layer xiantian, not even commander Genk and he had seen many miracles from the youth on this campaign.