Zhao Fan suddenly stopped.

“Get ready to fight, the Black Dragon squad is here” Although Zhao Fan spoke quietly, everyone heard him clearly.

“Who the hell is the Black Dragon Squad?” Huo Long scratched his head. Gong Yu, Jia Shuren and Zhou Da were all confused as well.

SHUA

Something whistled in the direction of Zhao Fan’s head at an imperceptible speed. Liu Zhong suddenly stepped in front of him and drew his sword out.

“What incredible speed…” Zhao Fan was astounded when he saw the twin swords become fleeting shadows which seemingly teleported out of their sheath and cut the object in half.

After that happened, the surroundings grew still, no one making a move.

“Do you really want to ruin the relationship between our families? Is the Sun clan so bold as to wage war against four major families in the city?” Liu Zhong angrily spoke in a loud voice.

“Wage war? This is just an outside conflict unrelated to the Sun clan. You stole our mission and didn’t show respect, we are just teaching you a lesson, that’s all!” A laugh was heard coming from the bushes ahead of the group.

Just as everyone turned to face the direction of the voice, four figures jumped out of the bushes from different directions.

Liu Zhong gritted his teeth and his figure grew shadowy. His twin swords elongated and swung in a cross towards one of the approaching figures.

The attack didn’t produce any effect, causing the approaching hunter to laugh.

“What are you so scared you can’t even attack properly?” The hunter laughed and swung his greatsword over his head at Liu Zhong.

With the mocking smile still on his lips, the hunter was cleanly split into four parts.

“That twin sword kid can hide his attacks, watch out” The scarred man warned the rest. He gritted his teeth, the mission was supposed to be fairly simple but they lost one of their men in the first exchange.

On the other side of the group, Zhao Fan faced a hunter with a sword.

“Water rend!” Zhao Fan released a vertical blade made of water from his body at the arm of the man.

“Water? I don’t even need to use a skill to break apart such a weak attack!” Zhao Fan almost facepalmed at the comment. One of the men just died due to underestimating Liu Zhong, how stupid was the hunter that he dared to be careless.

The man struck sideways at the approaching attack with his sword. Just like expected, his sword cleaved right through the water attack as if it was made of butter.

Suddenly, he felt that something was wrong. Wasn’t it normal for an attack to break apart if part of it was destroyed?

“Since it didn’t break, this attack must be pure water! Did you really think it would pose any danger t-?”

Before he could finish his sentence, the attack hit his arm. The scattered bits of the Principle of Severing were largely intact and they viciously tore into the arm.

“AAAHHHH!” The hunter screamed madly as his arm was cut off.

He didn’t even notice Zhao Fan who appeared next to him and struck his head with his fist.

“You are lucky I don’t like killing dogs!” Zhao Fan still insisted on his principle of not killing. After the battle was over, he planned to quickly feed him some potions so the man wouldn’t die from his arm being cut off. Maybe he could even get him to confess about the Black Dragon Squad ambushing their group!

The others in the group didn’t fare too badly. Huo Long and Gong Yu managed to resist one round of attacks, only Zhou Da was in trouble and had to be rescued by Liu Zhong. With the sudden loss of two members, the Black Dragon Squad panicked.

“Keep your cool! Our cultivation levels are higher than theirs, they will get exhausted far faster!” The leader tried to get everyone to calm down.

The hunters were all relatively poor and barely had any techniques, much less ones which used a lot of qi and could show the gap in cultivation levels. Their only advantage was superior equipment and qi storage, so their plan was to keep attacking until the other side ran out of qi.

Hearing this, one of the hunters fell back and took out his bow. The others also stopped attacking aggressively, instead focusing on defense.

“They are trying to draw out the battle! Our combined strength is higher, but our total qi is lower. Let's charge in and end the battle as soon as possible!” Huo Long commanded as his lightning armor activated and he pointed his spear at the enemy.

Zhao Fan charged in like a cannonball. When a hunter with a shield tried to stop him, he casually sidestepped and ran towards the backline of the group.

“Focus on this guy!”

An arrow flew at Zhao Fan which he easily dodged, and a greataxe and a sword flew at his head with two different abilities cast at him.

“Water Infusion!” His body became translucent and watery. Both of the attacks passed through him before he materialized again.

BOOM

He struck his fist straight into the abdomen of a hunter, sending him flying. The other man nearby him was the one with the scar on his head, the leader of the group. His arm turned a gray metallic color and he swung his greataxe at Zhao Fan with enough strength to cut apart a small hill.

“Sh*t!” His figure turned into water again right before he was split apart. A small amount of water was struck away by the axe, and was not able to be controlled by Zhao Fan. Zhao Fan reappeared and felt his head spin and his body ache as he coughed out blood.

The scarred man grinned and was about to strike again before he saw a fireball rapidly approach. He blocked with his axe but wisps of flame singed his hands and ignited his leather tunic on fire, giving an opportunity for Zhao Fan to escape.

While this was happening, Huo Long and Gong Yu broke down the defense of the shield man and Jia Shuren and Liu Zhong ganged up on the archer.

“I have no other choice, I have to escape!” The scarred man decided when he saw the archer’s throat being slit by Liu Zhong. It wouldn’t take long for Huo Long and Gong Yu to finish the hunter with the shield, so the leader decided to take his chances and leave.

“Where is he going?” Zhao Fan looked at the man who seemed to be running for his life.

The man didn’t care at all about his image, the only thing he was focusing on was running away as fast as possible. How could he have expected a bunch of low level kids to have such frightening abilities? He knew it was too late to have regrets but he couldn’t help himself.

“Do you think you can run away?” A calm voice rang out in front of him. To the scarred man, the voice was like the voice of a reaper.

The man stopped and sank to his knees hopelessly.

“There was nothing else I could do! Please spare me!” He could only beg and kowtow.

He heard a whistling sound and looked up. As his head rose up, it was disconnected from its body by a wind blade as fast as a bullet.

“Why are other people always so incompetent!” Sun Qing swore.

Far away, Zhao Fan and the rest felt a gust of wind come from far ahead.

“There shouldn’t be anyone else right?” Huo Long asked while panting. He has used a lot of energy to finally bring down the shield bearer.

“I recommend everyone take that Qi Gathering pill from earlier” Zhao Fan took out the perfect quality pill and swallowed it quickly.

He felt it go into his stomach and become like a small reactor which constantly emitted a stream of qi. The stream wasn’t large enough to cover for his expenditure during battle, but over time its effect was substantial.

“Watch out above us!” Gong Yu yelled.

As everyone looked up, they saw a yellow robed figure gliding down in the air on a cloud. In his hands was a pure white bow covered in wisps of wind.

“Wind Cascade!”

As Sun Qing drew the string, hundreds of wind arrows materialized on the bow.

“That’s a Foundation Establishment Cultivator!”