Nolan followed after the three elders with silent steps, his aura masked by the necklace that he had taken from Delia and his appearance hidden by an intermediate concealment arrayment that had all but made him invisible to anybody with lesser amounts of spiritual energy than him. They had just taken a discreet detour down one of the many alleyways that lined the main street that they were currently on, which led them to the base of the city’s southern walls. Moments after they arrived here, the three men leapt skyward and flew away from the city under the cover of darkness, though Nolan was quick to hop on his white-handled flying sword and fly after them from a safe distance.

Let’s see where you guys are weaseling off to. After following the men for over fifteen kilometres and seeing that they showed no intentions of slowing down, Nolan grew impatient. On second thought, I’m not trying to sleep in the wilderness tonight.

He tailed them for just a few more minutes, just until they passed over the boundary of the healthy, well-cultivated farmland that surrounded Tallgate and flew a decent way into the airspace above the thriving forests beyond.

Thankfully the necklace that he wore also concealed the auras of objects that were in direct contact with him, such as his flying sword, as well as any energy that still maintained a connection with his dantian or spiritual space. All three of the elders were at the first level of Genesis, which meant that Nolan had to be careful even though he was far stronger than they were. Just as he had almost been able to slice off Tems’s arm when he had been in the early levels of Integration, these three could kill him with a well-timed, well-aimed strike.

And a shitload of luck, he mused to himself, stowing his sword away and catching himself on a platform of spiritual energy that immediately captured the attention of the three men.

“Who’s there?” called the one with long, peppered hair. “It’s useless to keep on hiding. We’ve already sensed you.” This was the only man that had kept quiet and maintained his cool at the auction earlier.

Unlike inner essence and the auras of martial cultivators, it was possible for most arrayment practitioners to sense raw spiritual energy even if the source was somebody that boasted superior attainments in the craft, though only in a vague sense. Take the elder that had just spoken out, for instance; he had noticed a slight stir in the natural amounts of spiritual energy that filled the environment, which told him that an external energy source had just been exerted.

Nolan didn’t move from the platform of spiritual energy that he’d landed on, which was hovering several hundred metres above the ground. As the elders all focused on the area around him—the vague expanse of sky where they had sensed the energy fluctuations—he observed them with careful eyes while rolling up his sleeves in a casual manner.

Time to be a good sect master…

Nolan’s body had been honed by his recent breakthroughs, making his unaided speed significantly superior to that of his targets. Despite this, he decided to go all out from the start since this was the option that posed the lowest threat to his safety.

Steadying his breath and gearing his mind for murder, Nolan activated the Tranquil Void Step’s passive effect of tripling his speed and then launched off of the platform with a rush of heavy wind resistance. The elders sensed the sudden disturbance in the air and quickly scattered, though the one that had just called him out wasn’t quick enough to avoid the full-strength punch that Nolan aimed at the man’s back from above. He had immediately conjured a second platform of energy behind and slightly above the trio which he’d used to reposition himself above his first victim, who was violently smashed downwards with a meaty crunch and a brief blur of motion. A lagging torrent of wind erupted into life and whipped around for over 100 metres in all directions as the man crashed down into the forests below with a terrible percussion that shook the land and air. An expansive dust cloud rose up to obscure the sizeable crater that would serve as a burial ground for the small bits that remained of the corpse, much of which had splattered into a gory, gelatinous substance.

The other two elders unleashed massive volleys of azure swords in his general direction, activating their sect’s staple attack arrayment with well-practiced movements and then flying away as fast as they could behind the cover of the attacks. These blades cut through the night sky with deadly flashes of azure ambience, each composed of large amounts of spiritual energy. Despite this, Nolan didn’t bother to avoid them.

In the time that his targets had drawn out their arrayment diagrams, Nolan had prepared his own with his left hand. Circulating his inner essence and tapping into the vast stores of energy within his dantian, he activated the Emerald Thorn Piercing Technique and met the oncoming barrage with a far larger one of his own. Thousands of arm-sized spikes composed of rich green energy appeared in front of him like a giant swarm of glowing blades, their bodies so dense with immaculately arranged energies that the area in between the projectiles carried with it a terrifying momentum that was able to eat away at the oncoming swords rather than allow any to pass through the gaps.

One of the elders managed to slip out of the range of his attack by the skin of his teeth, though his companion hadn’t been so lucky. The bald man had been at the centre of the storm of thorns, one of which tore directly through his midsection after the barrier that he’d poured his life into was shattered in an instant. Both limbs on his left side were also struck at the joints, severing them halfway down. The man himself would have been eaten away by the pressure between the spikes if not for a bright explosion of light that originated from a talisman that had been hiding in an unharmed pocket of his rapidly deteriorating clothing.

Nolan ignored the man’s life-saving treasure and followed after the wavy-haired elder with a rapid series of jumps that involved several platforms. With both his aura and appearance invisible in the darkness of night, the man’s acute senses could only allow him to cast frightened glances at the areas where Nolan had momentarily appeared, which caused him to lash out with another rain of energy swords that overshot by a large degree only to pepper a distant section of forest in an expansive sequence of minor impacts.

Once he was about a dozen metres behind the man, Nolan activated the first step of his movement skill and stepped into the space directly behind the elder, at which point he placed his hand on the man’s back and activated the basic attack arrayment that he had drawn out several moments earlier. A single large sword of golden energy exploded through the other side of the man’s chest with a deadly flash of light, leaving him stunned as he fell from the sky to an imminent death.

Nolan wasted no time in mirroring the man’s fall and snatching up his spatial bag with a deft hand as both of them began to pick up speed towards the end of their descent. Catching himself on an abruptly-created platform of iridescent energy about thirty metres above the ground, the man tore through the branches of an unfortunate tree and then crashed into the earth with a debilitating thud before turning over on his stomach with a deathly cough. As the fleeting energy that sustained the man’s barely functioning body showed signs of persisting for several more minutes, Nolan took some time to draw out another attack arrayment and then casually beheaded him with a second sword of energy while the elder struggled in vain to crawl to safety.

That wasn’t too hard, he thought, heart hammering from the rush that came with a life-and-death battle. Snatching up a second spatial bag, he hurried over to where the bald man was flying away from the scene as fast as he could move, which wasn’t an impressive pace in light of his excessive injuries. He had managed to stop the bleeding on his left side and was in the midst of regenerating his severed limbs, moving precariously above the tree line while threatening to drop through the upper canopy at any moment.

“Hold on there, buddy,” said Nolan, who was now tailing the man from atop his flying sword. The moment he'd spoken had also coincided with one of his needles prickling the man’s neck with its discreetly dangerous tip. “Ah, sorry. I’ve got a problem with manners.” He cancelled his concealment arrayment and revealed his appearance to the remaining elder, who was too injured to fight back in any way.