Having finished the innitial scouting of the sect grounds and evaluating the possible danger level, which ended up being low if non existant, Rex once again came to the same conclusion he had some time ago. Humans were indeed weak in general, and if he wanted to push himself further and further, only teh deep floors could provide his edge an apropriate grindging stone. Nevertheless, he had some business to conclude before he could properly delve in the exploration and grind of the deep floors. He probably had to consider an offspring or two as well, since Irina, succubi twins and his angel Eira were trying very hard to achieve said result. And while he had little love for kids, he liked his girls very much, and you never know, his own little spawns might be tolerable, or even better.
He shook his head, clearing it from all unnecessary thoughts and distractions. Then in preparation for the coming murder fest he needed to get himself in a more pleasant mode, so he pulled out a canteen from one of his storage rings, and took a few big gulps, relishing in the magnificent taste of his drink. Few drinks could rival the milk of a great sabertooth tiger in terms of taste, energy surge and even the aftertaste. He made himself a mental reminder that he should collect some more from the hidden stash that Lira was dutifully filling up every now and then.
With his mood slightly better, and reconosance done, he made a quick brainstorming, regarding his plan of action. He could do as he did with the White lotus sect, but it felt that would not be good enough. A semi ambush type massacre did not felt like the best actione here, since he needed to make the sects fear for the same happening to them, and basicly none of the disciples had any say regarding the policies and actions of teh sect at large. That responsibility and power lay with the sect master and elders, so another approach should be employed. Rex workd the idea over for a while longer, then finally decided on a course of action.
"Linjin better thank me hard after this one." he spoke to himself as ordered the eagle to descend at the bigest square in the sect. Upon his orders, the eagle dove, and with an incredible speed, catching all guards who saw the dive unprepeared, it reached the ground level and in a mastered manner it spread its wings and manipulating the wind and mana in the air around the wings, in just a few seconds it had decelerated to basicly standstill and landed in the square frightening the few disciples who were doing their routines nearby.
"SUMMON YOUR SECT MASTER AND ELDERS!" a yell resounded from Rex mouth. He wanted to get this done as quickly as possible, and so his rather impolite entrance and his arrogant attitude should serve as the best way to draw his main prey here to his landing place. He dd not have to wait long as many guards surrounded him, their spears raised at the eagle and ready to attack at a moments notice. Further back were archers with bows drawn, ready to unleash a barrage of arrows at the two intruders. Little did they know their mortal weapons could do nothing against the S class entities they were targetings, excluding annoying them and asking for their own demise.
"Pathetic peasants, know your place." Rex spoke with a chilling but indifferent voice, and after that all the guardsmen in the field they were standing in collapsed. Rex had used his mana to knock everyone here out. He had decided act arrogantly for several reasons. Firstly, that would condition his targets to be vary, since confidence should come from a place of competency. Secondly , he believed it would be fun to do so. Third was the more practical reason, since an arrogant persone would take greater offence to those who disregard the rare few times where they decide to show mercy or any other kind of boon to someone else. Thus if they decided to not apreciate his generosity, he would have a better reason and excuse to leave this place as mostly burnt ruins.
After his aura flex, it did not take long for teh elders and sect master to rush over with all haste, since even they got some goosebumps from the wave they felt. Once they arrived at the field, they were greeted by the sight of all their guards and some overeager disciples unconscious on the ground in a circular shape. In the very center of the field a man stood on an eagle monster. Then another powerfull mana wave passed thme by, this one while powerfull, didnt affect them, indicating that the first one was indeed meant as a warning to the more powerfull warriors who lived here to go and confront the man. With a single step Rex was in front of the guild master, or he assumed it was the guild master due to his specific clothing.
"Lead the way to the biggest field in this place, and have all your important top brass follow. What the place is called?"
"The tyrant's arena." the man answered on instinct, and right after that another mana pulse was sent out. This time everyone passed by the sound wave, recieved the same sentence
"In the tyrants arena there will be a match of the century, Everyone is to go there now."
It took Rex, sect master and the elders, who were arriving one by one to gather at the arena some twenty minutes, and during this time streams of people were gathering at the arena, just as the voice had ordered the disciples to do. Rex was sitting on a chair in the middle of the arena, and unlike him, the leadership of the sect were more cautious and guarded. As such they remained standing. They were quite aware that the man oposing them right now was very powerfull, and it was quite possible that he might have some solid beef with their sect, but engaging in combat right now would cause unknown amount of losses and damages. The sect management wanted to avoid as much of destruction as possible. Rex made a mana ping every now and then, checking the progress of the gathering of the sect, and an hour or so later, when almost all people in the sect had gathered around the huge arena, he finally spoke.
"It has come to my attention, that your sect is one of the leading proponents of the war with the Land on the Nine Divines. Is that true?" His question was slightly odd, at least by the sensibilities of the Tyrant dragon sect, and so their leader answered the rather well known and obvious truth.
"It is only natural for those of noble blood to subjugate and guide the savages that they are."
"Hmph." Rex sneered at the statement, then spoke, his next words causing a commotion among the people that heard him, and seeing as his voice was amplified, that was everyone in the arena "Those savages, as you called them, were smart enought to pay the correct amount for me be willing to show what happens when I am hired. You have a couple of options right now. First- the entire leadership of the sect fights me, gets killed, then I am ensured that there will be no more warmongering. Second is that you higher ups try to run away, not even providing me with the bare minimum of entertainment, in which case I just kill the lot of you and then turn my sight to the disciples. So what is it gonna be?" His voice changed drasticly in the very last question. Where everything else was cold and uncaring, the very last question was in an amused and expectant voice, like a child playing a game adn asking another friend to choose what mischief they are going to perform this time.
Unlike Rex, who was having quite a lot of fun with his job, the sect leader now had much more serious expression. It was obvious they are dealing with a madman. Powerfull for sure, but madman nevertheless. The sheer arrogance he must have to believe he could take on their entire upper echalon was astounding, and whats more, he had come and announced that in their sects grounds, where they had their own protection arrays that elevated their combat potential even more. And to drive teh last nail in the mad mans coffin, every one of their powerhouses were here as well. And unlike the sect master, who had to be both powerfull and cunning, the other elders withing the top brass were more dirrect combat oriented- they were muscleheads, so the rather primitive supremacy ideas have had little trouble in establishing its place in the hearts and minds of the people here. Sadly Rex realized that he would have to spend quite a bit in reeducating the girls he will collect from here. He had noticed a few nines during the gathering of the disciples, and he had asigned his crows to track them.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
One of the elders arrogantly stepped forward, cracking his neck. A wide smirk was displayed on his face as he approached Rex.
"You messed up big time boy. And sadly for you, there will be no second chances to repent that. But hey, look at the bright side, You will be able to serve as an example of our superiority." With that said, the elder charged at Rex, and once he was close enough, he struck with his fist that was hidden in the war gauntlet. Unfortunately, this particular hot headed elder was barely S class, so as expected Rex simply caught the mans punch with his own hand, and then abruptly squeezed, crushing the gauntlet and the mans hand as a result as well. And as expected, the next moment the arena was filled with a wail of pain, as the elder fell to his knees and screamed while cluthing his crushed hand with the healthy one.
"Too noisy." Rex spoke and then the next moment arena was once again silent, only a "thud" was heard as the severed head of the now dead elder landed not too far from the body. Rex had decapitated the man in one swift movement, since thescreaming was getting on his nerves and he was going to kill all the upper management, incredible bauties excluded, most of teh core disciples, same exclusion applies, and let the remaining disciples do whatever. He was quite sure the little guys should have enought brains to understand the sequence. So in the next moment he turned to the sect leadrer once again and asked
"So, whats your move?"
The swift and brutal death of one of their elders had sobered up the entire elite force of the sect, and they quickly took action, to neutralize the threat that was now looming over them. In a rather well practised manner the elders suddenly attacked Rex, some trying to hinder him, others distract his attention, so that the few heavy hitters could deliver catastrophic damage. In less than five mintues of their assault, the attacking force noticed a massive problem in their current situation. No matter how they attacked, feinted or distracted the lone man, he seemed to be aware of absolutely every single move of theirs. Any heavily destructive magic spell that was casted at his was avoided either dodging or using someone from their side as a shield, or using a random rock from the earth debris to fling it at the caster who would be almost ready to attack him. As for melle combatants it was even worse, since the sneak attacks performed were always blocked and an imediate counter blow alwasy was there, rattling the brains of the unlucky specimen to get close enough to his skin.
The second problem was that as the fight kept going on, their melee combatants recieved more and more punishement all the while their target was untouched. Then almost thirty minutes into the fight, they noticed another, more glaring issue that had surfaced- their opponent seemed to have nigh unlimited stamina and mana. And with their side being the olny ones to sustaind any damage, and even a few more extra deaths, since as long as he did not kill anyone, the sects members would just get tired, move to the side, or get healed and then come back, so Rex was deploying the oldest tricks in the book- If the enemy is dead, it cant come back for whatever is it thats driving said enemy, so he started to end the lives of the sect elders when he had the chance, sneakily performing a slight drain on the fallen. Just little enough that sensitive sensors would not notice anything, and maintain his mana tank full for emergency cases.
Another hour later, out of the twenty elders who were trying very hard to end Rex life, only about half were still standing and breathing, and were in quite a desperate situation. Once the third elder on their side fell, a few quickly had retreated and attempted to activate their array, only to notice nothing happening. Rex laughed at their stupified faces, and explained that they are now in an enclosed area, that is barely tethered to the real world, and as such obviously no terrain advantage they might have could be utilized to help them out, and obviously, they also had no way to run away. That revelation enticed the sects elders to redouble their efforts to end Rex. Sadly however, it just was not ment to be , and so they were here and now, where only half of their elder numbers remained. And even those were quite haggard now with obvious signs of exaustion. The stamina and mana recovery potions that they had were long since burnt, since the moment they used the first pills, Rex upped the pace of combat, forcing the newly aquired energy to be spent just as fast. Eventually, more and more on their side had fallen. Luckaly, the sect leader was still alive and kicking, and seeing their now hopeless fight, the leader here wanted to end the battle.
"WAIT!" he exclaimed, as he signalled for all elders to back off, and that revealed the perfectly fresh and relaxed enemy of theirs. "We are clearly no match for you sir, so why not end it here? Just name the price and we will gladly pay to end this." Rex did not immediatly rush at the retreated elders, but browned a bit and asked back
"And what could you possibly have, that I could not attain once all of you are dead? Besides, it is the decimation of your leadership and main combat power that I seek, since that should serve as enough of an intimidation for the rest of your sects, hopefully forcing them to capitulate in this war. In addition, your sect was one of the main forces that pushed for war, so here it is, lets keep on enjoying it." And with that Rex once again took a stance that showed he was ready and willing to fight, and with only half of them remaining, he should have enough leeway to now go on the offensive as well, not just exploit the miniscule mistakes and slight errors in their teamwork. They were incredibly good with their combined attacks, but even then, with Rex suoerior speed, processing power and raw might, even a milisecond off in their chain or combo attacks were enough for him to deliver devastating counterattacks and evasive manouvers.
"THERE IS SOMETHING!" the sect leader quickly yelled in panic, afraid tha tthe enemy would take action immediatly. Luckaly, Rex was waiting after his panic filled scream. And with the small moment of lull in the battle sect master quickly looked at the other nine elders of theirs and seeing all of them nod, wiling to sacrifice this special tresure of theirs to save their lives, he exhaled to calm himself a bit, since their opponent is a monster, and he had to ensure that his words do not offend or enrage the man. Then he spoke once again
"We have in our possesion a vault of sorts, that lead to a closed realm that can only be opened from either inside or with a special ritual that only we are aware of. The closed realm is quite unique in the sence that is has a trial, that, if overcome, would bind the realm to your being, granting a personal space where one can hold living beings. In addition, I would offer my granddaughter to your exelency as proof and assurance that we would push for immediate end of the war with the kitsunes."
"Wait, what is the name of your granddaughter?" Rex suddenly asked. He remembered that in the book of information he recieved from Amir Falcon, there was a mention of some sort of a divine beauty within the Tyrant dragon sect. The girl was described as one of the four godesses of the sect alliance. The girls name was Vivian.
"Her name is Vivian. Has your exelency heard of her? She is regarded as one of the four godessess of this generation."
"Count yourselves lucky, since this offer of yours has intrigued me, and I am willing to spare your lives. I will need the five girls in the crowd wo have a raven perched atop their shoulder as well though."
"But of course your exelency. I am sure they will be overjoyed that one as great as you has developed an interest in them." responded to his words the sect leader, and soon the five beauties Rex had noticed and placed a crow to keep track of were in the middle of the arena. No matter how many admirers they had and who they were, there would be no attempt to rescue them, since everyone had witnesed the power of the man who claimed the girls.
"We are at your service, your exelency." the five girls spoke in unison, once they all stood before Rex. He could hear the dejection in their voices, but they dared not offend the powerhouse who had claimed them. They new all too well that they were sent to the sect for precisely such purpose- to be noticed and chosen by a great man so their families could have a powerfull backing in the future.
"Does any one of you have advanced skills in cooking?" he suddenly asked as they were following the sect master to the place where they would open the trial to the closed realm.
"Yes, your exelency. Our families have trained us quite welll in the arts of cooking, since it is a duty of the wife to cook for her family." Rex smiled at the words he just heard
"Wonderfull, one I am done with the trial and Vivian joins us, I will have you girls cook a meal with earth grade meat. It has been a while since I have had the chance to enjoy it cooked by skilled hands" then remembering that it is not something the everyone has access to he added "We eat nothing less in terms of quality at my house, so you will have to get used to it." His words caused a few gasps, and more jelous glares in the dirrection of the girls, and Rex could swear he heard some elder murmur
"Why couldnt I have born a pretty girl?"