A collective gasp of shock escaped the throats of almost all occupants in the restaurant, the Furious Master LIngwei pointed at Qin Li, with a face as red as an apple he said. "You..will..pay...for...that!" Speaking each word through gritted teeth with short pauses in between, it took all his willpower to not dash over there and attack the audacious group there and then. Qin LI just stood facing the elder and his students as if they were inconsequential, "Who is this young handsome lord, do you think they came from the capital? why are they not scared?" Quiet conversations started kindling through out the room as people were now curious about who were in the party to so openly step on the dignity of Master Lingwei. Of course Master Lingwei caught wind of the hushed discussions and this fed and swelled the hate in Master Lingwei's heart for this group of people to bursting point.

The four escorts wearing black surcoats over their silvery armor, with a design of two red eagles facing each other beak to beak set diagonally from shoulder to waist, stood up and made there way out into the open, visible to all. After being invited to dinner by Hartley, Yang Yi had instructed the escorts to dress in the full regalia of Viscount's Sanzu, usually being invited to dinner by the viscount meant they would stand guard at the table all night officially dressed but to thier happy surprise they were allowed to sit and enjoy all the delicacies and wine with Hartley and the others. Master LIngwei recognized the emblem worn by the four as being from a noble house with relatively high position among the hierarchy of aristocrats. His expression was sour, "Leave!" he glanced around at all in the restaurant. The sounds of chairs scraping against the concrete could be heard in the relatively quiet restaurant as the customers scurried to leave like mouses escaping from cats. With help of some of the men the waitresses were able to take the knocked out manager and leave with the rest. Master Lingwei was determined to punish these bastards, if not publicly then privately would suffice. If any problems occurred it would then be his words against theirs, with the backing of the Hagley Martial School, what was there to fear?

At this point Hartley stood up and wiped his mouth with a white napkin belching in the process and made his way around to the front side of the table where Qin Li stood . Zhi Ruo and Ryu Hang also stood and followed. Hartley looked at the eager faces of the students stood behind Master Lingwei, shook his head in disappointment and uttered "a dead tree gives no shelter, hiding behind someone and bullying others is one of the most shameless acts but when that person is unable to bully others for you, you will be like naked babies thrown out in the wild." The tempers of the students flared, they were the best of their generation and had been treated with the utmost respect since being chosen by the Hagley Martial School. "Let us deal with them Master Lingwei" one student shouted out. "They are only a bunch of people at the peak of the houtian realm with one 3rd layer xiantian among them, how dare they behave like this in front of us." The students had all surmised the puny strength of the opposite group, in their minds apart from Qin Li no one else was even in the xiantian realm. The weakest of the students was a 1st layer xiantian, and the rest were 2nd layer xiantians.

Hartley then turned his focus to the scowling Master LIngwei, "the Holy Matriarch frowns on the wasteful, don't waste your life and those you are responsible for if you don't know the immensity of the world and the experts in it."

Hartley suddenly pushed off with his left foot, the brown concrete floor beneath it exploded from the sheer kinetic force of his forward move, there was a rumble till the room vibrated and the walls inside cracked , rock chips flew into the air and showered back down. before the scattered rock pieces could hit the ground Hartley used gravity repel to sling the debris forward, the empty space wobbled like the rock chips were about to rip through the dimension itself, moving at a velocity which turned these harmless pieces of rock into something akin to ballistic level lethal projectiles. Every glass window on this floor exploded outwards, sending broken glass raining down outside the premises drawing loud screams and panic from outside. The improvised projectiles moved forward in a cone shape destroying every piece of furniture it came into contact with in a cloud of dust, accompanied by loud explosion as if a 50 caliber rifle was being fired down range.

All of this happened in a split second, Master LIngwei had never seen a tactic like this before, he was even more surprised at how powerful the seemingly mortal young lord was, sweat soaked his brows as he pushed his 5th layer xiantian cultivation to its maximum and dodged to the right leaving his students at the mercy of the incoming hail of concrete chips. Some of them managed to produce their elemental armors around their bodies but the impact force of the debris swept them off their feet like a bowling ball striking standing pins and sent them careening away crashing through a dozen tables and chairs in a tangle of limbs.

Qin LI realised Hartley was even stronger than before, he needed no instructions to get out of this shaking building, he scooped up Zhi Ruo and shouted at the escorts and Ryu Hang "We have to leave before the building collapses. The escorts were dragged back to reality by Qin LI's shout as they stood there shocked into statues with mouths wide open watching the spider web cracks on the walls creep further and further. Ryu Hang was watching with awe, he knew Hartley was powerful but didn't know that he could make a building wobble like this with just one move in a split second, With a green glow Qin LI disappeared down the stairs with Zhi Ruo looking over his shoulder at the blurred image of Hartley. The escorts followed with Ryu closely behind.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Master Lingwei didn't even have time to notice people leaving, in all honesty he wasn't even concerned with the outcome of the students that were sent wailing away in pain 20 meters to his left, his plate was full at the moment. AS he dodged to the right Hartley had blinked out view and appeared again in front of him, the empty space where Hartley appeared rippled and oscillated like a stone thrown into pool of water standing upright. Hartley's speed was warping and contorting space and his movements made loud sonic rumbles as he was breaking the sound barrier with ease causing the building to vibrate, shaking loose pieces of stones from everywhere. A Heat wave surged out in a circular pattern with Master Lingwei at its center, yellow flames with a tinge of red wrapped itself around Mast LIngwei's upper body. Every piece of furniture remaining in the room turned to grey ash and fluttered through the air like butterflies as Master Lingwei tried to put some distance between himself and Hartley in panic, Hartley then diverted his attention away momentarily and made a sharp turn towards the students.

The weakest of the students cried out in horrible pain because his skin began to scald, he ran at full speed and threw himself at the side wall of the building in a desperate attempt to leave the inferno. He burst through the wall in a cloud of dust and fell on the streets outside with a loud thud passing out immediately. The other students knew what Hartley had said about standing behind others and bullying was true, they truly had no idea what to do, they were like lost puppies in the wild, the heat was stifling they too needed to flee but the space beside them rumbled and contorted and the young lord they had so desperately wanted to beat was right beside them. One punch ...two punches...three punches...four punches.. Hartley came flying through mid air, performing spins and punches that looked balletic as each move seamlessly blended into the next, the haunting cries of the students jolted everyone gathered outside to the core as half dead people came bursting through the walls of the second floor like detonated tank shells sending dust and debris raining from the sky as the unlucky people landed hard on the street cracking cobble stones before passing out whimpering like abused dogs.

Master Linwei was relieved for a moment then stared wide eyed when he saw what happened and could not bend his mind around this mortal youth, not only did the heat not effect him, he just slapped away four 2nd layer xiantians like they were domestic animals. A meter long black staff appeared in his hand. he twirled it around stylishly like the rotors on a helicopter, just as expected, they youth appeared out of nowhere again, the building wobbled again and a wall collapsed kicking up a storm of dust. Master Lingwei knew that running away was not an option in this fight, the kid was just too fast, he had to land a meaningful hit and injure the youth then quickly make his way out of this place before it was flattened.

A long staff now set ablaze with yellow fire writhing and roiling around it gave off a bright yellow hue in the dusty surroundings as it was swung down diagonally from high right heading to low left. A bright blue fist with small white wisps of steam which clung closely to the hand, giving it a glowing white outline, came up at an angle to meet the staff. Master Lingwei had a feeling of glee as he saw the mortal youth trying to fend of his rank 2 spirit weapon with his bare fist, finally he felt like he had the upper hand. There was a loud bang and then a bright yellow flash, the staff held by Master Lingwei turned into black metal flakes as the meter long staff disintegrated causing long lacerations across Master Lingwei's palms making blood run freely. Even though he tried not to, in the end he still bawled out in pain because the next instant a short left hand hook had landed right on his ribs ousting his flaming armor like a candle blown out by the wind, crushing the right half of his rib cage. He cannoned across the floor spitting out a mouthful of blood and crashed through the front of the building collecting the Flying Cow sign on his way down to the street.

Hartley had not intended to kill the man and his students but injuries like these would leave them bed ridden for months not to mention the cost of the healing dans it would take for them to make a full recovery. That was the final straw for the creaking building as it started to collapse around Hartley. Hartley activated his time domain, monochrome.. the color bled from the surroundings and everything stood in suspended animation as all noise ceased to exist. This time Hartley's time domain spread out 30 meters around him as he started to count in his mind 1...2...3...4....5....6.... and then whoosh everything returned to normal as Hartley disappeared.

Hartley walked over to Qin Li, Zhi Ruo and the rest in his black robe which now looked grey due to the build up of dust, Ryu Hang and the escorts looked at him with worship in their eyes as they witnessed the second floor of the building collapsing into the first which left a mushroom cloud of dust rising upwards, Qin Li and Zhi Ruo had been somewhat used to his miracles by now, so they just smiled and greeted him. The crowd had gathered around the people from the Hagley Martial School and paid little attention to Hartley and the rest and they quietly left the area.