Entering the Cassia province on a warm sunny day, Hartley had planned to keep a low profile and make his way to the capital, little did he know that his journey to capital would be lined with blood and bodies.The southern gate of the Cassia province was different from other provinces they had entered before, usually they would be fast tracked as nobles and given leave to enter and exit at their own accord.
When they arrived at the open gates, everyone had to be searched and identified, even the nobles weren't immune to this treatment. There was a separate line that catered for the nobles to make things a little faster and more convenient for the more pampered part of society, soon it was their turn to enter, they paid 2 gold coins for each person traveling in the group and entered. Men dressed in shiny armor with gold trimmings conducted a thorough search of every carriage entering, they did a professional job and were very polite to the nobles, which couldn't be said about how they treated the common people in the other line.
Hartley Zhi Ruo and Qin Li all exited the carriage and were chaperoned towards a man sat at a bench with a parchment jotting down names and validating identity tokens. As soon as he showed his identity token, there was a clamour of people murmuring and staring, Hartley paid no mind to it, held Zhi Ruo's hand and walked with the others including the now dismounted escorts who held the reins and guided their horses forward.
An armored man ran to check the parchment and then ran away to another building to report to someone, by the time the search of the carriage was finished, Hartley and company had walked about 300 meters into the Cassia province looking around inquisitively like tourist, noticing the double masted ships visible in the golden sunshine coming in to the docks that could be seen a couple kilometers to their left. Ryu Hang slowly cruised the clomping carriage towards Hartley and the rest, he too was in awe at how developed the Cassia province was, buildings made of stone spread to the north as far as eyes could see. The roads here could accommodate four lanes of traffic and the roads wove around in every conceivable direction one could see. Then there was a sudden disturbance and four people in armor accompanied by a man dressed in blue, who had streaks of white running through his shoulder length hair, overtook the carriage on foot and seem to be heading towards Hartley and the rest, Ryu Hang increased the speed of the carriage to keep pace with the men.
The clinking of armor came clopping across the stone floor behind Hartley and company who were still sight seeing, the men overtook them and blocked their path forward. "YOU!" the person dressed in blue stared at him with wild hatred. "you dare come here as an affiliate of that traitor Sanzu". the man of medium build gave of strong fluctuations of fire element, he was the peak of the layer six xanthian, suddenly Hartley could feel mal intent but he didn't think in his wildest dream that the man would attack a noble in broad daylight, but was proven wrong immediately.
With a whoosh the man punched out both hands and two fire balls came bolting towards the group, these were so quick and gave off so much heat that beneath the path of fireballs it left two thick lines of burnt stone turning to ash. Hartley elbowed Qin Li with his left hand so hard it broke a couple ribs and sent him flying out of the path of the fireballs, he then activated advanced state of focus and scooped up Zhi Ruo then dodged to the right, one yellow fire ball with a tinge of orange crashed into two of his escorts turning them to ash without even a scream and the other produced and enormous explosion when it crashed into and swallowed the carriage that was coming up behind the group, sending one wheel thirty meter into the sky. When the debris landed Ryu Hang was nowhere to be seen.
The earth rumbled sending out a shock-wave of solid earth like a tidal wave moving across the ocean. Hartley gritted his teeth, tossed Zhi Ruo to the side and moved forward with deadly intent, everything shook like an earthquake, people screamed and ran around in panic as buildings wobbled and walls collapsed. Hartley didn't take his shining blue eyes of the man, his swords appeared in hands, he used his long sword in his right hand which was now a solid blue color surrounded with a white glow as he reached the man who had stumbled backwards along with the armored men that accompanied him, in a split second a slash from low-right to high-left was launched and as soon as that strike was finished, Hartley transitioned immediately into a slash form low-left to high-right, the two slashes emerged simultaneously forming a blue x shape that extended outwards as it blasted the man in blue at point blank range and flung the four that were with him somewhere out of sight, the men landed out of sight with wailing screams followed by silence, no one could tell if they were dead or alive.
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The man in blue was sent flying back with a scream of disbelief, the top half of his robe was shredded to dust as silver flakes burst into the atmosphere and drifted down to the earth like snow flakes in the winter. The man's life saving armor had preserved his life but turned to metal filings in one exchange. Eyes bulged and the man puked out a massive amount of blood when he landed ten meters back and created a crater the size of a swimming pool in the middle of the road. Hartley had a manic desire for blood, the only thing that could quell his anger at this point was seeing the blood of this guy running like a river through the streets.
There was a rumble which sounded like the earth itself was growling like a tiger when Hartley moved forward again but before he could reach and attack the man, two people burst into existence from his flanks, one wrapped in white aura and the other in green. The man in the crater shook his head rigorously to regain his wits, with his desire for blood Hartley's attention was directed solely at the man in front laying in the crater, that resulted in him being outflanked on both sides with surprise attacks but he didn't care.
Hartley transitioned into his time domain as smooth as butter over a hot pan then took a second to evaluate the situation. Every thing was now as quiet as death, only Hartley's ragged breathing could be heard.
The world was a frozen picture in black and white and Hartley was the King here.The first physical interaction with an enemy would release his time domain, he couldn't just activate his time domain, freeze people and walk around nonchalantly cutting off their heads, he would be invincible under the skies if that was the case, the first person his sword came into contact with would release his time domain which could only be reactivated ten seconds later. The two people on his flanks were about five meters away from him in the middle, which means they were ten meters apart.
Hartley positioned himself two meters away from the one to his right, applied zero gravity to his long blade and slashed a semi circular strike from high-left to high-right aimed at the man eight meters away to his left...
Whoosh, with intricate timing his long sword sent a slash in the shape of blue a crescent moon , the blue sword light whistled across the eight meters sending the man's head flying up two meters off his shoulders, blood erupted like a fire hydrant then whoosh time went back to normal as the follow through of his actual blade went through the neck of the man who stood two meters away from him, sending the second head into the sky in synchronized timing with the first. The two unknown men died in their attack posture, unfortunately for them they lost their heads before they could execute even one attack.
The man laying in the crater shaking his head had just regained his wits, then his two subordinates pounced from both sides trapping the target in a pincer move, then with wide eyes the man watched their heads fly up into the silhouette of the sun, blood spurting from the headless necks like fountains of ruby. The heads fell with a thump and rolled exposing the wide-eyed shock on their dead faces, the rumble continued again as the youth moved towards him cracking the earth and leaving weird contortions and wobbling of the space around him like he was bout to rip through dimensions.
This was no joke, his two subordinates were experienced 5th layer xiantians who were charged with protecting him from the shadows, the man activated his 6th layer xiantian cultivation to its limit. A storm of fire flared out from the crater in a fifteen meter radius, melting the ground turning it into an ankle deep river of lava.
People screamed in horror, some were permanently blinded by the flash of yellow and orange, the stone work on the buildings 20 meters away began to turn black and blew away like sand in the wind. The people who had been there received scorching injuries over their bodies as they all panicked and ran as fast as their feet could carry them away from the region but some unfortunate people who were blinded ran towards the flames and turned to bones as their flesh was incinerated in seconds.
Qin Li with his 3rd layer cultivation could easily withstand the heat from about 30 meters, he looked around and located Zhi Ruo and with winces of pain went and got her and the two remaining escorts then fell back a safe distance. There was nothing he could do now to affect the battle he had to just hope Hartley would come out on top.
The temperatures rose violently in the surroundings, this was really a warm welcome to the province.