It was a rainy day in downtown New York City, on that nameless street. Yet still people hustled about, whether by subway, car, or walking. There was a single mother with her two toddlers, walking out of Cold Stone Creamery, an old man strumming his guitar on the street corner, a business man waiting in his car for the traffic light to change color, yelling at someone on his phone. People coming and going, getting on with their lives.

And in the midst of this crowd of busy people, stood a young, handsome man, not over twenty. The young man had jet black hair, just covering his startling blue eyes before giving way to his chiseled cheeks and elegant nose that rested over a sharp chin. Under his black cardigan coat, white shirt, and black jeans, bronze skin rippled with muscles, like a tiger’s: Lean and explosive with no excess to inhibit his movement.

Hair sticking to his face, the man turned his face to the sky as he closed his eyes. Across the street, a little girl, hardly three years old, with a pink jacket and light brown hair finished her lollypop while walking hand in hand with her mother.

“Mommy, who’s that man?” she asked, pointing.

“Who dear?” Her mother returned, confused.

“The weird man that’s just standing over the-” The little girl paused, her eyes wide. .

When the girl had turned around, the man was gone.

High above the busy street, Garth Franklin appeared on the roof of a building and sighed.

“And what would your name be?”

Across the roof, stood a stocky stranger with a bald head and a terrible scar running down his left cheek.

“Walter Tesla,” he said, greed filling his bloodshot eyes.

“Even disbanded, your Tesla Family continues to be a pain in my ass,” Garth lamented, as he shot a disgusted glance at the man.

“If I kill you, the Li Clan will definitely reward me!” Walter laughed before he lunged across the roof with a brandished sword.

When Walter came within 10 yards of Garth, the young man reached into his coat, and pulled out a handkerchief. It was a plain handkerchief, white with a simple pattern on it. Walter eyed it for a while, before laughing. It seemed that this would be easier than he thought. Finally, as he reached Garth and swung his sword, Qi pouring into the area, Garth flicked the piece of cloth in his hand.

There was no killing intent, no rage of Qi, and hardly a snap. Nonetheless, bells rang in Walter’s mind and told him that the hankie was dangerous. Eyes wide, he twisted his attack into a defensive position, intersecting the handkerchief while it was on its way toward the assassin’s neck. But when the sword met the cloth, a peculiar phenomenon took place. With his Qi heightened eyes, Walter saw the handkerchief hit the sword, pass through, and stretch to wrap around his neck.

Walter’s mouth hung agape as he looked at the elongated handkerchief that defied common sense. While his prey continued in stupor, Garth flicked his wrist again, which retracted the cloth, and brought Walter to his knees. Walter stared up at Garth incredulously, still not sure what had happened. But why would Garth explain? With large swing of his arm, the handkerchief tightened, crushing Walter’s wind pipe, and then released him, returning to its original form in Garth’s hand.

Walter fell to the ground, grasping his neck as he watched the young man walk off a ways, before pulling a black, hooded cape from thin air. As Garth put it on over his head, he heard Walter struggling to say something.

“Spi…rit…”

But Garth ignored him and continued to walk before he became a blur and disappeared. Unbeknownst to Garth, a set of blinds closed on a building across the street, which had a perfect vantage of his fight with Walter.

“To think that he was actually Spirit,” a middle aged man with a grim expression said. “Do you have confidence, Grand Elder?”

Next to him, the Grand Elder of the Li Clan turned and walked to a table in the room.

“Haha, the Reaper of Souls, the number one assassin in the Martial Plane, Spirit. To be that young, he certainly has terrifying talent. If it was before I completed my closed door cultivation, maybe I wouldn’t be his match. But don’t worry, he is still at the tenth rank, while I have broken into the eleventh.”

The Grand Elder opened a bottle of wine that sat on the table, and poured himself a glass. Swirling it in his hand, the old man adopted a thoughtful expression.

Then, taking a sip, he said, “But call him, just in case, Arthur.”

Arthur’s face contorted in confusion, “Who?”

The Grand Elder chuckled, a malicious light flashing across his eyes, “We cannot afford to let him grow any longer, and it’s troublesome as it is, already. Tell me, Arthur, who do you call to exorcise a spirit?”

Still, confusion clouded Arthur’s face. Sighing, the Grand Elder got up and walked to the door.

“When exorcising a troublesome Spirit, you call a Saint,” he said, before he disappeared from the room.

Garth walked through the construction site, looking around under his hood. Suddenly, his ear twitched and, like a shadow, he jumped to a support beam above him. Where he once stood, bullet holes appeared, still smoking from the friction. Garth glanced at them calmly, before speaking into the darkness.

“I thought we decided to stay out of each other’s way, Saint.”

After a moment of silence, another voice echoed around the construction site, “That we did. Unfortunately, business is business, and someone hired me to kill you.”

A blur appeared on the beam across from him, then changed into the figure of a man in his thirties. Saint had short black hair, with sparkling brown eyes and a sharp nose. A silver earring designed as a cross connected to a chain adorned his right ear. In his hand, was a handgun that shined in the moonlight, connected to a silencer.

“But I gave you a warning shot, didn’t I?”

Garth chuckled, “I guess you did. So who wanted to kill me so badly that they hired you?”

“I did,” The Grand Elder said as he materialized next to Saint. “To think that the thorn in my Li Clan’s side would actually be the infamous Spirit was beyond our calculations.”

“Oh? Might this be the Li Clan Grand Elder?” Garth asked as a cold smile creeped across his face.

The Grand Elder nodded, before he said with a chilling voice, “You should have stayed out of my nephew’s business. Who he marries is none of your concern.”

Garth laughed, “That may be true, but only if it was any other woman in the world. Unfortunately, I promised someone to protect her from you.”

“Come on, let’s start already, I have to be in Italy by tomorrow morning,” Saint complained, before he leapt off his beam and aimed his pistol at Garth.

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“Yes, I suppose we should,” Garth sneered.

He leapt as well, dodging three rounds that shot right through the beam he once stood on and continued into the floor below. Garth landed on an incomplete wall before launching at Saint from an angle. But just as he was about to reach his longtime rival, the Grand Elder appeared before him, his hand curled into a fist. With a bang, the Grand Elder’s punch met Garth’s timely cross arm guard, sending the young man crashing onto the second floor of the incomplete bulding.

“Eleventh stage…” he muttered with narrowed eyes.

But before he could think, Garth had to dodge another round of bullets.

“Really, you cultivators and your ranks. It pisses me off that what I obtained after tortuous experimentation has to be compared with how long you guys sit on your asses,” Saint said bitterly.

I’ll have to figure out how to kill Saint first, otherwise I have no hope of beating the eleventh stage cultivator. Garth thought while he dodged a kick from the Grand elder.

Then, he rushed off, through the construction site, amidst the rain of bullets and the pestering of the Grand Elder. Reaching another area, Garth turned around abruptly, which caught the Grand Elder who was behind him by surprise. Having grabbed his cape, Garth flicked his wrist, which launched an end of the cape toward the Grand Elder’s neck. Since he was in midair, the Grand Elder flipped back, avoiding the cape, but as he righted himself, he saw a shadow flying past his face.

Garth had latched onto a support beam behind the old man, and used it to get passed him. Cursing, the Grand Elder followed the shadow. Moments later, when he finally managed to catch up, the Grand Elder reached out and grabbed… an empty cloak. Glee turned to confusion, before finally changing into anger when he heard a guttural scream behind him.

When the old man whipped his head around, he found Garth, without his cape, holding Saint by the neck with one hand. Garth’s other hand was stabbed deeply into Saint’s chest.

“I know that seventy percent of you is metal,” Garth sneered, “Even your brain is half computer. The only thing that is completely organic, is your heart.”

On the side, the Grand Elder roared in fury, “Let him go!”

His image blurred as he headed in Garth’s direction and launched a martial technique.

“Raiden’s Fury!”

Thick streams of lightning coalesced around the Great Elder’s hands, which he used to lash out at Garth, who jumped to the side after he had freed his hands from Saint. But although he was able to dodge the punch, lightning shot sideways and slammed into Garth’s chest. The young man groaned, as he coughed up blood and circulated Qi to get rid of the residual lightning that intruded his body.

“Haha! Do you even know where we are? You’re practically in a metal cage! Garth Franklin, this place will be your grave!” the Great Elder laughed maliciously.

“No thanks, no one would want to bring flowers here,” Garth joked.

Seeing the young man act so carefree, the Grand Elder’s face darkened, “We’ll see how long you can mess around. Thor’s Hammer!”

Lightning coalesced above Garth’s head, forming a massive hammer. Even if he had been in his peak condition, the young man knew that he wouldn’t be able to avoid the massive attack, and he was even injured.

“Garth Franklin,” he said as killing intent soared from his body, “Die!”

The Grand Elder raised a fist over his head, then smashed it down into a waiting palm.

The hammer fell upon Garth with a thunderous roar, which later gave way to his screams of agony. With a cold snort, the Great Elder turned around, ready to leave Garth to die a painful and unresigned death. Suddenly, the World Qi within the construction site started to gather, which caused the Great Elder to stop in his tracks, and turn incredulously toward the ball of lightning.

“No…” he whispered. “This can’t be happening.”

A series of pops and cracks rose from the ball of lightning, before it started to dim, and finally disappeared. In its place, was a young man with his shirt burnt off, revealing his sculpted torso.

“Thank you, Grand Elder, for helping me break through. Shall we continue?” Garth asked with a cold smile.

The Grand Elder’s face turned pale with fright, as he turned around to flee. His last two attacks had consumed an enormous amount of Qi, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to even burn Garth, who was at the peak of the tenth stage.

“Where are you going, Grand Elder?” Garth laughed, throwing back on his cape.

With a flick of Garth’s hand, the Grand Elder was caught by the neck. With a pull, he was thrown backwards, and landed at Garth’s feet. The Grand Elder lifted his head and looked into Garth’s eyes as he planned to say something along the lines of “Don’t touch me or my clan will not let you off with a painless death.” But when his eyes reached Garth’s malicious smile, which stretched from ear to ear, all of his words were forced back down his throat.

After that night, the construction was halted and torn down under pressure from the district under the premise of tormented spirits screaming in agonizing protest to the building that night.

As he dropped the Grand Elder’s severed head, Garth sighed with weariness, then coughed a mouthful of blood. Although his breakthrough was able to help him recover his Qi, it hadn’t healed all of his internal injuries. But as he started walking away, a shot rang out, and blood poured from Garth’s chest. When he turned around, Garth spotted Saint lying on his chest and holding his pistol aimed at Garth.

Dropping it, Saint coughed a mouthful of blood and said, “As if… I’ll… die… without you…”

Then, the only assassin able to rival Spirit breathed his last. When Garth had thrust his hand through Saint’s chest, he hadn’t realized that the heart was moved to make way of the rest of his metal organs. As such, Garth had only put a small scratch on Saint’s heart. Although he would eventually die, it would still take a while, and he used that to wait for Garth to let up his guard.

“Shit…” Garth said as he fell to his knees.

Unlike Saint, his heart was in the right place, and so the bullet did incredible damage. Although he could use Qi to slow the bleeding, Garth knew it wasn’t enough to save him. Normally, cultivators would be able to heal such a wound rather quickly, but his fight with the Grand Elder left Garth terribly injured as it was. Although breaking through was able to heal him somewhat, the injuries were too serious. Garth fell on his side and, as his eyes started to grow heavy, his life flashed before his eyes…