Without a word the henchmen below the two bandit vice captains charged at them. Ryu instantly shot out Qi blades and summoned his Gold Keeper. The Gold Keeper was like an entity of its own, it brandished a golden spear and whacked them effortless away. Within a minute all of the ambushers were knocked out. Ryu took this time to hand over a bottle of green potion to the injured young swordsman. Potions were not miraculous, it can only recover a small amount of strength on short notice.
“Useless fools.” Rie-Tan shouted as he uncoiled a whip from his waist. It was extremely long and had jagged edges. He swung it towards the golden being and immediately cut it in half. The nearly ten meter tall artificial giant was no match for a whip that was densely concentrated with Heaven Domain Qi.
Joa-Wong, the taller of the two Heaven Domain bandits, took out two daggers and pointed them at Ryu. They were pure black with odd engravings on them. “I’ll take this one, you can have the pretty boy.”
In a flash he narrowed the gap between them, Ryu coated himself in protective Qi and swung his sword at him.
“What?” Ryu yelled out in surprise, his sword cut through what appeared to be an afterimage. Before his sword could be brought back to his side, two sharp pains was felt on his back and he faltered in mid-air.
“Impressive defense, that armor must be precious.” Joa-Wong said with a smack of his lips.
What frightening speeds! Ryu thought to himself. He couldn’t comprehend what happened so he instantly spread out his aura. The downside of actively using your aura in battle is that it consumes a lot of Qi but to Ryu who has fast Qi regeneration and two reservoirs, it wasn’t as big of a deal. With the help of his aura, he could finally feel the location of his opponent.
Clang! His Wudang sword met with one of the daggers and knocked it out of Joa-Wong’s hands. The strength of these dagger attacks were relatively weak but the speed is troublesome to Ryu.
“Haha what an amazing sword. This will bring a smile to boss’s face after so many failed attempts at the trial.” Joa-Wong yelled out to his comrade. In his eyes, Ryu was a nobody. These two were just another source of income.
Ryu who was focused on the opponent in front of him suddenly sensed the dagger he knocked away stabbing towards him from behind. So he can control the daggers at will!
Seeing how Ryu was dodging his first dagger, Joa-Wong knew that the gig was up so he threw the second dagger at Ryu. The two daggers flew around and stabbed at Ryu viciously. This was his specialization, Daggers Assassination. By giving up the freedom to use any other weapon with Qi, he can choose two daggers at any one time that can act like his limbs.
As he toyed around with Ryu, Joa-Wong looked at his partner and saw that the mysterious swordsman was holding his own! The lethal whip that sliced up Ryu’s Gold Keeper like it was paper was getting repelled by a profound set of sword arts. The whip had numerous variations and attacked from countless angles but his sword would always be there to deflect it.
Joa-Wong was going to comment when suddenly he felt his daggers being blasted off into the distance. Before he could react a horrifying source of Qi was upon him and he was sent flying too. What happened was when he wasn’t paying attention, Ryu launched twin Mega-Punches when the daggers were attacking from both his sides, each punch powered by one Qi reservoir. He threw his two fists outwards and punched at the daggers. Since this Mega-Punch move releases a huge amount of Qi that’s usually not possible, his fists received minor cuts. Ryu quickly launched a Mega-Kick combined with a Qi blade at him right after.
Rie-Tan was just about to break through this swordsman’s defense as he tired him out when suddenly he sensed an imminent danger and jumped away. Ryu threw his Wudang sword embedded with strident Qi at him. Looking at the sword that’s buried deep within the ground, if he was a second slower than he would’ve gotten split in half.
Rie-Tan looked at the cut on his purple cloak and shouted angrily, “You are going to pay for this you punk.”
“Hahahaha struggling with a kid?” A new voice boomed out with vigorous energy. A middle aged man with a scar on his forehead flew towards them. Behind him was Joa-Wong who was earlier hit by Ryu’s Qi blade. How did he recover so fast? Ryu wondered.
It turns out that Joa-Wong was able to mitigate half the damage by flying backwards in the same direction as the giant Qi blade kicked out by Ryu. However he didn’t have the strength to disperse it since the bandits specialize in speed not power. As luck would have it, the third Heaven Domain expert, Fu Ling, from the group came to see what’s taking so long and helped him out.
“You guys must have come for the Five-Colored Lightning fruit correct? Hahahaha do you know how many fools before you guys came as well?” Fu-Ling asked with amusement on his face.
“The rumor is fake?” The swordsman youth said with disbelief and a hint of anger. It seems this fruit was very important to him.
“Oh no the rumors are true, there is a Five-Colored Lightning fruit at the peak of this mountain. We won’t stop you but there were two peak Heaven Domain experts and even one early King Domain warrior that attempted to get the fruit… they all got killed trying to get it hahaha. Made our jobs so much easier.” Fu-Ling laughed sinisterly, the sight of his twitching lips was disgusting to see.
“Psh, the Five-Colored Lightning fruit is a rank 7 item meant for Emperor Domain experts. Forget about consuming it, how did you plan on moving it? Anything close to it is incinerated right away.” Rie-Tan sneered.
Both Ryu and the mysterious young swordsman paused for a second. They both wanted the fruit but they didn’t think it was that difficult to just transport it. Ryu was thinking of slowly absorbing bits of it with his profound method of taking in raw lightning element but hearing that a King Domain warrior fell to the fruit’s lightning, he had doubts now.
“Anyways it doesn’t matter what you guys came for, you’ll all die here.” Fu-Ling continued laughing as a dark aura spread around him. This shadow-like aura had a mind of its own and dark tentacles slowly emerged.
Rie-Tan and Joa-Wong also released their powers and coated their weapons in dark Qi as they approached the pair.
Considering how much faster the bandits are, there isn’t much choice but to go all out. The odds are dim though in a three vs two fight.
“Damn it I didn’t want to use it here…” The nameless swordsman muttered to himself. He clutched downwards a bit and held onto his sheathed sword. To the incoming enemies it looked like it was a sign of resignation. However to Ryu’s special vision, he saw something unbelievable. The swordsman’s Qi was gathering in his undrawn blade continuously at a rapid pace. This was different from his Mega-Punch move which releases nearly five times the usual output of Qi. It is different from his gigantic Qi blade that drops from the sky, true it requires Ryu to store Qi as well over time but the Qi sword container grows bigger into a gigantic Qi blade. This person was charging all his Qi into one object, the Qi density must be incredibly compressed!
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Sensing the danger Ryu quickly got behind the swordsman. Without a warning, he drew his blade out. It was unbelievably fast but what’s shocking is that a second later Rie-Tan dropped his whip and let out a small gasp. His body had been separated by a clean cut horizontally across his stomach. Joa-Wong and Fu-Ling also coughed up blood but fortunately for them, only a shallow cut appeared across their stomach.
The swordsman instantly coughed up mouthful of blood afterwards. This swordsman’s skill was able to contain all his Qi into one strike but the problem was that it takes time to charge. He had to release it once it his built up Qi was at its max. It’s a channeling skill, if Rie-Tan attacked then all his stored power would be gone. Due to the fact that Fu-Ling and Joa-Wong was a bit further away, they were able to keep their lives.
“I just needed two more seconds…” The swordsman said as he kept coughing up blood. The remaining two bandits had goose bumps, they were literally inches away from death.
“Misters! Get on!” A faint voice shouted from above. It was Mia-Shu riding on a Storm Hawk, they were a few hundred meters away from them.
Without thinking, Ryu whispered to the swordsman, “I’ll distract them, use this chance to escape with him! Don’t let anything happen to the kid.”
A huge stone hand formed from beneath their feet and flung the swordsman away like a catapult. Before he could say anything Ryu took out two rank 8 daggers and his enchanted cloak. These daggers were used by Alexis in his earlier days and had soaked in the blood of his countless victims, they emitted an eerie daunting aura. Next he took out a large sealed bottle containing a dark black plant with various yellow spikes on them. The plant trashed around in the bottle as it looked for an escape route.
The moment Ryu revealed the cloak he already had their attention. Letting go off one prey was fine as long as they can get the treasures from Ryu.
“That’s… the legendary Sun Devouring plant!” Fu-Ling gasped. Since shadow element was not a natural element, the most popular way for normal people to train in that element is to artificially create an affinity with it. The simplest way is to devour enough shadow based spiritual medicine or herbs. This shadow element plant was at least rank 8 and is infamous amongst assassins because they are used to make Dark Terror Bomb. A Dark Terror Bomb can cover a whole city in darkness even in broad day light for hours! For a shadow user it’s an extremely vital advantage. This bomb goes for nearly half a million gold coins and you can make at least ten of them with a fully matured plant.
“Those daggers… I must have them!” Joa-Wong said with a drool. He knew Fu-Ling had seniority over him so the rare plant would never fall to him but as the only dagger user amongst the vice-captains, he would receive Ryu’s current daggers. The daggers gave off a deathly aura that could make a full grown adult wet their pants. Both of these experts forgot about their fallen comrade and the escapees instantly.
Ryu flew upwards toward the peak of the mountain, the opposite direction where Mia-Shu’s beast was flying. The moment he started flying he stored away the items instantly back into the Infinity Tome and took out a rank 8 silver knight’s shield to cover his back. He knew that the pursuers won’t recklessly kill him in fear of losing the items forever.
“I’ll remember this debt, my name is Rui Miyamoto.” A weak voice can be heard from behind Ryu and the two bandits. The voice was very fragile and couldn’t be heard clearly.
“Did I hear Miyamoto?” Joa-Wong said as he paused suddenly and looked backwards. Fu-Ling stopped too and had a look of surprise.
“No way, the legendary clan could flatten us within a week but there’s no way one clan member would venture out by himself.” Fu-Ling deduced and started pursuing again. Joa-Wong agreed and threw one of his daggers out at Ryu.
“Who is this kid, why does he have so many treasures? What he has shown us alone rivals our wealth already!” Joa-Wong shouted in surprise as one of his dagger bounced of Ryu’s shield. The only rank 7 equipment their whole group has belonged to their leader.
“Be careful, he must have a storage ring on him somewhere. Assuming he hasn’t already… if he seals the ring… we might never get the items!” Fu-Ling sternly warned. Usually during a battle, a storage ring is not sealed so the user can instantly summon items to aid him or her out instantly. However, usually during the user’s dying moments he can choose to seal the ring so no one can have his wealth but that process takes ten seconds of channeling.
“Does he have unlimited stamina or something?” Joa-Wong said angrily after thirty minutes of chasing. If it’s brute force, Ryu has the advantage. The pair of vice captains are able to overtake him in speed but they don’t have the ability to stop him in his tracks. Also Ryu doesn’t seem to be breaking a sweat after flying at full speed for so long, if anything he seems to be flying faster!
“Let’s just cripple him a little, we can always torture him to unseal his ring afterwards.” Fu-Ling said after some internal debate. The primary plan was to kill Ryu instantly amidst a barrage of weak attacks so he won’t have a chance to seal his ring but Fu-Ling’s years of experience has started to kick in and warned him that Ryu’s a dangerous existence.
Fu-Ling’s body seeped out dark Qi that not only covered his body but also a meter of circumference around him. Like a bouncing ball he collided against Ryu, bounced to the floor and back against Ryu.
Similarly Joa-Wong’s speed increase and slammed into Ryu with his daggers like a blur and started slashing at him like a madman, only backing away when Fu-Ling is about to collide with Ryu.
If it wasn’t for the high grade armor and shield, Ryu wouldn’t have survived until now. Suddenly the two bandits stopped attacking.
“Where are you going to go now?” Joa-Wong sneered one more time at Ryu. They’ve reached the peak of the mountain. Two hundred meters away from Ryu stood a lonely tree with no leaves, it’s crystalized body reflected the sunlight and on one of its branches hung the Five-Colored lightning fruit that was the size of a watermelon. Like the name suggested, there was five shades of lightning swarming on its surface. Every second tiny buzzes of electricity would shoot out from the fruit, it was thin streaks of lightning but Ryu can feel the danger they contain.
“How about I hand over the daggers and you two agree to some of my conditions?” Ryu asked as a last ditch attempt. If they blindly agree, his Absolute Agreement can bind them to his conditions.
“Hahaha why should we bargain with you?” Fu-Ling said deviously and Joa-Wong just snickered beside him, they both continued advancing step by step now.
“It looks like I got no choice but to go all out…” Ryu muttered to himself as he faced the two incoming bandits with his back against the fruit.