’Huh?’’

Ubel opened his eyes.

A strange chill broke past his skin, seized his passageways, and revolved inside his meridians. Qi? It seemed so, but the nature of the force itself differed from the Qi he knew. Then the memories came back.

‘’Senior master!’’ He tried to stand up, but a hand from behind pulled him back. Indeed, if the hand didn’t reach to grasp him, he would have fallen down from the air. Without turning back, Ubel heard the voice he knew well.

‘’Sorry.’’

Ubel wanted to curse, or blame, but the heavy blasts of soundwaves broke apart the mood. Then the red giant, now with a giant mouth filled with a green and red liquid, entered into his sight. ‘’How long I was unconscious?’’

‘’Ten seconds.’’

!?

‘’Now, watch for a moment.’’ After that, Quan ceased talking, so did Ubel. The red giant pulsed with an aura craving for blood, perfectly aligned with the image of bloody devils he had in his mind for some time. Except, the creature in front of him wasn’t a cultivator. It was a full-fledged monster.

‘’Immortals...’’ The aura intensified, suffocating enough to affect the Ubel far away, then spread out to cover the whole city and the plains beyond. Quan furrowed his brows and Ubel wondered why the giant had done that. Surely, a show of power wasn’t a reason enough to do something unmeaningful like releasing his aura.

Unless...then Ubel shivered, so did Quan.

‘’Senior master...who is it calling for?’’

‘’His sisters, probably.’’

‘’Sisters?’’

Then came two more auras, colliding with the city’s Qi barrier Ubel assumed the city lord used right now. Red giant, without any sign, let out a defiant cry, looking flustered and scared, and gazed at them both with icy eyes.

‘’No need to glare like that, king of the mountain.’’ Quan smiled and exclaimed. ‘’Your siblings won’t attend us tonight, nor tomorrow.’’

‘’You can enjoy your stay as much as you like.’’

WRYYYYYYYY!

Shrill scream of the mountain king, Munchur, shook the city. Buildings, comprising of tower houses, bungalows, huts, and mansions etc. flew like arrows and collided with an invisible barrier. The semi-circular Qi barrier covered the one-third of the city at the least.

‘’Senior master, civilians!?’’

‘’Where do you think the lord is?’’ Ubel felt a bit relaxed for a moment. Then Kowalski’s mother should be safe. With a sigh, he now focused on the upcoming giant. It turned into a flash of light and slammed onto the huge barrier in an futile attempt to break it.

The barrier shook like a boat in midst of tides, yet did not give in. It carried the will of the City Lord, as well as several dozens of path establishing cultivators of the city. Even the State Protector Lefthand Guru’s aura seemed insignificant in front of the mighty collaboration.

Munchur screamed and screamed, crashed its body at the surface of the transparent force over and over again. Then Ubel saw the most peculiar thing among the all.

Munchur shed a tear.

It fell from the huge eyes on its forehead and fell down, the teardrop alone could fill a whole wine barrel. Yet, the emotions packed inside seemed more abundant than the size of it. Among the myriad of emotions, what Ubel felt the most and knew the least was betrayal.

Munchur stopped. The backlash from the barrier was no laughing matter, huge tears size of an adult’s thigh spread all over munchur’s skin and some even cut deep enough to reach the muscles beneath. Though the pain didn’t matter to the munchur. It didn’t care about it at all. It just turned those icy, reddened eyes towards Quan and let out a murmur.

‘’Hm?’’

Then an explosion shook the surroundings. Quan looked worriedly at the place he moved a moment ago, ridden with cracks and remnants of houses, then looked down at Ubel. The young man almost vomited from the spontaneous movement. His body, as one could see, couldn’t carry the burden of high speeds’ pressure.

After confirming Ubel’s state, Quan turned back to face the Munchur. Its body emitted blazes of dark red flames, coagulated with lightning in the midst. Quan, for a moment, thought that the same fire burned inside the eyes of the creature. Then his expression hardened.

Munchur moved, with equal speed as Quan, and came right in front of his nose. No chance. Quan made a seal with his left hand, whilst holding the Ubel with the other, and disappeared from where he stood as the pillar of fire and lightning fell! The Qi in the environment went berserk and collapsed, just like the ground the pillar struck.

Where are those two? Quan felt a bead of sweat form on his forehead. His magic still didn’t awaken at the point, he needed more time to get ready. But no one here could gain the enough time for him. If they encountered more than one- Quan did not think of it further. He couldn’t, even if he wanted.

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Munchur let loose a cry and stomped through the air. Its body seemed more agile than that of a wind, as its legs came down like a whirlwind. Quan moved left and right and evaded the attacks while holding Ubel, then tried to open the distance as far as he could. The Qi started to bubble inside him, the furnace of space ablaze like a star. Then he felt the establishment of the connection with the outer space.

Alright, no more delay.

With a single thought, Quan disappeared from his place again. Munchur, now in a blind frenzy, looked around. Yet, no trace of Quan remained. Even the scent and the aura disappeared. Growling, Munchur pressed on the ground hard, then jumped towards the air.

He can still feel it?

The moment Munchur’s head collided with the tip of the barrier, Quan revealed himself and the almost fainted Ubel. They stood right outside the barrier, with just a few centimeters apart from each other. Although Munchur itself couldn’t get out of the barrier, its eyes seemed to manage so. Ubel shivered like a sheep in front of a wolf, then regained his calm. Still, even as the Munchur fell down to the ground, Ubel couldn’t help but tremble. The impact of a few single punches showed how dead he would be if the thing hadn’t decided to play for a little while.

Then he looked up at Quan, whose complexion glowed with a bright...darkness? Ubel couldn’t describe it well other than saying a dark color shining with silver. The scholarly and natural aura around Quan now turned into a somber one. Ubel, of course, didn’t comment on it aloud in the now confusing situation.

‘’Senior master...what are we waiting for?’’ Ubel asked. For a short while, no answer came. But then, Quan pointed his left index-finger towards the mountains afar. To the Mountain Of Emperors. ‘’Open your eye.’’

Ubel knew what Quan talked about, so he complied without inquiring. He established a connection with his premature third eye and opened it. From the third eye of Quan, it looked like a small hole opened on Ubel’s glabella that glowed red. From Ubel’s perspective, nothing changed other than the scenery.

At first, his eyes hurt so bad that he let out a small yelp. For a moment, countless particles of Qi prickled his eye and slowly paved the way. These are...how they look? What he could call this scenery was just a single word.

Magnificent.

Red represented fire, blue associated with water, yellow indicated earth, light grey showcased wind, green revealed wood, dark grey displayed metal...countless clusters of motes of lights, or as he called particles of Qi, gathered into a mega cluster like a galaxy and revolved around the city. This small celestial body was the remnant Qi of the barrier, at least a thousand times larger than Ubel’s own Qi capacity.

If he compared, he knew his Qi would look like an ant next to it.

Further away, even when his sight trailed off the clusters, two gigantic auras rushed towards the city. Ubel was familiar with both, one of them was pretty close to him. Then Ubel’s jaw dropped for a moment. There were two more auras behind them, at least a grade or two higher than the Gaobun and the military trainee of the college. But that was not it.

There stood a singular existence, way too much width apart from the all auras he had seen. Even now, he could only see the tip of the aura. But If he really dared to measure it, Ubel knew, the galaxy of clusters in front of him couldn’t create one tenth of that violent blood aura.

A shiver went down his spine and shook him from tip to toe. Ubel, out of pure curiosity and fear turned around to look at the person right beside him, too.

Then he coughed a mouthful of blood and closed his third eye. If not, his premature third eye would definitely slip out of existence. Although he couldn’t hold himself from beaming. Really now. This is too big of a surprise.

Of course, Quan did not share the same joy with him it seemed. His smile died off quickly from the same somber expression of the man. Ubel did not dare to open his third eye again. Instead, he awaited the arrival of the Gaobun and the Russell.

Although before that, city lord appeared right next to Quan and Ubel. His eyes looked sunken and without opening his third eye, Ubel knew the man had lost plenty of Qi. The magnitude of the difficulty of operating a formation including dozens of people indeed could tire down even a great man like Sid Starlight. He looked for a moment at Ubel. ‘’Your friend is at the college.’’ Ubel tried to bow down but the circumstances did not allow him to do so. Still, the gesture alone seemed to satisfy the man himself.

‘’When should I open the barrier?’’ He asked.

‘’Well, my lord’’ Quan stroke his irritating stubbles for a moment, then replied.

‘’Fifteen seconds I guess?’’ He proposed, and Sid accepted. The man disappeared again and the cries of the Munchur echoed in the city once more. ‘’Now now, do you know about Gaobun’s background Ubel?’’

‘’I don’t think so, senior master.’’ Ubel told the truth. ‘’I know he is someone from a prominent family of cultivators, and his talent is at the least equal to Elder Snow.’’

‘’Other than that?’’

‘’Hmm...’’ Ubel stormed his memort for a little more, and his eyes blazed after a while.

‘’He was the ace of...Department Of Punishment And Military?’’

‘’And do you know why?’’ Quan let out an amused smile. Ubel felt that the man’s smile seemed more irritable than his unorganized stubble.

‘’I don’t, can you enlighten me senior master?’’

‘’Well well,’’ Quan continued to speak as the temperature visibly increased. ‘’What they mean by ace is, he is the most prominent fighter in the whole department.’’

‘’???’’

‘’Which means, he defeated an elder in a fight with nothing but skills.’’

Ubel froze, and a huge ball of flames appeared right above the barrier at the same time. Barrier opened from above, like it had been waiting this for some time, and the Munchur inside leaped in a hope to leave the place.

Yet, it lost that chance from the beginning.

The ball unfurled, like a bird awakening from a sleep, and turned into a gigantic phoenix with a wingspan of tens of meters wide. Munchur roared in anguish and released a torrent of lightning and flames together, shaped like a dragon, and sent it flying with a punch.

Phoenix also let out a cry of its own, shrill and desponding of the dragon in sight, and dived down. Turbulent waves of Qi pushed back even Quan for a little as the forces collided! An explosion of such measure that Ubel had never seen before spread into the barrier. The flames enveloped everything and anything inside, even the barrier continuously shook from the battering of the escaping Qi streams.

Then the barrier, abandoned at the moment of impact by the forces involved, broke into tens of thousands of pieces. They flew, more farther and faster than any projectile could hope to achieve, and battered the Qi screen of Quan. Constant hits and strikes gave another fright to the Ubel, yet he faced it more calmer than before.

At the end, only a half-charred, twitching ten meter body; and a young man with chocolate colored skin, with blue and yellow flames dancing around his body, stood at the center of explosion.