Benton knew of only one reason why Golden Core cultivators would be headed toward the sect—to make him answer for the death of that thuggish Foundation Establishment cultivator from the Jade Chameleon Sect.
Of course, it could be something much more innocuous, like Kang Ya-Ting coming for a visit, but he wouldn’t bet money on that being the case. Better to hope for the best but prepare for the worst regardless. Benton had to treat the visit as a hostile incursion.
His first action had to be to meet the intruders, and the farther away from the sect and the village, the better. He Quickstepped in their direction, putting them ahead of their path and near enough that they’d be in sight in seconds.
Being so close, his sense gave him an estimation of their height, about a half mile above the ground. His next Quickstep brought him to that elevation, and an expert use of his Gravity technique kept him there.
It occurred to Benton that, not that long ago, the prospect of facing three such high realmed cultivators would have terrified him. With his completion of multiple iterations of his Ultimate Juggernaut Combat Build and all his recent experience fighting beasts, especially the rank ten, he had absolutely no doubt that he could handle them without any problems.
An instant later, three cultivators on flying swords flew into sight, all wearing the same gray-colored robes the slain Foundation Establishment cultivator wore.
Benton prepared himself for a fight as he doubted either bluffing or talking would get him out of the situation.
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Teng Jian had been angry ever since being informed of his son’s death at the hands of some nobody who was calling himself a sect leader. Teng Chun had his flaws. His diligence at cultivation was lacking, and a sense of entitlement had led him to develop laziness unbecoming of his station.
All his flaws were trumped by a single factor—he was Teng Jian’s only son.
To let his death go unanswered would be an unacceptable loss of face. Honor demanded that the charlatan sect leader and all his followers and the entire village be killed. Only measures that extreme would wipe the slate clean of the shame of Teng Chun’s death.
Teng Jian grew even more angry when Chen Jingguo and Hu Huiqing weren’t ready to go. They had to wait several extra days, Teng Jian stewing in his rage the entire time.
The flight had been fast, at least, taking only a couple of hours to follow the road from Sixth Flawless Flowing City to Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town and from there staying above the much more overgrown path to the southwest. They were encouraged that they were indeed on the right track by the clear signs of recent travel on the old cart path.
That encouragement turned to certainty when they spotted a cultivator waiting for them.
Teng Wuying had tried—not very hard, but he’d made some attempt—to warn Teng Jian about the sect leader. Teng Jian hadn’t listened.
He’d assumed that the man was in the Golden Core realm, and he and Chen Jingguo acting in concert could defeat any cultivator at that level on the continent. Besides, why would a true monster establish a sect with mere peasants?
The likelihood was that the guy was a charlatan, either barely in the Golden Core realm or even just a trumped up Foundation Establishment cultivator. In truth, Teng Jian thought that bringing all three of them for this mission was serious overkill.
He thought that up until the moment he saw the cultivator waiting for them.
The sight gave him pause for two reasons. One, the man was hovering in the air. That wasn’t something one could do without a Concept, meaning the guy was in fact at least a late stage Golden Core cultivator. Two, the guy was invisible to Teng Jian’s spiritual sense. Literally invisible. As in might as well have been an illusion as far as his sense was concerned.
If the guy was not, in fact, an illusion, Teng Jian did not like what that said about his chances in a battle. He should be able to sense anyone in his realm and below. Period.
Which meant that the guy had to be an illusion.
The fact that the man used trickery meant he wasn’t powerful enough to face the three of them. He probably wasn’t even powerful enough to face two.
Simply killing him wasn’t good enough. The man needed to suffer for killing Teng Chun.
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If the so-called sect leader really did care about his people, what better way to make him suffer than to hear their screams as they all died when he could do nothing about it?
“Hu Huiqing,” Teng Jian said, “proceed to the village and kill everyone there while Chen Jingguo and I handle this fool.”
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When Benton heard the lead cultivator’s instructions, his stomach dropped. He had complete confidence that he could defeat all three of those jerks in a head-to-head fight, but could he stop one of them from escaping to the village?
That task was an entirely different story. Those cultivators were sect trained and had decades, if not centuries, to master many techniques. Anything was possible for them, especially since the only other person from their sect he had encountered had used illusions.
Speaking of which… He already had a Concept of Illusion at Mastery and a Perception technique, but there was one glaring hole in his build that he needed to fill before facing those guys.
“System,” he said internally, “create a technique to detect and see through illusions to the greatest extent possible and buy it to Mastery.”
Technique creation confirmed.
Host has learned the technique, Illusion Detection and Mitigation – Mastery.
Host has 849 Sect Points available.
Benton had been using the System for almost a year, and his expertise continued to grow. Purchasing a technique like that one was an almost instantaneous move for him.
Almost instantaneous, however, was not actually instantaneous. Fractions of a second count when fighting against Golden Core cultivators. In the time it took Benton to buy the technique, the three Jade Chameleon Sect cultivators had become hundreds of Jade Chameleon Sect Cultivators.
His new technique immediately went to work, and when he focused on a flying figure, it disappeared from his vision as the technique determined it was an illusion. There were hundreds of the illusions, however, and though the process was as quick as thought, it also was not instantaneous.
Maybe two or three seconds passed before all the illusions disappeared, leaving … none.
Crap. The cultivators had turned themselves invisible, and the only way to see them was to focus on the area where they hid long enough for his technique to suss them out. And that method assumed they weren’t constantly moving.
A blade hit him in the middle of his back, but his shield flared to life, neutralizing the strike.
Needless to say, the fight was not going as well as he had anticipated. Not that he was in any danger as he doubted any of their qi attacks could make it through his shield, but if one of the invisible opponents escaped, he could destroy the entire village in an instant.
Benton debated for a moment Quickstepping there, but his presence would immediately bring all three of the attackers. And he still wouldn’t be able to even see them. At that point, his presence would be more of a liability to the village than an asset.
There had to be something he could do.
An area attack. He needed to get all three of the cultivators out of the sky. Gravity was the only way to go.
He triggered his Gravity technique, channeling ten thousand qi, all of it supercharged by his Concept, into the surroundings. The trees and everything else in a half-mile radius around him flattened to the ground.
Benton still didn’t see his enemies, though.
“System,” he said internally, “create a Light-based technique that reveals invisible people and objects cloaked in illusion when my qi hits the target and buy the technique to Mastery.”
Technique creation confirmed.
Host has learned the technique, Illusion Illumination – Mastery.
Host has 841 Sect Points available.
He shined his new technique all around the surroundings. Two of the cultivators, the leader and one other, were struggling against the effects of his Gravity technique. It was a bit worrisome that they weren’t fully immobilized, but that concern was minor compared to his second thought—where was the third cultivator?
Probably on his way to the village.
Benton panicked and, for a moment, froze. He had to get back there. He had to kill the two he was fighting. He had to warn his sect members.
His three goals were all in conflict with one another, and he couldn’t figure out what move to make until, suddenly, a thought struck him.
Lightning. It was both an attack and a warning. Two out of three wasn’t perfect, but it was better than one and infinitely better than doing nothing.
He charged two consecutive bolts with a hundred thousand supercharged qi each and struck both the struggling enemies.
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Yang Xiu stood on the allure deep in thought. She wasn’t really meditating. Instead, she was thinking about how her qi aspect could be altered to give her better perception. Which led her to several questions about the nature of her qi and what, exactly, Perception was.
She frowned. Some instinct, perhaps connected to Perception, was telling her that something was wrong, but she didn’t know what.
“Is something the matter, Senior Sister?” Ye Zan said. “You look concerned.”
“I’m not sure. Are my brother or Kang Lin back yet?”
“No, Senior Sister. We’re not expecting either of them for another couple of days. Of course, we weren’t expecting you until that time, either.”
As if she would let the pace of the two weak sect members slow them down. She and the guard had carried the lower ranked members on their backs, and since their mission had been to process the rank nines, they had fewer corpses to deal with than the other two teams.
It had taken her group less than three days total to get there, complete the job, and return.
“Something is definitely wrong,” she said, “but I don’t have any idea what it is.”
Several miles away to the northeast, two massive bolts of lightning struck in quick succession. The sky was clear and blue.
“Master,” Yang Xiu said. “That wasn’t practice. He’s fighting something or someone. That was a warning.”
She nocked an arrow and readied her bow.