Benton’s enhanced spiritual senses detected sixteen men and three women slowly entering the warehouse. All but one were in the Qi Gathering Realm, mostly minor realms three and four. A couple were in minor realm two. One was in the fifth. Two were in the sixth and another in the seventh. The man Benton assumed was the leader was the only exception, a Foundation Establishment cultivator in the second minor realm.
Gutter trash. Nothing he couldn’t handle.
Or so Su’s memories told him.
Su was used to a life of combat and killing bandits and even rival sect members, though. In sharp contrast, Benton was a middle manager for a Fortune 500 company whose last fight before coming to this world had been in junior high.
The gang leader probably conducted raids on a regular basis, putting Benton’s one youthful indiscretion to shame in terms of relevant experience. And not only that, but the gang leader severely outclassed Benton in cultivation level. There was an enormous gulf between one major realm and the next. Even if Benton were at the peak and the leader barely past it, the leader would still have a huge advantage in cultivation.
Instead, Benton was in the eighth minor realm, meaning that, in addition to the huge gap of the major realm that stood between the two, four minor realms also separated them.
On paper, the matchup seemed poor for him and his disciples not even taking into account being down nineteen to three in sheer numbers of people. Quantity did have a quality all of its own after all.
No, Benton was not feeling nearly as confident as he’d made it seem to the kids.
On the plus side, he did have two levels of body cultivation, which definitely helped close any gap in physical stats between him and the leader. And Su’s memories were probably right in that any wandering cultivator who joined a gang, even as its leader, wasn’t likely to have access to particularly good cultivation methods or techniques. Benton, on the other hand, had System granted knowledge taking him to Large Success in fighting with a spear, and his cultivation base was pristine.
Additionally, he and his disciples held a clear advantage in equipment. The gang members all held mortal grade weapons, and Benton didn’t sense any talismans or other qi treasures on them.
Tired of dealing with weapons that broke way too easily, he’d picked up a few personal weapons and some other necessary supplies in his wanderings through the city. None of the weapons were fancy—not nearly as nice as either the system supplied ones or the spears he was having produced—but neither would they snap the first time a Qi Gathering cultivator blocked them. With a spear in his hands, a sword hanging in a scabbard on his left hip, and a sheathed dagger on his right, he felt ready for what was to come.
His doubts were just pre-fight nerves. He and the twins would do fine. Right?
Benton was definitely impressed with his disciples. As eager as the kids were to start the battle, they both showed admirable patience. Yang Xiu stayed silent and alert in her sniper’s nest, and Yang Ru had waited much, much longer than Benton had expected.
He didn’t know how his disciple knew when to charge, but he timed it well, starting just after the last of the gang had filed into the warehouse. Benton fell in behind him, following nearly soundlessly in his shadow.
The gang had spread out to each side of the doorway, but they were still centered on it. Which was good for Benton’s plan because that was exactly the direction in which Yang Ru charged.
The warehouse was around two hundred feet long by fifty feet wide, and he started about as far width wise from the entrance at he could. He was big for a fifteen-year-old and months of sparring and practicing his spear technique and hunting spirit beasts had honed his body into a finely tuned machine.
From his physical characteristics alone, the kid’s momentum after fifty feet would be something that might give pause to an NFL linebacker, and that calculation was before one took into account that his cultivation gave him essentially superhuman powers.
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All that to say that Yang Ru was a load.
Each step thundered in the silent warehouse, sound waves bouncing and echoing from the deep, empty recesses. Heavy. But not slow. No, fast. Much faster than one would have thought possible. Accelerating constantly.
Though Benton could sense the gang members’ locations by their qi, he couldn’t actually see them, so he didn’t see their reactions. He had to imagine that the sudden, hard, fierce, thudding footfalls hurtling toward them drew their complete attention.
Not one of them moved.
That was what Benton wanted. For them to feel fear. Shock and awe. To sense the inevitability of their demise.
If only Yang Ru would remember to…
He did!
Just before impacting the poor soul who stood, too slow to get out of the way, at the forefront of the others, Yang Ru triggered a talisman.
A blue tear-shaped shield of qi flashed into being around him. And he struck.
It was like watching a giant bowling ball impact the center of a mass of human-sized pins. And the gang members stood just about as much chance against Yang Ru as the bowling pins did against a ball.
He blew the first guy backward and to the right, taking three others to the ground before coming to rest. Maybe he was alive, maybe not. Even if he was, Benton doubted he’d be able to get up quickly enough to contribute to the fight.
Yang Ru barely slowed after hitting the first guy, soon launching a second guy back and to the left to much the same effect. And a third, that one a girl. Before finally his momentum and the qi from the talisman ran out.
But he’d reached the last row, and he still had his spear ready to strike. Which he did, penetrating all the way through one of the gang members.
Benton wasn’t standing idle while his disciple cut a swath through their enemies. He threw four qi light orbs, simple array devices that produced a soft glow, around the space to give Yang Xiu the illumination she needed to do her work. That task accomplished, he darted toward the presumed leader.
Qi Gathering versus Foundation Establishment did not mean a sect veteran was at a disadvantage. Benton had the better weapon, better skill, and, from Su’s memories, more experience. There was no way his opponent was anything more than trumped up…
Whoa. Benton shook his head. His adrenaline had made him get carried away a little bit there. If he didn’t watch it, he’d find himself unironically shouting, “You’re courting death!”
Benton held his spear poised to strike as he accelerated toward his foe. The leader raised his sword, desperately trying to get it in position to block.
Honestly, Benton thought the guy was trying to fake him out with how slowly he was moving. Surely, it had to be a trick. There was no way the guy could possibly be that sluggish. Turtles and snails would obliterate him in a race. It felt like a scene from an episode of The Flash, where Barry Allen was rushing hither and yon while bullets literally stood motionless in the air.
Nope. No trick. The guy was that slow. Truly.
Stabbing him through the heart was just about the most anti-climactic moment Benton had ever experienced in his life. All that build up and worry for nothing.
He sighed.
Looking up from the leader’s gurgling last breath, he spotted Yang Ru piercing a fourth realm with his spear. One of the gang members had gotten behind him, though, and was about to take his head off with a sword.
Benton was too far away to intercede in time, so he opened his mouth to yell a warning.
Twang!
The guy with the sword suddenly sported an arrow shaft sticking out of his head.
Never mind.
Yang Xiu certainly hadn’t been slacking. The sound of her bowstring vibrating as arrows released had occurred at a frequency to rival a machine gun. Besides the leader and the ones killed by Yang Ru, all the other gang members save one sported the same head worn accoutrement as the guy who’d tried to decapitate Yang Ru.
So, one gang member left, then.
Twang!
Never mind.
Benton scratched the back of his neck. Su’s memories had indicated that he and his disciples weren’t really in much danger from this gang, but the actual experience was more than a little ridiculous.
Better equipment, better training, better techniques, better cultivation methods. There was a reason that sects were feared.
With all those who had come to rob them dead, Benton opened his mouth to congratulate the kids, but he noticed that Yang Ru was on his knees.
Benton immediately feared he’d been injured. The boy didn’t look hurt, though. There was no blood visible. His expression was contemplative, not pained.
He was meditating! Consolidating his gains. What a good kid.
Scratch that. From the complete lack of noise coming from the sniper’s next, Yang Xiu was probably doing the same.
What a couple of great kids.
Benton patiently waited for them to finish until a blue box popped up.
Host’s Disciple, Yang Ru, has reached Mastery in the Fundamental Spear Combat Essentials.
Host is awarded two Sect Points.
Host has thirty-eight Sect Points available.
“Alrighty then,” he told the twins. “Good job.”