At the same moment that the cart moved again, Elder Chen stood up. He had fully recovered his Qi.
Both he and Zhen Mang didn't activate their movement techniques this time and simply walked towards the mine's gate. It took them the time for two incense sticks to burn to see light ahead of them. The light came from a big luminous stone that was placed on the tunnel floor. Around the light, they discerned eight people, four of them were looking to the west, guarding the tunnel. The other four were looking in the opposite direction, guarding an iron gate, the mine entrance.
Intending to make a scene, Elder Chen left the shadows and started approaching the guards. These guards were dressed in common black robes and were armed with short swords. When one of them saw the white-robed Elder, he whistled to signal the rest of the men.
"Who is it?!" After alerting the others, the one who spotted Elder Chen shouted
Without answering or slowing down his pace, Elder Chen continued approaching. Seeing this, the guards unsheathed their swords and spread into a semi-circle, seemingly wanting to surround him.
When only a dozen feet were separating him from the nearest guard, Elder Chen made a quick motion with his hand. A simple, dried stick appeared in it. Releasing his aura, which surprisingly was of the pinnacle Soul realm he disappeared from where he was.
The next moment, the guards who were momentarily frozen by the aura that only cultivators after the mid Soul realm could release saw that the Elder standing behind the guard who was nearest to him. This guard who was on the front left of the semicircle sensed that something was not right, but when he turned around with his sword aimed to cut the mysterious cultivator he suddenly shuddered and fell to the ground while spurting blood. The man, who was only at the beginner levels of the Spirit realm didn't even notice how he was wounded. But the other seven did, a clear cleaved wound was seen. But how? What is that stick in his hand? These were the first questions that appeared in their minds, but, one had to say that they were well trained.
Without the angry shouting or any emotions on their faces, they rushed to surround Elder Chen. The Elder did not move from the spot he was standing on, he was looking around with a cold expression, but he seemed totally relaxed while letting the seven men surround him.
When he was surrounded, six of them attacked him with the same kind of slash. Six slashes that started from the floor quickly moving upwards. These slashes came from six different directions, and they were close enough to don't leave space to dodge.
Without changing his expression, the Elder jumped. Seeing this, a cold smirk appeared on the face of the seventh man, who did not join the previous attack. He was standing right behind and a bit before the Elder jumped muttered
"Circle formation, 'Behead'" releasing a qi slash. This qi slash quickly flew towards where the Elder's neck should be in mid-air.
But the image that the attacker imagined did not happen, the slash flew across the air without encountering anything on its path. Shocked, the seven of them could see that although the old man jumped upwards to evade the six slashes, he was currently standing on the floor with no signs that he moved.
Again, the men although shocked and without understanding what had happened did not freeze and started a new round of attacks. This time the seven of them pierced with their swords, this pierces were not only coming from different directions but also were at a different height. Facing this sure-kill attack, Elder Chen quickly turned around and blocked only one, the pierce that was coming directly to his head, sent by the same man that previously had released the qi slash.
When the six other swords reached his robes an even more shocking image was presented to the attackers. Not only the swords did not penetrate the robes of this old man, but they even broke!
Although long to describe this all took a very brief time to happen. If an expert was observing the battle from the sidelines, he could explain that what the men saw was in reality a faint image of Elder Chen. This image created by a qi technique jumped diverting the attacker's attention while the real one remained standing.
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Then the hand where Elder Chen was holding the stick moved.
This movement was very quick, and a cultivator below the Soul realm would never discern that the stick had touched every one of the swords, slightly diverting the speed and incline of the slashes. With this, the slashes passed had missed his body by a hair width.
But this light touch had partially broken the swords, although it wasn't really hard to notice, during a battle that had all their attention occupied, these low-level cultivators missed that fact and hit robe which the elder reinforced with his qi - thus directly breaking the swords before they could do him any harm.
The next moment, the real hell for the men that were standing began. The old man that had just broken their swords and blocked the last attack suddenly jumped. From behind them, as if coming from the air, a black chain appeared. This chain encircled the seven men in a brief moment contracted to crash them into each other on the place where the elder just was.
One of the men was unlucky and when crashing was pierced by the sword that was blocked just a moment before. When two of them turned their heads, they saw the white-clothed expert landing next to them, and heard him speak in a voice filled with pity
"Zhen Mang, I wanted to capture them alive"
"One is enough" A cold voice answered from the shadows and then a giant dressed in black robes appeared while holding the end of the chain. He made a seal with his right hand and after that, the chain started glowing in a strange blood-red color. At the next moment, to the terror of the men bound by it, the chain started constricting them more and more.
After some moment filled with groans, shouting, cursing, and sounds of bone-breaking only pieces of their bodies remained on the bloodied floor.
Zhen Mang, without any expression on his face, pulled the chain closer to him and after using another seal the chain shrank into two links with light qi fluctuation around. One of the links was black, while the other link was bloody red. This was the spirit weapon of the Head Enforcer, called 'Links of the Judge'. He turned to the Elder, and with a calm tone said
"Palace Master, I don't think that even the one who you captured will speak. This silent manner and the sword circle formation that ignores any possible danger while being used, I think you also guessed who are this people"
"Underhill group death swords" The Elder replied in a grave tone
"Yes. Our only hope for clues comes from the experts that are in the mine"
"I still wanted to capture them, but what's done that's done" Saying this, Elder Chen looked as Zhen Mang approached the man wounded at the start of the battle, and after checking his condition gathered some qi on a finger and used it to sever the pathways between the meridians. Then with the same method, he quickly damaged the tendons on the legs and arms. This was to seal the cultivation of the captive and make him unable to move, or suicide.
Seeing the pity on the Elder's face, Zhen Mang only shrugged while saying
"This is the only method for any death sworn warrior. I know the Wisdom Palace Master doesn't like violence, resorting to it only where there is no other way..."
"I know what you want to say Head Enforcer, this isn't the moment to be kind. Let's go, if this did not attract the attention of the experts in this group, then we will flush them out by scanning every nook and cranny of the mine" Saying this, Elder Chen turned around and started walking towards the iron gate. The gate was locked, without any hesitation, he crashed it with a swing of his stick, which in reality was a high-level spirit weapon made from the hardest tree known on the 7 islands, the Iron Cliff tree. Not only it was heavy and indestructible by anything under the Earth level weapons, but it also did not let out any qi, making it look like a simple piece of wood.
Right after the gate, Elder Chen arrived on a thirty feet width square with stairs and corridors located on the sides. From the edge of this platform, the rails descended into the depths of the mine by following a slope. When Zhen Mang also entered, both of them took places on both sides of the gate and released their auras, and extended their senses. The former to alert the experts in the mine while the latter search for them if they decide to remain hidden.