The Bloodfiend Sect disciples, as well as the crowd of other youths, all watched in stunned silence as John's figure was slowly revealed within the fading explosion. Once the explosion fully faded away, John's figure became clear to all.
Small trickles of blood flowed over his body in several areas, but a brief inspection revealed them to be shallow and superficial wounds. They were barely skin deep, and would not hamper his fighting prowess in any way. In fact, John's aura seemed to be stronger than ever, as if the combined attacks of five Bloodfiend Sect disciples had only tickled him, and only made him look even more sinister.
Even the Supreme Battle Sect youths were stunned silent. While they had the strongest bodies of the Four Great Sects, as they were the only body cultivation sect, none of them would dare to take a head on attack like that. If it were them, they would be severely injured, or even killed by allowing five attacks to land on them in such a manner.
Their bodies allowed them incredible durability, but not to the level they had just witnessed.
"Who are you?"
The Bloodfiend Sect youth asked in a slightly trembling voice. He had a bad feeling about what was about to happen. The five regrouped together, to form the strongest battle formation they could.
John ignored the question, and his scythe suddenly appeared in his hands. The scythe began to glow in an incredibly ominous red and black color, and the power building up on it stunned all those present. His face paled slightly as he put his full essence power into this attack, unleashing it with the intent to kill.
Divine Reaping Scythe!
John unleashed his divine reaping scythe towards the group of five Bloodfiend Sect youths. He slashed out horizontally, allowing the arcing scythe beam to slice at all of them at the same time. Although it was unrelated to his Divine Reaping Scythe, John's recent scythe insights elevated his scythe comprehensions to a higher level, further increasing the power of his Divine Reaping Scythe.
The power and sharpness of the attack instilled nothing but dread into the five, and they each readied their weapons in an attempt to stop the attack.
"Block it together!"
At the same time the attack approached from the front, several lightning nodes appeared in the air behind them.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Five Heavenly Lightning Domain attacks pierced from behind the group directly towards their backs. Each youth noticed the lightning attacks at the last moment, but were too late to stop it. John had prioritized speed instead of power for these domain attacks, and each reached the youths in an instant.
"Gah!"
Each youth cried out in pain, as the lightning attacks struck directly onto their backs. While the power of each attack was lessened to improve their speed, the destructive and annihilative property of the attacks, due to John's Primordial Extermination Lightning technique, ravaged their body from within, slowing their movements greatly.
Fighting against John and his Heavenly Lightning Domain, with his incredible control over lightning due to his Lightning Attribute Body and Primordial Extermination Lightning cultivation technique, was like fighting multiple enemies at once.
Normal Heavenly Lightning Domain users would have a short activation time for their domain, which would give it away. John however, was able to activate it in an instant, catching those unaware of such an ability by surprise.
The slowed movements due to the lightning domain attacks was all John needed, as his Divine Reaping Scythe reached the youths.
Che!
A sharp slicing sound rang out, as the Divine Reaping Scythe attack collided with the Bloodfiend Sect youths. Each youth, powerless to stop it due to the rampaging lightning in their bodies, was cleanly sliced in half at the waist.
"Gahhh!"
Pained cries rang out again, as the now severed in half youths each collapsed to the ground.
"Gahhh!" The pained cries continued.
"Shut up!" John replied in a cold tone as he slowly walked over to the youths. He arrived next to one of the youths, who was a boy with spiky red hair. Blood soaked the ground beneath him as he continued to cry out in pain.
Che!
His scythe blade sliced out, cleanly severing the head of the boy and silencing his cries. He walked over to the next Bloodfiend Sect disciple, who was one of the two girls in the group. Her pained and fearful eyes looked up at John in a pleading manner as she cried out to him.
"Please, no-"
However, her cries were silenced as well as her head was cleanly severed from her body. John walked over to two of the other youths, doing the same to them. His cold and emotionless face while carrying out these acts chilled the watching crowd to their very core.
Eventually, all that was remaining was the lead youth who had been talking the most. John walked slowly over to him, and looked down on him from above.
Blood was flowing from the youths lips and severed waist, as he slowly began to have the life fade from his body. John's cold eyes pierced into the boy's very soul, and he knew pleading would do him no good.
His fearful eyes turned to one's of gloating, as he coughed up a message to John.
"Heh, at least I...won't beg for my...life...like a dog. Unlike...your friend...hehehe."
John's eyes turned even colder at hearing those words. He stared in silence at the boy for a moment before responding.
"Russell would never beg for his life. He would have rather died than beg. But as for you, I'm afraid the same can't be said."
Che!
John's hand pierced forward into the boy's abdomen, instantly crippling his dantian.
"Gahhh!"
The boy cried out once more in excruciating pain, and John quickly forced a healing pill down his throat. The boy's bleeding quickly stabilized, and his previous smug expression was replaced with one of misery and despair.
John looked up towards the crowd, and his cold eyes chilled them once more.
"None of you are to leave this spot. When I get back from dealing with him, I have some questions to ask you all. If anyone leaves, I'll hunt you down and kill you myself," John said in an incredibly cold tone.
His voice froze all those present completely stiff, and none doubted the authenticity of his threat.
John looked back down towards the boy at his feet, and reached down to grab his arm. The crowd watched in silence as John dragged the boy into one of the nearby buildings.
Pained cries echoed out loudly over the crowd for hours as they waited for John to return. After many many hours of this, the cries stopped, and silence descended over the area. John quickly left the building and returned to the crowd. He briefly stopped by each of the corpses and gathered them in his spatial realm, before walking directly to the crowd.
He stopped several yards away from them, and stared at them for a moment. His terrifying aura had long since died down, but none in the crowd had forgotten it's terrifying and sinister nature.
"I already got the details from him, but I want to be sure they're accurate. Who saw what happened here before I arrived?" John asked.
He wanted to get to the bottom of what had truly happened. His interrogations of the Bloodfiend Sect youths had revealed many things. He managed to get a description of what the Four Kings and Three Emperors looked like, as well as their names, although the youth didn't know what battle arts they used.
The youth also gave an explanation of what had happened in the fight with Russell, but John wanted to be sure of the details.
The crowd remained silent for some time before a disciple of the Supreme Battle Sect stepped forward. The youth was the one who had spoken out earlier in protest, and was one of the only Half-Step Core Formation disciples present.
John looked over to him and remained silent as he waited for an explanation.
"I arrived just as the fight began to take place. It occurred only thirty minutes before you arrived. Although I'm not sure what started the fight, but the two were already arguing, and I saw your...fellow disciple unleash a powerful earth attack towards the Bloodfiend Sect opponent."
The boy paused for a moment to gather his thoughts, before continuing.
"His opponent was one of the Bloodfiend Sect's Three Emperors, Damon, the Blood Emperor. Damon easily evaded all of your friends' attacks, at which point he unleashed his own attacks and completely overwhelmed your friend. Your friend was severely injured, and as a last resort took out a spatial talisman to leave the area…"
The boy paused once more, causing John to frown slightly.
"Continue," John commanded.
"Just as your friend was about to crush the talisman, Damon used a strange technique, completely freezing the movements of your friend. That short opening was all he needed to land the final blow," the Supreme Battle Sect youth replied.
John listened in silence to the description of the fight. It matched what the Bloodfiend Sect youth had told him, and gave him a pretty clear picture of what had happened. John's eyes turned towards Adam, who was standing to the side of the crowd.
"Let's go," John said to Adam, as he turned and began to walk deeper into the ancient city. His previous goal of exploring the city had been replaced with a new one...eradicate the Bloodfiend Sect.