The people had noticed that something was afoot. At one point the audience started pouring out, the communication jades had gone down so information wasn’t going through as well as it should. The Dark Palm members formed a perimeter around the large building keeping all those people that wanted to escape there.
Most core formation elders that were stationed in this city and were close by, went into the arena. The people keeping order outside were mostly in the foundation establishment realm, with two or three people being on the weaker end of core formation.
“What’s happening inside senior…”
One of the sect members posed this question to an older looking man that looked to be the one in charge here. The man played with his beard while trying to get some more info with the help of his communication jade but to no avail.
“That doesn’t matter, just keep anyone from leaving, that was the last order that the young Master had given us, The grand elder is also there now, so everything should be fine.”
Wu Ming had gone inside some time ago after noticing the large blast of Qi that destroyed a quarter of that large arena. The nascent soul elder didn’t give them any orders in particular, but Yang Kai did before the communication devices went out. They would continue to follow this order out of fear of offending a prominent sect master.
While they were diligently carrying out the order something finally occurred. A golden like storm shot out into the air and into the surrounding area momentarily stunning some of the cultivators outside. This was the aura attack that Zhang Dong used to knock out all the core formation cultivators in the vicinity. This didn’t reach outside though as he was afraid to hurt the civilians outside. He was only able to keep the attack away from people close to him, like the members from the triforce alliance that were at the arena building with him.
Soon people could see two blurry figures taking off, the ground rumbled and the spiritual energy around the area exploded. Hurricane like winds erupted in the city causing quite a bit of residual damage. Everyone looked in the direction of those two figures, the two busted through some jade green pagodas. One was covered in a golden hue while the other person was clouded in shade like energy.
Wu Ming and Zhang Dong clashed with each other, their colliding fists produced shockwaves that caused widespread damage. The people that were the closest to this fight scream out in fright, quickly scattering to various locations to keep themselves safe.
“Two masters are fighting, run for your lives!”
“Is another sect attacking? What’s going on?”
“Oh no… the city is getting wrecked!”
People shouted out in panic while trying to get away, rubble was falling everywhere. Matt managed to push his opponent back while they clashed sending him barreling into the ground. He floated up in the air and looked around, taking a second to reassess this situation.
‘This doesn’t look good… if this continues we’ll destroy the whole city… and might even cause casualties.’
Matt didn’t care much about the Dark Palm Sect base that was in this city, it would be even better if it got smashed into pieces. The problem was the commoners living here, he didn’t want to cause mass destruction or injure anyone that wasn’t involved in this scuffle. The two nascent soul cultivators were doing the equivalent of throwing some left jabs at each other at the moment. They were feeling each other out, just measuring each other’s all-around power level.
‘This guy clearly doesn’t care, I bet he would throw meat shields at me if he figured out that I didn’t want to attack the regular folk.’
Normally people at their levels didn’t care that much about the lives of others. His opponent probably wouldn’t think that this Zhang Patriarch cared about harming the citizens of this city.
‘I think we need a change of scenery…’
Matt looked to the side and focused his senses, he was trying to find a certain location.
‘There, that’s a good spot to start things out.’
He grinned slightly while looking down, Wu Ming was already standing up and glaring daggers in his direction. He soon jumped right in, but his opponent didn’t throw himself at him, no. The cultivator called Zhang Dong started flying upwards as if he was fleeing. The Dark Palm Elder didn’t know what this guy was up to, but he followed after him while delivering some ranged attacks that looked like a barrage of shadowy arrows.
“Where are you going, you think you can escape?”
Wu Ming noticed something about this cultivator, he was clearly only in the early stage. The four stages of the nascent soul had distinct power signatures to them. It didn’t matter how much spiritual energy the cultivator had. Even if someone in the early stage had more spiritual energy than someone in the middle stage, you could still tell them both apart. The so-called marker of the stage was quite distinct.
From Wu Ming’s perspective, he had the upper hand, even though this enemy he was fighting had massive amounts of Qi he was still only in the early stage. He felt that in the long run, he should be able to take this win. This man was also acting strangely, after delivering a good hit he just backed away and started flying away instead of going with the flow of the fight. It made it seem as if he was trying to flee or at least gain some space between Wu Ming and himself, maybe he wasn’t that good at hand to hand combat?
Zhang Dong that was glowing like a light-bulb flew through the air, everyone that saw him coming instantly fled into their homes. Right behind him was quite the angry-looking man with salt and pepper hair, the black arrows that had the shadow attribute raced right behind him. For some reason, Zhang Dong slowed down each time and received the ranged attack with his own energy negating it in the process. This was odd as he could very well just dodge them instead, not many people knew that he was doing it so that those ranged attacks wouldn’t hit a passerby.
‘Is he mocking me?’
This only made Wu Ming that was flying behind him even madder. He figured the man was taking his attacks just to show him that they weren’t up to par. He wanted to increase the number of his attacks, but his opponent didn’t look fazed. He needed more time to charge up a stronger one, but if he did that Zhang Dong would be gone by that point.
The chase continued and more shadowy attacks rained, this time though the white-haired man dodged to the side. The old man that was doing the chasing smirked, thinking that he was probably at his limit and couldn’t just defend himself anymore. The attack that Matt dodged flew into the distance and hit some kind of defensive formation. The formation wasn’t able to hold on though and a couple of those shadow bolts descended downwards into the buildings that were behind this shield.
“Nice hit, but I think you missed a spot.”
Zhang Dong gave Wu Ming a thumbs up before moving his hand upwards while forming a lightning spear. He chucked it in the same general direction where the shadow arrows flew, his attack causing more destruction than the previous attack.
“W-what’s happening, we are getting attacked!”
“The defensive formation has crumbled just after one hit, are those nascent soul cultivators!”
“Why are two nascent soul masters attacking us, is this an attack from an opposing sect?”
The people looked up into the air with fright in their eyes. They saw a cultivator dressed in some strange armored white robe, slightly behind him was another cultivator that was wearing a Dark Palm elder robe. One of the people on the ground recognized the older looking person and quickly spoke out.
“Isn’t that Elder Ming from the main sect?”
“What is he doing here?”
The people murmured among each other, Matt showed a slight grin and quickly shouted so that everyone could hear him.
“Yes, Elder Ming ol’ buddy ol’ pal, let us destroy this sect outpost before they figure out that we are from the Demon Subduing Sect!”
Wu Ming was taken aback, his eyes bugged out in confusion as he didn’t know what to say.
“W-what nonsense are you spewing!”
The man tried to give a retort but the man in the white battle robe gave out a dazzling radiance that blinded most of the people in the area. A loud rumbling sound followed suit that also drowned out whatever elder Ming was saying. A barrage of guided lightning spears that just looked like a mass of golden lightning bolts descended upon the Dark Palm cultivators, raining doom upon them.
This, of course, was the outer sect base that belonged to the Dark Palm sect. Matt had gotten a brilliant idea after he noticed that his opponent wasn’t really looking where he was shooting his attacks. The Demon Subduing Sect name came up previously, from what he could recall he knew that both of these sects were antagonistic towards each other. He wasn’t sure if this silly scheme would work out, but he was willing to give it a go.
The seed of doubt was placed now, he just needed to remove the only person that could give away his bs act. Firstly he targeted all the main buildings at this base, making sure to cause mayhem and destruction. He was still feeling bad about attacking people out of nowhere, but this was the start of a war. He realized that he had to put his own people first, he was already being merciful by focusing on the structures and the core formation cultivators in this area. He wasn’t even going for kills and was trying to just cripple their cultivation bases for now.
After the flash of light cleared, you could hear the groans and moans of the people that were implicated by Matt’s wide-area lightning barrage. The whole place was a mess, the ground and buildings were trashed and the area looked like it had been hit by missiles.
“Haha, take that you vile Dark Palm scum! Elder Ming, we should go now before they call for more help!”
This was a big gamble, would they even believe this obvious lie? There was also the other problem of the Demon Subduing Sect getting angry at him for spreading some misinformation, but he could just deny the claims if that time came. Elder Ming, on the other hand, was already coming straight at him, his whole body covered in a shadowy aura.
“Stop spouting this hogwash!”
He was fast to recover, he wasn’t sure why this man was doing this type of act but he just had to take care of him before any further trouble arose. Before he could close in though, the white-haired man’s figure blurred, in an instant, he was right in front. The two made eye contact for a fraction of a second before Wu Ming saw a palm going for his face. He was rushing forward and couldn’t react to his enemy’s speed.
This wasn’t an attack though, Zhang Dong’s digits pushed into the older man’s face as he grabbed him by the face. Due to the sudden grab, Wu Ming’s lower body flew forward while his neck and head were pushed backward. The two men then flew into the distance leaving the area of the outer sect headquarters.
The older nascent soul cultivator grasped Zhang Dong’s wrist and pushed his shadow Qi into his own digits in the hopes of wrestling himself free. To no avail as the divine lightning Qi that formed a thin protective layer was holding in place. The man pushed his whole middle stage to the apex while trying to wrestle himself free, but he just couldn’t budge this man’s vice-like grip that he had over his face.
Wu Ming’s body then flew through the air as he crushed into some boulders. He was finally free and found himself in some unknown location outside of the city. His opponent was just hovering above the ground and looking at him, hands crossed over one another as if he was taunting him.
“Well then, Mr. Big Grand Elder of the Dark Palm Sect. I don’t think that you will surrender peacefully?”
Wu Ming just looked up at his opponent, eyes squinting. He waved his hand producing an obsidian Jian sword that had similar Qi qualities to that shadowy Qi that he was using. The old man pointed the sword towards his enemy, no words came out of his mouth but Matt could feel that this man’s danger level went up a notch.
“Didn’t think so…”