34 The cloaked devil (1/2)

Hartley confiscated the space ring of the blonde lanky man then made his way back to the bandit camp....

The first rays of sunshine cut through the hazy dawn making the surroundings a bright blue supplemented by a thin yellow glow.

Hartley had made light work of the blonde haired lanky man within a few exchanges and returned to join the others, up until this point, he had not been pushed, he was a 4th layer xiantian after all, a mid phase xiantian was a difference of heaven and earth when compared to an early phase xiantian, but Hartley knew one should not depend on realms and sub-realms so he had continued practicing his star feet technique and increase his battle experience by not using his full strength.

From the crest of the hill he looked into the valley to see his fellow core disciples battling against the white haired earth elemental 3rd layer xiantian expert.

A sheet of brown elemental light would appear whenever an attack approached his body, it shielded him from harm and he kept moving around the valley managing to avoid taking two simultaneous attacks at the same time.

Lou Rylai approach to the battle was that of an assassin, she was lurking around the edges of the fight, looking for the opportunity to one hit kill the middle aged man. The white haired man had keen battle awareness, so he would not give up such an opportunity.

Qin Li had the speed advantage and was constantly maneuvering to block the white hair man's retreat while swinging his battle axe clashing with sparks against the brown sheet that appears when the man was in danger, the man wasn't attacking, just evading to the best of his abilities while gripping a white needle-like fencing sword in his right hand.

Lou Ang shouted loudly from pure frustration, ”stand and fight you coward, I'm going to carve you to shreds when I get my hands on you” as he too dashed forward with a blood thirsty look on his face and everyone in the group knew he really would take great pleasure shredding the white haired man to bits very slowly.

Lou Tai's leadership on this mission had been abysmal, with a bit of organization they could have trapped the enemy long ago, through this whole mission his interaction with the group had been minimal, he had always chosen to pair up with the one person he knew which was Qin Li and had left the rest of the team to their own devices, he might have assumed that the other three being from Stella mountain would have a familiarity among themselves.

Hartley who was meeting him for the first time, upon seeing the behavior of Lou Ang had no desire to interact with him and Lou Rylai must have been equally as repulsed by the arrogant, sadistic man that she was non talkative through-out the whole mission.

All of this led to fragmented tactics within a fragmented team, each person acting as an individual within the framework of a team chasing the glory of claiming the kill. Hartley had looked into the eyes of the merchants while listening to their story and he wholeheartedly believed them.

There was something or someone sinister in the shrine-like small building at the back but he could not sense any aura which made him even more wary of the threat...

Hartley pushed his gravity steps to the limit down the slope to the valley, tantamount to teleporting into the valley from thin air, he shouted ”everyone back, let me deal with him, stay on guard.”