38 Headed back (2/2)

Lou Tai played a game of cat and mouse as he danced in and out of the hammer's range trying to get in his own attacks, the problem was, the man had impeccable defense. An earth wall would stop all fireballs and the man's skin had transformed into some kind of earthen armor.

Hartley changed direction and intercepted the water elemental expert moving towards Qin Li, he stepped forward his blue eyes calm and unworried. In a single smooth motion he lashed out his red short sword in his left hand. This time both of Hartley's hands had a blue aura writhing and roiling from his shoulders to the tip of his swords like a serpentoscillating in a clockwise direction.

Hartley had seen the first exchange between this expert and Qin Li, he knew the opponent was very versed in using soft to control hard, he could use the force of his opponents strike and guide the opponent's weapon where it would leave the opponent the most vulnerable. Hartley's left blade stabbed forward, the water elemental expert took a side on stance and tried to rotate his sword out to the left on contact...

When the swords clashed it was like a missile had detonated on the mans short sword, a blue glow exploded into the dusk air exposing both fighter's silhouette as sparks flew out from both swords, the man stumbled back, his sword arm numb from shoulder to fingers, not giving him time to evenbreathe Hartley executed a quick overhead strike with his right handed silver sword in a quick follow up while the man was stumbling back, the expert pushed up his sword and tried to parry the strike out to the side again.

This time as soon as the swords made contact Hartley lowered his hips and rotated his sword in a circle faster than the opponent, then pushed his sword upwards high and to the right with maximum strength, the short sword flew out of the opponents hand and disappeared into the forest. Hartley then took a step and a half to the left circling around as the wide eyed man was off balance and executed his typhoon kick, his right leg lashed out leaving blurry blue shadow images as it made crunching-contact with the man's back sending him flying forward screaming in horrible pain from a broken back and headed in the direction that Qin Li was...

Qin Li had just shaken the rust out of his head, his confidence was taken down a notch in one exchange with the elegant water element expert. He clasped his hands around his axe and headed back towards the action...his eyes then widened with glee as if a pie just fell out of the sky..The man that kicked his ass a few minutes ago was screaming in pain and flying towards him absolutely defenseless, Qin Li gripped his axe, it glowed bright green and he chopped out as the man was about to fly pass, The man screams abruptly stopped as his top half was separated from the bottom, both halves flew pass Qin LI leaving a trail of blood, inner organs and entrails scattered about the main road.

Qin Li muttered under his breath, ”nothing like an easy kill to get your confidence back up, now time for that other bastard.” He went to join Hartley and Lou Tai...

BOOM! WACK! KABOOM! The scar face man's hammer turned anything solid it came it to contact with to splinters, dust and pebbles..The problem was he was too slow and his strikes too predictable, as the scar face man swung at Lou Tai, Hartley popped up behind him like a phantom and struck out a powerful strike at his back with 20x gravity applied to his silver sword, BOOM! the earth wall appeared again guarding the man's back but it was shattered, the silver sword went onto slash against his back launching him rolling on the floor, Lou Tai and Qin Li quickly surrounded him and got in their attacks but they couldn't break through the man's stone skin.

The scar face man got up with a look incredulity on his face, there was blood running down his back, his robe was shredded where the strike had landed, it had been a long time since someone had broken through both his earth wall and stone skin in one strike, not since he was in the third layer and sparring with his master. Now he turned to face Hartley giving his back to the other two, slowly backing away disregarding the two at his back as sweat was dripping down his face, a genuine fear could be seen in his expression.

He made an executive decision there and then, even though this mission was important, it could never be as important as his life, he had to preserve his life and with this young man in front of him,it would be matter of time before the three opponents wore him down and executed him in the streets like some common criminal.

Hartley was surprised, that strike would have turned a boulder 20 meters high into fine powder, this guy is tough thought Hartley, The man then turned into sand and fell to the ground and disappeared, he materialized a hundred meters in the direction of the Cosmos region. Lou Tai and Qin Li dashed after the man and Hartley shouted ”stop, let him go.”

They both stopped with unwilling looks, ”its been a long mission, lets not chase him back to the Cosmos region.” Technically Lou Tai was in charge and he could have pulled rank, but he turned back and so did Qin Li. With the man obviously reluctant to battle any more, Hartley led the group to catch up to the merchants and headed towards the Waltham province..

The scar face man too had a unwilling look on his face, how was he going to explain that he was repelled by the youngsters and lost two experts. He headed back in the direction of the Cosmos region soon after...