Matt looked around, he was still in a highly-populated area, should he go into a more secluded one or should he see what those people that were tailing him would do. He didn’t think they would attack him in a populated area, they probably just wanted to silence him. It was probably for losing face and so he couldn’t testify in the new court he was setting up.
‘But yeah, my clan sure is useless… was hoping for at least someone to notice and shadow me from the side, no one is thinking ahead…’
This would be a good opportunity for the police force to tail him as well, if someone attacked him they could swoop in and apprehend them. It would be a shut case and then they could even try to bring in that clan Patriarch for questioning. Though taking the head of a kind of strong clan would probably result in some bloodshed, but that couldn’t be helped.
‘Would have been a good show of hand, would show people that we don’t look kindly at criminals that retaliate, but alas…’
Matt wasn’t sure about these squad of shadowy figures tailing him, they were probably one of those death warriors he read in books. They would probably kill themselves sooner than getting apprehended by him. He had to swiftly capture them, but they might do some drastic things like swallowing their own tongue.
The truth-telling formation had a weakness, if the person was very adamant about it, it would start divulging copious amounts of pain. This showed that the person was lying, but would also spring in if he didn’t reply to the question. A warrior trained for death would probably not talk and just die in the courtroom, so they didn’t make for great witnesses. Some stronger cultivators could probably just tank the formation’s painful treatment and not die.
There was one other more drastic way to tell if someone was telling the truth or not, which was soul reading. This was an extremely hard technique to perform but it let the one performing it read the truth from the person they were using it on. This would leave the person dead outright though and you required a high cultivation level to not suffer damage to your own soul in response.
When the technique was used the two souls collided against each other in a sort of battle, the one that came out on top could read the truth from the weaker one. It would destroy that soul in the process and the soul that won out, would receive some wounds. Due to this it was quite unsafe for the person reading it as well. It could lead to problems in the cultivation down the road, so it was rarely used only sometimes when there was no other way or maybe if someone’s life depended on it.
‘Why do these things keep happening whenever I want to get some food?”
He was standing outside a restaurant the sun already going down, he sighed and walked on, he didn’t want to risk those cultivation hobos getting the people inside the establishment involved. He started going to a more secluded area of the city where the people living there wouldn’t get involved too much. He hoped that the assassins that were tailing him don’t chicken out as this was an obvious trap, who just wanders into an empty plot of land in the middle of the night?
‘Well, these cultivator nuts are always very prideful they probably think this will be the perfect opportunity to kill me. Too stuck up to think that someone noticed their movements and is stronger than them. Though I’d rather deal with these types than with those that won’t show their fangs right until the end while letting their own family members die instead.
That was indeed the worst type of person in these kind’s of worlds to go against. They would act all chummy with you, being some third cousin of the Patriarch from god knows where. Always losing against their own siblings but in reality, having some kind of strange technique that made them insanely strong. They would slowly build up their power base on the down low, then pounce you when you were on your weakest just to be sure that they could take you out.
While he was moving through an empty alleyway he noticed some movement, he wanted to go further in and even outside the city if you could but these men weren’t willing to just tail him that long.
‘Hm, did they notice that there was something fishy?’
He could feel them moving in front of him, they had some kind of shadow art that made them blend in within the darkness of the night. He could feel their presence though, even without his detection technique the gap in cultivation was far too large. It felt like he was about to pick on some kids, but these men were ruthless killers, he was already past the point of feeling bad about killing people like that. He still wanted the police to bring them in, but he wasn’t sure that these people would come quietly.
It was creepy looking, he could see the shadows wiggling about like some kind of dark liquid was going through it. Inside that dark mass were cultivators just shuffling through the walls, they went past him probably to cut away his only route of escape. He kept on walking, letting them think that he didn’t notice something, but inside he was slightly mad that he couldn’t eat those nice meat buns at that restaurant he was going to go to.
There were three people in front and three people behind him now, but those weren’t all of them. There were also two people on each side up on the buildings. There were exactly ten attackers, the weakest one was in the middle stage of foundation establishment and they even had two in the great circle, most of them were in the late stage though.
Matt wasn’t sure if he should be honored that they sent such a big murder force after him, or if he should feel bad that these guys were going against someone that was half step into the nascent soul realm.
‘Ah, should I just finish them quickly or play around…’
He thought back to the time in the secret area, where he was a bit too prideful for his own good. It would probably not be a good thing to not take these guys seriously, even though they had no way to harm him, they could always try taking hostages while fleeing. They could even blow up part of the city if the scuffle got too obvious.
‘I guess I should put on my business face and wrap this up.’
While he was thinking that, he heard something whizzing through the air. This was something that he was quite knowledgeable of. Every serious weeb would know what these things coming towards him were.
‘Oh, throwing stars? shurikens?’
They were coming at him from all sides. He could see them spinning around in slow motion while they flew towards all of the vital points of his body. These guys weren’t playing around, they were trying to snipe him with their throwing stars. He had a couple of ways to take care of these projectile weapons, he could even let them hit his body as he didn’t think they could pierce through his body refining technique. He could also release his aura to slow their approach or even use his shielding technique.
He went for a more rudimentary approach though. Firstly he moved his hands upwards, stretching them out while examining where the first batch of shurikens was coming from. His hands were fast as lightning. A normal cultivator would only see afterimages or even less than that as Matt in the form of the elder started catching the incoming weapons with his hands.
The men from the shadows didn’t relent though, they kept at it the clinging and clanging of metal quickly resounding through the alley as Matt didn’t have enough space between his fingers to catch all of these projectile weapons. He started bouncing them backward, his palm strikes formed a sort of dome around the area that he was standing in.
The assassins looked at the spectacle while sweat formed on their foreheads, they could barely follow this old man’s movements. The stronger ones from the group could somewhat keep up, but in the reality was that killing this elder wouldn’t be quite easy. They were even astonished that he wasn’t going down, he clearly smacked the weapons back with his hands, the shurikens were laced with poison that on skin contact would dull the enemies movements and render them defenseless within a short amount of time.
“The poison isn’t working, everyone attack together!”
Matt noticed before the weapon’s hit that there was some liquid on it, but his body was way too tough and resistant to be affected by such crude venom. There was a small pile of metallic stars next to his feet now, the enemies finally deciding to go into melee range. They charged from the back and from the rear while the assassin members that were on the roofs continued with the range attacks.
He could now get a good look at these attackers, they looked quite familiar and the weapons that they kept throwing at them fit their appearance quite well.
‘Damn, nice ninja outfits…’
They looked quite similar to a certain ice slinging ninja game character, though their ninja robes were pure black with some metallic parts here and there. They had armguards on their hands and some shoulder guards as well, the part that covered their mouth was a separate piece from their hood part and it looked like it could function as a gas mask to boot.
‘Guess I need to be wary of any strange fumes coming out from them.’
The attackers had various ninja-themed weapons, there were the usual katanas here and there. One person had a hooked sword of sorts while another was holding on to that weapon that looked like a sickle attached to a chain with a weight at the end part of the chain. One was dual-wielding sickle-like weapons outright, he could even hear the top cultivators switching to other weapons which blew darts this time around.
“Quite the ferocious bunch aren’t ya? Did the Xing Clan send you to silence this old man? I’m not sure you’ll be up to the task though.”
The assassins didn’t reply and just charged in, they knew that this man was taking them lightly and they wanted to profit on his lax attitude. The attacks were coming from all sides and they knew how to work together, no one under the core formation-level could be a match for this group. But this was the problem, the man they were facing was a lot stronger than that.
Just before one of their attacks was about to land and the other members were following up for a combo, the man vanished. The six ninjas came to a stop, their eyes bulging as they couldn’t see the old man anywhere he just vanished from the spot not leaving anything behind. Well, the shurikens that were on the ground were flickering now as if some electricity was got infused due to something.
“GAH! ARGH!”
They soon looked up, the man was holding one of their squadmates in his hand and by the neck. The other three were already falling down from the building and out cold.
“Always go for the support first!”
The men with the blow darts couldn’t even get one clean hit as Matt charged upwards while using his thunder steps. He had gotten it to such a high proficiency that it looked like he was teleporting at this point. The man in his grasp convulsed and twitched as he was getting choked out with one hand. He didn’t kill them just yet as for now he just infused them with his Qi to make them pass out, they wouldn’t wake out for quite some time with his superior energy interfering with their inferior one.
The old man tossed the enemy that was now more or less a rag doll to the side. He then hopped off the building he was standing on and kicked himself off some bricks that were at the top part of the wall. His kick caused part of the wall to crack, he was soon back on the ground. He did a flip and landed on his feet, the ground shaking under the pressure and spider-like webs forming in the earth below.
He kicked up quite the dust cloud and made a lot of noise, the assassin ground still went after him, failure was not an option and they would die anyway if they let this man go. The old man wasn’t as passive anymore though, before they could reassess the situation his fist was flying towards the strongest member of the group.
The man didn’t have enough time to activate any of his defensive treasures nor to dodge this fast attack. He took a clean hit, his cheekbones breaking as he flew like a puppet with its strings severed towards the alley. He bounced and bounced as he flew further and further finally ramming into the side of the wall, out cold and a bloody mess.
Soon his friends ended up in the same way, their faces were all battered and bruised this elder wasn’t playing around. Soon enough he was holding up onto the last member of the group. Matt pulled his mask down to reveal a forty-something man, the man was looking at him with fear in his eyes probably not willing to die here and now.
“So, you willing to answer a couple of questions, I’ll guarantee your safety if you do, you might even only have to work in a mine for a while instead of getting killed, sounds like a good deal, right?”
Before the man could answer the old man looked to the side, the grin from his face replaced with a frown. The assassin squinted with his eyes, trying to see who it was that came, was it help from the Xing clan? When he heard the voice though, he knew that it was someone else entirely.
“Stop right there criminal scum! Nobody breaks the law under our watch!”
Matt looked at the half beaten man in his grip, he had blood on his fists and looked like the bad guy in this situation.
‘Awww, shit…’
