“Haha this time we truly got a huge haul. Maybe I can even dethrone one of the executives in our guild with the wealth we accumulated this time.” Wu-Feng smirked as he prepared to seal his storage ring containing all the looted treasures.

“You monster! There will be heavenly retribution that’ll punish you in the future! You’ll regret this.” Tan-Min screamed out, disregarding the poison inside his own body as Wu-Feng’s henchmen prepared to molest and rape his sister.

“Hahaha tell you what, the moment I regret I’ll go and become a monk. Heck I’ll march up to Shaolin, confess my sins and repent there forever.” Wu-Feng laughed out loud.

“Sigh. There’s two innocent bystanders amidst all these people.” Ryu said to himself. Just a moment ago he was okay in not intervening since he doesn’t feel obligated to save devious people but these two siblings did not deserve this end.

Flash! Suddenly a blinding light exploded throughout the cave. Every inch of the place was illuminated and no shadow escaped the striking brightness. Even if you close your eyes and covered it with a plank of wood, you would still be affected. Solar Burst stance from the Eternal Phoenix was made to blind your opponent’s vision by creating an artificial sun.

Chaos ensured immediately after everyone’s vision got compromised. The den full of thieves from the Obscure Shadows Thief Guild did not expect a sneak attack from within their own base. They had an expensive Enchantment guarding them and over a dozen King Domain experts. However, deep down they were all selfish and put their own safety first. Some brandished out weapons and started swinging them around aimlessly in a futile way to protect themselves. Push came to shove which ended up in friendly fire.

“Ahhh. We are under attack!”

“My arm! Stop, I’m one of you!”

“What’s happening? I can’t see! Who’s attacking me?”

“Stay… stay away from me!”

“Everyone stop moving!”

“My eyes! I’m blind!”

Countless cries echoed around the cave. The loss of vision created mass hysteria amongst the thieves. This lasted for a few minutes. Miraculously only a little more than half of them got injured in all that confusion after the blinding light slowly dimmed away. There were no fatalities but quite a few suffered heavy injuries such as severed arms. The sight was disgraceful to behold, a den full of Heaven and King Domain cultivators reduced to such a pathetic state with only a flash.

One of the thieves with faster responses quickly shouted out, “The barrier has been broken!”

“The… young master is gone!” Another shouted out in panic.

“We have to run for it, we will be discovered soon!”

“What about the young master? How will we explain this to the guild master?”

“We’ll all be killed if the guild found out what we have been up to!”

“Dumbass, we’ll have to make something up.”

“Shut up, dispose the bodies and scatter!”

The expression on Elder Hun-Kon went from pale to deathly white. His eyes were still blinded from the flash and his Qi was still constricted by poison. Naturally his end was coming based on what he heard. However, who wanted to stay behind to clean the mess? Most chose to flee and did so already.

The Obscure Shadows Thief Guild provided discreet service to people who can’t get their hands dirty. This group of people following young master Wu-Feng was breaking their guild’s code of confidentiality and using private information for their own gains. Wu-Feng might be able to get off with a slap on the wrist since he is the second son of the guild master but the rest of the accomplices would be killed off for sure!

A dozen kilometers away Ryu carried the siblings over his shoulders, running through the air at top speed. Even if he was near invincible within the King Domain, he is still only one man. Facing off a dozen King Domain cultivators was risky even for him. Also the thieves are proficient in poison, something really hard to defend against. Alexis was adept in assassination and although Ryu didn’t practice the assassination skills Alexis trained in, he knows how formidable they are.

“Who… who are you?” Tan-Min said in a daze as he tried to escape Ryu’s grasp. All he saw was a blurry mysterious man in a mask. This mask was the one Leonardo gave to Ryu a few weeks ago when they entered the Xin’s Auction House. His eyes were still adjusting to normal light.

“I am just someone that happened to pass by.” Ryu replied simply as he picked a safe location to drop them off. The siblings looked at their savior fly off into the distance helplessly. Inside they were completely grateful for his divine intervention. If not for him, they might have suffered a fate worse than death. It took them a while to notice that Ryu also left the antidote behind them.

After another dozen or so kilometers, Ryu was about to land and inspect the storage ring he took from Wu-Feng when suddenly a dark streak of beam that seems to devour all light shot towards him. Ryu frowned, he didn’t want to confront anyone at the moment. He purposely broke the Enchantment at the cave so sects looking for their missing members would go punish them.

An elderly man with a beard longer than a meter was charging at him at a ridiculous speed much faster than his own. On his back was a sheath containing a long spear that had a disproportionally large blade at the tip. His aura was very particular, the black energy coating him seemed to be solid so Ryu couldn’t see through into his Qi reservoir.

Without moving, the dark spear behind the strange man’s back shot forth at Ryu. The spear sliced through the air and made a ripping sound. Ryu quickly clamped both his hands down and a pair of gigantic and domineering white paws appeared and slammed together on the incoming spear. The spear seemed to stop for a moment but the old man gave a humph and the spear blasted through the tiger paws.

Not fazed one bit, Ryu cladded his foot with the Invulnerable Body stance and increased the weight of it with the Ultra Gravity stance. Both stances were from the Indomitable Genbu. Ryu’s foot now looked like a deadly mace, a layer of molten Qi could be seen around it and the air around it trembled form the altered gravity. With a mighty kick that seemed to be capable of crushing steel to a pulp, Ryu knocked the spear backwards.

The old man was naturally surprised, a bare foot managed to kick back his prized weapon?

“Admirable!” He cried out as he extended his hand to catch the spear. So far Ryu estimates his cultivation to be in the King Domain.

Inhaling a large amount of air, Ryu blew out a large amount of thick mist. The dense mist spread as fast as the wind itself, within mere seconds the whole area was covered. This was one of the shaman arts he learned, it disrupts the opponents’ vision and ability to scan with aura while letting the user know exactly where the victims are.

The old man at first tried to forcefully blow the mist away with Qi but found it was impossible. This mysterious mist was more durable than steel to his surprise. Before he could contemplate about it, a heavy blow landed against his guts. However, instead of collapsing or retreating like most would the old man lashed out at the direction where the attack came from. An invisible guiding force seemingly pushed his spear away and at the same time a sharp blow landed on his chin. The old man swung his spear around and slammed downwards, this time a counter landed straight at his face.

Ryu was actually within a meter of this old man but the old man couldn’t see or sense him. Since Ryu has such an advantage, it was next to impossible for the old man to land a blow on him. Using the Impregnable Fortress stance along with Tai Chi, Ryu negated all his attacks and landed numerous counters. The old man on the other hand had more tenacity that Ryu could have imagined, never once did he flinch even though few critical hits were landed on him. This probably has something to do with the black Qi that he’s coated with.

Suddenly the old man gave up on hitting Ryu and started swinging his spear above his head with both hands. At first Ryu didn’t know what he was up to but a few seconds later a strong vortex was formed. All the mist started getting blown upwards through the vacuum created by the spear’s spin. Not only that, the blade on the spear slowly start growing larger and a terrible aura could be sensed.

Ryu’s instincts told him to retreat and he did just that. The black Qi that was acting as an armor on the old man became rampant around him as if they were trying to devour something. After putting twenty meters between himself and the old man, the blade on the spear had grown to five times its original size. The mist had also been dispersed pretty much at this point.

This must be a specialization matched with a weapon. Amazing. Ryu praised inside his heart. It seems like each time the spear rotates, the more power and larger in size it gets.

Without thinking Ryu unleashed the Cataclysmic White Tiger. The difference between the Baleful White Claw and the Cataclysmic White Tiger is that the former creates Qi apparition of the tiger or any other object to attack. The latter consumes more Qi and transforms your whole body into a weapon, putting yourself at risk in return for more destructive power.

The old man now with an explosive black aura and a gigantic spear charged forward to meet the earth shattering tiger composed of pure white Qi. Two blurs flew by each other, one white and one black. This happened in less than a second. Two figures can be seen standing at the end of each streak of light. A stripe of the raging black Qi that covered the old man was ripped apart near his chest. Ryu’s mask was similarly cut in half as well. The old man’s aura transformed from a dark raging beast to a regular one and his voice boomed out.

“Not bad little one. If we continued, who would have won?”

“Honorable senior, due to luck I would have had a small edge over you. However, if you had released your true power than it would be a different story.” Ryu said respectively. During that clash which Ryu won by a hair’s breadth but Ryu noticed that the old man was restricting his cultivation to the King Domain during this fight.

“Oh? So you noticed. Not bad not bad. Let’s fight again in the future when you enter the Emperor Domain. My name is Banqu but people call me the Spear Fiend.” The old man said as he walked away. “Oh right. Have you seen my nephew? He should be wearing the Limitless Moon uniform.”

“Apologizes senior, I have not.” Ryu respectfully replied.

The old man suddenly took a voice crystal out of his pocket and said, “I was busy in a match, what do you want now?”

“Boss, young master’s emergency signal had been picked up. He is in critical condition, he had been badly poisoned. I’m sending you the locations now!”

The old man briefly glanced at Ryu one more time as he flew off in a dark streak of light. This man was the Spear Fiend mentioned by the young man held captive by the thieves earlier. He was also in the Emperor Domain so Ryu dodged a dangerous situation there. Not wanting to stay out in the open, Ryu burrowed into a mountain and summoned Origin Power to draw up Enchantments to seal off the area.

After making sure the hole he was in was secured, Ryu took out the storage ring and with a wave of his hand the Infinity Tomes behind him opened up. Wu-Feng, the young master of the thieves, fell out to the ground in front of him.

“What… where… who are you?” He was terrified out of his wits. Ryu had actually contained Wu-Feng within the Infinity Tomes during the chaos back at the thieves’ little base. Ryu himself couldn’t enter the tomes so he had no idea what it would feel like.

Ryu didn’t bother answering and easily read through his memories. Unlike Telepathy skill from the Mind Tome which reads current thoughts, once someone is bound to the Judgment Tome Ryu could browse through everything they know. He already restricted Wu-Feng from moving.

Wu-Feng was the second son of the guild master. Their guild specializes in assassinations but also does slave trading and drug trafficking. This guild could be considered one of the largest on the Heaven Continent. Guilds were less common than clans and sects because people in guilds typically treats it as a job. Once the guild is in dire straits, there is no oath that one makes to the sect or blood relation one shares in a clan to make its members devote themselves. However the Obscure Shadows Thief Guild had quite a capable management team which turned it into a successful enterprise for the underworld.

Ryu sighed as he found out how many people he had killed recently. Wu-Feng had decided to take selected members royal to him to rob a few of their clients. By using their portfolio that should have been kept a secret, he picked the ones that he knew he could corrupt and fed insider information about which items to their interest would be auctioned off at which city. Afterwards his men would lie in ambush and capture them through poison and traps. Overall he had collected stolen goods totaling over a hundred million gold coins in value in the span of one month. This was an astonishing amount of sum, even a large sect would have trouble forking out this much money. None of the captives lived after forfeiting their items.

The items stolen were mostly cultivating materials, lifesaving items and a few weapons that could aid any competitors planning to participate in the tournament in the Thousand Swords Graveyard. The most valuable one was of course the essence obtained from their last victim. Spiritual medicines from the Emperor Domain only carries a fraction of energy of what an Emperor Domain essence contains. Now that Ryu has two, he can confidently say that he could advance to maybe.

Ryu gave each item a glance but the ones he holds most dear were the cultivating materials. The only exception was a weird piece of bone marrow that got his attention. It was quite large, a little thicker than his own head. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it but something about it seems to call out to him. From Wu-Feng’s memory a cultivator used this bone marrow as a durable club weapon and suspects it was a marrow from a powerful beast. After checking it out, nothing stood out so he proceeded to store it. However just before it entered the Infinity Tomes, a mysterious whisper suddenly rang out. At first Ryu wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination or not but suddenly a loud roar of a ferocious beast entered his mind that threaten to shatter it. A fuzzy figure of a crimson warrior appeared inside Ryu’s mind. It didn’t not seem real at first but more words came out of him.

“Beneath Mount Wudang in the Land of human but not yet human, the Emperor of the Living Dead rests.”