Most of the people in the large group on the ground flinched as the profound Qi from the shout shook their bodies. A crowd of middle-aged men blushed as they heard those words, obviously Wu-Ming’s words were directed at them. Their faces carried traces of guilt and even a bit of remorse, it was obvious that they were uncomfortable with their act of betrayal.

“Boss… we are just lowly members of the clan, we had no choice. They threatened to kill our families. I hope you can forgive us.” One of the men whimpered as he turned away, he couldn’t look at Wu-Ming directly.

“Don’t be pathetic.” Another man said as he braced himself to speak calmly. “Wu-Ming no one doubts your peerless talent. There is no one in our clan that’s your match anymore. Even the patriarch of the clan have accepted you as his heir but you are not one of us! You are just the adopted son of a lowly servant, how dare you act all high and mighty? We will never let an outsider taint our clan like this! Today will be your end, look at how many people you have offended!”

After his speech, countless people started shouting out their own grievances towards Wu-Ming. The anger and resentment in their words were clearly felt. It seems that Wu-Ming had crossed a fair bit of people in his lifetime. Although the group below consisted mostly of King Domain experts, they still dared to brazenly accuse and taunt their one target. Ryu frowned as he observed this cowardly behavior.

“Wu-Ming you overstepped your boundaries too many times, you can blame no one but yourself.”

“You forced our hand! Who told you to meddle in our affairs?”

“Acting all high and mighty because you are one of the new rookies in the Emperor Domain, it was time that someone taught you a lesson.”

“You beast, you killed my grandson during the last war! I don’t care how low I have to sink to get revenge.”

“Last time we dueled, you took my right eye. Today I’ll take your life!”

“Wu-Ming you are simply too dangerous to be left alone!”

“You humiliated the Azure Diamond Sect in front our emperor, this is payback!”

“Wu-Ming we had no enmities between us but you dared mess with our operations and ruin our business. Today one of us will perish!”

The crowd entailed of roughly one hundred and fifty King Domain experts and five Emperor Domain experts. The Emperor Domain experts were all in the early stages like Wu-Ming himself. The strange thing was that the group of people banding up together to handle Wu-Ming came from many different factions. Ryu could tell because in his special vision, he noticed that most of them had different types of cultivation and the aura they emitted were vastly different from each other. Also a top rate sect would usually only have around twenty King Domain experts and maybe a few Emperor Domain experts. This group had over a hundred people and the weakest was mid King Domain. Most of them were distinguished in their own way judging by their arrogant attitude and overbearing confidence. The only thing holding them together was their common goal of exterminating this Wu-Ming.

“I have never purposely done any evil deeds nor have I unjustly injured any good men. If I have crossed any of you it’s because you have all performed wicked deeds and needed to be stopped!” Wu-Ming announced bravely to everyone present. Most people facing their imminent doom would have ran away or started begging for their lives. Ryu admired this man’s courage and heroism. His words carried no deceit and his aura was golden just like his hair, showing an air of righteousness. From Ryu’s perspective, Wu-Ming’s radiating golden Qi was the only light against all the wicked Qi released by the group below. The responses were more curses and rebuttals.

“Hahaha.” Wu-Ming laughed towards the sky as he ignored their insolent replies and resumed his fight with the beast. The beast was nearly a hundred times his size, it was unbelievable that he is holding his own. The terrifying beast’s claw that’s a size of a house or the beast’s hazardously spiked tail that’s the length of a small village was repelled by a human fist in each exchange. The fight was on a scale that the pursuers below couldn’t interfere with, all they could do is block his path of escape.

Although none of the experts in the audience would openly admit it but they envied and respected Wu-Ming’s unworldly battle prowess. They all knew that if they were in the same despondent position against a wild beast that’s nearly a domain higher than themselves, they would have perished within a minute. Unless one had grasped and reached the pinnacle of a profound skill, it’s nearly impossible to fight on equal ground against another with much higher cultivation. Especially if the opponent is a beast. Due to their naturally superior body they hold an overwhelming superior advantage. Just like how a regular mortal can’t fight bare hand against a normal wild bear or lion, normally a cultivator can’t fight on equal ground against a beast of the same level without items.

Each second that passed, the fear within the crowd grew. They cannot imagine the consequences that would befall on them if Wu-Ming escaped or somehow prevailed. The previous absolute confidence in their numbers was slowly crumbling bit by bit. Unbeknownst to them, their eyes stopped blinking and were wide from fear. An invisible vice-like grip rooted them from where they stood and ghastly whiteness slowly spread across their faces. An uncomfortable premonition beyond comprehension pervaded their senses.

Not a lot of people noticed but Wu-Ming had been on the defense for the past few exchanges, he was secretly gathering his Qi and rotating it within his fist. Out of the blue, he struck forward with a simple punch in a fluid motion. Surprisingly the beast took a step back in mid-air after being hit and froze. The muscular man then continued brawling at the huge crocodile without any pushback. The group of people awaiting his demise were confused, why did this terrifying peak Emperor Domain beast stop fighting back? The five emperor Domain cultivators tried to command the beast to retaliate but had no luck either.

Only Ryu saw what happened and he was extremely surprised. Wu-Ming performed an intricate internal attack in the form of a simple punch that directly attacked the beast’s heart, damaging it greatly. No matter how powerful a beast is, if a vital organ is struck critically then it would be paralyzed. The attack used a similar concept as one of the stances of the Drunken Dragon Fist which allows an attack to bypass any initial resistance to attack the internals. The beast right now is trying its best to gather its internal Qi to guard his own heart but from what Ryu could see, the damage had been done.

Despite not knowing what’s going on with the beast, the Emperor Domain cultivators of the group sensed something was awfully wrong. Instantly one of the Emperor Domain warrior that was quick to react took out a menacing purple bow that emitted a gaseous cyan aura and shot an ominous blurry arrow at Wu-Ming’s back. Wu-Ming turned around swiftly and released a dominant palm strike to meet the incoming danger. A golden silhouette of a palm appeared and clashed against the lethal arrow. This arrow was not ordinary though, it seems to have been coated with an odd liquid that repelled Qi. This allowed it to slip past Wu-Ming’s monumental fearsome palm strike with its trajectory been changed by just a few degrees. Even Wu-Ming was surprised and attempted to dodge but the treacherous arrow still grazed his arm and continued off into the distance.

Seeing that the beast no longer responded, the rest of the Emperor Domain cultivators quickly abandoned the beast and stopped channeling their Qi towards the scroll. The moment the scroll ran out of Qi, the reptile beast fell to the ground due to its severe injury. The people below quickly dodged out of the way as the gargantuan beast crashed to the earth, creating a huge crater. Mass hysteria ensued afterwards.

“Damn him!”

“Run for it! We can’t win against this demon!”

“The rumors must be true! He is a Chosen one, ordinary people like us stand no chance!”

“What should we do now?”

“This isn’t over Wu-Ming!”

“Quick, you two go stall him. He has been hit by the Undying Venom on the arrow, even if it is just a slight wound there’s no way he could move! The rest of you get into the Hundred Illusionary Spear Formation and the Boulder Sealing Formation like we discussed! There’s no way he can stand up to the rest of us!”

The Emperor Domain expert that shot the arrow quickly took command and directed people into a pentagon formation and a triangular formation respectively. His name was Jer-Ra and he was an infamous figure on Heaven Continent. He belongs to one of the top assassin organizations and was hired by many to take care of this renowned Wu-Ming. He took out two ill-omened pot-shaped objects that had peculiar dark glows. This Hundred Illusionary Spear Formation was one of the secret skills of his organization, it can combine the Qi of many into one devastating attack. The Boulder Sealing Formation was also a high level skill used to hunt powerful wild beasts. The reason why they didn’t start off with this was because formation skills required Qi channeling, take a long time to begin and were immobile. There was no way they could have caught him with the formation skills if Wu-Ming was in perfect condition.

Naturally there are always some people who put their lives ahead of everything else and those people started running the moment the beast began falling from the sky. The truth was that if they just stuck together till the end, their chances of defeating Wu-Ming would have been a lot higher because Wu-Ming had already exhausted a large portion of his stamina fighting the beast. Right now he is fighting two Emperor Domain experts while suppressing the toxic poison in his body. Also the Hundred Illusionary Spear Formation was a profound skill used in warfare. A group of weaker soldiers can combine their strength and take down an expert in a higher domain with formation attacks.

Ryu was perfectly hidden in the shadows. The shaman arts he inherited from Prince Na’Vi allowed him to assimilate perfectly into nature so even an aura scan won’t detect him. One of the defectors ran past Ryu and was instantly knocked out with a blow to the back of his neck. It happened at a lightning fast speed, he didn’t even know what hit him. Ryu utilized the Telepathy specialization from the Mind Tome and dug into this person’s memory. Telepathy skill allows Ryu to read the thoughts of people in proximity as long as they are not guarded with a Qi stronger than his own. The problem is that it only reads current thoughts. An advanced usage of Telepathy is that Ryu can parse through a person’s mind but he has to have physical contact with the target and exert a larger amount of Qi.

Putting his hand on the victim’s head, Ryu quickly gathered all the information he needed to know regarding what was unfolding in front of him. It turns out that this Wu-Ming person in front of Ryu was quite famous. He was considered to be one of the Four Rising Stars of the Heaven Continent! These people were considered geniuses amongst geniuses because of their astonishing growth in cultivation. All three of them reached the Emperor Domain in less than a thousand years! Wu-Ming in particular had reached the Emperor Domain in only six hundred years, making him one of the youngest recorded in the history of Heaven Continent. The Four Rising Stars had been on every major powers’ radar, they are expected to enter the Sovereign Domain in the future and leave their names behind in history. All four are suspected to be a Chosen. The general public have no idea what it means to be a Chosen but the frightening cultivating speed and battle power the four holds makes them believe they are indeed Chosens. Even Ryu doesn’t really know what a Chosen is.

Known as the Unrestrainable Fierce Lion of the North, Wu-Ming has a reputation of fairness and justice. He fears nobody and takes on any challenges. His fighting prowess is scary, he had defeated many opponents that had much higher cultivations than himself. It was rumored he even fought a Supreme Domain expert to a standstill but no one could confirm it. He also single handily demolished a group of a thousand pirates comparable to a first rate sect that raided along the coasts of his hometown. Wu-Ming also set the record as the youngest to win the ranking tournament in the Toko Empire. His clan, the Golden Lion Clan, was a relatively normal clan that suddenly rose to the top thanks to Wu-Ming’s achievements in the recent centuries.

There were many other motives that caused these people to gang up against Wu-Ming but the reason they had the courage to do so is because they had three trump cards. One was the peak Emperor Domain beast that Wu-Ming had seemingly beat. The other two were formations, one piecing attack formation and one restraining seal formation. The two odd shaped pot-like objects that got taken out by Emperor Domain assassin Jer-Ra were formation catalysts. Formation takes delicate control and complicated mapping of Qi. Everyone involved in the formation must train together to work in sync to unleash it but the exception is if there’s a catalyst. With a formation catalyst object, the people involved can just channel as much Qi as they want inside it and the catalyst will construct the formation.

Formations are the poor men’s version of Enchantment. Not only is it much more inefficient, it had to be channeled by Qi and can’t persist the moment the channeling stops. However the one advantage it holds over Enchantments is that it can fuse the power of many and unleash one frightening combined might. One of the catalyst has an essence inside, making it an extremely formidable item on par with the Raging Thunder Sect’s Thunder Heartseeker weapon.

Ryu had already made his mind up when he read his captive’s mind. This Wu-Ming was definitely worth helping out. He was a true champion with unmatched valor and righteousness. In Ryu’s right hand a blurry sphere of transparent Qi appeared and in his left hand a smooth azure sphere of Qi formed.