The sly hand that grabbed onto Ryu belonged to the notorious Gem Thief known as Han Bei. As his nickname suggests, his crime involves all kinds of theft. Whether it is stealing from a large sect or from a little kid, he has done it all. The odd thing is that he almost never kills during his thefts but the number of people that wants him dead still exceed tens of millions. This surpasses the amount most serial killers would have. Why? Han Bei has stolen enough treasures to rival the wealth of most clans over the thousands of years he has been alive. The longer he has been around, the harder it is to stop him. The treasures he steals keep accumulating and his cultivation continues to rise. Right now he is half a step from the Supreme Domain, the number of people that could catch him numbers less than a hundred on this vast continent. However, all of them have responsibilities and couldn’t afford to play a cat and mouse game with him.

Bingo! Han Bei thought as he grabbed firmly on to Ryu’s ankle. Even an entry Supreme Domain expert would find it almost impossible to catch him when he’s underground. With a thought he exerted his Qi full force and attempted to flee with Ryu in tow. He was confident in his movement techniques. As a shameless thief, he lucked out and got a powerful underground escaping technique when he was robbing a tomb of a nameless expert in the past. This was his trump card that allowed him to rampage throughout the continent notoriously.

[Caught up on ISSTH these days, Supreme Domain is roughly on par as Spirit Severing and Emperor Domain would be Nascent Soul stage.]

Snap. An earth shattering sound suddenly rang out. The infamous thief that has performed the same maneuver over and over again felt an unfamiliar but shocking pain that resonated throughout his body. The bones and veins inside his right arm cracked and popped.

“What is this?” Han Bei said. The professional calm composure that he carries at all times was shattered. A sense of life-threatening danger swelled up from within like never before. It took him a few seconds to realize that Ryu was like an unmovable boulder and it was his own momentum that ruined his own arm.

If Han Bei was above the surface a few moments before then he would not have tried to take Ryu on or even approach near him. Right now his right hand was stuck onto Ryu like it was glued together, the previous stream of Qi directed towards fleeing was routed out the Qi channels of his right hand and into Ryu. It was as if Han Bei’s Qi was flowing from a small pond into a bottomless ocean. Like a trapped animal, Han Bei floundered around and tried to escape without success.

The unconscious Ryu with his eyes breaming with power stood still as if nothing was happening. Even though Han Bei was desperately trying to pull away, he couldn’t detach his hand from Ryu’s ankle. The more he struggled, the faster his Qi escaped from his body. In a flash he dropped from Peak Emperor Domain down to Entry Emperor Domain.

None of the observers noticed Han Bei or his predicament since he was underground, it appears Ryu was just unconscious on the outside. Wu-Ming and the Lightning Devil are currently engaged in an epic battle against the two magicians in the sky which got everyone’s attention. Wu-Ming’s overbearing golden Qi strikes are working in union with the Lightning Devil’s deadly green lightning against the formidable spells of the two magicians.

Zenos floated in air nearby, watching with amusement. As the prince of the Blood Clan on the Dark Continent, this level of skill was nothing. He had seen much higher tiers of skills that would make what is occurring in front of him seem like child play. His true cultivation was at the Sovereign Domain, a level that only a handful of people are known to have achieved currently in the Heaven Continent. If he went all out, he could probably kill everyone present.

However, under the strict order of his father he was forced to conceal his true power. His cultivation was forcibly suppressed with medicine to avoid suspicion. The reason being that while the Dark Continent holds no regard for the weakest continent, they are still weary of the three true top forces that dominate this continent – Wudang Sect, Shaolin Temple and the Thousand Swords Graveyard. The infamous general that led the charge against this continent from the last Great War was slayed by the undefeated swordsman Musashi from the Thousand Swords Graveyard. The rest of the troops were utterly destroyed by Shaolin and Wudang. These three formidable powers don’t take part in regular affairs of the continent, making it impossible to gauge their strength. Perhaps if they were to reveal their power, the Heaven Continent might not be the weakest after all.

[Sovereign Domain = Dao Seeking stage? Just painting a picture]

All of Ryu’s Qi reservoirs worked in union and rotated in synchronization like a finely tuned machine. The Qi within all four of his reservoirs rotated fiercely, transforming into a misty texture slightly thicker than a fog. The faster the reservoirs spun, the faster Han Bei’s Qi drained from his body.

This all happened very fast but Han Bei aged decades in less than a minute. The loss to longevity wouldn’t have mattered if he was still at Peak Emperor Domain but right now he was at the brink of falling down to King Domain, the extra years of life granted to those in Emperor Domain would be taken away and he would be near the end of his life. The thought of cutting off his own arm appeared on his mind but at this point, he had no strength to do anything except hang on Ryu’s ankle like a dried up seaweed.

However just as the misty Qi within Ryu started to congeal into something solid-like, Han Bei finally ran out of Qi and sunk down into the King Domain. His hair turned white and his body withered up like a corpse, the countless wanted posters of him across the continent had suddenly become redundant since no one could make the connection now. It was at this moment that his hand was finally freed. One of the Infinity Tomes, the Mind Tome, beamed down on his body and his personal storage bags and rings disappeared off his body. The Life Tome shot him a beam as well as if it was taking pity on him and granted him a century of extra longevity or else he would have perished in less than a year. The Judgment Tome also flashed a light at him – imprinting something on his forehead.

The abrupt stoppage of incoming Qi from Han Bei broke the concentration of Qi inside Ryu’s reservoirs, the previously congealed fog of Qi dispersed and he was almost back to square one from forming an essence. Ryu’s body finally started moving, he shot towards the Merciless Witch that was pursuing him earlier. She was recuperating from a safe distance after taking a blow from Zenos’s blood control attack. If it wasn’t for her special ability of killing people by controlling the water content inside their bodies, she would have suffered a fatal wound.

Ryu was speeding towards her like a streak of lightning by utilizing the Riding the Eight Dragons stance of the Drunken Fist. Tracks of invisible Qi formed between Ryu and his next target. However an Emperor Domain expert like her had plenty of ways to defend herself even if she was injured.

“Pft.” She snickered inside. It was like a prize getting delivered on a silver platter. Ryu was not in the Emperor Domain yet, meaning he hasn’t formed his essence. The difference between a cultivator with essence and one without was like heaven and earth. It would be extremely difficult for a King Domain practitioner to harm an Emperor Domain practitioner under normal circumstances, never mind killing one. Just like Han Bei, she was about to cross over to the Supreme Domain very soon. If it wasn’t for this grand event at the Thousand Swords Graveyard, she would have stayed behind doors to cultivate.

In her eyes, Ryu was a priceless treasure. The reason being that he just utilized all the elements in their purest forms earlier. Under the wise and cautious eyes of the countless experts, they all came to the conclusion that Ryu did not use any equipment to do so. What does this mean? It means that Ryu must have a unique body that is one of kind or he has a divine cultivating skill that allows him to wield all the elements. By practicing a cultivating skill in one element makes it exponentially more difficult to train in a second element. If the skill was highly rank, perhaps it’ll be possible to learn a second element. Currently only the royal family of the Toko Empire have such a skill – The Clandestine TriColor technique. This allows the practitioner to use fire, water and earth at the same time. However, only the ancestors of the Toko Empire had accomplished such a thing. The current successors still retain the technique but aren’t able to master it.

Keeping one hand on her chest to stabilize her damaged internal organs, she waved her other hand in a claw-like motion. A wave of deadly ice storm appeared out of thin air in front of her, capable of freezing most experts in the same domain into human popsicles. The air crackled as all the moisture inside froze and the earth beneath became ice cubes. The bystanders looked as Ryu charged fearlessly into the incoming disaster.

Before colliding with the incoming attack, Ryu’s body exploded into a brilliant crimson flame. The moment Ryu made contact with the snow storm, instead of freezing up as expected, nothing happened. In fact it seems as if the crimson flames are melting the frozen environment between Ryu and the Emotionless Witch. The haughty expression on the Emotionless Witch was replaced by awe and shock. This was her infamous Rank 8 skill, suitable for a Supreme Domain practitioner. It was with this skill that her sect had been able to hold the position as the top water element sect for the past millenniums. This skill was passed down by ancestors from the Ancient Warring Era, it cannot be compared to the techniques of the current generations.

The unstoppable flames around Ryu suddenly started dimming down. The Emotionless Witch sighed in relief inside, maybe her technique just needed more time to kick in she thought. It was at this moment that Ryu appeared beside her in less than a second. It was as if he teleported. Before she could do anything, Ryu’s hand was placed on her lower back and she was paralyzed. Her Qi gushed outwards and into Ryu just like Han Bei’s Qi did earlier. The Qi reservoirs within Ryu started rotating madly once again, attempting to form solid essences.

Ryu was still unconsciously using the Anti-Heaven Tribe skill – Destiny Defiance by stealing the Qi from his targets. However one thing the skill did not account for was that Ryu has four Qi reservoirs at the moment! This means that he has to form essences in all of them at once. The three additional ones came from the mysterious Infinity Tomes that he found by chance. Because of this, the amount of Qi needed to form four essences at once was exponentially greater than the amount an ordinary King Domain expert needed to cross over to Emperor Domain.

Only certain experts saw what happened exactly. Because the path between Ryu and the Emotionless Witch was frozen, Ryu utilized the Vanishing White Flash from the Merciless Tiger School which specializes in moving in straight lines. Coupled with the fact that the ground had been frozen, Ryu’s phantom-like speed was brought to a whole new level.

The Emotionless Witch gasped as her bone chilling Qi flowed out of her like a broken faucet. Just like Han Bei earlier, her facial features aged from that of a middle aged woman to an elder looking one. With her face revealed unlike Han Bei, the onlookers was shocked to see how fast she aged within seconds.

In fact the rate which Ryu absorbed Qi with Destiny Defiance skill was more vigorous and faster than what was recorded because of his multiple reservoirs. The reservoirs work like vacuums, draining the Qi from the targets.

The Infinity Tomes all had their pages opened up and had blinding lights flashing vigorously outwards. If the onlookers could see the tomes which were only visible to Ryu, they would have seen a miniature sun. The pages on the tomes all contain lines from the Path to True Immortality skill, the legacy gift granted to him by his first contacted Spirit, the guardian of the Gods Qilin! It was a skill meant for Gods and Divine Beasts to use to build a true perfect foundation. Using the Emotionless Witch’s Qi, the Qi recovers inside Ryu attempted to coagulate and form a solid core-like object which would be the essence. Once the essence is formed than Ryu would have successfully entered the Emperor Domain!