“Who dares assault an elder of Ancient Dragon Sect!”

A overpowering aura covered the skies in a oppressive display. The sky trembled and everyone on the mountain heard the voice. There standing in the sky was a authoritative figure with dozens of experts standing in the sky behind him.

The leader stood like a god of war, he wore a white robe with a embroidered red dragon coiling around it. Flames surrounded him like a noble corona. His oppressive presence suppressed anyone below the Nascent Soul realm. The number of people who could lift their eyes up to meet his could be counted on one hand.

The man of fire looked down at the multitude below him. His gaze seared the souls of the masses as they stood watching.

“What? Get off my lawn, you hillbilly. What kind of person interrupts a man while he’s shitting?” Ben roared out in return. He hadn’t been doing anything of the sort, but loved pushing these little awkward moments on other people. He would ask someone about their last bowel movement just to throw someone off their guard or gather personal information.

The expert overhead paused for a moment, and that moment was all it took to slow their momentum and break the spell the leader had cast over the souls of the sect.

This chaos was what Ben desired. A second was all he needed to prepare the fusion reactor and base defenses.

The capacitor banks had all emptied into the laser banks the second the aura had appeared in the skies above. The lasers had discharged into the reactor causing a spike in activity that supercharged the whole system.

The fusion reactor peaked in its output and energy flooded the whole system. The capacitor banks were brought to a maximum limit in less than a second and Ben needed to discharge the energy or the whole power plant would melt down.

The energy was directed back into the lasers and set to a special frequency. The emitters shot out lasers that were invisible to mortal eyes. Others only felt a strange sensation when the energies flashed through them.

“What foul work!” The head of the formation shouted our and waved his hand. A field spread out that slowed the abnormal feeling, but it never disappeared.

“Has a mere devil sect had it’s way with the Setting Lands? We of the Heavenly Lands will never allow such a thing.” The leader of the new arrivals proclaimed.

“What the fuck are you talking about? I just gave billions of people access to cultivation techniques they never would have had the chance to see, how is that evil?” Ben yelled at the newcomers. The elders in the sky slowed down for a second at that.

“I also set in place a system to fight corruption, theft, rape and coercion. How is that a bad thing?” Ben added.

“How can we believe a wicked sect like yours?” The lead elder proclaimed.

“You don’t need to, I just need to distract you all for a few moments, ahahahahah!” Ben laughed in the faces of the astonished cultivator flying in the sky.

The uncomfortable sensation had been growing, now it turned to full dread.

The next moment all hell broke loose. The practitioners of the mountain had all gotten used to Ben’s personality and knew he was leading them somewhere. They brought out airguns and railguns and fired at the flock of cultivators in the sky.

The plasma cannon fired right at the center figure with a blue bolt and scream that bore it’s way through the skull of anyone hearing it through the fog of war.

The lasers changed their setting to the ignition phase of the radioactive attack. Instantly, anyone in the skies weaker than the Heavenly Connection realm was paralysed from the loss of neural motor control. They fell from the air like skeet waiting to be picked off by the snipers below.

Dozens of Nascent Soul experts fell to their deaths and the Heavenly Connection ancestors fared little better when pitted against futuristic assaults. They had never encountered radiation attacks and had with no chance for defense. They were like poisoned generals waiting to be slaughtered by children with knives.

Only a handful of figures were left standing on the opposing side, they were able to cross through the fields of fire to reach the main target of this mission, Ben himself.

They charged through the line made from Lilith and the other masters of Plague Devil Sect. They charged through the formations of elders from Saint Devil Sect. A most of them never emerged from those fields of fire.

The remaining elders of Ancient Dragon Sect rushed towards the summit where Ben stood at the center of the systems of the mountain. He calmly watched the enemies approach. Underneath his feet all the complex devices were running at their full power. The fusion reactor with Huoyun inside it had never ran at this high a level. The capacitors were rapidly filled and discharged into the laser bank and plasma cannon.

Only three elders remained when the assault broke through to where Ben was standing like a final boss. They crashed against a shield array and ground to a halt there in front of Ben.

The three faced Ben with ugly expressions. They had little intelligence about this operation, they were relying on speed and overwhelming power to crush any opposition. The new weaponry they faced had brought them down in a spectacular disaster.

It was at this point the thousand Winter cherry blossom acted. The infusion of mist Qi had been a tonic for it that gave it a boost to it's vitality. If the truth said, the tree was looking for something to do. It had a literally unhuman point of view that demanded that it fight at this moment.

Mist burst out from the flowers into the air like a steam explosion. Clouds of vapor covered the mountain obscuring the view. The scene from all those months ago replayed itself as Ben leapt into the mist. A furry shadow leapt after him.

He held a short sword in one hand instead of a spear. The horned rabbit, instead of being chased, was chasing after him. He wasn’t practicing, but fighting for real. His intent wasn’t for fun and training, but for fun and killing.

Ben believed he was developing a taste for bloodlust. He didn’t want to shoot this foe down from a distance, but feel the knife draw life’s last blood. A high that he had never felt raged through his head that demanded he tear apart his enemies with his own two hands.

-Bloodlust activated. Devil’s path cultivation unlocked. You may now cultivate any of the three dark paths, Path of the Blood God, the Path of the Asura or the Path of the Revenant

-Path of the Blood God. Absorb the blood of your enemies and refine it for yourself. Condense blood into Blood Essence and convert it to True Blood Qi. Greatly increases vitality and strength

-Path of the Asura. Kill and indulge in your hedonistic pleasures. Lie, steal, mass murder, rape, fight and destroy. Align yourself with chaos and turn yourself into a chaotic god. Greatly increases offensive power, lowers reasoning and stains the soul

-Path of the Revenant. Steep yourself in yin Qi and death energy. Refine ghosts and nurture malevolent spirits in your victims. Raises spiritual and mental power, tames spirits for your own use. Lowers karma.

Ben ignored the text that appeared, instead he focused on his sword skill, his mastery of formations and mist, and his short time hunting in the forest. He had already laid dozens of protective and illusion arrays into the mountain, now the majority of them came to life in this pivotal battle.

The mist around him came alive, flowing along with him like the closest ally. Sword Qi flowed down his arm into the sword body of Brother Jian. His heart pumped blood madly, accelerating his physical attributes.

The three elders all were of the Heavenly Connection realm. They were some of the strongest humans this whole plain of existence, but they had taken a tremendous blow already from a bizarre attack. They never knew what had hit them until most of their friends had died.

The effect of a lethal dose of radiation on a mortal was known to Ben, but he wasn’t clear what would happen when he multiplied that by a million and used it against cultivators. Gamma and x-ray radiation had been beamed directly into the top of the brainstem where it met the brain.

The effect was near instant cell death for the neurons that carried information and commands to the rest of the body. The three experts left had been able to resist the effect with their unbelievable vitality, but they were crippled from the attack. Ben would normally only be able to kill someone of his own Nascent Soul realm, but defeating a weakened Heavenly Connection cultivator would be well within his ability.

Ben held the newly forged blade and felt the presence of Brother Jian within it. It was like he was standing just behind Ben, looking over his shoulder. His presence was felt, but not seen.

The horned rabbit was there too. Ben had concluded that there was something special about the beast and decided to test his conclusions later. He had never been able to catch the rabbit except for the one time he only intended to tease it. Nubbins hadn’t been seen for awhile but Ben now had enough evidence to suspect that the creature had some special quality to it.

Ben himself was a genius from another world. There were stories here about children of the gods and he himself knew three supernatural spirits. Ben suspected that the creature was deeply connected to the Dao of Luck.

Ben’s own understanding of the Dao of crafting, formations and the sword all came into play here. He maintained a constant connection with the plasma cannon and other weaponry to support him. He manipulated the mists and formations built here to hide himself and confuse the enemy. His new connection with the sword and his Nascent Soul realm sword dantian was the focus of his killing intent.

Figures wove through the mist chasing each other. Here nubbins darted between someones legs. There a red beam flashed through the confusion, striking a shadow that fell to the ground. A blade fell upon a struggling form and blood sprayed into the air and seemed to merge with the mist.

Ben fought with each of his enemies one at a time, striking from a unexpected angle with the assistance of the plasma cannon, other base defenses and distraction of the rabbit. Then Ben retreated using the illusion formations and mist from the cherry tree to cover him. Another ambush would occur soon after, each exchange would damage the elders a little more.

The plasma cannon fired a bolt of energy at one of the elders. The elder was in a exhausted state and could only put up a token defense, mostly relying on a defensive treasure.

The plasma bolt shattered the armor but did little to harm his body. The elder then felt a presence coming from the left and whirled around to face it.

That was when the long dagger Ben carried sunk into the elders back.

He stabbed the blade into the elder’s kidney and sliced to the side, cutting the whole organ in two. Sword Qi ravaged the lower unprotected section of his abdomen.

The elder lost his strength and fell to the ground. Ben’s next strike slashed into his neck, severing his carotid artery and windpipe.

Soon after that the other two Heavenly Connection cultivators also fell.

The died undignified, messy deaths. There were no fancy killing blows or epic confrontations, only the terrified struggle of men dying with extreme regret. The elders had lived for hundreds of years and fought thousands of battles, but they were struck down by vicious blow from a cruel and devious enemy with futuristic weapons.

Brother Jian saw a strange sight, he was slightly conflicted when he saw Ben harvesting the blood from the three elders, but Brother Jian knew about such things as blood refining and had seen the act performed on many battlefields.

Some people saw blood refining as a devil’s path method, some saw it as little more than a tonic, much like a cat drinks the blood of their prey.

-Blood refined to Foundation Establishment realm. Merging with heart core

-Heart Core has reached Nascent Soul realm. Blood Flame Embryo formed

“Hahahah!” Ben’s psychotic laughter rang over the mountainside.