9 Nine Void's Disappearance

Even though they were running, they were covering great distances in little time. Brom had picked up Blake who was now hanging under his armpit as his arm wrapped around his waist. He did not know that Blake's current speed was higher than his own and Blake had no intentions of informing him about it. Looking behind, Blake could see the taxi following them closely behind. No matter how fast they ran, the taxi would always be able to maintain a constant distance.

The maglev vehicle had crossed the speed limit long ago.

"Get off the road!" Brom shouted as he got off track with Eir. Blake was still under his armpit.

The maglev vehicles were fast and convenient but had their own limitations. They could not get off the track set for them. Except a few like this taxi behind them.

Shua!

The taxi did not stop as tires sprouted out from under it. With a turn of the steering wheel, the taxi made a sharp turn and continued the chase with the same increasing speed.

The Spaceport was not far, only about half a thousand kilometers away so they reached the set destination in under five minutes.

Brom rushed to the receptionist after putting Blake down and passed her a card. "When is the earliest takeoff out from the Solar System?", he inquired.

The receptionist was greatly shocked when she saw the card and was trembling as she answered him, "The earliest flight w-was d-d-delayed! I was in-informed that there were some technical issues! It was scheduled to takeoff a-an hour from now but now, it is questionable whether it would even be able to takeoff in the next 48 hours!" She stuttered at first but quickly got a hold on herself. In all the three years she had worked here, it was her first time witnessing this kind of a privilege card in flesh.

With a respectful attitude, she asked him what was his destination but did not expect the answer to be "anywhere as long as it's not here and available as in RIGHT NOW!."

"I-If you a...uh...are in, in a hurry! You, you can a-always take the private transports!", Brom's heavy and seriously urgent tone made her stutter even more.

"They have this thing too? Fetch me one if you will." Brom made it obvious that he was in a race against time.

"Follow me!" She saw the next person in shift walking over so she decided to lead the three herself after little hesitation. She led them through the building to the area where the transports were parked.

But before they could even enter the place...

Smash!

The high metal fence was steamrolled under as a taxi drove over it. The man in all white stepped out as numerous more people wearing white robes appeared behind him. The man's hat straightened up with a light 'pop' after getting released from the car's low-ceiling-torture. They encircled the five in an organized manner. One came forward and escorted the terrified receptionist out of the encirclement.

After she was gone, the people that had formed a ring around them each took out two small plain white flags from under the robes. Taking back a step each, they planted the flags at the locations their feet were earlier. Then, they reached out in both directions, left and right, clasping each other's hands firmly. A white light emanated from the nine hundred flags at the same time as it climbed through the air to form a dome above the four's heads. Bright white bricks of light were visible as they layered upon the already present white dome. The four fifty people maintained their posture outside the dome.

"You are in the way, you filthy dagger", Brom dropped all pretenses and directly cursed the man in front of him.

"Oh, my greetings, lady Eir", the man bowed curtly, ignoring Brom.

"It's been a long time since our last meeting", Eir nodded, "It seems your are still as high level as a decade ago. I'm impressed by how you only use half the people to set up the Nine Void's Disappearance formation and produce twice the results no matter how many times I see it." She lightly smiled. The meaning behind her words was crystal clear. 'You haven't improved in the past decade at all!'

"You flatter me. A decade is too long even for us cultivators. I see that lady is still as beautiful as a decade ago with little signs of aging", The man put more pressure on the word 'aging'. What he meant was very rude towards a female cultivator. Cultivators of her level, even after living for five hundred years would still retain the appearance when they were in their prime. Almost all cultivation techniques suited for females had this feature. Saying that she was aging was similar to directly saying that she was weak and fragile at her face. Moreover, aging meant loosing beauty. Saying that in front of the lady in question was nothing more than courting death!

Eir did not delay and directly made her move. With a wave of her arm, ten throwing knives with different trajectories shot out like bullets in a formation which guaranteed at least one hit if the man chose to dodge from any angle.

"Hahaha! Using knives against me, Dagger?" Turns out when Brom called him a filthy dagger, he was really calling his name.

Dagger did not choose to dodge. Just blowing in the air made the knives loose their accuracy as they were blown away. This much time was enough for Brom to close in on Dagger as he started off with a tyrannically simple punch. Dagger could not do anything but receive the punch squarely on the face. The simple punch was enough to blow him away as he crashed into the white wall of the dome shaped formation which surprisingly held on the impact.

Brom had lost all his impatience as he stood silently in the middle of the formation, an overly powerful aura leaked from him.

"Hah! The title of 'Humanity's Strongest' wasn't given wrongly", Dagger wiped away the blood coming from his nose and mouth. He exchanged glances with Brom for a brief moment. "Men!" He shouted.

The light from the dome intensified. The aura leaking from Brom immediately disappeared.

Five more white robed men entered the Formation's perimeter.