Chapter 16: Your hairstyle is trash!

Yi Ren was looking indifferently at the group of people that surrounded him, waiting for them to do something. The number of people that were ready to attack him was different from the one that stopped Feng Mai and Wang Fan.

There were 15 people in total and four of them were in their twenties. They were waiting for a group of disciples of Gray Grass Sect to appear, but they found only one, so they were hesitant.

"What are we waiting for? He's only one person!" A girl complained to one of the people in their twenties.

"We have to be careful. They collided with evil sects, that means they earned something out of it, or worse; there could be demonic cultivators in their ranks."

"Yeah, don't you see him? He 's too calm…"

"He is just bluffing! Look at him, at his… hair."

Yi Ren, who was listening to everything they were saying, frowned a bit upon hearing the comment about his hair.

"What's wrong with my hair?" He asked.

"You are seriously asking? I haven't seen worse. It's horri-"

"Shut up, Xiao Ai! We have to kill him anyway. Why are you even explaining anything?"

The girl who spoke at the beginning was about to continue trashing Yi Ren's haircut, but got stopped in the middle of it by another person from the group.

Yi Ren's frown grew deeper; he wasn't aware that people viewed him like that and thought that it was what a normal kid his age would use.

'So I've been paying Fang Chang for a cut that makes me stand out?' He thought. Attention was the thing he least wanted in this period of time, so he just copied the hairstyle of a kid he had seen before, thinking it was completely normal.

Now that he found out that his haircut was weird –and from people he didn't even know– he was convinced of getting rid of it.

He shook his head along with his thoughts, trying to not waste any more time .

"You look like a weirdo. In fact, I don't even want to kill you anymo-"

The girl was about to finish hating on Yi Ren's image, when a hand that had appeared from behind squeezed her head, instantly liquefying everything inside and throwing the remains of gray matter and blood to the surroundings, staining the arm of the culprit.

"I should've probably gone for someone stronger, it seems I got too comfortable the past year and a half." Yi Ren muttered, shaking off the red, mucous substance that got on his hand.

"Xiao Ai! You monster!"

"Xiao Ai… is dead."

"I'll kill you! Ahhh!"

"Get him! Don't let him escape!"

A nostalgic feeling enveloped Yi Ren's body as he saw the 14 people remaining preparing to attack him. He saw them all as if they were moving in slow motion and would take a long time to get close.

One or two were crying as they rushed, others were very angry, one was indifferent, another didn't try to attack him at all… He analyzed everyone: their expressions; their body language; their speed and their intentions. Everything was familiar to him; he clearly remembered the actions of those who had tried to kill him.

'It got stronger, didn't it? It gets better with age… I might really be a monster after all.' As that thought crossed his mind, Yi Ren's mouth contorted into a very small but deep smile.

'Great.'

He disappeared from the place he was standing, only to appear a moment after in front of a young man who was holding a spear, delivering a punch. The man barely reacted, trying to step backward, but it was too late. Yi Ren's fist directly pierced the man's stomach, spraying minced pieces of meat towards the ones behind, like some sort of bloody shotgun.

'Crap. I only wanted to punch him away.'

The guy who had just been attacked had an extremely shocked expression, not because he was about to die, but because he sensed Yi Ren's aura.

"F-First Realm. H-How is that possible?"

"But to be in the First Realm is very normal though?" Yi Ren muttered, confused.

"Aghhhh! You're dead!" Another boy had arrived behind Yi Ren, who hadn't moved, swinging his sword in a horizontal slash. Yi Ren had no time to take his fist out of the guy's stomach, so he evaded the attack by tilting his body to a certain degree.

The sword didn't even come close to hitting him, but the boy who held it kept swinging it in a fluent pattern, forcing Yi Ren to keep evading. Only a second had gone by, but another two people joined the offensive; both had close combat weapons.

An ax and a spear attacked Yi Ren simultaneously but he skillfully evaded them along with the sword slash that followed. The three people attacking were throwing exquisite skills with flawless cooperation –It seemed they had practiced a lot– but the boy they were trying to hurt just kept evading: he crouched, bent, rotated his body, lifted his limbs, and used their attacks in his favor.

Everything was happening as Yi Ren had his hand inside someone's stomach, so some of the attacks ended up hitting the guy –who had already turned into a corpse– splitting his body into many pieces like a tridimensional and bloody piece of paper.

Swissss

An arrow flew through the air, leaving a blue trail of light behind as it approached Yi Ren. The latter sensed it long before it arrived and moved away, but a thick and orange beam of light was already on the way, slowing him down.

Two more girls on the back started to throw compressed balls of fire as another boy jumped from above with a hammer, joining the three that were already at close range.

Yi Ren's eyes seemed to have life on their own as they moved extremely fast from one side to the other, capturing every single detail of the things around him, while his body moved on his own; no attack had reached him yet.

A barrage of glistening lights enveloped Yi Ren, but none could even graze him. He seemed to disappear at times and his figure blurred at others. A portion of the fog that covered the area had even dissipated because of the constant rush of attacks, creating a beautiful spectacle of colors, yet it was anything but beautiful to the 93% of the people present.

There was only one part of his body that they were able to damage, no, cut. His cubic hairstyle became smaller and smaller as some attacks were barely able to touch it, erasing its previous form.

"Who is this freak!!"

"Don't get distracted, we can't get distracted!"

"Is it ready guys!?"

"Just a moment!"

The five people that weren't attacking had their arms extended towards Yi Ren, who was in the center of the chaos. They were far from him, so the pentagon they formed was large. Strange white energy appeared to be leaving their bodies, moving through the ground as they formed lines of light. These lines traveled toward Yi Ren as they drew strange characters that were very close to connecting.

"We got him!"

"We practiced this move for a whole year! With it we are the most elite group between the outer and inner disciples of the sect!"

"Not even an elder of the Third Realm could escape this formation. You may be a monster, but-"

"Alright, enough."

Yi Ren's voice wasn't loud, yet it was the only thing that could be heard. Everyone around him, including the people casting some sort of formation turned into a mist of blood. No one could react as it was instantaneous, and even if it wasn't, it happened as silently as a leaf would fall to the ground and as fast as a flash of light; no one would have survived anyway.

The only person remaining in the middle of it all was a boy covered in blood. Even stained, his hair color could be easily distinguished. It was modernly short and white; paler than snow.

His eyes: red. Their irises rotated like some sort of gear as thin, black lines formed and died inside. It was a mesmerizing sight that would leave a complex mechanism in shame. The pupils in the center were as black as the void; no ray of light could be reflected upon them.

The color of his face, hands and body also changed, turning into a paler white. It wasn't a sickly color; it looked healthier than most as a rosy tone painted some of the connections of his limbs: his knees that were now exposed, his knuckles and some parts of his face.

The boy let out a soft sigh as he gazed at the strange symbols that were now disappearing from the ground, trying to save the memory of the pattern for a later use. The boy was obviously Yi Ren.

He looked around, hoping that nobody had seen him. He didn't like using 'that', as his disguise would be blown and he wouldn't be able to change his appearance for some time.

"Oh so that's why he was shocked." Yi Ren muttered, finally understanding.

"Half of those cultivators should have been in the Second Realm, right?

Oh no… If someone asks, how am I supposed to explain this?"

He thought for a second before coming up with the perfect idea, or at least that was what he thought.

"Also, my hair should be better now, right?"

"..."

He remained silent for a moment, before scanning his surroundings. Blood, that was everything he saw.

His mind stopped thinking for a moment as certain memories began to invade it.