16

Hong's journey on the other hand was not smooth as their's. After leaving to the saint ancestor mountains, he had searched for days if not a couple of weeks for any traces of the dark guild. Not to mention, the demon beasts in that mountain range were unnaturally aggressive, which lead him to stay in a constant state of vigilance and exhaustion. Only good thing that came to him was that it gave him the right conditions to practice and familiarise himself with his martial arts.

Jumping onto a tall tree, Hong used his hand to shield his eyes from the sun as he scanned the surroundings for any sign of a beast hoard or the dark guild, though he hoped he wouldn't come across the latter.

Through out these few days he had spent most of his free time cultivating soul force, which had brought him to three star silver rank. He had also found out that the reason demon spiritualists bond with demon beast spirits was to increase their soul realm and cultivation speed, through experience of bonding with a weak demon spirit.

He was about to turn around and search another direction when he felt a peculiarity in the area through his qi sense. He used soul force to probe around but there was no result again, and so he used his qi sense this time. 10 meters, 20, 30, 60, 100 at 130 meters his senses caught some sort of a barrier. Quickly recalling his qi, he used shadow art to hide himself in case anyone had noticed his probing. After about half an hour with no response, he gently lifted up a small pebble from a couple of dozen meters away with his qi telekinesis before hurling it towards the barrier. The stone passed through the barrier with no obstruction, and so he followed it up with a small leafed squirrel. But when it got closer to the barrier, it began wriggling and as the distance grew shorter, the more intense the wriggling became. Puzzled he moved till he was in visual distance of the barrier only to see hundreds of thousands of snow wind type beasts, like snow apes, snow lizards, frost spiders, ice bears, all rounded up inside a large circular field of at least a few kilometers in diameter. The weird part of it was , even though they were cramped in that area, non of the beasts, even the peak black gold ones never tried to get closer to the barrier. Instead they seemed as if they wanted to distance themselves even further from the border if they could.

The barrier seemed to repel demon beasts, Hong realised after spending a few days observing the barrier. It seemed to be powered up and maintained from four artifacts that emmited the aura of an expert above legend realm that were planted in four cardinal directions and almost once every two days it would be opened when the dark guild herded another group of snow wind type demon beasts from the mountain peaks.

Hong had always wondered how the dark guild had initiated a massive beast horde and it seemed like it was a plan they had cookes up for a long time.

He had also managed to catch a glimpse of the location of the dark guild by following a silver ranked demon spiritualist of the guild. It was near the peak of the third mountain in the sacred ancestor mountains. And other than that, there seemed to be a different entrance, which only a few members rarely entered.

Hong was caught in a dilemma. He could wait till they released the demon beasts and take care of a few of them or he could break the barrier and release the demon beasts so they would scatter and take care of the ones charging towards glory city. And after much consideration, he decided on the first option. Glory city was stronger than before in the novel, not to mention the presence of Nei Li, and his student along with the prodigies of this generation. This battle also allowed Ye Zong to acquire a snow wind ape demon beast spirit that allowed him to reach the legend rank in the future and survive the attempted assassination from Ye Han.

So this demon beast horde was important to the growth of glory city. He would only take care of few mid strength beasts to reduce the casualties suffered by weaker fighters.

And so he spent the next days either observing the dark guild movements or hunting demon beasts from the surroundings until the day of attack arrived.

Hong was harvesting the corpse of a demon beast he had come across when his qi sense alerted him of movement around the area of the barrier. Discarding the body into his storage bag , he sneaked back to his usual hiding area to see what was going on.

There was a path to the barrier that hadn't been there before, Hong observed, and along the path there seemed to be artifacts that would stop the beasts from spreading out effectively herding the entire horde towards glory city. And inside the barrier, a couple of peak gold ranked spiritualists along with five silver ranked ones began lighting some plants from the opposite direction. It didn't take long to see it's effects as , the moment a beast caught the scent , they began acting very aggressively and restlessly.

The two gold ranks stealthy moved towards one of the artifacts before removing it and ran without turning back. The moment the leader of the ape beasts noticed the absence of the dangerous presence in one direction, it roared with the top of its lungs ,charging almost maniacally in the direction of the glory city. The other beasts too noticed this and followed, their feet shaking the earth as they followed the leader with gusto. Noticing the lack of any spiritualist in his presence, Hong began his work. Shadow art, as it's name implies is a stealth art. It is the best and perhaps the only near perfect assassin art he had managed to create by using the few assassin arts in murim.

Shadow art not only masks the traces of energy released by the body but also interferes with energy sensing of other experts by creating a cloak of natural energy allowing the user to blend in like a shadow. It also masks the smell and the image of the user completely while somewhat masking the change of air currents making their existence akin to a shadow when activated to the fullest. Existing with only the slightest presence , ever present but undetected. And when it's used with the light weight art and grasping footwork, no one , at least in murim would be able to touch a hair on him.

With the three techniques active, it didn't take even a minute to catch up with the horde, but he didn't aim for the really big ones. This required stealth and precision.

At the end of the horde , lagging behind most of the charging beasts were the lizard type beasts. And the last lizard ,a two star silver rank beast was doing its best to keep up with its group when a metal gauntlet pierced through it's brain ,killing it instantly, and then it just wasn't there.

A snow spider beast ,at near peak gold rank was strutting along other beasts from the edge when it felt it's legs get caught up in a thread like object. But before it could open it's mouth to scream , a small metal object circled around its mouth completely sealing its mandibles. A nearby snow ape collided with the fallen arachnid, but by the time it's body struck the ground, the head was separated from its body. Golden strings flashed again and the dead ape was nowhere to be found. Only confusion remained in the primtive brain of the arachnid even in the moment its head fell into the dark interior of a space pouch ,completely separated from it's body.

Through out the journey till the out skirts of glory city, hundreds of peak silver and peak gold and a few of black gold rank beasts along with any one at the edge of the horde disappeared and departed from their lives, completely confused or even unaware of their demise. Hong only stopped his hunt when he felt his pouches unable to contain anymore corpses of beasts. And since they were ones scavanged from the ruins, and could hold up to a few hundred square meters per one, and the fact his main target was beasts with intermediate strength, Hong believed that he had fulfilled his obligation towards glory city. But that did not come without the cost.

Wind God demon spirit is a demon beast that that manipulates wind. This ability was seen in the novel where Zhu Xianjun fused with such demon beast spirit. These demon spirits are quite nimble, agile and fast. But the reason these demon spirits are well recognised is because of their talent in scouting. They can, not only move at high speeds with very little sound, but also posses an innate sense of the air around, allowing them to feel the disturbances in the air and thereby locate enemies that they cannot even see.

And to Hong's great misfortune, one of the peak gold ranked demon spiritualists did posses the spirit of a Wind god demon beast.

The moment Hong stopped using the shadow art, a blur appeared briefly, rushing in his direction before an impact sent flying. Thinking fast, Hong released his flying knives, wrapping their strings around the trees before stopping his momentum. Looking up,he caught the sight of a electric blue spirit like demon beast whose body that seemed to be made out of flowing clouds, a Wind god Demon Spirit. It was the same peak gold rank expert who was in charge of retrieving the artifact and herding the demon beasts. Hong immediately spread out his qi sense, looking for the other members of the dark guild. But fortunately the the peak gold expert seemed to be alone.

Without delay Hong immediately released his flying knives from his sleeves, aiming at the enemy with the highest speeds he could muster, but the spiritualist still fused with his demon spirit managed to dodge them all with only a few nicks causing Hong to grimace.

A reason why wind god demons were hard to obtain was because, when the passive detecting ability along with the high agility and speed got combined, it gave wind god demon spirits insane reflexes. And as the attack proved, the spiritualist infront of him was quite proficient in the workings of his demon spirit.

The expert looked mockingly at Hong "You missed"

But unknown to him, Hong had no hope in his attack succeeding in the first place.

Hong's flying knives were different from other straight foreward weapons and he had specific directions in his mind when he was crafting them. He did not make them just for the purpose of being cold weapons.

Though most never quite realise it, murim was well equipped with formation and array arts. And since he had recived knowledge on all murim arts,he was no stranger to them. When he made those flying knives, he did so while giving them the ability to act as formation points.

While the spiritualist started his gloating, Hong used his qi telekinesis, spreading the knives in a circular area with at least 20 metres with him at the center before he arranged them in the order of a very familiar formation. The presence sealing formation, one of the most used formations in his days of training, and used his qi to activate it making sure the other experts will not be able to locate them. Qi flowed through his qi strings and activated the formation sucessfully hiding their presence, but Hong didn't let his guard down.

With limited space ,he couldn't use many of his strong techniques, because the moment they move past 20 metres from the center, other members of the dark guild would immediately be alerted and that would be game over. Which meant he had to play this fight calculatingly and not with brute force.

The Gold rank expert was not pleased to see is opponent's attention was not on him. So before Hong could gather his wits after arranging the formation, an enraged wind God demon beast fused spiritualist dashed at him in a straight line in almost imperceptibles speed fully intending to destroy him in one move. Knowing that if he dodged, there was a chance the fight would get out of the range of the formation, Hong stood his ground and faced the oncoming asssult directly.

Even though he was only near the peak of silver rank, thanks to his many years of martial art practises, diets and his recent body forging ritual, his physique was at the level beyond a gold ranked spiritualist. When his opponent managed to land his blow, he was surprised to see the silver rank pipsqueak block his charge with a little effort.

The spiritualist quickly moved back before his opponent had the chance to counterattack and put some distance between them,before fully fusing with his demon spirit and rushing in with a punch with even more momentum. But once again, it was blocked with much effort on Hong's side.

As the gold rank demon spiritualist closed the gap in an even faster speed,Hong turned to one of his favourite unarmed martial art techniques he had named the storm demon art.

Widening the distance between his feet , he straightened his fists, streaching his fingers before tucking his thumb in, then placing his arms with half a metre distance from each other, he raised them to his to the level of his face for easier manoeuvrability, adapting a stance similar to wing chun style.

The first punch came targeting Hong's face, but this time he was ready. Instead of just blocking, he grabbed his arm at the wrist before changing the trajectory. Blue fist sailed past Hong's ear as he continued pulling the spiritualist along, and brought the heel of his other palm right onto his opponent's face. Then giving no room for recovery, he used the same hand to grab the back of the spiritualist's head before pulling him even downward while lifting his knee simultaneously.

"BAM"

The knee cap collided with the already bruised face , disorientating the spiritualist. But he was no ordinary person, instead a member of the dark guild who was no stranger to combat. Without even trying to find his footing like Hong had anticipated, he flipped back, curling his body into a fetal position mid air before releasing a omnidirectional blast of wind that broke him out of Hong's grip. Feeling the loss of grip, the demon spiritualist broke contact and put some distance between them.

"You must have a powerful demon beast bloodline to keep up with me , what is it? Dragon? "

Receiving no response, the spiritualist began charging towards Hong with murderous intent, attacking in speeds that almost overtook Hong's vision, almost. Hong could still make out the paths and methods the spiritualist was using and as a martial artist at body reforming realm, and what ever he can notice is something he can react to. As a flurry of attacks moved towards him , Hong began redirecting countering and blocking them while attacking back with his qi infused fists. Each punch, jab, kick of the enemy spiritualist was coated with wind so the moment it made contact, they would explode, blasting Hong point blank with shockwaves. Hong retaliated by attacking with sharp attacks, cutting through the raging winds and stabbing his stiffened fingers in whatever opening he could find or grappling and redirecting the attack force back making both of them get covered in injuries all over.

Seeing the person infront was an expert in hand to hand combat, the spiritualist began to resort into using demon beast skills. He punched from distance, sending shockwaves of wind with each movement. Facing the ranged attacks, Hong didn't dodge. If he did, the Wind would move past him , out of the formation and alert the rest of the dark guild. Instead he began circulating his qi according to the storm demon art.

As a martial art that uses water, wind and lightning, the storm demon art was a soft style art relied on swift focused strikes and counter attacking. And when one reach closer to the peak, they would be able to feel and manipulate wind water and lightning on their surroundings through a demon body created by internal energy.

Dark blue lightning type qi gathered at Hong's palms forming gloves of electricity, while a miniature storm raged behind him before condensing into a eight foot tall upper torso of a humanoid demon behind him as Hong reluctantly used more qi to match the prowess of the demon beast spirit.

'What type of a demon beast is that?' The man wondered because he had never seen or heard of wind type demon beast like the phantom that appeared behind Hong, but had to quickly refocus back as Hong made a dash towards him, effectively reducing the gap between them.

Hong on the other hand was in a rush to end the fight. Since qi was derived from the body, it leaves a strong signature at exposure. And now that his qi was past the peak of the Zenith level, the qi he uses has the additional spiritual signature making it easy to track, and hence the need to end the fight fast.

Abandoning any attempt at dodging the attacks of the enemy, Hong closed in, tanking the hits before using his great strength to grip the attacking hand. Electricity flowed the moment the grip connected, paralysing the unfortunate man, completely rendering his movements to a halt. But he didn't get the chance to recover, as Hong began to hammer him with blow after blow.

Hong was in a tight place. Though the storm demon phantom was useful to offset most of the wind type spirit arts, a considerable amount of force had managed to impact him during his reckless charge. And the only reason he was not rolling on the ground in broken limbs was thanks to his strong body. But he was about to reach the end of that rope as well. Heaven and earth energy responds accurately to spiritual energy than qi, so Hong had to make sure the spiritualist wasn't going to use any technique, by repeatedly slugging the in the face man, all while he wished the man to go to sleep at every impact.