Ambush?

The young man raced through the bushes as headed towards the sounds of battle in the distance. What astonished him though was that he could see everything that was happening in the distance clearly as if he was standing right next to the battle.

"I can hear what they're saying even from here. Interesting...what other abilities do I have?"

As he was passing a large tree, the young man punched it lightly.

SHRPPP!

A large chunk of the tree flew off, causing it to slowly start falling to the ground. The young man raised an eyebrow and said to himself, "Supernatural strength too...but it seems those people over there have similar abilities. Are they using some type of magic?"

The young man pondered on what he was seeing as he got closer and closer to the battle.

"This place feels strange. Although I don't remember where I came from, it couldn't be from anywhere like this right?"

In the clearing where the cultivators were fighting, three cloaked masked men surrounded another group consisting of a young boy and girl. They all looked to be around the ages of 15-18.

"Wen Yu, Jiang Shi, you're both such arrogant fools! You dared enter the Stormy Gorge without masks knowing that you've made enemies of Senior Brother Hou Qing. You two must've been tired of living."

The young woman, Wen Yu, put her hands over her mouth and started trembling as she slowly hid behind the young man named Jiang Shi. His eyes were bloodshot as he tightened the grip on his sword and released his martial spirit, a dazzling sword that floated behind his back.

"You three! We have no issues with you! Our quarrel is with that bastard Hou Qing! Leave now and I promise that the Wen Clan wouldn't take any revenge on any of you for harming us."

"The Wen Clan? No one will even know you died and you don't even know who we are! Your threats are pitiful! Now die!"

The man who said that released his martial spirit, causing a wall of fire to appear behind him.

"Flames Of Desolation!"

The flames immediately moved toward Jiang Shi, causing the latter to grit his teeth and attack with all his might.

BOOM!

The two men clashed and Jiang Shi was sent flying back into a tree with flames engulfing his entire body. The other man was fine in comparison as he only had some minor scratches on his fists.

"SHI!"

Wen Yu released her martial spirit, which was a rain spirit, and used a technique to douse the flames on Jiang Shi's body. Every cell of her body was still trembling but that didn't stop her from trying to help her lover.

One of the other men smirked and was just about to loosen his robes when he heard someone approaching their location with incredible speed. Whoever it was had no intention of hiding their movements.

The masked man turned to the other one who attacked Jiang Shi and said, "Senior Brother, someone is coming. Should I head him off?"

"No, let him come. We don't know his intentions so splitting up isn't a good idea right now."

Jiang Shi, who was almost half dead at this point looked towards the direction the other men were motioning to hoping that whoever was coming would save them. If not, he hoped that they could at least save Wen Yu as she was more important to him than life itself.

Of course, the young man already knew they all noticed him as he could sense their energies "turning towards him." That was another thing about himself that he discovered along the way. He could precisely sense all the energies around him in a small radius.

As he got closer to the clearing, the young man puffed out his chest and jumped out of the bushes with his hands clasped behind his back. His head was held high as he indifferently looked upon the visages of everyone there.

Just as he was about to speak, one of the masked men started laughing and pointed at him, saying, "Lei Shen?! Haha! You're the one that was coming here? The last time everyone saw you, Senior brother Hou Qing almost beat you to death! Have you turned into a shameless pervert since then?"

The masked man continued laughing wholeheartedly for a few more seconds but he soon realized something was wrong.

No one else was laughing with him.

In fact, his comrades seemed to be unusually serious and were in the process of summoning their martial spirits.

The leader of the trio turned around and looked at the one who was just laughing and said, "Be serious. Aren't you feeling his cultivation level? It's at the eighth Qi layer, just like us."

"What?! Lei Shen was at the fifth Qi Layer just one month ago! He was just another piece of trash! Tch!"

The masked man brandished his spear, took a deep breath, and concentrated on Lei Shen's body.

'Lei Shen huh? So that's my name! Seems like I'm pretty infamous in the Stormy Gorge. I knew it would've been a good idea to come here!'

Lei Shen raised his hands submissively, smiled, and said, "Boys, now there's no reason for us to fight. You can finish your business here. When you're done, can I ask you some questions about-"

WHOOSH!

A fire spear came flying at Lei Shen's forehead with incredible speed, causing him to shift his head to the side, barely avoiding the attack.

Lei Shen frowned and lowered his hands as two of the men surrounded him.

"Then, I guess negotiations are off."

Lei Shen stomped the ground, pushing off it and sending himself forward with blinding speed. He rushed to the person closest to him who seemed to be flustered by the speed of the attack and started clenching his fist.

But, that was when something unthinkable happened.

A blue light appeared out of Lei Shen's wrist and a large ax appeared in his hand. The temperature around him instantly dropped as he swung the weapon at the man who was already trying to stop Lei Shen's attack with his sword.

SHRZZZZ!

The ax cleaved through the man's sword like it was nothing and cut him in half like he was a slab of butter. Blood barely got to leak out his body before a blue light shone on the ax blade and it was frozen solid along with the two halves of his body. Unfortunately, the top half of his body was flying away so it shattered into bits as it hit the ground.

The other two men immediately started having second thoughts about attacking and the survivors, Wen Yu and Jiang Shi had their jaws hitting the floor. They all had one thought going off in their minds.

'What kind of weapon is that?!'

The most surprised of them all though was Lei Shen. He never noticed the brand on his wrist and he certainly never expected that an ax would appear out of it. As he looked slowly admired the beautiful weapon, three words appeared within his mind.

'The Leviathan Ax.'