*Five minutes prior to the events of the former chapter*
Ackhart walked through the silent streets of the town. His step was slow, indicating that he wasn't in any kind of hurry.
His eyes were clouded as he continued to slowly inhale the cold air of the late evening.
'This is a bliss,' he thought, enjoying one of the few, rare moments of peace that he could find.
The silence covering the town due to the late hour was the sole source of his solitude.
'Still,' the man shook his head, allowing his long hair to smack his cheeks like an array of whips. 'I would've never expected this place to hold so much potential,' he thought, raising his eyes and staring at the bright dots of stars littering the sky.
"Well, I guess I was too naive," he muttered, turning his lips into a thin line. 'With Sangakarts heavily operating here, it's no wonder no one taps into the potential of all those disciples,' he thought, turning his eyes to the east, where the remodeled training ground could be found.
Just by constructing a proper formation and supplying it with some common monster cores, the rate of growth of the normal disciples of the sect skyrocketed.
'I guess what I underestimated were their determination and influence,' he thought, tightening his hands.
Step by step, Ackhart continued to slowly stroll through the silent streets of the town while trying to think his current situation through.
'Huh?' Ackhart suddenly stopped when he noticed two silhouettes carved out from the background of the otherwise empty street.
From a distance, the two people that he noticed appeared to be some sort of couple that had just left the service district of the town and were heading towards their home.
'Ah, the charms of being young,' Ackhart thought, a small smile forming on his lips. Yet, as he got closer to the two, he couldn't help but notice one thing.
'Isn't it Mia?' he asked himself, unable to shake off the feeling of familiarity of the girl's frame. And after taking just a few steps closer towards the pair, the man could confirm his guess.
'It's her... but what is she doing with a man, alone in the streets, in such an ungodly hour?' he asked himself, puzzled by the sight that he wouldn't expect even in the weirdest scenario that he could craft in his head.
'Still, to think that I would meet her so quickly,' Ackhart thought, smiling to himself as he shook his head. 'I know she is the very reason why I was sent here, but still!' he thought, troubled to accept just how smoothly Andrea's and Anastasia's plan progressed.
'Huh?' Ackhart suddenly stopped in his tracks. The pair that he ended up randomly tailing suddenly stopped. And just after a few moments, a commotion appeared between the two of them.
'Is this some sort of banter?' Ackhart guessed, making sure to move to the side where the shadows cast by the buildings would hide his presence.
Yet, as he continued to observe the situation, Ackhart quickly realized that something was wrong.
'It doesn't look like some kind of a friendly banter,' he thought, adrenaline starting to enrich his blood.
"NO!" the shout of the girl reached Ackhart's ears.
'Fuck,' the man cursed in his mind, instantly rushing ahead.
Inflirtating Sangakarts was his main mission that lasted for the last two decades. For the last twenty years, he pretended to be a corrupt man that joined their ranks.
But after witnessing the insanity brought by a certain man, keeping an eye on his girl ended up as an absolute priority.
'I will think how to deal with the consequences later,' he thought, using all his open might to rush towards the commotion.
"What the fuck do you think you are doing to her?!" Ackhart shouted, digging his ground into the stones of the floor to kill his momentum. "Let go of her, you fucking bastard!" he added with fury reverberating in his voice.
With his usual strength amped up to its limits, the air around the man started to crack, unable to hold the amount of energy that Ackhart's aura would infuse in it.
"Get lost, you fucking nobody," the man holding Mia's hand sneered, not paying Ackhart any mind. From the look on the man's face, it was clear that he dismissed Ackhart the second he noticed him.
"I will say it only once," Ackhart muttered, doing his absolute best to hold his fury back. "Let go of her," he ordered.
The only reason why he didn't start the conversation with a juicy slap to the man's face followed by a kick to his balls was just that.
'If I attack him now when he is holding Mia by her arm, he would end up hurting her!' Ackhart thought, wary of doing anything that would bring harm to the objective of his true mission.
"Who do you think you are to meddle with my affairs?" Arganar asked, squinting his eyes with poorly concealed annoyance.
"Elder, help!" Mia cried out, only for tears to appear in her eyes when Arganar squeezed her arm stronger than before.
"I only have a general idea of who you are," Ackhart said in a calm voice, raising his cold eyes at the man as he straightened his back. "But you clearly have no clue of who I am, nor just how important this girl is," Ackhart explained, feeling all the barriers that were stopping his fury from unleashing slowly crumbling.
Not even in the wildest projections did Ackhart expect someone to outright attempt to do this girl any harm! Not after he convinced the local Sangakart cell to keep their filthy hands away from Mia!
"Get lost," Arganar didn't bother to humor Ackhart's attempts at talking things through. Instead, he threw the girl to the side only to use his now free hand to send a punch directly into Ackhart's stomach.
"Ugh!" Ackhart moaned in pain when all the air in his lungs got squeezed out.
'How can he be so strong?' he thought, stunned by the sudden display of prowess.
Yet, instead of running away or turning desperate, the man invoked a small smile on his lips.
"I guess I'm not the only one hiding my fangs!" he shouted in elation as his eyes flashed up.
Clap.
Ackhart clapped his hands together.
In an instant, the man's aura changed. Yet, before anyone could scan it, the air crowded with small tokens that escaped from Ackhart's pockets, stopping any and all from reading his aura.
"A mature enlighted?" Arganar muttered under his nose, taking a step back as he turned slightly more serious. He then scanned the few of the tokens that started to roam the air around his opponent.
'Are those formations?' Arganar thought, getting serious for the first time in a long while. 'They are quite similar to what he used to build that training ground... but different,' he thought, trying to make sense of the situation.
Yet, despite how surprised he was, Arganar remained calm. He simply stood in place, watching the other party and waiting for Ackhart to make his move.
"Get lost," Ackhart whispered, waving his hand.
A powerful wave of pure energy loomed over Arganar's body, threatening to squeeze him like a bug.
"Futile!" Arganar chuckled, snapping his fingers.
The attack disappeared. It simply vanished into thin air, as if it was never there, to begin with.
"What?!" Ackhart's eyes widened as he observed this display of might.
'Spirit dispersion?' he thought, squeezing his teeth. 'Isn't this something only ascenders are capable of?' he thought, only for his body to bend in half when Arganar pressed the attack.
Arganar's fist buried itself deep into Ackhart's stomach, sending the formation master several paces away.
Before the long-haired master could kill the momentum, Arganar appeared right beside him, sending a kick to the back-side of his left knee.
'Heck!' Ackhart cursed inwardly when his knee caved in, breaking his stance.
And then, another fist followed this time aimed directly at his face.
"BREAK!" Ackhart shouted, raising yet another set of his formation stones.
He wasn't the strongest fighter in his realm. In fact, he could hardly challenge anyone on the same stage to a fight. Even when abusing the heck out of his formation, Ackhart would normally be pretty hesitant to engage in a slugfest with another mature enlightened.
Ackhart's formation held, stopping Arganar's attack. The fist that was about to send Ackhart flying and rob him of his consciousness crushed the barrier but lost all the power behind it while doing so.
Still, it connected.
"Weak," Ackhart said, retaliating with a punch of his own. 'Accelerate,' he thought, calling forth yet another formation of his. The itch on his face only added rage to his attack.
"Ugh," Arganar moaned a little when Ackhart's attack forced him two steps away. He then raised his hand and wiped a drop of blood that appeared in the corner of his mouth. "Your fists do pack some punch," he said, praising his opponent in a taunting manner. "But I think we already established one fact," he said as a wide smile appeared on his lips.
"You are no match to me," Arganar said, raising his chin in a prideful manner.
"Maybe that's true," Ackhart smiled in response, rising up from his knee. "But I already managed to achieve my objective," he added.
"Huh?" Arganar stopped in his tracks, surprised by the sudden notion. He then turned his head around only to notice that Mia...
Mia was nowhere to be found!
"It looks like she ran away without caring about her savior in the slightest," Arganar commented as he turned his eyes back to the formation master. "Well, it doesn't matter," he added, shrugging his arms. "It won't be a problem to find her. I guess this time I will have some forceful fun," he added, a lecherous grin appearing on his lips.
"It's good that she escaped," Ackhart said, bringing his hand to one of the pockets of his robe. "Because there are some things that she shouldn't witness," he added, pulling out a rectangle piece of golden token from his pocket.
"You really should've looked into who I am," Ackhart added as his fingers grabbed the token from both of its ends, allowing him to snap it in half at a moment's notice.
"Is this..." Arganar muttered, his eyes widening when he finally took notice of the token. His face darkened as he squinted his eyes. "You won't dare," he added in a guttural tone, his entire self tensing up.
"This place is my own, private playground," Ackhart said with a smile as he straightened his posture and looked at his opponent along the line of his nose. "And I will not be harassed, bitch!" he cursed, adding a bit of strength to his fingers.
The token still remained in one place, yet the pressure applied on it was enough for sparks of spiritual energy to dance on its surface.
For a second, the two men ended up in a deadlock of their stares, each trying to see whether the other would chicken out first.
'If this is a real royal token,' Arganar thought, hesitating for the first time since the encounter began, 'then I'm really in a deep shit,' he thought, bitting down on his bottom lip. 'The question is, will he dare?' he asked himself, trying to figure out the chances.
'Is this girl really worth calling forth the royal judgment?' Arganar asked himself, lowering his center of mass as he quickly reached a conclusion. 'She is talented, but there is no way he will...'
"What the fuck is happening here?!" A new voice entered the street. It was feminine and lacked the underlying strength that the cultivators would unknowingly infuse into their own words.
In other words, whoever spoke those words, wasn't a cultivator worth paying attention to!
"And who the hell are you?!" Arganar spat out his words, turning his eyes on the newcomer, only to notice Mia and a middle-aged female standing in front of the terrified girl.
'Isn't she...' Arganar thought as his face turned blank.
"I'm the Royal Deputy for this area," the woman said, taking a single step forward.
Despite lacking any cultivation that would empower her to face the twelfth stage cultivator, she didn't buckle under Arganar's stare at all.
"And I hereby banish you from this land," Andrea said in a domineering voice before waving her hand at the man.
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