The masked man slightly raised his head, just enough to meet Hao Xuan's glaring gaze.
A bout of silence followed after that lasted no more than 10 seconds. Silently, he lowered his bow and gestured towards the center of the crater where most of the Hall's cultivators were gathered.
He didn't say anything after that and neither did Hao Xuan.
Hao Xuan who was still riding Grey with the glaive in hand and urged him forward.
As Grey approached the roaring crowd of cultivators, several of them at the back stood up and turned around to face Hao Xuan.
Hao Xuan's eyes quickly darted back and forth between the faces of these ten or so individuals but he couldn't recognize any of them.
Behind them, most of the other cultivators were still engaged with the insect creatures in one way or another.
"Where is your protector?" Hao Xuan asked, prompting one of the cultivators to step forward.
It was a man in his early twenties. Bald, scars covering a majority of his head and face.
"And would you be?" he asked with a genial smile while nudging closer to Grey with an extended hand, trying to pet him.
But when he was a meter away, Grey neighed and stomped on the ground with his front legs. A gust of air akin to a raging tempest appeared for just a second before disappearing like it was never there.
It sent the cultivator straight up into the air and when he landed, his body was covered in small cuts from head to toe. It looked like he had been tortured for days.
His eyes had rolled back into their sockets. His breath tethered on the edge, threatening to disappear at any moment.
Everyone watching including Hao Xuan was stunned into silence. Their eyes widened with disbelief.
The only noise was coming from the crowd engaged with the insect creatures still unaware of what had happened behind them.
Hao Xuan's gaze met with several of the cultivators facing him.
There was a strange type of stillness in the air that was louder than any action, almost deafeningly. None of them made a move, continuing to exchange glances with one another.
Hao Xuan breathed in slowly through his nose before tightening the grip around the glaive.
Nidhora's dark energy that surrounded Hao Xuan almost completely silently surged towards his arms and legs, in preparation for what was to come.
Who was going to make the first move? They didn't have to wait long to get that answer.
*Cough*Cough*
The scarred man gained consciousness, coughing up several mouthfuls of blood on his clothes.
All of their eyes shifted towards him. He was alive.
He groaned and tried to get up but soon as he tried to do so, blood poured out of the many hundreds of small cuts like water through a cracked dam.
With a dull thud, he fell limp. Alive or dead, that was unknown.
"God damnit…" Hao Xuan mumbled through gritted teeth.
And as soon as the words left his mouth, the remaining nine cultivators jumped into action.
Five of them charged straight towards Hao Xuan with swords drawn. Three stood in their places and fired off ranged attacks in the forms of different colored elemental attacks. One of them had bluish swords hovering above his head that shot forward like bullets.
And the last one ran towards the bloodied cultivator, trying to stop the bleeding.
Hao Xuan's heart thumped once. It sounded like a drum that was being hit from inside out.
Blood surged through his veins like galloping horses, giving a feeling of itchy numbness.
His biceps expanded to twice their size as he swung the glaive from right to left following the most basic technique mentioned in the 'Imperial Glaive Doctrine'.
With nothing but unadulterated brute force generated from his inhuman body, a bubble of air was created by the difference in pressure. He had swung the glaive so abruptly and with such force, that it created a vacuum.
And when the five swordsmen neared him, the vacuum exploded.
*BOOOOM*
The earth shook.
It sounded like a ballistic missile had just gone off.
The swordsmen were thrown away like lifeless ragdolls. There was nothing they could do about it. The faint Qi barriers they had created were torn apart like wet paper.
The shockwave created by that one swing went out like a ripple through standing water. It continued expanding outwards, enclosing everyone else within it in no time.
A mushroom cloud of dust appeared above them.
"What?! What's going on??!"
"We're under attack?!"
"Formations! Get into formations!"
Those that were further away got back on their feet much quicker and started ordering others around.
In the middle of the mushroom cloud, Hao Xuan stared at his hands with a stupefied expression.
He hadn't used any Qi whatsoever. All of that came from his physical body.
Grey, on the other hand, was more than ecstatic.
He stomped on the ground repeatedly, giving new life to the mushroom cloud that was about to die down. It kept getting bigger and bigger, on the verge of turning into a full-fledged tornado.
"Stop you lunatic, don't spur it on even more!" Hao Xuan exclaimed when he realized what grey was trying to do.
