The Sect Leader System

Chapter 363: Decapitation Strike

Qian Liqin had conflicting thoughts about the assemblage she found herself in. On one hand, she’d never seen so many Nascent Souls gathered in one place. Counting Esteemed Formations Master Lei Bohai and herself, there were sixteen on the roof of a single building.

Overall, though, the quality of her companions was … lacking, and she wasn’t just talking about in minor realms, either. That judgment excluded Deng Boqin from the Azure Cliff Hunter Sect and Lai Xiaowen from the Harmonic Yellow Mercantile Pavilion, of course. But everyone else…

Not that the power of the others mattered. Qian Liqin was enough to cow a lone charlatan who dared call himself a Formations Master without the Order’s backing. Other than the five Nihility realm cultivators, she was the second most advanced in cultivation on the entire Da Qing continent, and the man ranked higher than her had been bottlenecked for centuries.

She couldn’t help but mentally shake her head that she’d traveled nearly a week’s flight time away to gang up with fourteen other cultivators— Esteemed Formations Master Lei Bohai surely wouldn’t lower himself to fighting physically!—against a single Nascent Soul.

If a man were judged by the quality of his enemies, Chao Su must rank supreme under the heavens as a Nascent Soul. Too bad he wouldn’t be alive much longer to appreciate the honor.

Still, the indignity of the travel time and her forced association with so many lessers was worth it as her participation in the fight, along with a truly ruinous amount of resources, would finally secure the services of an Order Formations Master. The Thousandth Heavenly Li Sect had sought to have an Enlightenment Array constructed for more than a century, and she would have the honor of providing the crucial piece to having it built.

She couldn’t wait to use it.

Of course, the array didn’t actually cause enlightenment. Only the heavens could do that. But its effects were so beneficial to Nascent Soul realm cultivators that the name might as well have been accurate.

The boost to her sect’s Nascent Souls alone would be worth both the cost and her inconvenience. Factor in that they would easily recoup the cost over the next century by charging the occasional allied cultivator for its use, and her participation was absolutely guaranteed.

Thus, she kept her mouth shut as she and the others were forced to wait for the ambush to be triggered. Finally, though, Esteemed Formations Master Lei Bohai triggered the beacon.

If she had been less experienced, she might have held her breath at that point. Her reward was contingent on the charlatan being punished. Should Chao Su not respond to the beacon, all her effort would have been wasted.

Instead, seconds later, he appeared, and she almost allowed a tiny grin to appear on her face. It grew even more difficult to maintain her dispassionate visage when Esteemed Formations Master Lei Bohai activated his formation.

Qian Liqin didn’t know why any of the Nascent Souls, much less her, were needed. The trap set up in the plaza was a true masterwork, not something even she could easily escape.

A bit of concern arose, however, when she tried to sense Chao Su and couldn’t. She’d been informed, of course, that he possessed some artifact or technique that concealed his cultivation, but she’d naturally assumed such a thing wouldn’t affect her expertly honed spiritual sense.

Qian Liqin had been wrong. Whatever concealment method he used prevented even her from detecting his realm. She, who could pinpoint even a Nihility realm expert’s cultivation to the low, mid, or high minor realm, didn’t sense a thing. The man might as well have been mortal.

For a moment, her imagination ran wild. Was it possible that Chao Su was higher even than Nihility? Could he have reached the Ascension realm?

She chuckled quietly. None on the Da Qing continent had even made it that high in millennia. There was no way anyone in such a qi desert of a continent like the one she currently occupied could have done so.

A second bit of disquiet came just an instant later. Chao Su, who shouldn’t have even been able to move a muscle under the oppressive force of Esteemed Formations Master Lei Bohai’s formation, calmly pulled out four metal balls from his spatial device and threw them. When they landed, the masterwork … stopped working, and she and her fellow ambushers were revealed.

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What?

As soon as the concealment array failed and Benton saw the fifteen Nascent Souls hidden behind it, his mind went into analysis mode. Six of his opponents wore robes from either the Jade Chameleon or Swift Blizard sects. Those cultivators would surely fight to the death given the nature of the conflict. He mentally marked them for first strikes.

The rest of the group all wore various robes that denoted affiliations Benton didn’t recognize. Out of the larger group of nine, though, his sense immediately separated six from the remaining three. His instincts told him those half dozen were inferior. They had weak cultivation bases and shallow qi pools. Mercenaries, probably. They were likely affiliated with small factions who hired them out for resources.

They would absolutely not fight to the death. In fact, they’d break at the slightest sign of trouble. They were a lot more valuable to their factions alive than whatever trivial amount of payment had been offered for their services.

The final three were a mystery. Their cultivation felt solid, even better than those representing the big three sects. These were experts. Dangerous. Especially a woman in a yellow robe.

Which led to the question of why they were present. Surely, the JCSB alliance couldn’t afford to pay for such high quality mercenaries. And since they were obviously representing different factions, it wasn’t like the JCSB had pulled an outside third party into their alliance.

The reason they were present mattered. Without knowing, he didn’t know if they would cut out at the first sign of trouble or if they were in it for the long haul.

While three parts of his split mind were analyzing his foes, the final part was answering a larger question—should he run or fight? The immediate answer seemed obvious. He was a lone cultivator facing sixteen enemies of a similar realm. Running was the obvious call, especially since the Teleportation disruption had been destroyed when he’d taken out the formation. In an instant, he could be hundreds of miles away.

Things weren’t that simple, however.

If he didn’t deal with the ambush today, one of two equally or perhaps worse things could happen. One, they’d come after him at a time when he was less prepared and at a location where he’d less prefer to fight. After all, a battle at that moment when he had reinforcements on the way and in a place where any damage wasn’t likely to take out anyone or anything he cared about was much better than the alternative.

Two, they might vent their anger on the main sect grounds or Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town or the Poison Claw Sect or the compound instead. None of those places were prepared to weather a storm from sixteen Nascent Souls.

Fleeing was an option, but it wasn’t necessarily the best one. Staying was much better if two conditions were met—he could withstand their attacks until reinforcements arrived and he and his allies had a chance of winning.

There were too many variables involved, unfortunately, to determine the status of either, much less both, of those conditions.

Benton had no doubt that he was the strongest cultivator present by far. His System-given cultivation was top heaven grade; his qi pool was enormous; and he had more and better techniques, Concepts, and Auras than any of his foes. He wouldn’t be surprised if not a single one of them even had advanced their Aura past Small Success.

He was also at the very peak of Nascent Soul, closer to Nihility than any of those arrayed against him. Of the sixteen, only three were at the top end of the realm. The majority of the rest, eight, placed firmly in the middle, and the remaining five were at the low end, two of the mercenaries having only recently ascended from Golden Core.

The problem was numbers. Even a cherry Nascent Soul possessed a qi pool that wouldn’t run dry after a couple of attacks, an Aura, and techniques powered by a Concept. And, as the saying went, quantity had a quality of its own.

Basically, Benton didn’t know how long he could survive against their combined onslaught or if even adding four or five allies would allow his side to emerge victorious.

There was only one way to find out—a decapitation strike.

One thing was sure—his reactions and thinking, enhanced by his Mind Cultivation, were faster than any of his opponents. They’d clearly been waiting for some signal followed by a big reveal of taking down the concealment array before they acted. The premature destruction of the formation had surprised them.

He immediately charged six spheres with forty-five million qi each and threw them, targeting the necks of the six JCSB members. Enhanced by his Projectile Enhancement technique, they flew faster than unenhanced eyes could detect. Which didn’t mean much given the realm of his opponents.

Still, he gave them little time to react.

Only one hit before its quarry erected his shield, and that guy lost his head. Literally. The Void consumed everything above the neck and a lot of the torso below it.

The other five strikes were less successful. Two of the cultivators were clearly injured. The other three mitigated the attack via various methods. All were still in the fight, and the nine he hadn’t targeted were powering up attacks.

Only one dead and none incapacitated? Almost no qi remaining? Nope. Time to Teleport out and figure out plan B later.

That was when another thread of his Split Focus spoke up.

“Uh,” it said, “A Teleport signature from one of your talismans appeared while you were evaluating your opponents. Since no qi signature followed, it had to have been Zou Tian. Which would have been fine since none of those enemy Nascent Souls likely would have detected him. Except instead of hiding, he ran to the roof and erected shield pylons. While you attacked, about thirty of your sect members Teleported in.”

If Benton fled, his sect members would pay the price.

Crap.