Prologue: Encountering the Daoists of the Otherworld (part 6)

"Leaving, are you now?"

The youth saw, yet he didn't give much regard to their frantic escape. As if to mock his captives' naive attempts, the youth floated where he was, still without an inch and after a brief moment, he suddenly jerked his body back and swept a back kick behind him.

What appeared behind the youth was a figure of the elder, his visage was ghastly pale as he realized the youth was in front of him. Without time to react, the youth's kick landed on his face and sent him crashing.

Rumble!

The elder crashed on the ground and created a earth-shaking crater. The ground shook from his impact with a magnitude 2 earthquake. The elder coughed out blood consequently as his body almost shattered from the force. An incomparable expression filled his face with both terror and surprise combine.

Sensing that the elder's strength had weakened, the youth turned his gaze towards the two young men whom he met earlier. One of them had a blank look on his face and looked at the youth, seemingly waiting for his next orders. Meanwhile, the other also had the same incomparable look as the elder, eyes wide and jaw agape, and seemed to be muttering to himself as strength faded from him.

"Able to control the consciousness of others, defeat a Power Core expert in no time at all, not to mention that we were supposedly escaping from him yet, he appeared before the elder in an instant and subdued him utterly... Who the heck is this monster?"

The young man's face twitched incessantly as he came to the conclusion that he couldn't possibly defeat him...

Possibly... The only experts who can defeat him are Holy Saint Daoists!

"I have to get out of here..." the young man took a quick glance at his hopeless comrade then to the elder, then he sprinted away in flickering speed.

The youth didn't mind and didn't stop his escape. He wasn't worried as he descended down and landed nearby the elder.

He lifted his foot up and gently stomped on the elder's head. Slowly applying pressure whilst squeezing his foot down. He could hear the elder grunting in pain as he bore. His hands reached out to grab the youth's leg and tried to shove it away.

But the youth's leg felt like mount Tai crushing down on him. It wouldn't even budge as he hammered it with force and brought pain to his head the more he struggled. Eventually, he stopped resisting and struggled to query.

"Who are you, some kind of monster?"

"Monster? I think you're evaluating me wrongly. Perhaps to other races, I am, but I lived quite a civilized life until now and earned my place here in this world." the youth paused as he gazed at the elder with a downcast look. "But if you ask what a monster is, then I can't help to say that you foreigners are a great example of one."

"Coming to this world without going through legitimate protocols, establishing your Operation Bases that disturbed the locals, invading private properties and enslaving the masses, even though that's hardly regarded as monstrous, no doubt that you have created a great disturbance in this world ever since the Great War..."

"W-what is this?! Why am I back here?!"

the youth was abruptly cut off from his speech by the frantic squabbling nearby.

The youth didn't even have to look as he knew the noise came from the young man whom had tried to escape a while ago.

"Why?" instead of ignoring, the youth just questioned him back as he felt amused. He then said calmly.

"It's because I set up a Magic Barrier around us ever since this elder appeared. If you attempt to distance yourselves from me for 1 kilometer, then you'll be instantly teleported 5 meters back to me. That's why you're back here despite escaping so far."

"N-no way... Teleported, you mean to say you teleported us back using space principles?!"

"Space principles?" the youth suddenly became intrigued after hearing a new term of teleportation.

To the youth, knowledge has always been his delight to acquire. Knowledge was the base of his power and using it with great wisdom was the way he had lived for so long. If there was ever a new source of knowledge, then he wouldn't hesitate to acquire it.

The youth had all kinds of knowledge pertaining about the laws of space and many theories of Spacial teleportation, but he had never heard of space principles before.

It must be powers which the otherworlders use to teleport through space confinement, perhaps. The youth thought of it and held it in great importance to learn from the foreigners.

Meanwhile, the young man turned paper pale after he heard that the youth casually answered him that it was all because he teleported them back here. And even though he mentioned space principles, the youth tilted his head and question back, seemingly unbeknownst what he actually meant.

This is scary. You mean to say that he teleported us without using space principles?! But how could that have happened?!

The young man was desperate. He didn't have time to answer his questions. He wanted a way out, but when he looked at this monster again, he couldn't help but shudder in fear.

He was so arrogant moments ago. Seemingly sure that the elder could subdue him just like all the rest of those weird creatures of this world.

But now looking at this monster, seemingly curious to find out more about their world, he lost his pride and bravery, tuck his tail and ran away from him.

It was his instincts taking over his body. The fight or flight response he has as a prey against a predator. Using all his powers, his figure flickered away from the youth's sight. And a brief moment later, the young man stopped just half a kilometer away.

"I can't leave the elder. I must bring in reinforcements and report them about that monster in human skin!"

It was at this point that he could finally think just a bit clearly as he now knew what to do.

I must summon reinforcements! The idea reverberated in his mind.

But a second after the idea struck his head, his expression fell in horror as he looked at his open hand.

"W-where... Where's my storage ring?"

"Oh, so this thing is called a storage ring, huh?"

"Heeiii!!!"

The young man turned frantically and face the source of the voice. Surprised and terrified, a mixture of emotions were swelling up in his head. So much was happening that he couldn't fathom fast enough. And before he knew it, the monster whom he tried to get as far as possible, had already appeared behind as if he was his shadow.

In his eyes, he saw the youth was fiddling with his storage ring in his fingers. Next to him was his hopeless comrade who had been hypnotized with the youth's strange powers.

As if he couldn't read the atmosphere, the young man then asked. "How, how did you get my ring?!"

"How?" perhaps it's because the youth loved to answer questions or it's that he liked to play with his prey, but he nonetheless answered. "Well, back when I was still a frail human being, I use to have 'Job class' called 'Great Thief'. I still have those handy skills in my repertoire, so taking the ring was easy. If I want, I could even steal memories. Though, it leaves a bad taste to my mouth."

"You, you, you stole it..." skeptical, disbelief, the young man still refuses to fathom despite being explained the youth's status. The situation was too much to handle and his mind had perturbed greatly that he couldn't calculate anymore. But because the youth couldn't read the atmosphere, he just said, "Yeah, I stole it." and shrugged as if he didn't give a damn.

"What, what are you going to do with me?" why did he ask this question? Perhaps the young man had already surrendered to his demise. And maybe that was true. In front of the youth, who could defeat their elder so easily, his life and death were already in this monster's hands. Perhaps he wouldn't be able to keep his life if he wasn't valued enough. And if push comes to shove, if the monster dares to ask him anything unreasonable, then he'll take his own life in an instant.

"What to do with you? Hm, what to do, what to do...?" the youth mumbled that over and over as he fell into thought.