Baihu Jianxiao, the current crown prince of the Baihu Empire scowled at his father who kept gring at the entrance to the secret realm, silently communicating with someone.

  The prince was so very close, close to finding that mysterious man with no blood Qi on his body, when he was suddenly brought out by his father’s forces.

  His inner beast refused to let go of his prey and the prince agreed, so he wanted to fight it out with his father’s forces.

  Unfortunately, no matter how powerful, a peak Core Formation realm expert can never face an entire group of Nascent Soul realm masters, especially when they are part of the Night Guards, the elite forces of the Baihu Empire.

  In the end, he was tied up like a child and brought straight to his father.

  The Emperor was finally done communicating with his forces and making countermeasures, allowing him some time to deal with his rebellious son.

  “You should not have defied my orders like that.”

  “Don’t care. You interrupted my hunt so of course I retaliated.”

  Baihu Hankai gred at his son and let out a low growl of anger as his cultivation technique churned within him, distorting his voice and making it sound simir to the growl of a tiger.

  Yet, his son did not submit and imitated his father, gring back and releasing a simir growl.

  As a technique based on Metal Qi and derived from a peerless technique belonging to a holy nd, the Baihu family’s technique imitated the very nature of the beast it is based on, the Golden Tiger, and gave its owners a simir mindset and characteristics.

  It is one of the reasons why they can literally smell the types of Qi and have somewhat animalistic tendencies and instincts.

  As the two continued to growl at each other, trying to make the other submit, their senses suddenly picked up movement from the entrance to the secret realm, making them turn towards it.

  Just in time to see a small airship float out of it.

  The first thing that ran through their minds was shock at how it was possible for such a small airship to exist. It was a well-known fact that the very nature of airship construction required the airships to be rge enough to house hundreds of people at once so it should be impossible for such a small airship that looked like it could barely hold twenty people at most to even exist, not to mention that their senses picked up only a negligible amount of disturbance in the Pure Qi, indicating that this airship’s use of Pure Qi was extremely efficient, which was another impossibility.

  As the airship slowly moved out, it was instantly surrounded by dozens of cultivators belonging to the Autumn Fang Holy Land.

  Before the cultivators could do anything, they were stunned when a few cultivators wearing the same clothes as them were directly thrown overboard and into their arms, much to the captive cultivator's embarrassment.

  But, before the people of the holy nd could retaliate in anger, water erupted from the deck of the airship which sent chills down their spines for some reason.

  The water, instead of striking at the cultivators, formed a rge podium upon which a breathtakingly beautiful young woman appeared along with a retively handsome young man.

  Instantly, Baihu Hankai growled in anger since he would recognize that silver hair and golden eyes combo anywhere.

  Given that the Empress, Yin Lingxi, was standing as an equal with the young man, his mind instantly guessed that he must be the Huxing Xiang that the Autumn Fang Holy Land was looking for.

  A guess that was also made by the forces of the holy nd who gritted their teeth in anger but swallowed their emotions and bowed at the young man.

  “Young Master Huxing, we are forces of-“

  “I know, your leader already told me everything, and just like I told him before, I won’t be going anywhere for the time being. I will visit the Hidden Heavens Holy Land at a ter time, but not now.”

  “I’m afraid we must insist-“

  “Enough! Don’t make me repeat myself.”

  Instantly, Baihu Hankai and Baihu Jianxiao felt a terrible premonition as chills traveled down their spines as they sensed a strange, formless, pressure from the young man, something that only these two could feel due to their high mastery of their cultivation technique.

  If the cultivators of the holy nd had truly mastered their techniques like these two did, then they too would have felt the anomaly since their techniques shared a simir origin, as, these forces only focused on raising their cultivation base and not truly understanding the nature of their techniques.

  Hence they failed to perceive the danger like the duo of the Baihu royal family did.

  For a split second, the father and son felt like the very world had gone silent at the young man’s voice as if it were a loyal dog waiting for the instructions of its master. A strange thing to compare the world with but for some reason, that was the first thing that came to their minds.

  The fires of anger and humiliation that were burning within Baihu Hankai ever since this debacle began were instantly smothered as cold sweat soaked his back. His inner beast warned him that he must not cross this man no matter what the cost.

  A warning that he had no choice but to listen to since it had never led him astray until now.

  Simirly, Baihu Jianxiao felt the same thing. But, in his case, his instincts were cshing against each other as his desire to hunt for his prey, who happened to be this young man on the podium, while the other half of his instincts warned him of a terrible end to his life should he cross this young man.

  However, unlike this duo who instantly understood that the young man, Da Wei, is not someone to be trifled with, the forces of the holy nd were not as in tune with their techniques and did not perceive the danger they were walking into.

  At Da Wei’s words, the people of the Holy Land could not hold on anymore and attacked Yin Lingxi as per their instructions, hoping to hold her hostage and force Da Wei to follow them back to the Holy Land.

  Even the leader of the forces, Commander Luo, did the same as he fully unleashed his cultivation as a Soul Transformation realm master, intending to cripple Yin Lingxi for the humiliation he suffered in the secret realm.

  Then, the instincts of the Baihu family proved to be true as they bore witness to a strange fright that they would never forget in their lives.

  Da Wei pushed Yin Lingxi behind him, straight into the range of the protective barrier around their ship as he took a step forward, straight into the line of fire.

  Since the forces had already unleashed their full might and had used their martial techniques to their full, they could not pull back in time and could only feel terror in their hearts at the prospect of seriously injuring the young master of the Hidden Heavens Holy Land.

  Then, something so strange happened that they could not help but question their eyes.

  Every attack that should have nded squarely on Da Wei’s various body parts all missed.

  The physical attacks missed because the air pressure around their fists suddenly changed, changing the trajectory of their attacks.

  The spiritual attacks missed because the Pure Qi in the vicinity suddenly changed its density, making their attacks veer off into the distance.

  The swords missed as the gravity suddenly spiked for a split second, changing the trajectory of the weapon and making it miss.

  The entire exchange was over in a single second, yet, out of the dozens of spiritual attacks, physical attacks, and weapons, none even came close to hitting Da Wei.

  The spooked look on the cultivators was shared by the Baihu duo who stared at Da Wei as if he were a ghost.

  “…What the hell kind of a technique is that?”

  “…I’ve no idea. But, I doubt it was done on purpose.”

  Baihu Jianxiao looked at his father with surprise as the Emperor pointed towards Da Wei with a pale face.

  “Look at that little monster’s face.”

  Baihu Jianxiao followed his father’s words and looked at Da Wei’s face, only for his stomach to drop and heart to clench in terror.

  Because the shocked look on the forces of the Holy Land was also shared by Da Wei himself who looked at the missed attacks bnkly, unable to understand what happened.

  The forces of the holy nd instantly retreated and breathed a sigh of relief, not knowing if they should be grateful that this guy managed to escape their attacks or should they be terrified that he managed to escape the combined assault of a few dozen fully powered Nascent Soul realm experts and a Soul Transformation realm master at the same time.

  Da Wei did not waste this opportunity and directly activated the warp function on his airship just as Yin Lingxi retracted the Starlight Essence Dew into her body, making the vanish into thin air and leave the forces of the holy nd to stare in confusion, trying to understand what just happened.

  On the other hand, Baihu Jianxiao watched the various emotions fluctuating on his father’s face before they settled into grim determination.

  “….Once we get back, I am sending you and your sister to the Yin Long Empire.”

  “What!?”

  Baihu Hankai ignored his son’s outrage and turned around, walking back while speaking again.

  “You two will either win over that boy to our side or find out a weakness that we can exploit to keep him out of the war. If there is an opportunity, and if either of you two manages to kill him, I will directly appoint the killer as the Emperor of my empire.”

  Then, he suddenly paused before speaking again.

  “You should work hard, Jianxiao, if you don’t want your sister to take back her status. Especially since she has a distinct advantage in this task due to her gender.”

  Biahu Jianxiao gred hatefully at his father but resigned himself to do as he was told.

  After all, he and his step-sister knew from a young age that they were nothing more than tools for their father to further enhance the power of their empire, just like he was nothing but a tool to their grandfather who brought their father into the royal family for his strength.

  Such was the tradition of the Baihu Empire, where strength and merit were all that mattered.

  Author Notes:

  So, this story will start updating again next week since this volume is now finished on Patreon and the next volume, Volume 3, will start next week.

  Read 8 Chapters ahead on Patreon: http://patreon.com/Ruijard1