"This is…" Looking over at the so-called Old Ji, Xuan Hao wore a surprised expression on his face as he clearly recognized Old Ji…
Old Ji was someone Xuan Hao had met a few months ago in the past, but at that time he was called Elder Skinling from the Black Rose Sect… How come was suddenly connected to someone from the Flowing Cloud Sect after only a few months' time? And how did he already manage to heal his arm and even reach the Nascent Soul Realm?!
Xuan Hao felt even more confused when he saw how concerned the lady from the Flowing Cloud Sect was about him as he selflessly stood up to protect her. Instead of running away, she instead remained in place.
Clearly intent on helping him out in the coming fight against the bandit leader!
"Hehe, both of you can just come together and I will deal with you at the same time!" Showing obvious disdain towards the two of them, the bandit leader motioned for both of them to attack whenever they were ready.
"Young lady… You should just escape while there is still time!" Feeling a bit helpless upon seeing the young woman's steadfast intent to stay and fight.
"No! I will stay, we have a better chance at getting out alive if we stay together!"
"Fine but remember to be careful later on…" Looking at her with a helpless look on his face, Old Ji sighed to himself as he gave up on convincing her anymore.
At the same time, Xuan Hao had made his way a little closer to the battlefield as he was hiding on top of a nearby tree branch of an especially large ancient tree giving him full view of the soon to be battlefield.
Currently, the bandit leader was around the fifth stage of the Nascent Soul Realm and his three underlings were all in the earlier stages of the Nascent Soul Realm as they all prepared to attack Old Ji and the young lady from the Flowing Cloud Sect.
The odds were not really in favor of the two as they were both only in the first stage of the Nascent Soul Realm, along with someone who Xuan Hao presumed was supposed to be the guard of the young lady being at the third stage of the Nascent Soul Realm.
The person in question was an elderly lady who had not said anything since the start as she had clearly been heavily injured in a past clash with the bandit leader, a thin line of blood could barely be seen running down from the corner of her lips by Xuan Hao as he observed how she moved over towards the young lady and prepared to move the moment that the bandit leader began his attack.
"Hehe, you still have energy left in you after earlier?" Seeing the elderly woman come up and prepare to attack him as well, the bandit leader did not seem to care at all as he just laughed it off before narrowing his eyes and signalling to his underlings to move into position in case they tried to run away, or he needed help dealing with them.
Seeing this, Old Ji along with the young and elderly lady prepared as they knew very well how dirty that the Fire Blood Gang normally fought, it would not surprise any of them if they suddenly ganged up on one of them as the leader held the others back…
"Seems like these three will end up in trouble without any help…" Xuan Hao muttered this quietly to himself as he observed the bandit leader preparing to make a move along with the three underlings looking like they couldn't wait for much longer.
"Let's go!" Before the bandit leader made his move and his underlings had moved into position yet, Old Ji moved along with the young lady and elderly lady as the three of them launched a quick all-out attack towards the bandit leader together.
Stacking everything on this single attack, they hoped that they would be able to catch the bandit leader off guard as he might not have expected for all of them to suddenly use their strongest moves before first clashing with him or anything like that.
This was especially so as the elderly lady clearly overtaxed herself by going all out and was severely injured in the process of using her strongest attack towards the leader of the bandits.
Three terrifying attacks flew towards the leader of the bandit as they seemingly worked in tandem with one another to create a single powerful attack that hurled towards the bandit leader a breakneck speed.
"How beautiful…!" Xuan Hao could not help but let out a voice of admiration as he watched the three attacks work together and create a single combined attack with a strength way above the early stage of the Nascent Soul Realm.
From observation alone, Xuan Hao easily deduced that the attack had already reached the level of being comparable to the all-out attack of someone at the peak of the fifth stage of the Nascent Soul Realm!
The bandit leader also sensed the incoming danger as a panicked expression spread all over his face as he began setting up a few barriers to block the incoming attack, but soon found out that it was useless to resist without proper preparations and instead abandoned his defence to take out a small ball that shone with an eerie black light.
The attack hit the bandit leader as a shockwave spread through the surroundings and uprooted a few nearby ancient trees along with the surrounding vegetation and plant life.
"This should be enough…" Old Ji and the two ladies all looked at the centre of the explosion as the elderly lady fell to the ground from exhaustion.
"Grandma!" The young lady quickly rushed over to support the old lady as she began checking up on her together with Old Ji.
"W-what should we do now…?" One of the three underlings looked at the centre of the explosion with a scared look on his face as he asked the others in slightly confused voice, still not fully processing what had happened yet.
"…" The other two underlings did not know what to do either as all of them just stared blankly at the place their leader had been standing as the explosion from the earlier attack slowly began to subside.
"Hm? This is!" On top of the tree branch, Xuan Hao narrowed his eyes at the place where the explosion happened as a dangerous killing intent slowly began to accumulate in his eyes.
This feeling, Xuan Hao was all too familiar with it after he had visited the Black Rose Sect to fight with the Sect Master and get his disciple back.
"What is that!" One of the underlings also discovered that something was wrong as he called out in shock and pointed over in the area where the explosion had occurred earlier.
Where the bandit leader had been standing earlier, there was instead a pitch-black dome quietly flowing around the place as it seemed to protect something inside of it.
"Demonic qi!?" The old lady who had been helped up by both the young lady and Old Ji exclaimed loudly with a shocked expression on her face as her eyes widened with fear.
Old Ji and the young lady were the same as they both prepared themselves for what was to come next.
"Boss…? A-are you there?" One of the underlings cautiously moved over towards the black dome as he called out in a fearful tone.
"AHHH! How annoying!? Why did you have to force me to do this?!" The underling was not answered as an enraged voice could be heard from beyond the black dome as it slowly began to disappear.
Revealing the bandit leader hidden inside.
Only this time, the bandit leader did not look like the bandit leader anymore and instead had a large pair of pitch-black bat wings and a large pair of claws where his hands had been before.
All in all, the bandit leader had completely turned into a demonic creature that looked like it had crawled up from hell as everyone stared over full of shock and fear. Not knowing what to do when faced with the new appearance of the bandit leader.
"D-demonic cultivator…!" Shaking full of fear, the underling that had walked up to call out for the bandit leader began shaking in fear as he was about to turn around and escape.
Sadly, that was too late as a giant claw came down from above and directly killed the underling where he was standing.
Instantly killing someone in the Nascent Soul Realm!
The others began shaking in fear as they watched the former bandit leader lift the claw he just used to kill his own underling and lick some of the blood left on the claw away while moaning in pleasure upon swallowing some of the blood.
"Ah! Why did you have to force me to do this!? Now I will have to kill you all~" The former bandit leader let out a regretful voice as he lifted his head and smiled eerily at Old Ji along with the young and old lady from the Flowing Cloud Sect.