When Kang Lin had been absolutely positive that she’d be losing her discipleship at the end of the tournament, she’d felt more than a little guilty—okay, a lot guilty—about keeping the ridiculously powerful and expensive talismans that Master had given her. Now that the ambush had finally been sprung, she was quite glad she had them. The Teleports were about to come in really handy.

While Kang Lin knew about the square in question and could picture the buildings surrounding it, she’d never been to any of the roofs, meaning that she couldn’t Teleport there directly. And she definitely wasn’t planning on appearing on the ground anywhere nearby when Nascent Souls were fighting. She was neither an idiot nor suicidal!

Even though the Poison Claw Sect had a branch in Sixth Flawless Flowing City, they maintained a small compound near the tournament grounds for a myriad of reasons. The main one was simply that it would mean a loss of face not to have one, but the property also was a convenient nearby place to muster contestants and to conduct business.

Even its tallest pavilion didn’t give a view of the square, but it did overlook the roof of a building that was a lot nearer where she wanted to be. Of course, that meant she’d burn, at a minimum, two of the priceless talismans getting there.

For a moment, Kang Lin hesitated. It would not be an exaggeration to say that even one of those priceless gifts was more valuable than every pill, device, piece of equipment, and other cultivation resource combined that she’d normally would have owned or consumed until she reached Golden Core. Using two of them seemed like an unnecessary extravagance.

Before she’d reached the top four of her division in the tournament, she was positive she would have talked herself out of proceeding by telling herself she wasn’t worthy of Master or his gifts. New Kang Lin clearly saw that Master, at the very least, thought she was absolutely worth any number of miraculous talismans.

And she was starting to believe that he might just be right.

She tore the talisman and appeared on the top of the tallest pavilion in her sect’s compound. After focusing her eyes on her target, she tore a second one, appearing there a moment later.

Kang Lin rushed to the other side of the roof and looked out over the square. The first thing she noticed was hundreds of illusory clones of her Master spread everywhere. Which was to be expected. In fact, she almost grinned. That technique had to be giving his enemies fits.

The second thing she noticed wiped any potential evidence of mirth from her face—more than two dozen of the Rising Tide Sect juniors had gathered on the roof of a building at the edge of the square.

If they were there, how could Master retreat if he needed to? The answer terrified her.

He couldn’t.

Qian Liqin was not entirely pleased with the start of the battle. If her sect mates had been with her, they would have been organized and worked as a unit. Instead, the large group of Nascent Souls faced their foe as a bunch of individuals.

And the results showed the folly of their lack of coordination. Two cultivators on their side were dead, another was injured though quickly recovering, and not even a single blow had been struck by their side.

Of course, a group of fifteen—now thirteen and she was quite pleased that Esteemed Formations Master Lei Bohai had escaped unharmed—should have had no problem against one no matter how disorganized they were. Chao Su was proving to be just as troublesome as they’d been led to believe, unfortunately.

The fact that he could completely conceal himself from all their senses was problematic, and when combined with his illusory clones, it turned into a nightmare. That he had access to such powerful, unusual, and varied qi elements, including Void and Space, was also concerning.

Still, he was only one man, even if a group of his juniors and a single ally had joined him.

Some in the group, the mercenaries, turned their attention to either those juniors or the ally. She understood the reasoning. All else being equal, it was better to target the ones in front of you than those you couldn’t find.

But that thinking was a mistake. Chao Su was both their sole reason for being there and the biggest threat. Ending him would win the fight.

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“Use your Auras!” she yelled. “Suppress him!”

Qian Liqin picked the area of the square furthest to the right and extended her Aura to cover the entire length and as much of the width as she could without weakening the repressive strength of the field she emitted. As she suspected they would given her status, Deng Boqin and Lai Xiaowen followed her lead, extending theirs next to hers. Between the three of them, they covered more than half of the square. Three members of the local allied sects, all except the recovering one, saw wisdom in the act and joined in, covering the rest of the area.

Unfortunately, the clones didn’t even flicker, a sign that Chao Su either wasn’t in the square or they weren’t suppressing him enough. She couldn’t do anything about the former possibility, but the latter might still lie within her grasp.

“What are you waiting for?” she yelled at the trash mercenaries. “Use your Auras. Overlap ours!”

None of the six were overly powerful or even great thinkers, but they at least took orders. Soon, the entire visible area was doubly repressed. The clones still didn’t weaken, however.

“You in the blue robe,” she yelled at the injured man. “Sweep slowly over the square!”

It was always tricky dealing with other Nascent Souls, especially those who didn’t even know her by reputation. That unfamiliarity was mitigated, however, by the fact that all of them could sense that she was clearly the most powerful one there, and unless a different hierarchy was established, cultivators trained since first joining a sect to obey their seniors.

The man instantly complied, but there still was not even a flicker in the technique that created the clones.

Possibilities spun through her mind. If any two of those assembled tried to suppress her, it would be difficult to fully maintain a technique, even one that was mastered and that drew little qi. Facing three would have made such an action almost impossible but only almost.

Either Chao Su had fled the field, could resist suppression by three Auras, or he’d used his Teleportation to avoid the sweep. Frankly, any of the three options was equally likely.

Well, if they couldn’t find him, they had no choice but to go with Plan B, attacking the target they saw—the juniors.

The intelligence on Chao Su was that he greatly valued his juniors, though she possessed a bit of doubt about the accuracy of that information. If he wished to protect them, why were they anywhere near the current battle?

Still, with any luck, attacking the youngsters would draw Chao Su out of hiding.

Benton’s qi pool was filled, thanks to a combination of his extreme use of Time Manipulation, Yuan Yaozu’s arrival and quick attack, and his enemies’ slowness in organizing.

Just in time, too. The woman who’d assumed command eyed the kids. The pylons they used for protection were pretty darn good, but they wouldn’t withstand combined attacks from multiple Nascent Souls for long. Benton couldn’t allow them free rein to unleash their energies on the juniors.

He needed to make a strong move to get the attention back on himself.

Huh. Pulling aggro in a real world application. His grandson, Greg, would have been so pleased if he were there.

Judging from the results of Benton’s first attack, he was almost positive that he would have killed all four of his targets if he’d used his mastered Aura techniques to suppress them first. He’d withheld it because, as his first fight had taught him, it was never a good idea to reveal your trump cards too early against strong opponents. For the same reason, he hadn’t used the Teleportation method that had killed Ye Zhengsheng.

It was definitely better to hold finishers back until the situation grew truly desperate or until he could end the fight in one big attack, and honestly, he wished he could withhold his best tactics longer. Thirteen to two was simply way too dangerous, though. He needed to even the odds further.

Besides, a massive strike might just demoralize the mercenaries so much that they’d run.

Benton charged four spheres with sixty million qi each, layering Void under the appropriate element along with his Projectile Enhancement technique. There was no way to hide such a massive build up, though, and the woman’s eyes turned to him immediately.

Before she or the other competent members of their group could focus their Auras on him, he Teleported behind the assembly and unleashed all four of his Auras and his attacks, each targeting a surviving JCSB member.

“Behind!” the woman yelled.

The spheres flew true. Between Teleporting so close to his enemies’ backs and the speed of the already charged attack, the targets barely had time to get their shields up, much less take evasive action or figure out how to counter the projectiles.

Of course, as had been proven just moments earlier, those shields would have likely been enough on their own to keep any of the four from dying. That was where his suppression came in, weakening the shield from the metaphorical equivalent of steel plating on a tank to the weak paper that high school football players ran through to enter the field.

That critical suppressive force, unfortunately, came with a huge drawback. Benton couldn’t Teleport while keeping it up.

The spheres hit. Elemental and Void qi exploded. Four heads and torsos disappeared.

Only nine enemy Nascent Souls remained alive to fight. Which was good. Nine to two was winnable. Nine against six when the rest of the Poison Claw Sect force arrived was very winnable.

The bad thing was that all nine of the remaining enemy Nascent Souls directed their Auras at one target—Benton. Given their general level of disorganization, he’d hoped it would take them longer to target him. He’d only needed microseconds to kill his targets, after all. But he’d miscalculated.

Whether he could survive long enough for reinforcements to save him had just become a very iffy proposition indeed.