A Failure's hopeful Journey

You Xi Wang stood on the top branch of the tree watching the surroundings with rapt attention. His fellow teammates were also not relaxed like they usually were. They knew the graveness of this issue. The dark dweller was a core formation-level expert. It was said that a core formation-level cultivator was twenty times stronger than the spirit formation one, and that was when the latter was on its peak, the peak spiritual formation, while they were all early level cultivators.

Further complicating the situation was them not having man-to-man battle experience, they have sparred at home but it was just an educational spar, not a battle with lives at stake, the more disheartening fact was that they had an idea about the assailant's abilities.

The forest was very silent tonight, no wind flowing, no beast roars, it was as if the forest has sensed something and thus has fallen quiet. Suddenly You Xi Wang felt a weird movement in the spiritual energy as he let out a whistle, alerting his friends who sprang up into action instantly.

Fenny picked up her sniper rifle and vanished in the forest. Neo came and stood on You Xi Wang's right side with his halberd ready in battle stance. Yuki took the left point with her hand resting on the Katana, Allan covered the back with his spirit assault rifle in his hand.

They focused and in front of them somewhat fifty meters away emerged a figure, The black cloak reflected the moonlight. The figure spoke, "I am called Shade, I belong to The Death Sect, you kids denied me of those cubs…" before he can finish his words he was interrupted by You Xi Wang, who covered his feet with wind element and charged at this man.

Shade was taken back to see how this young one charged at him. His wrinkled face flashed with an ugly smile under the cloak. You Xi Wang charged and swung his spear at the man's neck. But Shade blocked it with just his finger. Neo appeared at this moment and slashed with the side blade of his halberd, moving it vertically to the opponent's head. This attack was blocked. They all landed on the ground after this.

Both the teenagers retreated, the Shade laughed in his hoarse voice, "Hahaha, very interesting." and he vanished from his spot, on the other side Yuki moved to the front of the formation she bent down and drew her saber from its sheath making a horizontal slash, the Shade did not expect such fast and capable teamwork and he retreated, despite being a core formation-level expert he was not capable of resisting the damage from these attacks.

Allan took aim and fired his rifle with no hesitation, the bullets followed a straight line as if they were a train, Shade deflected them all but Allan now shifted the aim to shoot all over the body of the shade aiming for his joints, he shot a bullet at his knee, Shade smirked and used his spiritual energy to deflect but suddenly he sensed pain in his right knee, bewildered he looked down and saw blood flowing from his knee and in the place of flesh and bone, there was a hole as big as a fist.

After the initial shock and surprise Shade bellowed a painful scream stirring up the forest and before he could think of venting his anger, a spike raised from the earth and pierced his left foot too, he was too busy screaming to avoid the spike, it was Neo who used his elemental affinity, usually, Sun lions were beasts with fire elemental affinity but Neo has inherited his father's earth elemental affinity.

Their first aim was now complete; movement reduction. This was their basic strategy. Being together since a young age they have developed some predetermined offense plans when fighting a target stronger than the whole group. The first step is to control its moment.

When Allan fired at all the joints of Shade's body Fenny had also fired at his knee timing it so well that Allan's bullet acted as a cover for her bullet and when Shade revolved his spiritual energy to deflect the bullets for a moment, because of his carelessness or overconfidence, his barrier was weakened at that point. The bullet of a sniper spiritual sniper rifle was high caliber ammunition capable of shooting a Primal soul expert to death if given a good shot at the head.

As for the earth spike that was done by taking the advantage of Shade ignoring them because of his shock. Yuki held her kunai knives and covered them with her ice spiritual energy and threw them at Shade. This time the latter did not relax or take his focus away, blocked it.

Shade used his spatial treasure and took out a whip from it as he spoke, "I underestimated you, now I will tame you and may you beg for mercy." he lashed his whip out on the group and they all dispersed taking their spots on four different spots to face this lashing.

You Xi Wang, took out his bow and arrow, knocking an arrow as he spoke, "Tag attack."

The other three nodded. The formation was simple. One attack, one support, while Fenny stays on stand by and was free to take a shot if it was clean and manageable.

Yuki moved and You Xi Wang supported her, Allan paired up with Neo.

Yuki nodded, and she moved swiftly towards the core realm fighter, he whipped his whip and loud claps were produced from this movement and the whip moved towards Yuki, but You X Wang was ready and he fired his arrows intercepting the whip and giving Yuki the time to close in.

Neo also moved and behind him, Allan spoke, "Follow Yuki's lead we will take him down."

Yuki Closed in with her Katana and slashed, it was blocked and she retreated, followed by her was Neo who closed in and slashed his halberd and retreated when his attack was blocked. This move was to harass the target mentally and making him aggrieved, the angrier he became the more chances were there for a slip up to appear.

This was a battle of mind fought with weapons.