Corrupt Creations

Tao Shing and the elder from his family, had been the only people that didn't get caught by the darkness trap. 

Tao Shing at first, like the other cultivators, made sure to lock his aura on the people inside the skill, but he didn't enter the dark fog. When he noticed five auras disappearing one after the other, he realized that things were not so simple inside there. There was a possibility to lose all the people inside the trap and if that were to happen, then it would be four against one, however, the first prince was already heavily injured. 

He chose to spend a good quantity of mana and destroy this trap once and for all. 

Hellish flames ignited inside the area where the dark fog was. The heat dispelled Seth's darkness curtain, that was lingering on the entire surface. Tao Shing tried his best to control those flames, so they didn't end up roasting the people from the other two factions. 

Seth's darkness curtain, had covered an area of two hundred meters, so Tao Shing had to spend quite a bit of energy to dispel his skill, although, it was not enough to put a strain on him. 

The entire two hundred meters surface was now burning with hellish purple flames, the only place left untouched was where to group of ten people stood. 

Those practitioners looked at the sea of flames burning the floor, and a chill ran down their spines. These flames were odd, they gave a sinister feeling. Everyone kept watching for some time until the flames extinguished, they hoped that Seth turned into ashes inside that sea of flames. 

It was unfortunate for them though, since they saw a silhouette leaving a cocoon made of darkness a hundred meters away from them. 

Seth stared at Tao Shing seriously. He wanted to let him for later, because he would need a bit more of time in order to extract some information out of him, but that man almost got him with those damned flames. 

Seth would not have any problems while dealing with the poisonous effect coming from those flames, however, they weren't only poisonous, but strong too. Since they were both at the Mana Perception middle-stage realm, Tao Shing flames, more or less, could hurt him a bit if he were to be careless. 

Seth chose to ignore the small fries and focus on dealing with Tao Shing. He took a step forward and vanished from their field of vision. All people could see was a very fast shadow, moving through the battlefield. 

Tao Shing readied his sword, burning its blade with Cerberus flames. He saw the shadow approaching and tried to use the best of his senses to lock on Seth's position. He made a slash motion and a wave of fire painted the sky in front of him. 

Seth used his exceptional speed to dodge the fire that was coming his way, bypassing it with ease. 

"Let's go help Tao Shing, or else he will kill us one by one!" 

The cultivators from the Hunter Alliance and the mercenaries that banded together with them, charged to the battlefield, hoping that they would be able to kill Seth with their joint efforts. It was actually the best move they could do, since only their leaders were Mana Perception initial-stage cultivators. The others were all Qi practitioners. 

Seth at this time was already ten meters always from Tao Shing. His enemy was using a sword, but it didn't even seem to bother him at all. 

Tao Shing made a swift move with his sword, drawing a fast ark in the air and his blade was directed at Seth's neck. They were already very close, so he could finally catch Seth's silhouette within the shadows. 

Seth didn't try to dodge at all, he just went forward to meet the sword. A thick layer of darkness spread around his arns and he caught Tao Shing sword using his bare hands. 

Thud! 

The sword seemed to have been stuck deeply inside a rock. Nothing was able to move it. Even the hellish fire burning around the blade, could not burn the darkness that was enveloping his hands. Instead, what happened shocked Tao Shing to the core, since he believed, his flames would not lose to any other attribute on this world. 

Seth's darkness started to swallow the Cerberus flames, extinguishing it from the blade. For Tao Shing's luck, his sword didn't have a spirit inside, or else Seth would be able to steal it for himself. 

However, Seth didn't stop only at that. He took advantage of the opportunity to kick Tao Shings belly while he was still stunned by the outcome of their fight. 

Tao Shing was sent flying like a kite without strings. His Mana helped him on defending against the kick, but it was not enough. He felt his that belly was turning inside out, at least an internal organ had been ruptured by Seth's kick. He couldn't imagine how strong Seth's physical strength was, to be able to damage his body to this extent with a single kick. 

He climbed up from the ground and saw that his hands were still shaking, unable to stabilize. He was lucky that just now, there were already eleven people surrounding Seth, blocking his path. 

The first person to move after Tao Shing, was the elder from his family. But all he could do, was buy a bit of time for the mercenaries to arrive, because after the first direct clash against Seth, he was already kneeling on the floor and vomiting a mouthful of fresh blood. 

The leader of the mercenaries was holding a huge axe that had a lot of metal spikes around it. He commanded for his subordinated to engage and make the enemy expose an opening, but his subordinates hesitated to follow his orders. 

"Cowards! What are you waiting for? If we don't fight, we are all going to die!" 

Four Qi Transformation middle-stage cultivators threw themselves towards Seth after hearing their leader words, attacking from all sides. When their attacks were going to connect, Seth vanished again. He appeared behind one of them, and the head of the mercenary was already falling on the ground. He activated his shadow walk, appearing behind other two mercenaries, kicking one of them, while the other was impaled by a huge dark spike. 

The mercenary that was kicked was sent flying towards another one on the other side. The impact between them was so strong, that both of them had their bodies fractured in a hundred different places, eventually dying from the internal injuries. 

Seth purposely let his guard down, exposing his back, leaving it defenseless. The leader of the mercenaries was lured into attacking him from behind. Thinking that he got the chance he wanted, the mercenary used hid blood-boil arts and received an increase on his speed and strength. 

While on his blood-boil stance, he was now two times stronger and faster than before. In a single second he was already swinging his huge axe to cleave Seth in half. 

Thud! 

He didn't seem to learn from the mistakes of others. Seth caught his axe with his bare hands, making his darkness spread to the surface of the weapon. The axe broke into thousand pieces, and Seth's hands were already holding a dagger made of darkness. 

He made a very quick movement to slit the mercenary's throat. 

"Gha!" The mercenary held with open throat, trying to stop the blood from flowing out, but was unable to do so. 

Seth ignored him, since he felt five attacks heading towards his direction already. 

The hunters were watching from the side, waiting for their leader orders. The leader of the hunter alliance, was an experienced archer. He was waiting from the right time to command his subordinates. 

When Seth finally engaged with the leader of the Blood-boil Mercenaries, he gave the signals. He and his four archer subordinates, used their wind attributes to increase the piercing ability from their arrows. 

Five very quick and precise arrows, were shot towards Seth's back. 

Seth felt those arrows come and waved his hands. A wave of darkness surged from the ground, knocking four out of the five arrows away. However, even Seth didn't expect that one arrow, would penetrate his darkness skill and pierce through his left forearm. 

It was the first hit to successfully connect on his body. He flinched in pain, but didn't even utter a sound. The pain he felt while feeding his soul to Meiyi was at least a thousand times stronger than this. 

"Tch!" The hunters got annoyed, because it was an arrow meant to be fatal, and yet, it stopped after piercing Seth's forearm. Actually, Seth's though body saved him from further harm. If he were any other normal cultivator, he would be dead by now. 

His sturdiness was thanks to the Seed of Tyranny, so he had to actually be thankful that it was able to save him now. This arrow left him a bit angered, he didn't plan to risk his life on this fight, so he was using these diversified ways to deal with every practitioner around here, however, he was caught off guard there. 

Seth snorted with displeasure and decided to be a bit more aggressive. 

Tao Shing had already recomposed himself, joining together with the hunters. They were preparing a wave of ranged attacks, since they concluded that Seth was more proficient in melee combat. 

However, for some reason, they felt the air chill down. A feeling of uneasiness got the seven of them as they observed the man that was slowly walking their way.