"Senior, I am ready," Draven said to the old man as he began walking towards the Minotaur demons.
The old man nodded and stood beside Alexandria, stroking his beard. He didn't vanish like last time, instead choosing to remain as a spectator, eager to watch the fight.
"Moo..." the sixteen Minotaur demons howled in unison and charged toward Draven.
Their combined aura crashed down on him like a mountain, but Draven continued walking forward at the same pace. In the dreams where he had practiced the Butcher Heart Sutra, the number of people he had killed was so vast it was difficult to count. After all that experience, There was hardly anyone in the mortal realm who could shake Draven's spirit with aura alone.
As the first Minotaur reached a meter from him, Draven took a stance, leaning backward like a drawn bow, and struck his fist forward to meet the demon's own massive fist mid-air.
An illusionary form of a white elephant appeared behind Draven as his punch connected.
Crack!
A crisp sound of bone breaking echoed as the Minotaur demon was thrown back several steps.
"As I expected, it was no ordinary fist intent, but one of the rarest, the Shaman Fist Intent," the old man nodded in satisfaction upon seeing the spectral white elephant.
"Moo..." Even though injured, the Minotaur showed no sign of stopping and charged forward once more. By this time, all the other Minotaur demons had surrounded Draven, putting him in a difficult position.
Bang... Bang...
Continuous explosions rang out as Draven's fists transformed into non-stop killing machines, raining punch after punch at the Minotaur demon in front of him until it was smashed into a meat paste. He first killed the one opposite him to break the formation, then pivoted and threw a punch to his left. With a bang, the Minotaur's thick hide exploded, leaving a fist-sized hole.
"Moo..." It let out a weak howl and fell to the ground.
Draven didn't stop. With an uppercut, he shattered the skull of the next one, and his following punch directly crushed the chest of another Minotaur. The continuous explosions continued to ring out as one after another, Draven killed the Minotaur demons before him. None of them took more than two punches before falling to the ground with an exploded head or a crushed rib cage.
Each of Draven's punches carried the might of the White Tusk. In his mind, he subconsciously believed no one should stand before the might of his fist, a pride he had inherited from the white tusk in his dream. Because of this belief, the fist intent around his hands was overwhelmingly mighty.
In less than ten minutes, the corpses of all sixteen Minotaur demons lay on the ground.
Draven casually wiped the blood from his hands and walked toward the old man.
"You have earned an extra life-bond treasure from me. When the trial is over, I will help you bond with it," the old man said. He waved his hand, and the sixteen Minotaur demons vanished; even the blood stains on Draven's body disappeared as though they were never there.
"You are too strong for this trial. Sending mortal realm beasts against you is like sending a three-year-old to kill a young man. In such a situation, I would normally send an Ascendent realm beast to fight you in the next trial," the old man said thoughtfully as he sized up Draven.
Draven's heart skipped a beat. If he were surrounded by a group of Ascendent realm beasts, they wouldn't even leave his bones behind.
Noticing the shift in Draven's expression, the old man smiled slyly. "When you entered this place, I didn't detect any fist intent in your vital chi. But after meditating for a few hours, you suddenly possessed one of the hardest fist intents to master, the Shaman Fist Intent. That too at the perfection stage. Surprisingly, you could even call upon its full might like a seasoned warrior."
"So, this old man has another offer for you. I will give you one of my cultivation techniques. Master it to perfection and demonstrate it in front of me. If you can, in the next three trials, you will only face mortal realm beasts. Of course, normally from the third trial onwards, you should be given the option to quit, but you will not be given that luxury any longer."
Draven stared at the creepy old man for a while and then nodded his head helplessly. Although the old man presented two options, from the start there was only one real path: to go along with his plan.
"Good. Here, take this." The old man waved his hand, and a book as thick as a dictionary appeared before Draven.
"Asura Blade Intent?" Draven read the title of the technique in a daze. "You want me to master this whole thing to perfection before the next trial?"
The old man stroked his beard and nodded seriously. "That is what you agreed to."
Draven's mouth twitched. After giving the equally stupefied Alexandria a helpless glance, he sat down cross-legged and began studying the technique.
.......
At the Stonewill family mansion in the 36th stronghold,
A middle-aged man with one arm sat cross-legged in the middle of a courtyard. Elemental essence entered his body in a steady rhythm as he inhaled and exhaled.
"My lord, the Young Patriarch sent people to capture Butcher demon's sister. But this morning, the local police found only six corpses inside his house. All of them died in the same way, their heads cleanly severed from their bodies in a single strike. His sister has successfully returned to the Phoenix Academy. As for Butcher, according to our spies at the Hunter Alliance, he has already entered the forest, and his current whereabouts are unknown," a man wearing a black cloak and a ghost mask said respectfully.
The middle-aged man's brows furrowed, and he slowly opened his eyes. "Didn't I tell him not to provoke Butcher until I break through to the second stage of the Ascendent realm? Moreover, did he really think the Phoenix Academy would let him go if he touched one of its disciples?"
The black-clothed man elaborated, "He first tried to manipulate the girl by making her believe her brother's life was in danger, and that to save him she had to sign an agreement to willingly let us extract her bloodline. It was going well, and she traveled back to the 36th stronghold on her own. Our men waited in the metro to pick her up, but unexpectedly, Butcher somehow got news of it and personally came to the metro station."
"Seeing him at the metro station, our men didn't dare approach the girl and fled the scene. Later, the Young Patriarch sent Grandmaster John, who is at the first stage of the mortal realm, to negotiate with Draven, but that attempt also failed. In the end, he used some of our connections to hire six assassins at the peak of the mortal realm to kill Butcher and kidnap his sister. But things did not go as he planned."
"Six mortal realm weaklings to kill Butcher Demon?" the middle-aged man sneered disdainfully. "When his sister first awakened her bloodline, I also tried to capture her. But in that fight, Butcher killed more than a hundred of our elites. Even though I am at the first stage of the Ascendent realm, Butcher still managed to cut off one of my arms back then. And now my own son dared to send six weaklings to hunt that very demon in human skin? How in the world did he come up with such a genius plan?"
The black-clothed man waited for the middle-aged man to finish and said, "The Young Patriarch claims he is going to break through to the Ascendent realm soon and will personally kill Butcher after that."
The middle-aged man stood up angrily. "Arrogant brat! Even if I break through to the second realm, I only have fifty percent confidence in killing him, yet he dares to make such a presumptuous claim. Relay my order to him: if he dares take any more action against Butcher without my permission, he will no longer be part of the Stonewill family."
The black-cloaked man bowed with one hand on his chest and left the courtyard.
"Butcher Demon..." the middle-aged man touched his empty sleeve with deep hatred burning in his eyes. "Who would have thought that little boy, who was at my mercy ten years ago, would transform into such a troublesome pest one day."