A Cultivation Tale: The Godly Punisher

Everyone looked towards the source of that sinister laughter and saw many burly men dashing towards them.

The older men at the peak-phase entry stage looked at Alex in awe. Then regret shone in their eyes. They should have left when he said they should leave. What now occupied the entirety of their hearts was how they were going to survive this. Then everything in their spatial rings poured to the ground.

When the mortals saw the cultivators do this, they knew it was over for them too. With sadness in their hearts as they would surrender all their belongings that were earned hardly, they began to drop all the materials in the carriage to the ground.

Haha!

"Good! You guys are wise. I like wise people." The man laughed and said. Then he looked at Alex and said "Boy, how were you able to know there were many bandits in hiding?"

Alex looked at him and said "I just had a feeling"

Haha!

The man laughed. Then he said "Just a feeling? You looked totally serious about it. It was you who forced us out of our hiding spots. We couldn't let a meal that has entered our trap escape because of our negligence"

His smile disappeared and he looked at Alex evilly "Where is your possession? I want it now. Failure to do so would result in your death"

Alex looked at him and asked "Well, I believe you are not blind. Do you see a spatial ring on me?"

Everyone's eyes widened, including the bandits. Their eyes shone with great surprise.

Such boldness to speak back to their commander.

The commander, who was at the middle-phase earth adept stage looked at Alex with a smile. Then he said "Well, I arrived at that conclusion because I feel you might have kept it away. Since you were so serious about these people leaving here because you felt bandit were concealing themselves at some spots, you could have probably hidden away your spatial ring out of fear that we might catch up with you people. Now, I would ask you for the last time. Where is your spatial ring?"

'My parent's and their friends' wealth? Haha. What a joke.'

Alex shook his head. "I don't have a spatial ring"

The commander nodded. Then he looked at his men.

"Kill the mortals!"

Unbridled terror suddenly rose in the hearts of these mortals. They quickly went on their knees and began to beg the commander for mercy.

The commander laughed and told his men to carry on with what he ordered then to do.

Alex looked at the commander who looked back at him with a smile.

"You want to kill the mortals? What did they do? You should come for me instead" Alex said.

"Well, I would get what I want from you when I kill a few mortals. I believe your heart can't be so callous to the point of ignoring the death of these innocent mortals" The commander replied.

Why the commander was after Alex's spatial ring was because of all the people here, Alex was exquisitely dressed. The cloth he wore showed that he was from a wealthy family. Looking at it from any angle, one would know that the materials used in making the cloth was probably many times the amount of money everyone from the carriage would have in their possessions combined.

Seeing the bandits draw nearer to them with eyes that shone with ferocity and a smile that spoke volumes of nefariousness, he made up his mind.

Large masses of cyan energy poured out from his two palms. Then they condensed and shaped into blades which he grasped.

Once these masses of energy erupted from Alex's palm, the air around the bandits became stormy. It was like they were in a windstorm. Strong gales of wind rage about, heaving up dusts into the air and causing the bandits to feel great difficulty in standing their ground. If care was not taken, they could be knocked off their feet and hurled away by the furious wind currents.

Why the air became violent was because Alex produced an energy that controlled wind. But he wouldn't have been able to achieve this effect if not for the threads of wind originforce energy or primordial wind energy (a higher or tertiary form of wind-manipulation energy in the realmverse) in his windforce energy.

[The wind originforce was one of the numerous primal cultivation energies he was exposed to when he was still in his mother's womb.]

Besides, the tumultuousness of the air was evoked by Alex's will. He exerted his will on the air around the bandits though his link to his enhanced windforce energy. So he was able to manipulate the air around them through this medium.

This spectacle caused everyone to open their mouth wide in awe. They wondered how Alex was able to do this.

But what made the commander more surprised was because Alex constructed blades out of his energy. He had never seen or hear of someone generate solid weapons from their energy since his introduction to cultivation.

Of course, Alex could learn about this since he had the weapons book. A small book that described weapons and it various forms, which he discovered in the Azure Beastsman's ring.

The blades in his hands were formed purely out of his cyan-colored windforce energy. These blades could be referred to as wind energy-blades. They were blades condensed from energy that had control over the wind element.

When the aggressive wind currents abated, the bandits who were trying their best to resist the pull and push of the powerful air currents looked at the glowing blades in Alex's hands.

When they sensed the power pulsating from the blades, their eyes lustred with marvel. The blades were emitting the power of a cultivator in the peak-phase condensation stage.

"Who the fuck is this boy?"

How would someone in the peak-phase entry stage mold solid weapons out of his energy and such would pulse with the power of a cultivator in the peak-phase condensation stage?

This question rocked their minds.

'Or is he concealing his cultivation stage? This boy must be a powerful expert.'

When this thought surfaced in their minds, they began to slowly withdraw. They suddenly had the feeling that Alex must be one of those powerful experts that had cultivated for long and looked young or that he was one of those legendary geniuses.

The commander saw his men backing. Then fury shone in his eyes.

"What the hell are you idiots doing? Don't tell me you bitches are scared of a sixteen year old boy?!" He asked as he shouted at them.

They didn't respond. All they knew was that their life mattered to them. If they were killed, who was going to provide for their wives and kids at home.

"Okay. I get it now. You guys don't want to be obey me your newly elected commander. I wonder what Coldmoon and Bloody Heaven would do to you guys when we are done here." The commander said with a sinister smile.

Once the bandits heard that, their eyes shone with terror. They took a deep breath, then their fear for Alex vanished.

Alex's eyes widened when he saw that they were about to attack. He thought he could scare them by doing those things he did, but their of fear of some people replaced the fear they developed for him moments ago.

'Damn!' He complained inwardly.

'It's battle then'

Then he looked at the mortals and cultivators.

"Go. Enter the carriage and leave here once" He said to them.

They were shocked, but they did as they were told. Why they now listened to him was because they felt he wanted to help them hold back the bandits.

Besides, they also felt he was up to the task as he seemed powerful. Then out of fear for their lives, they ran to the carriage leaving their goods and possessions behind.

The bandits saw this and wanted to run after the mortals to kill them as they were ordered. But just then, the air around them suddenly became like a thick barrier.

It was difficult for them to get through as there was a lot of resistance offered by the air. It was like they were pushing against a strong, fast-flowing river. Air came from far distances at great speed and swept against them, blocking their movement.

As they struggled against the powerful, unceasing wind currents, the mortals and other cultivators entered into the carriage. Then the beasts, whose bodies' biological characteristics had been enhanced to a great degree shot into the distance at tremendous speeds. Very quickly, the carriage vanished from everyone's sight.

"What the hell?"

"How.. how is that possible?"

"Goodness!! We are doomed!"

....

The men spoke out in a shocked tone and with unbridled fear in their hearts.

They looked at Alex in a sinister way and felt they must capture him so they could appease their two Lords.

Like they were in agreement with one another, they suddenly produced energy-attacks which shot at great speeds towards Alex.

Alex was long ready for them. With speedforce energy saturating his eyes and producing a mystical glow, his perception of the velocities of the attacks slowed down to the barest minimum.

The attacks blazing through the air at astonishing speeds took them many minutes to move by an inch in his vision.

Then he focused on his energy-blades and abruptly, mysterious patterns appeared all over the blades. These were weapon amplification patterns. They increased the damaging power of weapons formed from energy. These patterns were formed from many abstruse symbols that fused together, forming different complex patterns.

Once these patterns were hastily inscribed into the blades held in both hands, the large, cyan blades of energy shone a brilliant blue light as threads of novaforce energy, a blue-colored energy was pulled in from the realmverse into them.

Then he slashed out at the incoming attacks. The instant he slashed out, wide beams of blue-cyan energy discharged from the blades and impacted the attacks.

Boom! Boom! Boom!...

Many loud explosive sounds rang out as the attacks collided with Alex's attacks. But they were overpowered as they shattered and dispersed upon impact with Alex's attacks which still traveled forward with the same momentum towards the bandits.

With deep shock in their eyes, they quickly fired attacks at Alex's offensives.

Boom! Boom!...

They thought a second round of attack would cancel out Alex's attack. But they were wrong.

Argh!!

They screamed miserably in pain and agony as they were struck with the attacks which sent them flying.

Grievous wounds could be seen in their bodies. Their chest had caved in and their chest and rib bones could be seen jutting out. Also, large deep wounds could be seen on their bodies. Blood spurted like a fountain from these wounds.

Their peak-phase, condensation-stage energy-attacks at full power couldn't withstand Alex's attacks which pulsed with the power of a cultivator in the earth adept stage.

Normally, Alex can't achieve this level of power. But because of the attackforce energy infused into his energy-attacks, it increased their destructive powers to another level.

The other bandits were shocked by Alex's battle power.

Legendary genius!

This was what came to their minds.

Then Alex prepared to finish off the others and the commander. But just when he was about to launch attacks, he suddenly heard a whistling sound from a very far distance behind him.

He was able to detect this sound as he had deployed his powerful hearing ability right from the start. And from the way it sounded, it felt like a powerful treasure-weapon.

Not wasting time, and not knowing why he did so, he quickly channeled wisps of mutated strengthforce energy to his energy-blades. This caused the patterned blades that were emitting a brilliant blue and cyan light to turn golden.

The instant he did this, a weapon which resembled a spear appeared behind him. Alex quickly turned and slashed at the treasure-spear that had suddenly shot to his back at a great speed.

CLANK!!!

The instant the two weapons clashed, a large sphere of vacuum surfaced. Then this spherical zone of vacuum that had manifested was abruptly accompanied by a wave of powerful, violent energies that knocked both the spear and Alex into the far distance.

The shock Alex experienced from the head-on collision was more than enough to shatter the bones of an expert in the earth adept stage.

Although his hands trembled from the impact, they were able to withstand the shock as they didn't crack or break. He was able to do this by infusing strengthforce energy into the bone and muscle tissues of his hands.

Before Alex faced the stealth attack head-on, he had permeated his arms' bones and muscles with this mutated strength-amplifying energy.

He would have experienced more shock that could probably shatter his arms if he hadn't imbued his energy-blades with his strengthforce energy. Doing that greatly increased the blades' resistances to heavy impact-shocks and their tensile strengths to an astonishing level. Also, their toughness were augmented to a shocking degree as they didn't shatter from the powerful collision that only the energy wave released would crack mountains.

The energy-blades in Alex's hands, if it were a supreme-quality, earth-tier blade became a peerless-rank, heaven-tier blade by permeation of strengthforce energy.

Alex who had stood back to his feet from the dozens of feet he was knocked to, had his eyes shine with amazement when he just realized another usefulness of his mutated strengthforce energy. It could simply upgrade the rank or quality and tier of weapons formed from energy.

He looked on and saw two men land where the treasure-spear was knocked to. One of them picked up the spear while the other looked at him intensely.

"How were you able to withstand my hidden spear attack?" The man looking at him asked in a deeply puzzled tone.

But Alex couldn't reply as he was gawking inwardly at the moment. He was shocked by the cultivation stages these men were in.

They were both in the Saint stage. A cultivation stage that was six levels higher than his. A rank two stages below the Saint Emperor realm.

'How can I fight these two bosses by myself? I have to leave here at once'

Just when Alex was about to make a run for it, a large, dome-shaped barrier of prismastic energy suddenly appeared, covering everyone within.

This was a trapping formation that prevented people from escaping.

Once Alex saw he was trapped in the formation and remembered the fact that he was very weak to break out of such, he muttered.

"No....."

He looked at the rest of the bandits and then at the two men at the saint stage.

He took a deep breath.

'How would I come out from this problem I am in? These men are going to kill me. They won't spare me after I all that I have done. Will a divine physique bridge the gap between me and these dangerous saint-stage cultivators?' He asked inwardly.

Then he looked at them with a gaze that showed readiness for his very first Life or Death battle.