Ryu's gaze flickered as the blade of a javelin appeared before his glabella in the blink of an eye. The speed of the throw was so fast that Ryu almost didn't notice it at all. However, the moment he did, he reacted even quicker.
His great swordstaff flipped in his palm and he formed a reverse as though it weighed nothing more than a short sword.
With a single movement, the polearm appeared in the path of the javelin, clanging against it.
BANG!
Ryu slid backward, his forward momentum having been stopped for the first time.
His head turned in the direction the javelin had come from and he took a step forward, his speed faster than anything he had shown until this very moment.
He was like a blur, his speed impossibly quick and his body like a leaf rushing through a tornado. His gaze blazed with dancing lightning and his twin pair of polearms suddenly erupted with flames, his body descending with the momentum of a meteor.
The Inner Disciple that had thrown the javelin had been preparing another one when Ryu suddenly appeared above him.
In the far off distance, the mere afterimage he had been aiming for vanished into the wind, replaced by an oppressive might descending from above.
BOOM!
The Inner Disciple hurriedly moved to block, the heat of Ryu's strike licking against his face and bare torso to the point that it was unbearable even before their strikes collided.
It made no sense. How could the flames of an Immortal Ring Realm expert possibly affect him to such an extent?!
However, he didn't get to think about this for long because when their strikes did meet, the ground beneath his feet immediately shattered and his body was buried beneath.
Ryu's great swordstaffs continued borrowing into the earth and infusing it with a raging torrent of flames.
The earth melted and a wild surge of lava spread into the surroundings. By the time Ryu brought his great swordstaffs back up, the Inner Disciple in question had already been melted to spare parts, but the worst part was that the surrounding land had become near uninhabitable.
Ryu flipped his palms and his great swordstaffs spun in the air, landing to his sides.
In that moment, his aura changed once again and his grandfather's bow was pulled from his back and into his hands. Before the great swordstaffs even landed, he had already sent out five arrows, killing three Inner Disciples on the ground and two that were still quickly falling from the skies.
Whizzing streaks of blue steel arrows rushed out with Ryu at the center. With every passing moment, his speed of killing only became faster and faster, the aura of a Bow God surging from him like a towering tempest.
Others could only attempt to assault him from a distance, but they quickly found their attempts not only shot down, but in the process, yet another one of their fellow disciples would fall. It was as though Ryu was able to calculate not just a defensive maneuver, but also parlay it into an offensive onslaught.
Every whistle of an arrow was like the call of the grim reaper.
The elders of the Metal Work Sect all had on ugly expressions.
"He's a Heaven Class talent, we can't send normal experts after him. Even if he ends up dying later, the foundation of our Sect will be ruined. Hurry them over, now!"
It couldn't be helped, the sudden Sect War was exactly that… sudden. Many of their disciples were out on missions, tempering themselves in preparation for the opening of Heaven's Path. The true elites wouldn't be wasting these final precious years cooped up in the Sect.
Although they had sent a message for them to rush back, those that could come would still take a few hours and those that couldn't weren't small in number. The Second Heaven was even more vast than the First Heaven, after all.
A rule of thumb was that each subsequent Heaven was about ten times larger than the last. It had already taken Ryu months to travel between provinces in the First Heaven, travel times would be even more exaggerated in the Second.
The good news was that the Second Heaven had a far more robust teleportation network than the First did, but even so it still couldn't be compared to the higher Heavens. So they were now in such a situation.
"Does my Sect really not have someone that can deal with a mere Immortal Ring Realm expert?! What have we been feeding you all for?!"
The elders of the Metal Work Sect were just as fiery tempered as their disciples and Patriarch, but there was little they could do.
"Calm down," one of the elders spoke with narrowed eyes. "When such a disciple appears in such a weak Sect, it means nothing but calamity for them. They will fall here."
They all fell into silence, but they still had their own thoughts.
These words were true… but what if the Sect Elders had monsters as well?
On the peaks of the Radiant Star Sect, the Core Disciples watched on with narrowed eyes, knowing that it would be their turns soon.
While the quality of the Radiant Star Sect Inner Disciples and lower were inferior, their Core Disciples were not bad. However, this wasn't due to their own innate talent, but rather because they got a chance to learn a fragment of the Radiant Star Sect's true teachings.
However, they had no idea about this. In their minds, they had already learned the full technique and were, as such, quite confident in their strengths.
Seeing Ryu's strength, though, their gazes couldn't help but flicker.
"It seems that it will be our turn soon. Let's not lose face in front of this Junior Brother of ours," one of the Core Disciples laughed, a pair of radiant wings formed of starlight forming upon his back.
This young man was known as Pibin, the 17th ranked Core Disciple of their Sect.
"See you all down there."
He laughed, shooting forward like a blazing star.