This Young Master is not Cannon Fodder

Tianyi was inwardly dumbstruck at suddenly being attacked for no reason, but his reaction wasn't slow at all. He waved his sleeves and erected a wall from grey cloud qi in front of him to block the oncoming attack. 

The taller man's speed did not lower at all upon seeing the wall of qi, "Your techniques are becoming more and more crude!" 

The willowy man wasn't standing idly either. A bow appeared in his hand with a notched arrow pointing at Tianyi.

Tianyi just stood there with his hand behind his back as he watched the two attack him, ready to avoid their attacks. But he doubted he would need to move his body all that much.

The two cultivators at the Core Formation Realm were the weakest Tianyi had ever seen. The qi emanating from them was weaker than even those elders of the Fleeting Mist Sect. If Tianyi had to guess, he would say their spiritual cores were of the mixed color or red grade. 

The distance between the two parties was not far from each other, and soon the taller man reached the wall of qi and reared his fist back before unleashing it. There was no sound from the impact of the man's armored fist against the wall, and the man's confident expression suddenly twisted. 

As if something terrible was chasing him, he quickly retreated from the grey cloud wall and looked at his armored hand that came in contact with the qi wall. The metal that made up the armor had completely fractured and peeled off like cheap parchment.

Behind him, the bow-wielding man let loose the arrow. Once the arrow flew away from the bow, it shone like a meteor in the sky as it left a blue trail of qi behind it. It struck Tianyi's wall of qi, but the arrow's ending was even worse than the armor of the tall man. The more it pushed, the more parts of it disintegrated until it turned into dust.

The two men's faces became solemn as the qi wall parted to reveal Tianyi's youthful face. 

"Heretic Zhan, I didn't expect that the moment you returned, you would become a peak expert. But even so, do you think you can withstand our assault?" The taller man said.

Tianyi said nothing. Just from their words alone, he could tell that they would not believe him no matter what he said. 'Peak expert? Is this island so removed from the rest of the world that a core formation master can claim to be a peak expert? Preposterous. Looks like there is little hope of a branch of Cultivator Alliance being here.'

"Why are you wasting words with him! Just attack, I refuse to believe he can sustain that technique for long. With how simple and crudely it is constructed, it must not be mastered yet!" The archer said as he notched three arrows at the same time.

The armored man roared as fiery qi surrounded him and covered him like a second layer of armor. He was like a flaming bird as he rushed towards Tianyi. 

Tianyi watched as the armored man circled around him to pincer him from the front and the back. He transformed the qi wall into a mesh wall and covered him in a sphere. 

The armored man seeing this did not stop his attack, only this time, a layer of fire wrapped around his fist before he launched a barrage of punches. It looked like he had become smarter and no longer directly touched the true qi of chaos the defensive wall was composed of. 

Even so, whenever the fire touched grey cloud qi, they were instantly extinguished. 

The archer wasn't floating idly either, but even with the decrease in defense from the qi wall turning into a mesh, the arrows still disintegrated upon impact with the grey cloud qi. Even the holes were had thin films of qi covering them.

"Heretic Zhan, they say you are a courageous fool who dares to even go against the Bliss Earth Sect. But the way I see it, you are just a cowardly turtle not even daring to poke your head out!" The armored man said, goading Tianyi to fight him without the defense of the grey cloud mesh.

Tianyi tilted his head as he heard the words. He wasn't this Heretic Zhan the two were talking about, but that didn't mean they could just attack and insult him. Even if the misunderstanding was resolved, attacking someone stronger than oneself had consequences.

Tianyi allowed a slight smile to appear on his pale face as he turned around to look face to face with the armored man.

The armored man's stance was thrown off when the grey cloud mesh disappeared; he didn't expect the words he spoke earlier to have such an effect on Heretic Zhan. He sneered inwardly in his heart. He couldn't believe this person was the Heretic Zhan who caused the Bliss Earth Sect so much trouble. With a brain like that, how hadn't he been killed?

But the armored man didn't have time to ponder because before he knew it, Tianyi had appeared within arms reach of him. Two jade white hands reached out and grabbed both of the armored man's wrists. The armored man snorted before wrenching his wrist out of Tianyi's hand. Or at least he tried to, but he soon discovered he was like a powerless mortal with steel shackles locking his wrists. No matter what he did, he couldn't free himself.

This wasn't the first time he had fought with Heretic Zhan, and he knew the Heretic Zhan was a pure spiritual cultivator with no martial cultivation. Unless Heretic Zhan was a genius who had suddenly begun cultivating the martial path to such a degree that it surpassed the armored man, who himself was within the top ten martial cultivators on the island, then the person before him wasn't Heretic Zhan at all. 

Just as the armored man was about to speak, he became disoriented as if heaven and earth had been flipped. Tianyi had swung the armored man like a rag-doll in a circular motion. 

The archer, seeing that the situation wasn't good, aimed a single at Tianyi. Although the situation grew out of his control, he was still calm as he imbued an enormous amount of qi in a single golden tip arrow before unleashing it. 

Tianyi only appeared not to be paying attention to the archer, but his nascent soul level spiritual sense had long covered the surrounding area, and he could see every movement the archer made. 

He didn't dodge out of the arrow's way but instead released one of his hands from the armored man. Just as it seemed that the golden-tipped arrow was going to pierce Tianyi's head, two slender fingers caught the arrow by the tip before ruthlessly shattering them like squishing a bug.

Seeing his killer move so easily destroyed, the archer's solemn expression turned ugly. However, he had no more time to contemplate as the armor man's body filled his vision. Tianyi had thrown the armored man at the archer and caused the two of them to be flung far away and crash into the ground. 

Tianyi commanded his flying sword to fly towards the crash site. The armored man and archer both shared a look before cupping their fist at Tianyi, who still had a slight smile on his face. 

"Our apologies for offending Senior. We were under orders to capture the heretic known as Zhan. Our information assured us that Heretic Zhan would come through here. Thus we have mistakenly attacked Senior." The archer said, being neither too humble nor too arrogant.

Had he not said those words earlier, Tianyi would have seen him in a positive light. Unfortunately, the two of them had already attacked Tianyi, causing his impression of them to be the worst.

"So what?" Tianyi said, the smile still present on his lips. 

The armored man had an unwilling expression on his face, and it only darkened even more after Tianyi spoke. Just as it seemed that the armored man would speak out in rage, the archer stopped him with a glance and spoke once more.

"We can compensate Senior for our actions." 

Tianyi scanned the two core formation masters and observed the artifacts they had on them before his smile grew even wider. 

"Whatever you take out, it won't be able to reach my eyes. Even if you gave me all the treasures in your sect, I would still choose to kill you two." Tianyi said. He had a feeling of being a rich man, being offered pennies by a person who thought he was rich.

"Preposterous! Don't go too far. We are the grand elders of the Bliss Earth Sect!" The armored man finally couldn't take it anymore and spoke out.

"Senior, do not go too far. It would not bode well for you." The archer said, his tone containing a warning within.

"You two are grand elders with your inferior quality spiritual core?" Tianyi laughed like it was the funniest thing he had ever heard, but soon his voice sharpened, and his smile disappeared. "Let me analyze my situation. Your sect is probably the overlord of this whole land, and you do not have contact with the outside world."

"Furthermore, you have already determined my status as an outsider to this land. Your words of compensation are just to hide your true goal of calling reinforcements to take me down, right?" At Tianyi's words, the archer and the armored man's face became sullen, but they said nothing.

"It seems that I guessed right. I'll tell you right now, as long as you don't have a unity venerable on your side, battling with your sect is still something within my power. Do you even know what the Unity Realm is, you bumpkins?" 

The two's faces became extremely dark as if Tianyi had ridiculed all nine generations of their family. "But I'm a person who likes to be safe rather than sorry, so although I do not mind fighting your sect, I'll have to take both of you down here."

"Split up!" At the instant Tianyi said those words, the archer shouted, and both core formation masters split up in two different directions to flee from Tianyi.

Tianyi brought out one hand from behind his back and made a downward slapping motion. The archer, who was slower than the armored man, felt as if a giant invisible hand materialized above him and smashed down onto him. He could not even resist for a fraction of a second before crashing into the ground.

Not just him. The entire area had a giant imprint of a hand. 

Tianyi leisurely flew over to him and placed a sealing formation onto the archer. The archer felt every bone in his body shatter into dust, and his face became sickly pale, unable to even muster a glare at Tianyi.

The armored man who felt Tianyi's attack looked behind, and his heart skipped a beat at the ease of how his companion had been defeated. Although the archer specialized in a singular, powerful attack, that did not mean he was weak in other areas, at least to the armored man.

His gaze connected with Tianyi's eyes, and he felt as if the world around him instantly darkened. The thing left was those pairs of bedeviling eyes. The more the armored man looked, the more he felt his thoughts slow, but no matter what he tried, he could not disconnect his gaze from Tianyi's.

The archer gave a bitter smile when he saw his companion fly towards them, his current state obviously strange.

"You, what did you do? Who are you?" The archer asked. He knew the chance of him escaping was slim, but at the very least, he wanted to know who killed him and how he died. Not knowing how one died was truly tragic.

"I don't have the habit of explaining my abilities to my enemies," Tianyi said. It was only thanks to his superior nascent level soul that he could so easily control the armored man. Soon the archer was also under Tianyi's control, although the process took longer than with the armored man. 

Tianyi soon extracted the basic information on the island.

The island was called Tianwei Continent by the locals. It was secluded to the point that many thought that the whole realm only had their tiny island. A hundred years ago, the island was home to four top-tier forces that controlled all resources.

That was old news, the current master of the island was Bliss Earth Sect. The current sect master brought the formerly third-rate sect, at least according to the island's standard, into the top organization of the island. The former four most powerful sects had already been eradicated over forty years ago.

Tianyi already forgot his two assaulter's names, but he knew that they were two of the Five Grand Protectors of the Bliss Earth Sect. Martial cultivation was the mainstream method on Tianwei Continent, and the two were the only core formation masters of Five Grand Protectors.,

Rumor has it that the sect master of the Bliss Earth Sect had already reached the Soul Nourishing Realm of the martial way and was the only grandmaster level expert on the island.

Tianyi let out a sigh of relief. If rumors have that there was only one soul nourishing grandmaster on the island, then at most, there would be ten grandmasters in hiding. Ten was not too difficult to kill with his treasure as long as he was not caught unaware.

He vaporized them into dust with his true qi of chaos, having no more use for the two. He had already taken their spatial pouch away. He would not repeat his mistake as he had with Evil Wind Flower Picker Zhou. Cleaning up his tracks slightly, Tianyi soon sped off into the distance using a detour. 

Half a day later, three acupoint opening masters showed up where Tianyi left the giant handprint.

"This, what exactly happened here? Where are Protector Zhao and Protector Lin?"

"I can't even detect any clues to their presence."

"The powerful mark left on the ground, only someone at the level of the sect master could do such a thing."

"You mean?"

"I'm afraid that there is another grandmaster-level cultivator on Tianwei Continent."

"Hmpf, so what if it is another grandmaster cultivator? With the sect master around, I want to see how long that rogue cultivator will be able to last. If he only abducted Protector Zhao and Protector Lin, then he might be able to live if he chooses to bow. But if he killed the two of them, then no one on Tianwei Continent will be able to protect him!"

The other two nodded with the one that spoke those words. The three of them searched the area for more clues, but there were no results. Just as they were about to leave, one of the acupoint opening masters felt someone at the edge of his senses.

That person was a red-robed, devilish-looking old man. His whole aura reeked of blood and sin. 

"That seems to be Heretic Zhan. We should capture him in case he knows anything." One of them said. The other two agreed, and all three teamed up against the real Heretic Zhan.

All of them were master-level cultivators, but Heretic Zhan only had a mixed color grade spiritual core, and under the combined assault of the three protectors, he was quickly captured.