Chapter 9: HUNTER BECOMES THE HUNTED

"Damn it! Hold your ground! Don't leave the formation! Keep the injured inside the formation!"

The burly leader barked out orders to his troop. He looked apprehensive and not as confident as when they started.

His subordinates were not in better shape when compared to him. They were all on the edge and looking around them with a frightened expression, some had blood splattered on their clothes and others had wounds on parts of their bodies which continually dripped blood.

They hurdled up with their backs against each other, standing ready with their weapons. Each tree around them held a potential threat of death to them.

They went from being confident and ready to fight to being beat down and bloodied.

On a branch in one of the trees stood Jin, he held his blood stained spear in his hands while observing the group below.

For the past 30 minutes he had been whittling them down using the guerrilla tactics, scanning for the weakest among them from above like a predator and striking down with devastating strength and speed. The targets barely saw him before they were killed.

When their comrades saw them die they would try to fight and kill Jin or even injure him but they were all disappointed as Jin sped away again, luring them further into the demon plains.

So far 20 of them had already been killed. This dealt a heavy psychological blow to some members of the group. After understanding Jin's trend of going after the weakest first, those who fell into this category started getting tensed up.

"After him! We can't let him keep picking us off bit by bit. It's just one of him, with time his Qi will be depleted and that would be the perfect time to get him"

Their leader ordered as the group continued the pursuit of Jin.

This continued on for hours till more than half of their original number were dead. They were now feeling pressed and unconsciously developed a fear of the unknown, lurking in the vegetation around them.

The only reason they kept going after Jin was because of their fear of going back empty handed and with the extra incurred loss of manpower, Ao Tian was not such an amicable leader and would kill them in a heartbeat as a warning to the rest.

Without their knowledge they were being lured to a wide piece of cleared land. Jin made sure not to leave them too far behind so they could keep up the chase and not give up.

When they got to the clearing he spotted earlier, Jin made an abrupt stop and faced the group. His plan was to somehow goad the group leader into fighting him one on one and if that failed, then he would engage in an all out battle with them.

It was getting dark and he had to take care of them before the much more powerful wild beasts and demonic creatures started roaming around.

Jin hoped the general would fall for his trick because he had earlier seen that his cultivation was at the 6th level of the golden core stage, and knew he was the only person who could make him get a little serious, therefore, he had to kill him before facing the rest.

"Are you tired of running you fucking rat bastard?!" The hulking leader bellowed as they all got to the clearing.

Anger and frustration could be seen on his face. He had lost a lot of good subordinates to the man in front of him and was even at risk of getting killed if he went back without carrying out the order.

"Heh, don't get ahead of yourself yet. I have killed so many of you today and you still have the nerve to call me names?"

Jin smiled at the fuming man as he continued his taunt

"As the leader of your group, I'll give you a chance to redeem yourself. Fight me if you have the guts, if you win you can take me back with you... but if I win, hehe, you all will have to leave your lives behind! What do you think?"

"What makes you think I would accept such a request?"

"Haha who cares general! One way or another you are all going to die here today!"

Jin responded with a mad grin on his face

After mulling it over the general decided to humour Jin, but not before he discreetly gave some orders to his subordinates

"Alright punk, let's get this over with" said the general

"Excellent choice general, heh" Jin snickered while he and the general walked forward.

The two men faced each other, standing not more than 50 meters apart. One with a sinister smile and the other with a solemn determined look.

'Boom!'

They both took off, just like projectiles on a catapult. Rays of colourful Qi trailed behind them making them look like a certain superhero speedster on earth.

'Swish!'

The sound of blade cutting through the air rang out as the general made several powerful strikes with his broad sword. He wasn't pulling his punches and intended to end this quickly.

'Clang! Clang!'

Jin spun his spear to block the incoming strike, the blow was heavy as it pushed Jin back bit by bit. Each strike caused sparks to fly, little by little some scratch marks became visible on Jin's spear.

After a flurry of slashes, Jin fluidly changed from a spinning block to a downward slash with his spear which the general blocked with his sword.

'Swoosh'

Jin dove in while he was busy blocking and delivered a punch to the generals face with his left hand. Caught off guard by the sudden attack the general couldn't block it on time and took the full brunt of the blow with his face.

'Spit! Pant! Pant!'

After staggering back a little, the general spat out blood and a broken tooth from his mouth. He looked at Jin like a crazed beast and tightly squeezed his sword till his veins were bulging.

"Hehe, that won't do general, show me what you can do!" Taunted Jin, a devilish smile plastered on his face

Not wanting to believe he couldn't beat up a little brat, the general bolted forward again slashing madly at Jin.

While this was going on, the black dragon group was quietly surrounding them. At the order of their leader, they would spring on him with the intent of using their numbers to weigh Jin down and eventually capture or kill him.

Jin met his slash with his spear, skillfully parrying the generals sword strikes. The general seeing his random slashes were not working, made a slight jump backwards to create some space between them.

"Pouncing dragon strike!"

Immediately the general's voice fell, his sword started glistening with blue light which further increased its sharpness.

With a light jump, the general soared into the sky. At this moment an ethereal dragon appeared behind him. It gave off a mysterious pressure that made one felt like they were in the presence of a real dragon.

This was a move created by Ao Tian, it was a powerful sword technique within the black dragon gang. Not wasting time, the general swung at Jin

'Clang!'

The sword landed on Jin's spear which was raised over his head to block the sword move. He was holding steady on his feet.

"Arrrghhh!"

The general not wanting to lose his chance, roared and injected his Qi into his sword technique and increased the pressure on Jin. Feeling the pressure increase, Jin fell on one knee.

"Hehehe, this is what I'm talking about! This is a fight should be!" Jin shouted as he started circulating his Qi.

Throughout the fights he had since leaving the mountain, he had barely used his Qi and mainly relied on his physical strength. Only when fighting with the shadow in the training space did he get to use his Qi.

Immediately he started circulating his Qi, he was able to resist the pressure coming from the ethereal dragon above.

"You're not the only one who can infuse their weapon with Qi!"

Jin said as he infused Qi into his spear which made it glow purple, he managed to stand and pushed the general, sending him flying into the air with his spear.

'Boom!'

While the general was still in the air, Jin jumped after him with his spear in hand. The moment he caught up to him, he raised his spear over his head

"Mountain cleaver!"

Jin swung down with devastating strength. The spear created an arc of purple Qi as it descended towards the general.

From the generals point of view, the spear was far from him and he could dodge before it got to him. That was not the case, he tried to move out of the way but was held in place by the pressure emanating from the spear. He watched as the spear inched closer and closer until it struck him.

"Arghhh! My arm! You fuc-"

His arm was severed by Jin's spear but before he could curse, Jin delivered a spinning kick to his chest, sending him crashing into the ground with his blood and arm trailing behind him.