The Dawn of the New World

"There!" the Scorpion King pointed at the empty space behind Hao Xuan.

Hao Xuan turned his head halfway and glanced in the direction but there was nothing there. Absolutely nothing out of ordinary could be picked up even by Hao Xuan's eyes which were glowing in the dark. But he didn't let his guard down and even tried circulating his Qi which sent a surge of pain through his body.

Whatever was happening inside him had yet to conclude so he could only depend on his physical body and the Scorpion King to protect himself against an unknown enemy.

"Baracus, Defensive measure to 100%," he gave the order and stood up, his feet uneven.

*Whiiirrr*

The nanotech jumped into action, strengthening each and every part of his body. Vague blue lights lit up under

Hao Xuan tried to summon the armor he had gotten back in the Mei Kingdom but since it was also stored in one of the meridians, it was currently out of reach.

"Fuck sakes," he cursed under his breath and took out a random sword from Baracus's storage space.

He looked back at the hunter that was cowering behind a rock nearby tree trunk, "You move, you die, understood?"

The hunter nodded once with a pained expression.

The Scorpion King was at full alert. His leaf-like tail slowly convulsed in the air behind him, ready to attack in any direction. His eyes were fixed at the same spot as before but his other senses were covering everything within half a kilometers. The two circular arks on his back lit up with a green light and a wisp of green Qi materialized in between them.

And as soon as it appeared in its entirety, a green halo was formed above him and a massive pressure fell on the surrounding area that sent a shockwave outwards that started turning the ground upside-down wherever it went.

Hao Xuan's pupils contracted as he quickly jumped back with the hunter in tow, "Careful! Don't use too much power, we don't want to give our position away!" he reminded the Scorpion King but it was a little too late for that.

Tremors from the shockwave reached the nearby city in less than a minute, which was more than 50 kilometers away and even the walking city a minute later.

Every cultivator within a 100 kilometers felt the aura of a profound level beast appear for an instant.

Under normal circumstances, any cultivator below the profound realm would run in the opposite direction but that wasn't the case for the participants.

It was instead seen as an opportunity and more than six different groups of participants started making their way towards Hao Xuan's direction. They would reach him in less than 10 minutes.

Hao Xuan jumped over several trees and landed several tens of meters behind the Scorpion king, fully intending on letting him handle whatever beast was here, but it seemed like the spider had already marked him as his prey.

Hao Xuan had just landed on the ground when the hair at the back of his neck all stood up.

"WHAT?!" he rolled over to the side and the spider's leg hit the spot he was standing at a second ago. Before Hao Xuan could do anything, the leg was pulled back and vanished into thin air.

Hao Xuan threw the hunter towards a broken building behind him and raised the sword in front of him while focusing his all his senses on the surroundings. He let out a deep breath and calmed his thumping heart.

'Invisibility? No, that doesn't seem to be the case,' he debated inwardly while squinting left and right.

The hair on his arms tingled this time, warning him of the change in air pressure on both sides.

Even though he couldn't see anything, Hao Xuan sidestepped and bent his knees, rolling forward.

Two spider legs came out of the left and right, barely missing the mark.

'It waited for me to dodge and then attacked halfway, it's catching up.'

He looked at the Scorpion King who was still facing the same direction as before.

"The fuck are you doing? It's attacking me over here!" he yelled out loud.

The Scorpion king shook his ugly head once, "No, it's still here. It's attacking you FROM here, I can feel it but...it's not here at the same time..." he mumbled the last sentence under his breath but Hao Xuan, of course, heard it.

"It's there but not there?" he repeated the words with furrowed brows while scrutinizing the surroundings.

The air moved again, indicating another imminent attack but this time Hao Xuan didn't move.

'Let's see if that's true,' he released the sword and clenched his fist, flexing the muscles on his back where the attack was supposed to land.

The muscles on his back doubled in size, throbbing like giant pythons.. The air whistled and a spider leg connected with his body, but instead of piercing his flesh, it went straight inside him like there was nothing in its path.