Back when Harry met the red-headed beggar, the one with the apparently bottomless stomach, Harry felt a similar feeling, that the man was a powerful and dangerous cultivator. Yet he was only at the 1st level of the Qi Absorption Realm.
Now, when he laid his eyes on this girl, who had no cultivation at all, he had the same reaction. If anything, he felt a stronger reaction. Despite what his eyes and common sense were telling him, his instincts were telling him the exact opposite. This girl – she was very dangerous. Extremely extremely dangerous.
Even as Harry held onto the girl, supporting her frail and injured body, he resisted the urge to bolt away. His hands were shaking slightly, perhaps out of subconscious fear.
"James? James? James?"
With a start, Harry realized Daniel and Sullivan were calling his name.
"Huh?" he snapped out of it.
"Are you alright?"
"I – I'm fine. Just, give me a second."
Against his better judgement, Harry squashed the discomforting feelings and gently picked the girl up in his arms. There, Sullivan fed her a healing pill – Harry identified it as an Earth Grade pill to heal common injuries and bleeding – and the girl concentrated on refining it. Her father was refining a similar pill.
Just like his daughter, the father appeared to be injured badly, but on closer inspection, the injuries actually weren't that bad. The worst was his nose, bent at an odd angle and leaking blood, but other than that, there were only a few scrapes on the rest of his body. Harry would have thought the disciples had hurt him much worse, but somehow the man was remarkably unscathed.
Harry, Daniel, and Sullivan did their best to treat their injuries. Using some old clothing that Sullivan had in his Space Ring, they were able to stop the immediate bleeding and clean up the wounds. With the healing pills in their bodies, it would just be a matter of time until they got better.
"How do you two feel?"
"Oh, it's terrible, it's just terrible. I think I am about to collapse," the girl moaned.
"It's horrible, it's just horrible. I think my valve is stuck," the father groaned.
"Your valve?"
"My valve!" the man cried dramatically. "At times like these, my valve closes and my stomach becomes bloated with gas. I am currently feeling the most extreme of discomforts."
Then the man pounded on his stomach, bounced up and down a few times, placed both hands on his belly and jiggled the fat there, and let out a massive belch –
"BURRRRRPPPPPP!"
- right into Harry's face.
"I was asking about your injuries!" Harry snapped, waving the air in front of his nose.
"Oh, the injuries. Thank you, kind sirs, for your healing pills. We're much better now."
"Your injuries weren't as bad as I thought they'd be," Daniel remarked. Indeed, if someone without cultivation was attacked by people at the Qi Absorption Realm, they could easily be crippled or even killed in a single move. It was strange, no, it was beyond belief, that these two had gotten off with just a few scratches.
"Well, I'm used to getting attacked by now. I've developed some thick skin over the years," the man said humbly, though there was a boastful undertone in his voice.
"Why do they attack you?"
"They attack us because we're different. You see, I'm not human. I'm actually a fairy," the girl said with a serious look on her face.
"..."
"..."
"A fairy?"
"Right, a fairy. I'm a member of the fairy race!"
"..."
"You look pretty human to me," Harry remarked, not believing this girl's words a single bit.
"I'm really a fairy!" the girl stamped her feet.
Harry looked helplessly at Daniel and Sullivan, who just shrugged back at him.
"What, you three don't believe me?"
"Uh... I mean..."
To Harry's alarm, the girl began sniffling, and raised an arm to wipe away a stream of tears that trickled down from her eyes. Her teary, unblinking eyes, along with her cuts and scrapes, gave her the perfect appearance of a heartbroken little girl.
"Uuuuaaahhh! Daddy, they don't believe me!"
"There, there, my little moonbeam, don't cry. Even if no one believes us, daddy will be here for you!"
The man quickly ran over and wrapped his daughter in a tight hug, and at the same time, shot a stink-eyed glare at Harry. Clearly, he was signalling Harry to say something to appease his daughter.
"Well..." Harry looked over to his companions, who had walked a few steps away and were pretending to be very interested in the pattern of the bricks on the road. Right, no help from there.
"Well... it's not that I don't believe you. But, I mean, I'd need to see some proof, you know? If you showed me some proof you were a fairy, I'd definitely believe you."
"Proof?" the girl stopped sniffling and looked back at Harry.
"Right, some proof," Harry nodded.
"Ok!" the girl smiled, then closed her eyes. She squeezed them shut, then clasped her hands together, in a pose of complete concentration.
"Mmmmmmmmmmmmm..." she began humming.
"..."
"Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..."
"..."
"Mmmmmmmmmmmmm..."
"Uh... what are you doing?"
The girl opened her large eyes again, then shook her head in frustration.
"I was trying to summon my fairy wings, but they won't come out. There's not enough Qi here to support them. But I really am a fairy!"
'Fairy wings? Ridiculous,' Harry nearly snorted, but caught himself at the last minute. He didn't want this odd girl to burst into tears again.
"You don't believe me?"
"Er... well..."
The girl looked like she was on the verge of tears again.
"...other than fairy wings, what else can you do?"
"I can do lots of things!" the girl brightened up.
"During the day I speak to the birds and the flowers, I fight with the trees and fight with the wind, I sing songs with the sky, then in the evenings I charge power by bathing in the setting Sun to fight the stars at night!"
"Er... I see! Right! Of course!" Harry quickly said.
"You believe me?"
"Yes," Harry lied.
"You really really really really believe me?"
"Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?"
"Yay!" the girl leapt for joy, then grabbed Harry in a tight hug. Behind her back, her father shot Harry a glance of appreciation.
With her little arms wrapped around his body, Harry was struck by the odor of her body. It wasn't a bad smell, rather, it was actually quite pleasant, but Harry couldn't place it. It was a very particular kind of smell. After mulling it over for a while, the closest Harry could come up to was the smell of night air on a full moon – almost like the smell of a moonbeam.
But of course, that was ridiculous. Moonbeams didn't smell like anything.
The girl went back to her father to discuss something, so Harry broke away to talk to Daniel and Sullivan.
"So, what do we do with those two?" he muttered.
"We can't just leave them here, can we? We're still in the territory of the Catch Pole Sect."
"We should at least take them to a Healer," Sullivan whispered.
"Yeah – a mental healer," Harry scoffed.
"Let's just drop them off at the nearest doctors. After that, it's not our business anymore," Daniel suggested, and both Harry and Sullivan agreed.
"And what about these disciples? Are they going to wake up soon?"
"Haha, don't worry about that! They'll be out for the better part of the day," Sullivan smugly said back. There was a proud expression on his face as he looked at his handiwork.
"Serves them right," Daniel snorted.
"Ok then. Let's take these two –" Harry stopped talking when he saw what the father-daughter pair were doing.
The father was kneeling on the ground, his back to the Sun, in apparently devout prayer. The girl quickly ran to his side and joined him.
"Oh Fortuna, oh cruel goddess, how you spin me downward on your wheel!" the man loudly bemoaned.
"I have been trapped in this downward spiral for too long. Fortuna, lift us high! Fortuna, lift us high!"
"Lift us high!" the girl cried in unison.
"Lift us high!"
Harry looked uncertainly at Daniel and Sullivan, who looked back with the exact same confused expressions.
"Who's Fortuna?" Daniel couldn't help but ask.
"Only but the worst of tyrants!" the man yelled while shaking a fist towards the sky.
"Fortuna, the blind goddess who spins the wheel of fate! Beneath her blindfolded gaze, we all are mere puppets on strings, our luck and karma tied to her wheel. We have lost free will, as our every act is dictated by her spins of fancy. When she spins her wheel upwards, we experience fortune, and when she spins her wheel downward, we suffer misfortune!"
"Our luck comes and goes in cycles, controlled by the spins of her wheel. But why, oh why, have I been trapped on these downward spins? When will it be time for my luck to soar?"
"Oh Fortuna, spin us high!"
"Spin us high!" the girl echoed.
'They're crazy,' Harry scoffed. Clearly, they had stumbled upon a pair of religious nutcases.
"How come I've never heard of Fortuna?" Sullivan asked. This man's talk was so crazy that not even Sullivan believed him.
"Young child, your cultivation is still too low," the man solemnly said. "Once your cultivation is high enough, you shall naturally become aware of such things."
This time, both Daniel and Sullivan snorted together. It was the peak of irony for this man, who had no cultivation at all, to say their cultivation was too low.
"Sure," Harry said sarcastically. "Anyways, I think it's time we left. We're going to take you to the Healers."
"No! Not the Healers!" the man gasped. His body gained a newfound strength, and he almost managed to leap to his feet and run off, except Daniel and Sullivan caught him and held him tightly. Harry grabbed the girl, who also tried to run. Together, the three of them marched the father and daughter down the street.
"Yes, the Healers."
'The mental healers,' he added silently.
"You can't do that! Anything but the Healers!"
"What's wrong with the Healers?"
"What's wrong with them? They're in league with... the Alchemists!" the man whispered the last word, like it was the name of some kind of disease. The girl shuddered.
"And... ok?" Harry frowned, not seeing the problem. Healers and Alchemists worked closely together, everyone knew that. After all, Alchemists produced the pills that Healers prescribed to their patients.
"That's the problem! The Alchemists! They're evil, I tell you! Pure evil! The Alchemists of this empire are rotten to the core!"
"It's true!" the girl urgently said. "They're part of the Rotfang Conspiracy!"
"What's the Rotfang Conspiracy?" Daniel asked. The moment he asked that question, he regretted it.
"It's a wickedly evil movement! Don't tell me, you three haven't heard of it?"
The three of them looked at each other, all with the same lost expressions. Harry had never heard of any such thing, and it didn't seem like either Daniel or Sullivan did either. Judging by these two's questionable mental states, it was probably fictitious.
"No, we haven't," Harry said.
"Beware!" the girl cried. "Beware the Alchemists of the empire! Their goal is to kill all the cultivators of the empire! Oh, I know you doubt me, but it's true! It's 100% true! How will they kill the cultivators, you ask? They add poison to their pills, that's how! If you take their pills, all your teeth will rot and fall out. And without your teeth, how will you eat? You'll die, that's what will happen!"
'Are you retarded?' Harry was sorely tempted to ask. Even at a time like this, how could they spout their nonsense?
"How do you know this?"
"It was revealed to me in a dream, and as such I do not feel the need to state further sources," the girl said airily.
"Ok, that's enough. We're going to the Healers," Harry stated, and started walking off. Daniel and Sullivan manhandled the girl's father between them. Despite their lack of cultivation, the pair of them struggled every step of the way and raised such a fuss that they found it difficult to make any progress.
"Not the Healers," the man begged. "Look, I'm not even that injured. My wounds are already clearing up, you see?"
"You're probably suffering from internal bleeding," Daniel retorted. There was no arguing with Daniel as he dragged the man along.
"Oh! To be marched to our death – my dear daughter, Fortuna has spun us downward again! Cycles within cycles, each one bringing us lower and lower! "
"It's over, my dear father. Farewell, and may we be reunited in the next life!"
The three of them had just gotten to the edge of the courtyard, dragging the struggling father-daughter duo every step of the way, when a group of people turned the corner. Harry let out a curse.
It was another group of disciples of the Catch Pole Sect, wearing the same set of ugly orange robes. In terms of numbers, there were around 15, and in terms of cultivation, they were about the same as the last group. They ranged from the middle to high level of the Qi Absorption Realms.
But in addition, there was a middle-aged man leading the group, wearing a set of fancier orange robes. Along with the inability of Harry to sense his cultivation, he immediately realized – this was an Elder at the Core Formation Realm.
When they saw the trio, supporting both the blonde girl and her father, their eyes widened in recognition. But there was no reason for them to recognize Harry, Daniel, or Sullivan, so Harry concluded they had recognized the father and daughter.
And then they looked behind, and saw the unconscious disciples of the Catch Pole Sect. Angry expressions appeared on all their faces.
"Did you three do that?" the Elder in the lead demanded, pointing at the fallen disciples. Though there wasn't anyone else in this courtyard, he just couldn't accept that a mere three people had defeated all his disciples. He had to ask to be sure.
From his hostile tone, Harry already knew – a fight was incoming.
"He's at the Core Formation Realm," Sullivan whispered into Harry's ear.
"Right, we'll leave him to you," Daniel added.
"Ok, sure. Can you two handle all the disciples?"
"Piece of cake," Sullivan snorted.
The Elder naturally heard their conversation, and only grew angrier. Judging from their speech – the three of them were planning on fighting them all? And this runt just at the 3rd level of the Qi Absorption Realm was going to fight him personally?
"You three, answer my question! Did you attack those disciples!"
"Right, we did. They were attacking this girl and her father, so we defended them."
"You mean, you attacked the Catch Pole Sect over those two lunatics?"
"Don't – well, ok, the two of them might be lunatics. But that doesn't mean you can attack them!"
"Hey! We're not lunatics!" the father protested.
"My name is Luna. It's not LunaTIC!" the girl stated.
"You two shut up," Harry ordered. "And as for you guys, don't block the road. Move aside."
"Boy, you have a big tone! Follow me back to the sect for your punishment!"
The Elder's face twisted in rage, then he reached out to grab Harry. Clearly, he saw nothing wrong with his disciples attacking two commoners, while he saw something wrong with Harry for defending them. Around his body, a violent storm of Qi raged, forming into a solid pair of hands that reached out to grab the five of them.
This was the power of the Core Formation Realm!
This move could have killed a normal person at the 3rd level of the Qi Absorption Realm many times over. Just the vast pressure could easily lock any Qi Absorption Realm cultivator in place, making them completely powerless to resist. Indeed, Daniel and Sullivan found themselves pinned down, unable to move. But it barely affected Harry. He leapt forward –
Burning Blood!
Harry burned all the blood on his left arm and hand. A plume of silver flame rose off his arm, and the girl shrieked in surprise.
SLAP!
Harry's open palm streaked through the air, and caught the Elder right in the face. There was a loud, crisp slapping sound, and then the man flew through the air and crashed into one of the sect buildings. He howled in pain while clutching his face. The two hands made of Qi veered off in random directions, then dissipated as the Elder lost concentration.
Ten white teeth rolled on the ground, marking a clear line from Harry's position to the man, like a trail of breadcrumbs back to his attacker.
And on the man's face, there was a clear and harsh red palmprint. Along the edges, the skin was charred black from contact with Harry's fire. When the man lifted his hand to touch his face, he shrieked in pain. Just touching the area Harry had slapped him caused him agony.
The disciples accompanying him looked at their leader in shock, unable to believe the Elder had actually been slapped away in a single move.
"So cool!" Sullivan gushed like a fangirl. His eyes shone like stars.
"James, you're so cool!"
As for Harry, he too was surprised. He knew he got much stronger, but just hadn't had the chance to test it out against the Core Formation Realm. This Elder must have only been at the 1st level, or maybe the 2nd level, to be injured so badly. Harry was so surprised he just stood there dumbly for a few seconds, looking towards the fallen Elder.
"Boy – how dare you! DIE!" the Elder roared, completely lost to rage. He, an Elder at the Core Formation Realm, actually got slapped in the face by someone just at the 3rd level of the Qi Absorption Realm! He could already see himself becoming the laughingstock of the Catch Pole Sect – or even the entire city.
He was so enraged he didn't even stop to ask how Harry had the strength to do that. All he thought about was taking revenge.
"The punishment for attacking an Elder of the Catch Pole Sect is death! Disciples, capture those four! There's no need for any discussion!"
"No need for any discussion?" Harry echoed, then grinned.
"Haha, that's just how I like it!"
He gently dropped the girl off the back, then ran towards the Elder who was getting back on his feet. Daniel and Sullivan also set the girl's father onto the ground, then got ready to fight.
Harry wasn't too worried about Daniel or Sullivan, trusting them to be able to take care of themselves. He focused all his attention on the Elder, who's face was twisted in a mix of pain and fury.
"Damned brat, die!" he roared.
The Elder pushed his palms outward, and from his body, a massive wall of Qi appeared. It was like a solid sheet of Qi, stretching dozens of meters, and crushing everything in front of its path into smithereens. The buildings on the side of the road were reduced to rubble, but the Elder didn't seem to care at all about the property damage. All he wanted was to crush Harry.
At the Core Formation Realm, both one's control and amount of Qi increased drastically. This wall of Qi was almost like a heavy blanket, pushing down upon Harry and restricting his movements. It was like the Elder had gained control of the environment.
Harry did the simplest thing, and just punched the incoming wall of Qi as hard as he could. His fists were still wrapped in flames, and in addition, he added a layer of his own Qi to his hands, increasing his strength a bit further.
"A mantis trying to stop a carriage," the Elder sneered as he got back up. But the next moment –
Crack!
Like a block of ice shattering, the wall of Qi simply collapsed in front of Harry. Where Harry's fist contacted the wall, there was now a hole, with visible cracks in the air. Moments later, the wall collapsed. The Elder's eyes were wide with horror.
"How – how is that possible?" he screamed.
"Because screw you, that's how!" Harry yelled, then ran towards the Elder.
Burning Blood!
The burning of his blood didn't last very long, only a couple seconds, so Harry activated it again. The pillar of silver fire, Draco Malfoy's fire, rose out his body like a torch, and he sprinted at the Elder at full speed. The Elder tried to use to his Qi to trap Harry, but it was entirely ineffective. Cursing, he brought out a long sword and charged in.
In response, Harry pulled out a sword of his own – which also belonged to Draco Malfoy. He had left it behind in the Room of Requirement, and since Harry didn't have a weapon, he kept it. Harry lifted it above his head and swung it at the Elder with all his might.
Clang!
The sound of two swords colliding rang through the city street, then the next moment, Harry's sword shattered into a million pieces. Fragments of steel flew everywhere – an outcome Harry was expecting. This sword was just a high-quality Earth Grade item, not strong enough to endure his strength. In addition to the Elder's force, the sword was quickly destroyed.
The Elder stumbled, his momentum carrying him a step forward - a step too close to Harry. Harry took that opportunity to strike.
Bang!
His two flaming fists landed solidly on the Elder's chest, sending him flying again. On his chest, two deep imprints could be seen, already scorched black, like someone pressed a hot poker into his body. Like deja vu, the Elder flew through the air and smashed into the same building, which collapsed into a shower of rubble.
"EEEIIIIAAAAAAAAAAA!" he screamed at the top of his lungs.
After that, the fight was over. Harry grabbed the screaming Elder's head and smashed it down onto the pavement. A spiderweb crack formed on the hard stones underneath, and then the Elder finally fainted.
"This is a nice sword," Harry remarked as he picked up the Elder's weapon. It was a Heaven Grade weapon, that much was for sure. Where Malfoy's blade struck it, there wasn't even a dent. For the meantime, it would be perfect for him.
Harry turned to check on Daniel and Sullivan. At their feet, a dozen or so disciples lay on the ground. About half were unconscious, with large lumps on their heads, while the others were frozen in blocks of solid ice. Sullivan and Daniel stood in the middle, completely unharmed.
Two of the disciples had managed to flee, smart enough to run away when the battle had gone south. They could be seen sprinting away far in the distance. Though Harry could have caught up, there were more important things to do. They had to take the girl and her father to the Healers.
"Good work. Now let's bring the girl –"
Harry abruptly stopped talking, and the three of them looked around the clearing. Other than the three of them, and the unconscious members of the Catch Pole Sect, the courtyard was completely empty. The girl and her father were nowhere to be found.