"Aw... fuck!"

Zhang Dong thrust his sword forward, following his motion some golden energy shot forward. The sword energy collided with a purple beam of light and the two forces canceled each other out. He then propelled himself backward with haste as another attack came for his head, a few strands of his hair got severed as he propelled himself to safety.

At least that was what he thought, the moment he reached his destination another enemy cultivator was waiting for him. This time around he wasn't lucky enough to just dodge it. He felt something hitting his side, his mouth opened up wide and some blood escaped as he groaned. He held his midsection for a moment before looking at the person that hit him, the man was the same one that had previously struck him with that large sledgehammer. 

'Five on one ... I can't land a decisive hit on any of them...' 

He felt like a ball getting kicked around by some rowdy kids. His enemies continuously attacked him from all sides, he wasn't able to evade everything and found himself getting hit constantly. He was worried about the thin elder in the late stage the most, so he was making sure to keep watch over him. Though due to this he was getting pummeled by his four cronies whenever he dodged his attacks. 

His white robe was ripped up and some of the armor parts were also falling off. This robe wasn't made to resist nascent soul attacks. The only reason that he wasn't dead yet, was thanks to his body refining technique. It proved to be essential in protecting him from the strikes but it also had a limit and he was slowly getting riddled with injuries. His soul beast wasn't doing much better as it was also battling against the odds.

"Heh, is that all you've got? I can keep this up for months!"

He spat some blood to the side and wiped his mouth. His opponents glared at Zhang Dong, he was proving to be a tough opponent even for them. Yang Guanyu flew forward and pointed at Zhang Dong with his bony finger, the other four elders shifted their positions to move around him.

"Don't listen to him, he is bluffing!"

The other four nodded at each other while getting into a battle formation. Guanyu gave some kind of signal with his eyes while flying back, his hands started moving as he formed some strange symbols with them. The other four didn't wait for their leader and continued with their attacks.

The Dark Palm sect leader smirked to himself while looking at his sect members battling the white-haired cultivator. He started murmuring something under his breath and continued making some strange hand seals.

'Hehe, just you wait...'

His eyes glowed as he saw the enemy cultivator glowing brightly and dispersing some attacks while dodging. 

"Don't think that you are the only crafty person around, you just activated my trap formation!"

The man grinned while pushing both of his hands forward the moment he saw Zhang Dong move to a certain location. A greenish glow shot up from the ground and surrounded the white-haired cultivator. He was busy blocking two attacks and wasn't expecting a trap, even less on his home turf.

"Argh... what is this?"

A thick green pillar of light shot up from the ground and went straight to the heavens. Matt was right in the middle and felt like vomiting. This beam of light appeared out of nowhere and it was draining him of his Qi. He tried pushing his cultivation to the maximum in an attempt to get out but before he could the four nascent soul cultivators reacted.

They placed themselves around the green pillar of light with their hands stretched out. The moment this happened the light flashed brighter and Matt felt his cultivation getting drained. He found himself unable to move from the spot, he could barely move his hands and legs as he inched forward sluggishly.

"Truly monstrous, even when faced with the devouring soul formation he is still able to stay conscious!"

Said the only female grand elder from the bunch. She was pushing all of her remaining Qi into this trap that they had set up. While Zhang Dong was getting distracted by the group of nascent soul cultivators they were placing special array forming treasures. They had hidden them away during the scuffle and then successfully lured the young cultivator into their trap.

"He is resisting, we can't hold him for long Sect leader!"

Proclaimed the third nascent soul elder that was in the early stage. The man was quite lanky and his eyes were really small.

"No need to worry, I only need a second to eradicate him!"

Matt didn't like the sound of that, not for one bit. He pushed his cultivation to the apex, his eyes started glowing and he could feel power returning to his limbs as he flew forward. 

"Ugh..."

The four people that were keeping him in place gritted their teeth and activated various spiritual treasures. They felt a new burst of power entering their bodies and the trapping formation burst with even more power. The green energy pillar expanded in thickness and it looked like Zhang Dong was getting swallowed up by a swamp.

His advance stopped and he found himself getting bombarded by excruciating pain. It was as if a million tiny hooks were getting pressed into his body and then pulled on his skin and flesh from all sides. He could barely hold on thanks to his pure holy energies that were surrounding his body, but even he couldn't go against four nascent soul masters working together while getting backed by various high-quality heaven treasures.

The golden dragon in the back couldn't come to his aid either, the moment he got his by this strange trap formation he felt his connection to his soul beast getting muddled. The beast's power dropped and it was now getting pummeled by the four enemy soul-beasts, unable to aid its master.

"This is the end, you will die for offending my sect, your city and everyone in it will fall next!"

Yang Guanyu had taken out a weapon of his own. It was, of course, a large war scythe, its blade crimson, and laid out with strange black runes. A war scythe was different from a regular scythe that was associated with the grim reaper. It was similar to a spear with a curving single-edged blade with the cutting edge on the concave side of the blade.

The blade released a strange black fog that covered the crimson edge that shone bright red. The power coming of this high-grade heaven weapon was astronomical and would surely deliver a massive blow to Zhang Dong if he didn't manage to dodge it. His whole body trembled as he tried to move, the four elders around the pillar pushed even more Qi into the formation to keep him at bay.

'Shit... I can't move...'

He couldn't budge a muscle, he could feel that the enemy cultivators wouldn't be able to hold this soul-devouring formation up for long. They didn't have to though, their sect leader was already close to being done with charging up his attack. Matt tried activating his system window, his only hope was reaching the disciple window and teleporting away from here.

'Damn move!'

There was a problem though. He needed to manually move his finger over to the system window and perform a couple of clicks. He wasn't able to even move his fingers, even less his whole arm to go through all the popup windows.

'Goddammit, who designed this shitty system this way!'

Yang Guanyu raised the war scythe up into the air while looking in the direction of Zhang Dong. The whole blade was giving off a sinister aura and it seemed that he was ready to deliver the finishing blow.

"You have caused enough trouble you whelp, now die and become nourishment for my cultivation!"

The old man brought down the blade of his weapon downwards in a swipe. The moment the war scythe blade descended it produced a surge of dastardly weapon energy that looked like black blood. It descended on Zhang Dong that was trying to escape. He pushed himself to the brink, his whole body expanded and his muscles bulged.

He tried activating both his bodily cultivation along with his nascent soul that was kicked into overdrive. The four enemy cultivators that were holding him in place started bleeding from their noses as they did the same, not willing to let this enemy go. 

'Can I take this hit? Will I die? Can the others flee in time?'

A myriad of thoughts filled his mind while he thrashed about, unwilling to die at this moment as many lived depended on him. Still, he was only one nascent soul cultivator going against many. He was still an inexperienced fighter that had entered this trap without knowing any better.

The bloody scythe energy descended and was about to deliver a  massive blow to the Zhang Clan Patriarch but then something strange occurred. One of the grand elders vomited copious amounts of blood, it was the one with the lanky one with the small eyes. The trap array wavered and Zhang Dong managed to release more of his aura.

The killing move from Yang Guanyu finally hit the spot that Zhang Dong was in but due to one of the elders faltering he was able to push himself to the side. Everything exploded and the other three grand elders defended themselves while moving back. 

"What!? Who dares!"

After the smoke had cleared they spotted the cultivator in white a hundred meters away from them. He was still alive and kicking, he wasn't uninjured, his left thigh was bleeding profusely as his leg was almost severed from that attack. The attack went right through his metal-like muscle and almost went through his thigh bone, he was lucky enough for it being such a hard bone to cut through. If the attack went for the neck as his enemy intended, he would have been dead.

The other three grand elders and their sect leader glared at the man that had wavered and allowed the trap formation to break. He was holding his mouth and still vomiting the others only noticed now why he was doing that. They turned around and saw a large red soul beast choking out the large cobra soul-beast with its hands.

The red monster beast looked like a devil. The upper part was humanoid and the beast had large black horns, its hair was on fire as well as the rest of its body that radiated red plasma energy. The legs of this creature looked to be goat-like, it had coal-black hooves that connected to muscular bright red legs. The soul beast that this creature was mangling belonged to the grand elder that was suffering a backlash and explained how this happened. 

This wasn't the only problem, the old woman grand elder started feeling quite weak as well as her own soul-beast was suffering a life-threatening attack of its own. It was getting attacked by a bird soul-beast. This beast looked similar to a legendary phoenix but instead of having fiery red feathers it had green ones. It was spitting out wind Qi out of its beak together with lightning bolts that were causing her crane soul-beast to loudly wail from the pain.

"Who dares attack the Dark Palm Sect!"

Yang Guanyu shouted while turning around. He wasn't expecting this young nascent soul master to get any backup, from the way he operated it made it look like he didn't have any type of backing. He could see two figures approaching, they were coming from the city. One looked to be a large muscular man, his hair and fists were on fire, his body was radiating dense fire energy. To his side was a woman, she was surrounded by green energy and her eyes were glowing with the same color. Whenever the woman flew storm clouds gathered and produced lightning strikes that devastated the area.

"Why wouldn't we dare to protect our Sect Leader?"

Proclaimed Feng Liena as she flew forward.

"That's right! You think we from the United Element sect are easy to bully?"

The five Dark Palm Elders looked at each other with question marks above their heads. They had no idea what this sect that they were speaking off was but apparently, they were the enemy as they came to help the man that they were attacking.