The Rise of the Black Plain

'Oh! This guy is tough. He must be almost at level 47 to be able to last so long fighting with me.' Ruth thought to herself as she pressed guard Brian.

As to why she was able to fight those of a higher level, this was because of the Silver-grade techniques that the young disciple of the Gray Cloud Sect had. In addition to a specialized cultivation technique, she still had three others that are specialized in attack, defense, and movement.

The movement technique was called Instant Steps, which increased the user's movement speed three times. The attack technique had the name of Fists of Pain, which could increase the strength of the user's punches by 100% and increase body hardness by 50% for each phase in which Ruth was in the technique.

Fists of Pain!

She then landed another blow in the direction of guard Brian's chest while the latter tried to defend himself.

Bone Blocking!

Plop!

"Ahh! You whore!" Brian could not deflect the attack, leaving only to defend himself with his only Black-grade defense technique.

However, Ruth's attack was at least more than 30% more efficient than Brian's defense. So, the protection of the bald man could not prevent such an attack from inflicting damage on its user.

Meanwhile, Minos patiently watched Ruth destroy the defenses of these young Luke's subordinates. 'As I thought, her attack is certainly Silver-grade. Otherwise, she would not be able to break the defenses of someone higher than she is...'

Ruth and Brian continued this one-sided fight for a few more breaths when guard Brian finally fell to the ground unconscious.

He had a pale expression on his face as he fell to the floor with a mouth soaked in blood. His armor had also been damaged, to the point of showing fist marks at the height of the guard's chest.

At the same time, Ruth was almost exhausted from these struggles, with a rapid breath and many drops of sweat on her beautiful face. After all, despite having Silver-grade techniques, she did not have a Devouring Art like Minos. So, she had spent plenty of her energies to defeat those three guards.

"Not bad! It seems that you are not just talking. Haha, let's go back to the hotel and rest for the rest of the day." Minos said as he smiled at Ruth.

Upon hearing this, she just uttered a "hmph" for that comment of Minos and then followed the group out of the building, where their carriage was standing.

Soon after, the six people left the city's south side and went to the Hotel Olson, located in the central part of the Old Stone.

…

Meanwhile, on the second floor of the building where the young Luke's trap had failed, two guards were helping their young master to pull himself together. "That wretch was very strong!" Luke exclaimed aloud, looking at the trail of blood that had remained there.

"Young master, rest assured, Chief Brian is going to hold that group, and we will be able to capture that brat!" One of the guards said as he helped Luke steady himself.

"Hmm, come on, I can walk alone. You two go ahead and help guard Brian gets this over. I will make that wretch tell all his secrets later." Luke said angrily.

He had never been so brutally beaten before, and to make matters worse, the enemy was many levels weaker than he was. If word got out about it, his reputation would be completely thrown away. This would undoubtedly damage his self-confidence!

"Ah! Shit!"

As he slowly descended the stairs, Luke heard a shout from the first floor. 'Eh? What happened…' He then increased his speed to find out what had happened.

When he reached the first floor, Luke was shocked by the image in front of him. The three guards who had stayed to hold Minos' group were lying unconscious on the floor. Puddles of blood could be seen pouring from the mouths of the three men while some teeth were still scattered around the site.

Upon seeing this, Luke felt so frightened that the pains of his previous battle seemed to have grown even more remarkable. His face had gone even paler than before as he tried to understand how it had happened.

That's because, from Luke's point of view, three people who were at levels 43, 44 and 46, should be able to hold a group of four people at level 40 and the young woman at level 45. And even if they couldn't win, it would still be a tough fight, and certainly, the other side would not be better than his subordinates.

However, there was no sign of the Minos group, as if they had ended the fight quickly and left.

'How did this happen? Is there someone else with the group?' Luke thought to himself, as he had an ugly expression on his face.

"Shit! Now I have no choice but to tell my father what happened. I'm screwed when he finds out that I still lost a Silver-grade technique. He'll want to kill me…" Luke said in a low voice.

"Let's go back home. When these three wake up, I want a full report of what happened, do you hear?" He said while looking at the two guards helping Ruth's victims.

…

Time passed, and soon an entire day had passed since the groups of Minos and Luke had met. By this time, the news of Luke being beaten by someone had already spread through the Nash family's palace, reaching Elen's ears.

"Ms. Elen, I heard from one of the young master Luke's subordinates that what happened was related to Mr. Minos, who had visited you three days ago." A servant said while helping Elen to comb her beautiful blond hair.

'Eh? So, that idiot was causing trouble for Mr. Minos... It seems that this time I have to do something about these chases from Luke. I can't let him get in the way of business.' Elen thought to herself.

"Do you know what Luke did in the meantime?"

"Ms. Elen, it looks like he's been at his residence all day since the incident happened."

"Well, keep an eye on him and if he does anything different, come and tell me right away."

…

A few hours passed, and at this point, guard Brian was reporting everything that had happened to Luke.

"That's right, young master. Only that woman had fought. She is much stronger than she looks, and she can fight those at the highest level." Brian said with a solemn expression on his face.

"Shit! Everything was spoiled because of this woman. Now, if I want to recover the Silver-grade cultivation technique that Minos stole from me, I can only appeal to my father." Luke spoke unhappily.

That was the only alternative for him. After all, if Ruth could do all that, then to defeat her, they would probably need many subordinates or some specialist from the Spiritual King stage. Luke couldn't just get what he wanted without the Nash family's prior approval in both cases.

And even though Luke was the son of the family patriarch, he had no contact with many of the family's Spiritual Kings. The few he knew definitely would not help him before speaking to the family patriarch.

So, Luke had only one way to go, which was to appeal to his father.

Shortly after that, Luke was walking towards the family patriarch's office.

That was a place with a rustic look, with many books on some shelves and some pictures with images of Stone Island on the walls. There was a large table next to one of the windows in that office, with two chairs on one side and an oversized leather chair.

At that moment, there was a middle-aged man with blond hair and well-dressed in the room. He was reading a pile of documents while sitting in his comfortable armchair.

That was Marvin Nash, the current patriarch of the Nash family and father of Luke, who had a Black-grade talent, and level 58.

Soon after Luke entered his office, the middle-aged man realized his son had not yet spoken, so he set the stack of documents aside and inquired seriously.  "Why did you come here, Luke? I don't think you just came to visit your old man, right?"

Luke then lowered his head and began to speak in a low voice. "Dad, I underestimated someone and ended up being beaten by him. If it were just for this reason, I wouldn't have come here. However, the problem is that he stole my spatial ring, which contained one of the copies of the Silver-grade cultivation technique that our family has."