When Ning and the man reappeared, they were flying high up in the sky. Ning looked up in the sky while letting go of the man.
"AARGHHHH!" the man shouted in the pitch-black night as he fell from the sky.
"Sigh, so dark," Ning said as he looked up. "It's such a shame that this planet has no moons. Would've been great to have some light in the night."
Ning looked towards the ground and by now, the man had stopped shouting and had instead started flying.
"Not bad," Ning thought. Being able to realize that he was falling and then making himself fly at a moment's notice wasn't an easy task at all. The man had likely had training for flying for quite some time.
Ning stopped using 'Super Flight' himself and started freefalling just as the man did. Along the way, he focussed and got himself to start floating. Once he achieved that, he slowly lowered the counter gravity, so that Vilmore's gravity still had some effect on him, and he just ended up slowly drifting onto the ground.
The man was very confused right now. This had been the most confusing day in his entire life. What was happening? He was just in his hotel room and suddenly he was in the sky, falling to the ground somehow.
"What's going on?" he wondered and looked around. The only thing he could see was the starry sky while the rest of the land was pitch black.
'Where the hell am I?' he thought. No matter the place, it should have some light. But right now, there was none.
Just as he was looking around, he saw a light far in the distance. The light started getting brighter and brighter until he could hear the sound coming along with it too.
'A train?' he thought. He used the train's light to look at where he was. It seemed like a massive meadow with trees far away in the surrounding. Aside from that, he saw nothing.
Then, in the light, he saw something drop from the sky. With the bright light, he could easily recognize it to be Ning.
"What did you do? Where am I?" the man demanded.
"Well, we couldn't possibly fight in the hotel room, so I brought you here," Ning said. "I'm hoping you will show me some good skills."
The man didn't waste time and immediately emptied all of the bullets he had left in his gun towards Ning. He needed to kill him quickly before the train's light ran out.
Ning was prepared, so he managed to dodge 3 of the bullets from hitting him, but the final one hit him in the shoulders.
The man tossed the gun and ran towards Ning. He jumped with incredible agility and kicked at Ning.
Ning put up his arms to block. However, when he got hit, he felt his bones crack as he was sent flying away.
The train passed and darkness loomed over the man once more. He took a deep breath and looked towards where Ning had gone to. He couldn't see in the dark, so he was just looking for sounds of movement.
'Did he go unconscious?' the man thought.
"That was a nice kick," Ning said and he walked towards the man. Based on Ning's assessment, the kick just now had the force behind it was equivalent to that of a Level 25 body cultivator, or a Golden Core realm cultivator.
That was quite strong for a body augmented using just the Aether in the person.
"How… how are you alive?" the man asked. Ning could see the man not looking at him straight due to the darkness all around him.
"Let me help you a little," Ning said and created fire around him. He made a ring of fire on the grass that gave them light to see each other.
"So you really are the Ning from the report. But they seemed to have gotten your information wrong as they assumed you to be an Invoker Aether King. You are clearly at the rank of an Emperor like me," the man said.
"Oh, they think I'm an Invoker? Why would they— Ah, must've been those two guards from the palace," Ning thought. After all, he acted as an Invoker in the palace, and as an Enchanter in the tower.
"You are correct," Ning said. "They were indeed wrong to think of me as an Invoker Aether King. I'm not."
Ning ran forward and punched at the man. The man put up his palm to block the attack, but when Ning hit him, he realized that he had made a mistake.
The man had never been thrown this far away from a simple attack before. He landed on the grasses a few meters away and immediately got up to look at Ning in shock.
He looked at his palm that was red. Then, he looked at the fire burning around him. The man's eyes went wide.
"Dual Awakener," the said in shock.
"Yes," Ning said. "Nice catch."
"I have rarely seen a Dual Awakener," the man said, still in shock. "Yet, I've never seen one that is an Aether Emperor as well."
"Oh," Ning said. "I will take that as a compliment then."
"How did a monster like you become an Aether Emperor. Your skills, your ability to regenerate your wound, your ability to move to a different place. That's not something a normal Aether user should have," the man said.
"Oh, you're not wrong about the fact that I'm not using Aether for those things, but don't look down on Aether just because you don't know how to do it."
"With enough knowledge, practice, and imagination, anything and everything is possible with Aether," Ning said.
"Alright, let's get on with the fight. I don't have much time. I still need to sleep before accompanying the princess tomorrow. It's going to be a long and tiresome day," Ning said.
"Very well. I shall show you my skills then," the man said as he brought out two short daggers. He then got into a stance, ready to fight.
Ning smiled when he saw that.. The Assassin was finally going to use his skills. "Come!"
