Not only Ruthren but his imperial army was confused as well, seeing only ethereal beasts charging out of the formation. The strength of the ethereal beasts was as low as Spirit Ethereal Realm, but the highest was at the Middle Level of the Heaven Ethereal Realm.
They weren't intimidated seeing dozens of them charging out since it would be quite easy to take them all down without much effort. It was just that they didn't understand why somebody would send ethereal beasts out like this.
In fact, they had already started channeling their ethereal energy to kill them all.
But Ruthren, even though he was first confused, noticed the strange appearances of all these ethereal beasts. Their eyes were jet black, and they had a strange symbol on their foreheads.
It didn't take much to make him realize that something was off, and then he suddenly put two and two together as he shouted out an order, "DON'T ATTACK THEM!"
"Eh?" His men were confused by his order, but it was too late. Thousands of ethereal attacks were already in the air, shooting toward the ethereal beasts as Ruthren looked on.
*BOOM!*
The moment the ethereal attacks of the imperial army struck every single ethereal beast, all of them suddenly exploded into a giant gas of jet-black energy while sending out powerful shockwaves, especially when the stronger ethereal beasts exploded.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})The combined explosion from all of the ethereal beasts was enough to make the space around them tremble, but still, they were a well-trained imperial army.
They had put up defensive formations to absorb the shockwaves, but it couldn't stop the jet-black energy that was slowly passing over them, though they weren't bothered since they thought it was just debris from the explosions.
But Ruthren recognized this energy, and there was nothing he could do to get rid of this energy that was slowly settling down in the entire area.
The expressions of his men were starting to grimace as they began to feel some unpleasantness in their bodies, especially in their ethereal core.
Some had already started to cough while trying to use their ethereal energy to find out what was suddenly wrong with them.
But they had no idea that the more they tried to use their ethereal energy, the more they were making things worse for themselves.
However, some of them felt that this strange dark air around them was similar to the one they saw in the central lands and had a bad premonition about this.
Ruthren gritted his teeth as he slowly turned his neck around and saw a young man stepping out of the formation with a cold smile, "Did you and your men like my gifts, Ruthren? How does it feel to have a taste of your own medicine?"
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})"Damien…" Ruthren slowly descended down with his hands behind his back and stopped till he was a few meters away from Damien.
Whereas his imperial army, even though they saw Damien, right now they were least bothered about him since they were suddenly becoming sick.
Some of the weaker ones were already kneeling on the ground while the stronger ones were still standing but realized that something bad was going on.
"Good…good…You really pulled one on me. I will admit that. But what's the point? Even if my entire army gets incapacitated, you still have to get through me. You might be the strongest among even some senior cultivators, but you are weaker than me. Your people can't come out and help you as well. And your death energy can't weaken me. You just sealed your own fate," Ruthren said as if he wasn't bothered that his imperial army was crippled.
"I will be the judge of that," Damien said as streaks of jet-black lighting shot out from both his palms and towards Ruthren, who was about to use one of his ethereal defensive techniques but decided to use only his defensive ethereal energy on his arms to block Damien's attack.
*crackle!*
Ruthren was able to stop the attack successfully, but his brows furrowed when he saw that Damien was already right in front of him with a fist closing in on his face.
But Damien's fist was too fast for him to put up his hands in time to block it and…
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})*BHAM!*
A thunderous boom resounded in the area as Damien's fist struck Ruthren's face, his skin rippling across his skin while his entire body was sent flying for hundreds of meters before crashing down on the ground as it cracked upon impact.
The men, especially the generals in the imperial army who still hadn't succumbed to the dark energy around them, had looks of shock and disbelief seeing their emperor being thrown from the impact force of a punch from someone so younger and with cultivation far less than his.
Ruthren's face was uncontrollably twitching and shaking as if in shock while he slowly got up. With a look of disbelief, he touched one of the edges of his lips and then looked at his hand, only to have his eyes quiver upon seeing a splotch of his own blood.
The reason he couldn't believe what he had just experienced or was now seeing was that nobody had ever made him bleed. Not for centuries, let alone from the punch of a junior.
Wasn't Damien's cultivation only at the Third Level of the Heaven Ethereal Realm? Then how was this possible?!
Even if he overestimated Damien's ability by a lot, this shouldn't happen.
The powerful generals in his army saw that their emperor was in trouble, and even though their bodies seemed to be struggling with something, they shouted out, "Charge up the offensive formations and strike him down!"
"For the emperor!" The stronger cultivators among them shouted for morale since they weren't having a good time. Even when they were charging up their offensive formations, the ethereal energy in their bodies seemed sluggish, but still, the formations were lighting up, aimed toward Damien.
But Damien indifferently looked at them as he simply raised his palm towards them and mumbled, "Rain of Death…"
