Russell was shocked a bit. This old man was definitely a monster with his analytical brain. All he did was to leak their situation. And the other party managed to tell them the truth.
Russell became a little serious with his words. He felt that this Old Man was a monster with keen insight. But then Russell had a doubt. This Old Man is looking very old. Then how come he is participating in the competition? After all, the age limit for a participant in the competition is 100.
And yet this Old Man is in the forest? What exactly the higher ups thinking by letting these old men participate in the competition? What exactly is the age of these people?
Russell was within his thoughts. At that time, a voice rang out from both Gnan and Gutherson's back, "You are the person with sharp mind. With just very tiny information, you have understood everything just like that.
Gutherson turned back and found that there were around twenty five people standing behind a man. This man was physically very strong. But his aura was very dangerous. Be it in cultivation. Or be it in aura, this person was more powerful than him.
Gutherson could also sense the aura of the Dao coming out from him. In terms of Dao, he could surpass this person. But Gutherson was sure that, in terms of cultivation and Dao fighting in combination, he can't defeat this person with his current strength.
"Who are you?" ,Gutherson asked with wary face.
"My name is Cohan! I am one of the members of the Raven Sect!" ,Cohan introduced himself. He then added, "I won't hide it from you though as I have a lot of work to do. You people killed my people in public back in the restaurant. We couldn't kill you as it was against the rule of the competition. But now the things are different. We are in the middle of the competition. And killing is no longer prohibited unlike in the preliminaries. So we made a deal with this merchant and made him to drag you people here."
"You are saying that you will abide with rules and doesn't kill people?" ,Gnan asked with a smile on his face, "What if I say that we will surrender? I think you people will no longer have any rights to do anything to us then. Am I right?"
"You are absolutely right. You have that right." ,Cohan smiled and said, "But I know that you people are not cowards. Even though you people are barbarians, my junior Steve and his entire team was annihilated by just one person from your team. And another junior Peter had lost all his teammates. He is all on his own now with no one to depend on. Do you have any idea how painful it is? If we don't exact our revenge, then it will be an extremely shameful matter for us."
"So what? You will kill us now?" ,Gutherson asked with a smile on his face, "Then go ahead. We know that you are stronger than us. If you want to kill us, then we will have no chance to defend whatsoever. Yes, If you really wanted to kill us, then we could put up a struggle. But we will eventually die as the fight drags. We are sure about that."
Gutherson continued, "But no matter what you do, you can't stop my team from becoming the champion of the preliminaries. Others will definitely win the championship for us. Then go ahead and kill us. We won't stop you."
Cohan smiled. He said, "Why would we kill you. We need you alive. After all, we have use for you."
Gutherson and Gnan looked at each other. They couldn't predict what this Cohan was intending to do.
But Cohan clarified their doubts. He said, "I know that you people are not the main in this group. I already made my investigation. The person whom I want to deal with is actually Arjun!"
Gutherson and Gnan sighed. They understood that they were actually the hostages here!
Gnan asked, "What if we refuse?"
"The you will make things very painful for yourselves." ,Cohan said, "Killing might be prohibited if you surrender. But the rules never said anything about prohibition of torture right?"
Gutherson and Gnan looked at each other. They didn't say anything. But they understood what was going on in each other's minds. They looked at Cohan. Cohan was still maintaining his smile.
But his smile froze. Because as he was watching both of them, Gutherson and Gnan suddenly disappeared. Nobody knew where they went. But their sudden disappearance shocked Cohan and even Russell.
"Where did they go?" ,Cohan asked. He didn't believe that they actually disappeared. There exist a trick the through which they suddenly disappeared.
"They are running to the east." ,Russell said, "My shadows confirmed it. And they are running at their maximum speed. Their movement speed is very quick to the point where we find it difficult to keep up with it. And hence we feel as if they disappeared. Moreover, when they move, they don't leave behind any traces which makes it complicated to detect their fleeing direction."
Cohan nodded his head and said, "That means they are using all their strength and stamina in order to generate such an undetectable speed. Which means, they can't keep up with this speed for much longer."
Cohan was given a high quality training since his childhood. He could portray what might have happened without much detail accurately. And his accuracy was very high.
Cohan looked at one of his followers who is also his teammate and said, "You stay back and complete the transaction. Russell had done his job. It was our fault that we let them escape. So pay his fees according to our earlier agreement. We will chase those troublesome people."
"Yes." ,That person agreed with the orders given by Cohan.
"Wait a minute." ,Before Cohan could ho back, Russell stopped him. He said, "It's pointless to do anything now. They are no longer running at that top speed anymore. It looks like they have understood that they will run out of the stamina if they run at that speed. So they slowed down."
"And to make matters worse for you, they are erasing all their traces. This will make you difficult to find them." ,Russell said.
"So what do you propose?" ,Cohan asked. He knew what this damn cunning merchant want. He wanted to use this opportunity to plunder some more passes from him under the name of help.