“Do you even want the rats? I suppose you can use their skins,” Alex said.

“Oh, if they were bigger than my arms, then they can be good meat too,” the chief said. “How many are there?”

Alex checked the number, but it was just too many to take his time to count. “Over 50, not over 80,” he said. “They’re quite fast too. At this rate, they might reach here in about 15 or so minutes.”

“Oh, that is quite fast,” the chief said. Any idea how strong they are?

Alex tried looking at their footsteps and just how much force they were putting on the ground. It was a little hard to say as the solid ground barely gave away under any force at all.

“They’re not as strong, I would say,” Alex said. “Compared to your tribe, I would say about average in strength, maybe even weaker than your average fighters. But I would still consider having the stronger fighters ready just in case.”

“Oh no, that’s quite bad,” the chief said. “Had we known we would be encountering this many beasts, we would have waited until more of our fighters were healed.”

The chief quickly turned around to the person closest to him and spoke. “Go to the hall quickly and call anyone that can fight. Make sure to not bring people with broken bones,” he said.

Alex looked at the situation and decided he had no choice but to help them. Since the rats would be coming soon enough, he would have to help them.

He started stretching a bit. “It’s been a while since I’ve gotten physical, so I can use this opportunity to fight,” he said.

“Oh, you’re going to help us, young man?” the chief asked.

“Yes,” Alex said. “I don’t see how you can get out of this without my help. Besides, it’s a good exercis—”

Alex paused as he turned to look in another direction and frowned.

“What’s wrong?” the chief asked.

“The snake seems to have got a whiff of your baits’ scent too and is coming this way. It’s probably better if you sent them back immediately,” Alex said. “You probably don’t want to— and the pack of hyenas is coming too.”

“What?!” the chief was startled. “How many are they?”

“About 8, but they are very fast, so I would expect them to be much stronger than the rats. But, I think it’s the snake that is the strongest. Might be stronger than the snake corpse I gave you yesterday,” Alex said.

“D-Do we run then? Should I start sending people away?” the chief asked. He didn’t see what else he could do.

“Just for safety, yes. We can’t be sure that they won’t go past us,” Alex said.

The chief immediately ordered a few of his people to go send the ones that couldn’t find to the bottom of the canyon where the beasts most likely wouldn’t reach them easily. Even if they did, the fighters would get to them easily since they would have time to get there.

The tribe’s folks slowly prepared along with Alex. Li Yun had come over to fight as well. After all, she was one of the strongest people in the Stepstones tribe after.

The Hyenas were fast enough that they arrived before the rats even did. The strongest group from the tribes had all prepared as Alex relayed the information of their arrival.

Once they saw the 8 hyenas dashing toward them, everyone moved at the same time to stop them.

Alex dashed forward, ahead of every single person, and punched a hyena on its head. His fist went through its skull, destroying everything that used to be its head.

He turned around and looked at the other 7, of whom the chief quickly finished the hyena he was fighting with a sharpened piece of bone that he stuck through the hyena’s torso.

The others grouped up to quickly finish the remaining beasts off.

Alex watched Li Yun team up with another man and while the man caught the beast in his clutch, she slashed its guts with a bone that was sharpened like a sword.

At the same time, he noticed something interesting that he hadn’t even given any thought to yet.

‘You can use Sword Intent?’ He hadn’t even thought about trying that. It had been more than 10 years since he had used Sword Intent or any of its other forms. He had honestly forgotten to even try them after coming here.

“Head’s up,” he shouted at the people who had just finished fighting. “The rats are closing in as well.”

As soon as he said that, the group that was gathered behind them also got into a fighting position as there were way too many for the stronger fighters to fight alone.

Alex didn’t wait for the rats to come to him and jumped ahead on his own. He arrived at the front of the rat and kicked it, destroying a part of its body at once and killing it.

He moved again and punched another rat, smashing it into a pulp on the ground. By the time he attacked the 3rd rat, the remaining rats had already gone past him.

Alex killed the 3rd rat as well, and quickly caught the fourth one before it could run away. The rest of the rats managed to go past him and the tribes’ folks started fighting them.

Alex slowly crushed the rat in between his hands, but before he did, he noticed the rat bleeding a little.

He didn’t think much of it and easily crushed the rat before moving on to the rest of the rats.

Without even weapons, Alex was doing more than what the other individuals were gathered around here.

He was crushing beasts left and right, while the rest of them couldn’t beat them in just a single strike and had to waste quite a bit of time dealing with them.

Alex went back and helped them in dealing with the rest of the rats so that they didn’t pass the front line and enter the tribe.

If they did, the people would have to leave and go to capture them, which would leave more vulnerabilities on the front line, and that would be bad.

As the group fought them, a few of them noticed something. Far in the distance, above a small hill, one could see something slithering on its way toward them.

Even from this far away, they could clearly see what it was. A snake.

If they could see what it was, then the tribes folk had to agree to the fact that the snake that was approaching them was big.

If they weren’t wrong, then the snake was at least 2 meters wide, and over 20 meters long. It was a massive snake that dwarfed any other snake that was seen in this place for ages.

The chief paused his fight for a moment to stare at the snake in absolute awe and despair as well. He knew for a fact that if he were to go and fight it, there was a very high chance that he would come out of the fight either poisoned or missing limbs.

There was also some chance that he would straight up be dead by the end, and the snake would continue to attack his people afterward.

The burden that lay on the chief was a heavy one.

He made the plan to evacuate immediately and run. He turned to look at Alex to tell him his intentions, but Alex was quite far away up front where he had dashed previously to kill the rats.

Alex slowly turned around. “Kill the rats, leave the snake to me.” As he looked back, something flashed and a sword appeared in Alex’s hands.

The chief looked confused for a moment, wondering where the sword came from. But he didn’t think for much longer as he went back to fighting the rats that were all but dead.

He had decided to leave it all up to Alex.

Alex held the sword in front of him with a weird feeling in his hands. It was the first time Midnight was going to accept his Sword Intent.

With barely even any thought put into his intent, the sword glowed with a white halo around it. Alex was surprised at the ease with which he had used it.

‘Did I get stronger? Or is my sword just that good?’ he wondered.

He couldn’t be sure at all, but he had a feeling it was because of the infant spirit that was inside the sword.

Alex turned and looked at the snake that was incoming and saw the earth get destroyed as it slithered toward him.

“True Emperor realm for sure,” he thought to himself. “Can it possibly be Saint realm?”

Alex didn’t think so, but even if it was, there was nothing for him to worry about at all.

As the people started finishing the rats, Alex raised his sword to the sky with a single hand. Then, as if on command, the sword changed its size to become 16 times bigger than it was.

Now, he was holding a gigantic sword that was massive from the tip to the hilt.

Alex waited for the snake to come close to him, and then he swung.

A white blade made out of energy went out from Alex’s sword, flying at a very quick speed.

When it did reach the snake, to everyone’s surprise behind him, the blade of white energy cut the snake in two, killing it before it could become any sort of menace.

ραndαsΝοvεl ƈοm

“You should get done with the rats. I want to go to sleep already.”

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