Alex tightened his grip around Midnight, ready to strike at any moment. His opponent, however, seemed rather lax even though he was standing there with a sword.

“I must admit, I never thought I would be caught by you, that too so early on,” the man said. “I was planning on sticking with you for a year at the very least.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed when he heard that. ‘For a year? He wasn’t planning to assassinate me?’ he wondered. Regardless, he was going to get some answers.

“Tell me, what did I do wrong?” the man asked, still looking and sounding like Harry. “Surely you didn’t randomly ask me the question. Something must have made you suspicious.”

“Harry doesn’t call me brother Alex. He just says Alex, like every back in our homeland,” Alex said.

The man’s eyes widened. “That’s it? That was all that took to give me away?” he asked in shock. “No way! You’re lying.”

“That, and the fact that you have a Water spiritual root. Harry doesn’t have that,” he said. The blue aura around him when he first showed up had made Alex suspicious.

“You can tell I have a water spiritual root? How?” the man asked.

“How about I ask some questions instead?” Alex said. “Who are you and why are you after me?”

“I can’t go around giving away my identity,” the man smiled. “As for why I’m after you, I was given the task to observe you, and find out more about you, so we can use it in due time.”

“Are you an assassin? Like the Jade Faced assassin,” Alex asked.

“How do you know about him?” the man asked. “He wasn’t supposed to have shown himself.”

“Did you kill him? Considering you know who he is, I will assume that you managed to kill him,” the man said. “Well, that idiot deserves it. He must’ve tried to kill you. He’s very impulsive, you know. He was supposed to be observing, but instead, I have to take over his job.”

The moment he said that Alex realized that he was an assassin as well and moved. He struck the man with his sword, slashing right in front of his chest.

The man’s cultivation base suddenly increased, reaching the Saint Core realm in an instant. It went even higher and stopped increasing after ending on the Saint Core 6th realm.

He placed his hands up and caught Midnight by the flat side using his two palms. “Woah! Woah! Don’t go attacking someone so suddenly,” the man said. “I’m not your enemy, at least not yet.”

“You are an assassin,” Alex said. “You will die all the same.”

The man tried to pull away Alex’s sword, but he found that hard. Instead, he was forced back as the sword suddenly glowed in black light and Alex used the God-Rending Death Blade skill in his sword.

The black flash of light struck the man on his chest, tearing his robes, and revealed the armor that was inside of it. The armor had some signs of damage from the attack he had just taken.

“Shit!” the man cried out as he moved backward. “You really do plan on fighting me, huh? I suppose since you’ve seen me, I must fight back as well. At the very least, I can’t let you tell the others what I am up to.”

“Who sent you? Who wants you to kill me?” Alex asked.

“I’m not telling you.” The man smiled and pulled out a spear of his own. “Killing you is not our priority, but that’s not out of the option.”

“Who is we?” Alex asked.

“We are the Dark Phoenix,” the man said. “The one and only.”

Alex was surprised that he was so readily revealing the information when he was hiding everything else.

The man looked around the secret realm. “Well, it is not really the ideal place, but I suppose this will have to do. It’s better than the outside world anyway,” he said.

Suddenly, the man moved as his spear struck out an attack where 100 different illusory spears came flying at him.

Alex sent out a Yang palm with his left hand but quickly realized that it was too weak. The man’s cultivation base was just too strong for him to take the man out with common ways.

Thinking this, his blood poured out of his body, forming a protective armor around him. Dozens of spears landed on him, but only a few of them actually hurt.

The rest was blocked by the armor.

Blood poured out from the cuts where he was hit, but even that healed quickly. As for the blood, it entered the armor, reinvigorating it.

The man looked with shock and a little bit of disgust in his eyes. “What the hell is that?” he asked. He had never seen one use blood aura at all.

“Your demise,” Alex said and dashed forward. He teleported next to the man, surprising him again, and attacked. The man moved his spear as well, striking straight ahead.

Alex saw the spear come at him, and with it, a wave of Spear Qi that was coating it. He moved his head to the side barely enough to dodge the attack and his sword which was enhanced by his blood landed on the man’s chest.

Alex felt the armor crack even more as the man was sent flying to the left. He stopped a few dozen of meters away before grabbing his chest on the left with a pained expression.

“Why the hell are you so strong?” the man grunted in pain. Never in his wildest dream was the man expecting Alex to be this strong at all.

However, instead of getting an answer, he was hit with another attack.

An explosion appeared behind him, sending the robes on his back to tatters, while propelling him forward, toward Alex’s sword.

He struck out with his own spear that was filled with Water Qi. A water serpent flew out from his spear, attacking Alex, but Alex used the dao of cutting to slice the serpent into two while moving to attack the man in front.

The sword and spear clashed, and the man felt the weight of Alex’s attack. It wasn’t just his attack that had weight to it, but his sword itself was heavy as well.

This was not there on their first clash.

‘I thought he was just supposed to be an alchemist,’ the man thought.

Alex struck a few more times with his sword, forcing the man to move further and further back. Then, he slashed from the top, making the man either have to block or dodge entirely.

Going with the flow of the fight, the man decided to stop. The sword clanged on the man’s spear shaft which was fully made up of metal. The attack was heavy, but he was somehow stopping it for now.

However, he noticed something wrong all of a sudden. There was a sudden burst of hot air hitting his face, even though there was no fire around him. It was only a moment later that he felt the heat with his own hand.

It was only then that he realized that Alex was heating the metal of his spear and that too at an incredible rate.

Alex pulled back his sword and struck again. Only this time his sword grew to an incredible size that blotted out the sun in the man’s vision.

It struck down very hard while the man was still focused on the heat of his spear. The sword slammed the spear and suddenly broke it in two.

“NO!” the man shouted as the sword slammed onto him as well, sending him crashing onto the ground. The man created a small crater from which he pulled his greatly hurt body.

He looked at Alex in the sky, now with fear very visible in his eyes. He had thought that with the difference in their cultivation base he would be free to do anything, however, he was only now that he was realizing the cost of that assumption.

‘I need to leave and let them know about this monster,’ he thought, his chest bleeding profusely from the cracks in his armor. Just then, something dropped to his left with a slam that shook the ground.

Then, something else dropped to his right. And then to the front, to the back, and 3 more all around him.

The man quickly checked with his spiritual sense, only to be surprised and struck with more fear.

There were now 7 crimson beasts all around him, all with an aura that screamed dangerous to him, and they were all looking at him.

Alex came from the top and looked down at him in his crimson armor that reeked of blood to the assassin.

The man looked around and was quickly face to face with the truth that there was no running. The only thing he could do here and fight and kill Alex, or die trying. He wasn’t ready to die trying.

“No, no, no,” he started saying softly. “It’s not supposed to go like this. I wasn’t supposed to be fighting you, I’m only here to observe.”

The man was losing it as he faced death on a day that was supposed to be conflict-free.

“You must have spoken an oath as well, so I won’t ask you much,” Alex said. “Just tell me what you can, and I might just let you live as a cripple.”

The man almost spilled everything, but his oath forced him to hold back. He could push against this force, but it would end up killing him instead.

It was death by Alex, or death by his Oath. he saw no other way out of here alive. If he was going to be dead either way, he would die a third way.

He smiled a crazy smile as he said, “I guess this is all I can do.”

Then, he exploded.

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