The man attacked once again, but Alex teleported far away enough to easily dodge him.
"Don't run, bastard!" the man shouted.
"Are you really a clone? You sure do look like it," Alex said. "But then again, you could just be naturally pale."
"So what if this body is not my real one? I can kill you even with this," the man said.
Alex smiled slightly. "What's wrong? Why are you so angry towards me?" he asked. "Are you angry because I killed your other bodies?"
"If I can kill you, losing those bodies will be worth it," the man said.
Alex's smile got brighter. 'So it really is just one person controlling all these bodies,' he thought. He wondered how much of his soul he must have hurt to put into these bodies.
And since he killed those bodies, he wondered just how much damage the main body's soul had taken.
"Do you really want to kill me?" Alex asked.
"Of course!" the man said viciously. "At any cost."
"Then let's have a duel," Alex said. "Come attack me if you agree to it."
The man suddenly charged towards Alex, but Alex wasn't worried.
"Spirit, you heard that, right?" Alex asked.
"Yes, Master White Tiger," the spirit appeared out of nowhere, surprising the man.
The man tried to move back in caution, but a teleportation power took over him, one that he could not stop at all. Alex felt the same power and was teleported away.
The three of them appeared in a different area of the tower, one Alex didn't recognize at all.
"Where is this?" Alex asked.
"The 43rd floor," the spirit said. "No one has come close to this floor, so I brought you here to have your duel. Please continue. I will return after one of you has died to bring you back to your floor."
Alex smiled as the spirit vanished away.
"Now, we can fight without any worry," he said.
The man looked worried, but now was not the time for that. He readied his sword and prepared to attack.
Before he could move, however, an attack landed on him out of nowhere. A fist made up of spiritual energy hit him directly in the head, making his head hurt for a second.
As he was recovering, another Heaven's Impact landed on him, with the same effect on the man. He could not even move at all.
Alex sent one Heaven's Impact after another, making the man completely useless and unable to fight at all.
"Stop this!" the man shouted when he could finally catch a break, but Alex's unrelenting attacks continued with barely any of those breaks.
Alex didn't know much about souls and connections to clones. He had had one, but he never got to control it at all.
So, he didn't know just how much of his attack was hurting the main body at all. However, since this was a 'puppet' clone, the main body had to be controlling this. Thus, he wondered if his attack was hurting the main body. If not the main body, at least the connection between the two.
To his surprise, he was doing something. The man in front of him would go from having a pained expression to none at all for a few seconds, before coming back with a pained one.
The main body's mind must have been in pain, which was causing him to be unable to focus on the clone for a few seconds at a time.
The clone completely lost its expression and seemed to have been abandoned at some point.
Alex shook his head and walked up to the man before stabbing him in the chest. Suddenly, the man's eyes came awake as he looked at Alex with the most fury he had seen in a while.
"I… I told you," the man said with a grunting voice. "I will kill you… at any cost."
Alex frowned for a second, not understanding what he meant. However, at the next moment, his eyes went wide as he teleported away to a corner.
"Spirit! Come save me," he said.
"The duel is not over, Master White Tiger," the spirit's voice spoke from somewhere.
"Fuck you!" Alex cried out as he brought out a few talismans and sent it in front of him. Now that he wasn't fighting in a location where he had a problem accessing his storage ring, he could freely use the talismans that had been given to him by the elders.
At the same time, he brought out a few formations plates and threw them in front of him. Then, he used every single defensive technique he had.
And then, the explosion came.
The talismans were torn to shreds, the barrier shattered in a flash. His own techniques were torn down like a house of cards as he took the rest of the explosion directly.
He was already next to the wall, so he was instead crushed onto it.
His Blood armor was the only thing that managed to survive the blast, which he had focused all on his head and torso.
The rest of his body was… not there anymore.
He fell to the ground, as just a torso with a head. Even the blood armor slowly dripped away from his body as he lost his consciousness.
* * * * * * *
Somewhere on a different floor, an old man collapsed on the ground.
"Hey! Hey! Are you okay? Get up!" the girl next to him spoke, but the old man seemed to have fallen unconscious.
At the same time, on another floor, a woman fell unconscious as well. The girl next to her tried to wake her up, but the woman would not wake up no matter what.
Back on the floor with the old man and the leader of this assassination mission, something small and blue rose up from the old man's body.
The girl looked at it with wide eyes as she realized what had happened. A soft and weak voice entered her mind.
'My… my soul is very weak. Take me… to the girl,' the nascent soul of the old man said.
The girl looked at the Nascent soul with disdain, not wanting to help this weakling who couldn't even kill a Saint Foundation realm brat. However, if their leader figured out that he could be saved and she didn't, she would be in some big trouble.
So, she quickly brought out a jar of some sort and placed the small, blue soul into the jar. At the same time, she ransacked his body for everything he owned and stood up from the floor.
She looked at one of the rooms in the distance that had just opened up and finally, after so many days decided to enter it.
On the other floor, the girl held the collapsed woman and kept her to the side. Until further instruction from the leader, she would keep the girl here with her.
* * * * * * *
When Alex regained consciousness again, his body had healed. His arms and legs were back to normal, completely restored. The Undying physique had done its job.
Although, he wasn't sure how much time he had lost here.
"Goddammit! Another Core Explosion," he thought. He had now been victim to two Core Explosions, each one from two different assassins. This one was even more violent than the last one despite Alex's preparation.
The difference in cultivation base meant the explosion would hit harder.
Alex looked around and found Midnight in a corner. He couldn't help but chuckle when he saw the sword.
"At least you are sturdy enough to handle the damage from the explosion," Alex said as he picked it up. "Maybe I should have made you larger and used you as a shield."
Alex got a faint feeling that the sword was rejecting that idea of his.
"Alright, alright, I won't do that," he said and put it back into his storage ring, which too was to the side.
"Master White Tiger, now that your duel is completed, are you ready to leave?" the spirit appeared suddenly and asked.
"Why did you not save me when I asked?" Alex asked.
"You were still in the middle of the duel, as your opponent hadn't given up," the spirit said. "Protecting you would mean showing bias, and I am trying my best to be as unbiased as possible."
Alex sighed. He took a deep breath and released it. He couldn't get angry at the spirit for that. "Fine, I get it."
"Then, are you ready to leave?" the spirit asked.
"Let me dress up first," Alex said and brought out a set of clothes. Having to change his clothes after every fight was starting to get annoying. He was going to have to find a rather strong set of robes sometime soon in the future.
Once he was dressed, he was returned to the 26th floor where there was no one in the area at all.
"Hmm, have people not passed the last floor?" he wondered. "To be fair, that was quite a strong attack, so you have to have a good cultivation base to endure that."
He looked toward the rooms in front of him and one of them was open. Wasting no more time, he walked into the room.
A couple of people turned to look towards him when they noticed him enter. They were a little surprised by his cultivation base, but they didn't show it on their face at all.
"Welcome," one of them said as they sat on one of the 8 different platforms that were laid out around the room.
Alex looked around and sat 3 of those platforms was still empty.
"I hope you're not in any sort of a hurry," the young man said. "Because you will have to wait for a while before we get started."
