Huff Huff
Both Alex and Zexi were huffing very heavily at this point. Alex's mind was starting to be hazy and there were times when he wouldn't be thinking of anything.
He was on the edge of falling into unconsciousness, and he did not want that to happen. He tried to hold on for as long as possible.
"You are quite tough… for someone… not in the True Realm," Zexi said. "You… have shown so many… amazing things… to me that… even I am curious… how you got… all of this."
He flew directly up to Alex and finally laid his hands on Alex's head. "Let's see what you have hidden in here," he said.
Alex suddenly felt something rip into his head once again. Only this time, it wasn't as painful as before. This time I felt like someone was placing some sleeping gas on him, and he was slowly falling to sleep.
"There it is… the memories. Time to see what you know." Alex could hear Zexi speak even as he started to lose his mind.
"N—no…" he said weakly.
"Kid, you are awake, right? Alright, time for you to listen to me. LISTEN TO WHAT I SAY!!" Zexi spoke. "How do you find the Spirit Cleansing Lilies?" he asked.
Alex's mind immediately went to the times he found the Spirit Cleansing Lilies. He remembered the feelings he got when he was close to the lilies.
"What? Do you really just know which one to choose? That's certainly unexpected," Zexi said while huffing in between. "That doesn't help me. Alright, next question. Where did you find the many ingredients for alchemy?"
Alex tried to not think about the stuff, but that was hard. Hearing the questions, his mind wandered to the answers, and Zexi saw all of it.
Wen Cheng, the group of elders, flying to the southern forest, a formation full of different ingredients, a bunch of Spirit Cleansing lilies, the underground tunnel, the dead corpse on the side of the tunnel, the storage bags with the bunch of ingredients for Saint Rank pills.
Zexi saw every single one of the images that Alex's mind produced.
"Damn, this kid wasn't lying at all. He really did find them in the southern forest. What incredible luck," Zexi thought. "What about the talisman?"
Zexi saw the images of the corpse and the talisman inside flash through his mind. He thought it was quite interesting, but didn't think much of it
"Now… what about the sword?" he asked.
Alex thought of the time he had to kill the Cat Monster and how it had thanked him and asked him to take care of her son.
"What the hell? Th— That was a Saint Realm beast. There is a saint realm beast in the southern forest? Who killed it? Why is a sword stuck there?" Zexi flustered for the first time when he saw that.
"What happened to its child?" he asked.
Alex tried his best, but couldn't stop himself from thinking about Pearl. "Y— You actually bonded with him. You bonded with the child of a Saint realm beast. This is big news. If I can get brother to take your beast, or… if I can take your beast… I can become the emperor instead."
Suddenly, the memories that were flowing into him had something weird in them. "What's that?" he thought and looked at it more carefully. "What is that blue thing?" he asked.
Alex frowned when he heard that. He had just thought of logging out to show no more information and had decided that was a bad idea. Therefore, he had already lost his train of thought and was back to thinking about something else.
"No, kid. Go back to that. What was that blue thing?" Zexi asked.
Alex tried his best, but his mind still went to what he was thinking about. Forcing himself not to think about something only made him think about that thing more.
"What is this?" Zexi asked when he saw the thing more clearly. It was like a blue glass hovering in the air and Alex was touching on it.
"Se… tting? What is that?" Zexi looked at more memories. "What can you do with it?"
Memories started flooding Alex's own thoughts. Zexi looked at every single one of them and was getting stunned.
"This… what is this? this person in the mirror... he looks just like what you did in the competition today. Are these your memories from today? No, can't be. what are those things you are thinking of? those head armors and those coffins. what are those metal bricks with images?" Zexi shouted.
"Are you from outside the Crimson Empire? Whose memories are these? game? real life? what are you thinking about?"
Even as he was halfway fainting, he could hear every single word coming out of Zexi's mouth very clearly. 'He… can see my memories from real life… inside the game?'
"What are those buildings made of? What is that design? What are those metal birds, or those giant metal snakes? Why are there so many metal carriages?"
Alex's mind wandered and showed more images.
Zexi couldn't comprehend what was happening in most of the memories he saw. He immediately lifted his arms and flew back.
"Wh— What are you? Is— is this a clone? Are you controlling this clone from somewhere else?" Zexi asked. Alex was starting to have trouble thinking anymore.
Now that Zexi left his head, it was getting a little too comfortable, and he was losing himself to sleep. He tried to keep his eyes open, but his eyelids were very hard to keep open.
Huff Huff
Zexi was breathing really heavily now. He had used nearly all of his spiritual sense when he looked at Alex's memories. Now, he barely had any left, and was thus extremely tired, just like Alex.
"It seems you might be too dangerous to keep alive," Zexi said and prepared to leave Alex. Once he left, he would surely kill him with his real body.
Alex needed to stop him somehow. But at the condition he was in, that was simply impossible. He couldn't even think properly at the moment, let alone act on any plans.
'N—no…' Alex couldn't even voice his thought anymore. His eyes got blurry, and everything in front of him looked like a hazy mess. He could barely tell Zexi apart from the surrounding.
'I'm going to die, aren't I?' he thought. The last bit of the spiritual sea finally dried up completely.
Just then, something happened. A shadow at the bottom of the dried lake suddenly moved and appeared right next to Zexi.
Zexi was surprised and was too slow to dodge. Something landed on his chest and he slowly looked at what it was.
"W— What's going on? How can—" Before he could finish speaking, a yellow fog suddenly burst out from around the shadow-like figure and engulfed Zexi. Zexi cried at the top of his lungs, but he couldn't stop the shadow-like figure at all.
His consciousness was hanging by a thread, and now the thread was devoured by this yellow fog.
Alex's head barely registered what had happened in front of his. His hazy eyes couldn't make up the details of what had just taken place. All he could see was something fuzzy followed by yellow light.
'Wha— ' he tried to speak, but he couldn't. He watched as the yellow light vanished from in front of him and he could no longer see any figure of Zexi anywhere.
The shadow then moved a little towards him. Yellow fog appeared once more and this time, it devoured Alex as well.
