Alex felt a wave of spiritual sense coming from the other side of the corridor that ended at the room with the door, which was the dead end.
'Dammit! How did I stop such little way?' he wondered. 'Is there a seal in this place that won't let me leave using my techniques?'
If that were to be the case, he needed to think of something quick. Concealing himself wasn't going to help him against the spiritual senses, so he needed to do something else.
He sent out his own spiritual sense around him while thinking of what he could do.
Just then, he realized that his spiritual sense wasn't working beyond the door behind him.
'I can hide there,' he thought. He needed to find a way to get inside. From what he remembered of seals from all of these memories, he needed some sort of key to open it.
The key was usually physical, but would sometimes be Qi-related as well. After all, a seal was simply an incomplete locking formation that would be complete after placing the key in.
Alex looked at the seal and realized that it had no place for something physical to attach to. Meaning, the answer to the seal was in the seal itself.
Basically, instead of the door having a padlock with a physical key, it was a lock that would open by a combination on the lock itself.
Alex wasn't that good at formations that he could fix it. He needed other ways.
He thought of teleporting to the other side of the seal, but the seal somehow stopped that too.
"Dammit!" he thought. The beasts were probably going to be close any second now.
Alex started panicking and then started punching, kicking, and using attacks on the door.
None of them did anything to the seal at all, but when he used the Palm attack on in, something happened.
The formations on the seals started moving on their own and reached a correct position. Then, the door opened.
Alex was elated. He quickly ran inside and locked the door, before the seal remade itself.
Alex breathed heavily as that was close. He was confused as to how the seal opened by itself as he didn't really do anything.
The confusion only grew on him as he realized this was the second time such a thing had happened now.
First, he somehow entered the palace using the teleportation formation even though that couldn't have been possible without permission.
And this time, he had opened the seal, even though he did nothing.
'What's the connection between these two things?' Alex thought. Since he had never experienced something like this happening before coming to this place, he wondered if it was something exclusive to this place.
'Is it the White Tiger's blood essence within me?' Alex wondered. That felt like astute guesswork on his part.
"Yeah, that's likely it," Alex thought.
BANG! BANG!
He suddenly heard the sounds of something banging coming through the other side of the door. Either, the beasts had just arrived outside or they had already arrived and were now trying to open it.
Reflexively, he sent out his spiritual sense to see what was happening on the outside. Surprisingly, he could see beyond the seal and it wouldn't stop him like it did the other way around.
He saw the beasts hastily trying to solve the puzzle that was the seal and get in.
Alex felt scared. He had trapped himself in this room with the only way out surrounded by the beasts.
"Is there an—" suddenly he realized that his spiritual sense was looking at things that he hadn't noticed before.
He turned around, facing the room.
The room was mostly empty, with all but 2 things inside it. Alex looked at the first thing in there.
A slender long blade of ebony color with a big hilt laid in the middle of a room. The blade had an imprint on it that depicted a dragon wrapping a sword.
'The Saint rank sword,' Alex thought. This was the Ebony Corundum Stilleto. A sword that held the crest of the Azure Imperium, the sword that killed Pearl's mother.
This was the Saint rank sword that the beasts took away from him by telling that it was too dangerous to be in his possession. And Alex still trusted that they were right, however, he didn't care enough to leave it here with them.
He would take the sword and find the person who owned it before helping Pearl get back his revenge. He would kill that man.
That was what he had thought when he saw the sword. As the dark thoughts moved around in his head, something else sensed the darkness.
Something else took notice of Alex.
"You want to kill someone?" It asked, startling Alex as he had believed himself to be the only person in the room.
"Who's there?" he asked, spreading his spiritual sense to the fullest, yet he still failed to notice anyone.
"If it's killing you want, I can help you," the voice spoke again. This time, Alex saw where the voice had come from.
However, that shouldn't have been possible.
Alex walked forwards and reached the Ebony sword… and went past it.
Behind the sword was another sword. It was stuck on a large piece of stone that was completely black.
From what it looked like, someone had dug around the sword and brought it here.
As Alex got near, he heard the voice more clearly.
"Good, good, come to me," it said. Alex was surprised. That sword was definitely talking to him. Was it directly talking into his mind? That's what it felt like, but he could hear it on the outside as well.
Alex saw the door being nearly opened by the saint beasts. They were very close to solving the puzzle that was the seal.
"Take me, and I can help you defeat them all. I can help you become the strongest."
As he got closer, Alex finally saw the sword. It was a thin sword with a black-colored blade that only had a single edge, instead of the normal two edges that were found everywhere.
The crossguard and the hilt of the sword were completely black as well. There was even a black miasma falling onto the ground.
Something about the sword was very attractive to him. He felt there was some truth in the sword. All he had to do was take the sword and he would become strong.
The temptation was getting to him. Alex slowly reached out his hand towards the sword.
Suddenly, the door opened and the beasts entered the room.
"TAKE ME!" the sword cried out.
"Boy, do—"
Before the beasts could even speak, Alex grabbed the sword and in one quick motion, pulled it out of the stone.
He turned towards the beasts, with the sword in front of him and that was when he noticed it.
The sword no longer looked black at all. It was a silver-colored blade with some signs of damage to the side.
He then noticed the crossguard losing color as well. The black crossguard changed to a bronze-like color.
Soon, the hilt lost the black color as well, revealing the clear white color of the hilt.
All of the blacks that had left the sword was now crawling up Alex's arm.
"Drop it now, human, or you will die!" the beasts shouted. Alex's pupils dilated in fear and tried to let go of the sword. However, he couldn't move his hand at all.
He couldn't even feel it.
As the black miasma moved up Alex's hand, it left behind blackened veins in its wake. Alex could feel himself losing more and more of the control.
He really had screwed up badly.
Alex tried to use his legs to try and get his hand to drop the sword, and he succeeded.
After a couple of hits with his legs, his grip loosened enough for the sword to slip out. However, that made no difference.
The black miasma was already on him now. Soon it reached his neck and started spreading across his whole body.
Alex could only stand there and watch in horror as darkness enveloped him completely.
The beasts watched in horror as well.
Alex then reached downwards to the ground and picked up the sword he had just dropped and looked towards the beasts.
His eyes were now fully blackened, with black veins all over his body, and there was a maniacal smile on his face.
"Hehehe! Go tell them," A voice merged with Alex's voice came out of his mouth.
"GodSlayer has returned."
