Watching the Ape scream and roll on the ground, Alex couldn't help but be surprised.
Sure, a cut to the arm was painful, but… not that painful, right?
As he watched, suddenly he noticed something. White fizz appeared around the corner of the Ape's lips.
'What?' Alex was a little surprised.
"It's been poisoned," the oldest man of the group said with a hit of fear in his eyes.
"What?" the Ape's master looked at it and then towards Alex. A hammer appeared on his arm and he rushed forward.
"I will kill you myself," he shouted.
The other two looked at him in confusion and then terror. "Idiot! Come back, you'll die," the older one shouted, but the man didn't hear him at all.
"Good," Alex said and dashed forward.
Just as he was about to reach Alex, the man's eyes suddenly lost all hint of anger, and instead a calm but serious look took its place.
Then, the man suddenly changed his direction.
'Going towards your beast huh?' Alex thought. He inwardly commended him on putting on such an act. Alex had surely been fooled.
But, that wasn't going to stop him from defeating the man.
Instantly, he teleported next to the man and swung his sword. However, the target wasn't there at all.
"Shit!" Alex cried out. His Yang Qi was once again disrupting his ability to use the teleportation technique.
Fortunately, he wasn't more than a couple of steps away from the man, so he stepped down on the ground and took off again.
The man had noticed him already and turned his hammer around to attack him. At the same time, a lion's roar sounded from the hammer as an illusory head of a lion appeared on it.
Alex flipped his sword and caught it in an underhanded position as golden light clumped upon his hand to make up a golden claw.
~BOOM~
The Tiger influenced claw met a Lion's head and a destructive shockwave sent both of them flying in either direction.
Alex slammed onto a tree and caught himself as he fell down. At the same time, vines appeared around him to wrap him again.
Alex swung his sword twice and all the vines disappeared. Then, seeing that the man was far away, he jumped towards the other beasts.
If he wanted to protect one beast, then he should be ready to lose two.
Alex appeared in front of the spider who could only cower in fear. In a single motion, he cut 4 of the spider's legs before it could even do something and then dug his sword onto its head.
Next, he moved towards the bull. It had been trying to wrap him around with vines. As he approached, the green's body shined green and suddenly, there were 4 clones of the bull, making a total of 5.
Alex suddenly used the Penta Sword technique and controlled each one of the metal Qi to go flying towards the 5 beasts.
4 beasts were hit, and 1 of them dodged. Alex knew which to attack now. So, with a sword that nearly shone fully white, he sent out a golden slash at the bull that was too fast for it to dodge.
The bull was cleanly cut in half.
"No," the older one thought. "Come back," he suddenly ordered his two remaining beasts.
This fight had been a mistake. They were going to lose more than they could ever gain. Each of them had already lost a beast, and now he lost another one.
"No way you are going anywhere," Alex said and dashed towards him. The older man startled and quickly hefted the sword in his hand.
When their two swords clashed, a barrier suddenly appeared on the older man's body.
'So strong,' he thought, and then the feeling of horror came as the teleportation energy of the talisman that had just activated started to take him away.
"No, I haven't take—"
Before he could speak, he vanished.
"Tsk!" Alex didn't like that his enemies kept escaping from where they stood because of some goddamn talisman.
He casually used his stump to block the spearhead of the youngest one and got close to drive his own sword through his stomach.
Another barrier appeared as the young man was teleported away.
"Fuck!" Alex cried out. He hated letting them get away. However, he couldn't do anything.
When he turned around, he noticed something missing from the area. The yellow snake was gone too. That guy just now must have taken it back into its beast space.
Alex's eyes saw nothing but hateful faces of the remaining beasts and the single man who had already turned around to run away, leaving his beast behind.
Something white flashed in front of Alex as a small cat appeared. "Go after him, I will fight with them," Pearl said.
Alex nodded and ran after the man. Alex felt that it was a joke how fast he caught up to the man.
As he did, he slashed his sword at him. The man tried to dodge, but he wasn't fast enough and cut on the back.
The man then pulled up his hammer and got ready to fight. A lion's shout appeared on it again, but Alex dodged it this time. Blocking would only give the man time to run away.
At the same time, he sent out a slash back at the man, who barely used his defensive technique to block it.
Alex sent out, even more, slashes at him, but he was barely hanging on with his defense. Seeing this, Alex decided to add his sword intent to the attack as well.
As he was about to do that, the man's eyes began to shake.
Then, he fell onto one knee as his whole body started shaking. "Da-Damn you… poison… use…" the man tried to force out his words, but his throat was already closing.
He tried to look at his storage bag with shaky hands, but Alex wasn't going to let him.
In a single dash, he appeared right in front of the man. Then, in a smooth motion, expecting a barrier to appear anytime, he swung his sword.
~SWISH~
To his surprise, Alex's sword easily went through the man's neck and came out the other side.
"What?" he thought with nothing but the surprise on his face. 'Why did his talisman not activate? Did he forget to bring one back?' Alex thought.
Since he hadn't done that, he was now dead. 'That's what you get for not preparing,' Alex said as he scanned his body with his spiritual sense.
He stole away the storage bag and looked back towards Pearl to see him having an easy time with the beasts.
He could see the pheasant and the black snake wrapped up in something golden, while Pearl fought the venomous lizard from a distance.
'Good,' Alex thought after seeing Pearl's intelligence in fighting a beast that could beat him. Shen Jing had taught him better than he could have hoped for.
Then, he turned around to check on the wound the man. As expected, he was telling the truth.
'I poisoned him,' Alex thought and looked at his sword. He hadn't checked it in the time when he trained, but now that he did, he could see that his entire sword had actually been coated in the poison and venom of many different beasts and plants from the poison valley.
He couldn't tell how the poisons and venoms interacted with each other now that they had fully mixed on his blade, but whatever it was, he could kill True Lord cultivators with that poison.
"I got something good out of that fight, I see," he said to himself. "I wonder if I should make sure not to put the sword in water."
Alex returned back to Pearl, only to find that he had managed to kill the lizard by putting it on the same sort of binding the other two beasts were at.
Alex went up to them and saw that they were golden ropes forged by metal Qi. "How did you learn this?" he asked.
"Old man," Pearl said.
"Old man?" Alex looked confused. "Shen Jing?"
"Yes," Pearl nodded.
"Well, he's not really— wait, I guess he is very old," Alex thought. Sometimes, he forgot how old Shen Jing was from just seeing his young face.
"Alright, let's take care of this and leave," Alex said.
Pearl nodded and without hesitation killed the other two beasts before taking their cores to Alex.
Alex got out what body parts he could from the beasts and left with Pearl in his robes.
Pearl insisted on visiting the healing pool again, so Alex was forced to take him there.
Alex had time to waste so he didn't mind.
Once night fell, they left the pool and slowly made their way towards the 5th mountain.
With their speed, it was nearly sunrise when they reached there.
Even before reaching the plateau, Alex could tell that there were a lot of people already gathered there.
Climbing to the top of the mountain only helped to confirm this. 'So many,' Alex thought as he looked at the near 500 people in that location.
Given that it was actually supposed to be opening tomorrow, Alex was sure there would be more people coming soon.
As the sound of attacks rung throughout the mountain like a giant bell hung in the sky, Alex was relieved that the door had in fact not yet been broken through.
Now that he was here, all he had to do now was wait around.
