1123 Giving it his All

Alex knew he was in trouble. Given the fact that even his blood aura could not possibly rival the current monster of a puppet in front of him, he had no way of surviving this battle at all.

The puppet started the attack with a simple dash, but that simple dash alone was so fast that without his Demon Eyes, Alex would not have noticed it. He jumped to the side and sent out a yellow palm strike toward the puppet.

The puppet simply flew through the palm attack and came to attack Alex.

Alex continued running, trying not to use his blood aura for as long as possible. The moment he created armor and was attacked, a massive amount of his blood aura would disappear. He would have to use a massive amount of aura to keep it working at its best to stop all of the puppet's attacks.

Also, he had a feeling that the puppet wouldn't use attacks that could not be dodged. After all, he definitely wasn't going to be killing him.

The puppet continued attacking his non-vital areas with strong attacks that could be dodged, so that added to Alex's theory about it, but that still didn't help him much at all.

The puppet was giving him time to dodge, so Alex did. But that meant he was only ever dodging.

His attacks were weak against the puppet and his movement speed wasn't fast enough to keep the puppet on edge.

Every second of the fight, the puppet was right behind him, and Alex didn't get a single second of freedom.

He didn't even have the time to think as he continuously ran around.

He tried fighting back a few times during the next 5 minutes when he used blood projectiles to attack the puppet.

The puppet was slowed down by the attack, but not enough to make an impact overall. If he wanted to do something, he would need something stronger than just that projectile.

'What can I really do here?' he wondered. 'He is strong in each aspect of a cultivation battle. He's faster, stronger, more durable, and even seems to be a better fighter than me.'

'What does he want me to do? Does he want me to overcome my own strength? Become the strongest I've ever been? I can't do that. I just broke through a few months ago, and without anyone's blood, my blood aura won't be that good either,' he thought. 'There have to be some other winning criteria here.'

He continued dodging for a few more minutes, but the longer the time passed, the more agitated Alex became. There was no hint as to how long the fight was supposed to take place before he was disqualified.

As far as he was aware, it would stop after he ran out of Qi and could no longer fight, which at the rate he was going would be in just another 10 minutes.

He wasn't even sure that was the real amount of time, and for all knew, it could be just 10 minutes, which would end in just a couple of more minutes.

Either way, he didn't have much time.

'I must be missing something,' he thought.

Just then, he remembered something. 'Could it be?'

An idea was forming in his head, but he couldn't act on it yet. It had to be done after he had no other choice.

And for now, he still had choices.

"Let's get rid of them."

Alex stopped running as Blood Armor formed around his body. At the same time, two blood swords appeared in his hands and he started fighting with them.

There was no more running for him at all. He was going to fight, or lose trying.

The puppet looked a little surprised but didn't act strange. It got into close combat with Alex as Alex used all the strength he could in these strikes.

Alex struck as hard as he could, but the puppet wasn't hurt at all. He dodged the puppet's next attack and struck from the side.

He backed off a bit before throwing the sword at the puppet and pulled it back before going in for more attacks.

He continued fighting that way, but even that didn't work.

'What else do I have?' he thought.

Blood poured out of every surface of his body as it pooled in front of him. Then, swords started growing out of it one by one.

By the end, he had 21 swords in front of him, and they all flew above him in an array.

Alex quickly added his sword aura into it, and then he used the 21 Sword Array technique to attack.

The swords started spinning around and attacked the puppet as hard as they could.

The puppet took the attacks easily with not a single scratch on it, but the spirit couldn't help but say, "that was the strongest attack you've used yet master White Tiger. Not bad. But that's still nowhere near good enough for you to win against me."

Alex frowned. He was now more or less completely out of blood aura. If even his strongest attack didn't work, then maybe he didn't have a way to win.

'I still have one more choice,' he thought. He quickly pulled out Midnight and held it ready to attack. Then, he called for help. "Godslayer, can you help me?"

"I was waiting for you to say that."

Godslayer flew out of Alex as a clump of black veins in him, moved from the side of his head, down his shoulders into his arm, and finally into Midnight.

"Move aside kid, I'm here to save the day," Godslayer said as he firmly became part of Midnight temporarily.

"Play along, Midnight," Alex said softly and started forcing all of his remaining Qi into the sword. The sword glowed with black light and soon black smoke drifted down from it.

"Alright, do it," Godslayer said. "This is my best."

Alex nodded and attacked.

God Rending Death Blade.

The black slash that easily warped space around it flew directly to the puppet controlled by the spirit and landed on it.

The puppet was pushed back nearly 2 steps before it stopped and looked back at Alex. "That was… strong," the spirit said. "Very strong. How…?"

Godslayer went back into Alex's spiritual sea and Alex took a deep breath, his arm hurting a little from the attack he released just now.

"Even that wasn't enough, huh?" he asked.

"No," the spirit said. "But this is far stronger than anything you've shown me until now. I must say, I'm impressed."

"Does that mean I pass?" Alex asked.

"Unfortunately, not," the spirit said. "Do you have any more tricks you can use? I would love to see what you do next."

"If I could use Dao, then maybe," Alex said. "But without it, there's really just one more thing I can do."

"What is it?" the spirit asked.

"Give up," Alex said as he relaxed. "I give up."

"Are you sure, master White Tiger? You've come way too far to simply give up. Are you sure you don't want to try something more?" the spirit asked.

"I have nothing else," Alex said. "I gave everything I had, and nothing worked, so all I can do is give up."

"I see," the spirit said as it appeared out of the puppet with a bright smile on its face. "Congratulations, Master White Tiger. You have passed."

Alex smiled when he heard that, a smile of relief.

The spirit looked at the smile with a slightly surprised look. "Did you realize?" it asked.

"I guessed, halfway through," Alex said. "But I wasn't entirely sure, so I decided to do whatever I could else before giving up."

"You did well to try everything beforehand," the spirit said. "I would've failed you had you simply given up without trying everything."

"Most fail that way?" Alex asked.

"Both people that have come here before you have given up very early into the battle, which is why I disqualified them," the spirit said. "Most of them are that way, but there are also people who fight and fight and fight, never knowing when to give up. I disqualify them too."

"It is only when someone like you comes, who tries their best, but knows when to give up that I finally pass them," the spirit said.

"I see," Alex said, surprised. "So, I'm the 3rd person that has come up here?"

"Yes," the spirit said. "People usually lose in the 41st and 42nd floor, where they either don't have a dao or can't cultivate while being troubled by an Inner Demon."

Alex nodded. "So, am I done with the challenges? I've won, right?" he asked.

"Yes," the spirit said. "But you have one final thing to do."

Teleportation power surrounded him and he suddenly found himself in another room.

"Welcome to the 45th floor, master White Tiger," the spirit spoke. "This is the final floor."

Alex looked at the spirit in front of him, but his eyes fell on the thing behind him.

The 45th floor was small, much smaller than any of the floors before him, and one of the sides of the floor had been completely destroyed.

However, Alex saw no spatial cracks in here, like all the floors before. Instead, there was just a gaping hole on the destroyed side of the room, and beyond it was nothing but the swirling energy of silver and purple.

The massive hole led to the void.

The spirit pointed towards a podium that was at the very edge of the floor, on the gap.

"There lies the formation that you can activate to complete your climb," the system said. "Press that, and everyone will be sent back outside."