1142 Fiery

The many people watched in awe as the Phoenix flew down next to Alex.

"You came," Alex said, finally relaxing a little.

"Of course," Scarlet said. "You made it sound so important after all. If I let you die after all the help you've given me, my Inner Demon would haunt me till the end of time."

Alex smiled, simply happy that she was here.

"But, it seems your enemy is more problematic than I imagined," she said as she turned to the sky where the slightly singed Zhu Shaofan flew up. "A Saint Transformation 4th realm cultivator... this is annoying."

Alex looked towards her. "What's your cultivation base?" he asked. He found it hard to determine her exact cultivation as she seemed far stronger than him at the moment.

"Saint Transformation 1st realm," she said.

Alex was surprised. 'So strong,' he thought. But, it was still weaker than Zhu Shaofan. "Can you beat him?" he asked.

"Depends," Scarlet said.

"On?" Alex asked.

"His bloodline," she said.

Alex didn't immediately understand how that could affect the battle, but he didn't get to think about it as Zhu Shaofan's next words caught his attention.

Zhu Shaofan was looking below him from the sky at Scarlet with wide eyes.

"You..." he said, his voice slow and deep. "How... how are you here?"

Scarlet looked up in confusion. "I am here to defend my friend," she said.

"How the hell are you here?" Zhu Shaofan shouted the question again. "You should be dead."

Scarlet's eyes narrowed this time around. "Ah, I see..." she said. "So you were there too."

"You can't be alive!" the man shouted. He tried speaking some more but he couldn't find a way to voice the words as they were stuck in his throat by the oath.

"You say that like you saw me die," Scarlet said.

"I--" Zhu Shaofan paused as the oath grabbed his throat once more, stopping him from speaking anymore.

"Scarlet, what's going on?" Alex asked.

"I'll explain later," Scarlet said. "Let me defeat him first."

He calmed down a little and looked at Scarlet again. His eyes narrowed as he noticed something that his immediate shock had stopped him from seeing. "Wait, no. You're not her," he said. "You're too weak."

"Weak?" Scarlet asked. "Come fight me and you'll see who's weak."

"I see," Zhu Shaofan said. "You must be her child. I wasn't aware there was a child."

Scarlet scoffed at the man.

"For your mother's sake, I shall let you live. Leave now and I won't attack you," he said. "I'm sure you want revenge for what your mother went through and I completely understand why you deserve it. What happened to her was... just leave."

"I told you I came to save my friends. I am not leaving this place until I am certain they are safe," Scarlet said.

Zhu Shaofan looked noticeably agitated. "Why won't you just leave? I'm giving you a way out. Don't make me kill you!" he shouted.

"Don't worry," she said. "You can't even if you want to."

Scarlet suddenly took to the skies, moving at a speed that left afterimages for the normal people that were looking at her.

The trail of fire she left behind burned with all covers of the phoenix flame.

"Sacred flames!" one of them shouted.

"Is that... a holy bird?" another one asked.

"Son, what is going on? What is that?" Graham asked.

"That is Scarlet, a friend of mine," Alex said. "I don't think we have much to worry about now."

Scarlet sent out flame attacks from her body, all of which burned through Zhu Shaofan's plants. His wind attacks did barely anything to stop her flames, so he had to go on a retreat throughout the battle.

He managed to sneak in an attack from time to time and hit Scarlet. Scarlet's body was hurt, but her flames immediately healed her, bringing her back to being able to fight once again.

"You damn bird!" Zhu Shaofan shouted. "I gave you a way out and yet you didn't take it. Fine, you can die now."

He waved his arm around him and was immediately surrounded by a bunch of wood Qi that formed green motes of light in the night.

He then sends it flying through the air at an incredible speed.

Scarlet saw the attack and stopped. Suddenly, a fire grew out of her chest, slowly encompassing her entire body as it hardened into an illogical solid flame armor.

The attacks hit her, but the armor stopped all of the attacks. She then retaliated with her own attack, a massive fiery claw that went swooping down at the man.

Zhu Shaofan used his dao to slow down her attack, but his mere intent wasn't able to overpower Scarlet, whose Intent was most likely one of the strongest in this entire realm.

It was certainly the strongest on this continent, and as such the fiery claw landed on the man, burning him.

Zhu Shaofan managed to extinguish the Phoenix fire that burned on him, but before long another fire started burning once again.

Scarlet's Qi was just as strong as his own Qi, so the attack was hurting him quite a lot. The fire burned around him and his dao seemed incapable of helping him as well.

If this went on for too long, he would die. He needed to either beat her quickly or find a way out of there.

"What's wrong?" Scarlet asked as she flew into the sky, launching one attack after another at Zhu Shaofan. "I thought you were strong. Come on, show me your strength."

She waited for him to respond, but Zhu Shaofan simply wasn't in the sort of situation where he could do so. He was burning from the outside, his flesh cooking on his bone.

He let out his attacks all around him without a care for who he was hitting at the moment. Some went to the sky, some to the ocean, and some to the land.

Scarlet stopped however many she could that were in the general direction of the humans while sending back her own attacks that hit Zhu Shaofan.

Alex watched in surprise at the difference in power between the two fighters in the sky. He had never imagined that the bird that was nothing more than a mindless little bird just 5 years ago was now strong enough to kill the leader of the strongest assassin group on the continent.

Alex knew he had no hand in her knowledge or talent, and most of what she had achieved was on her own. The only thing he did was give her a few pills to help her cultivate, and somehow that made him feel like he had some help in her current standing.

Thinking so, he couldn't help but feel pride at the bird that Scarlet had grown to become.

Zhu Shaofan stopped attacking as the pain got too bad for him to continue attacking. His body burned, his Qi burned and even his spirit seemed to burn.

He lost his mind to the pain for a long time before he seemed to find a small gap of clear thought where he realized what he needed to do.

He needed to run away.

Using that single moment of thought, he flew through the cloudy night sky while constantly burning in Phoenix fire. His screams sounded louder than the occasional thunder and lightning.

Scarlet stopped when she noticed that he was running away.

"Oh, so he doesn't have it after all," she spoke softly. "Otherwise, he would've used it."

Alex flew to the sky next to her. "What's happening?" he asked. "Are you letting him get away?"

He looked to the distance where Zhu Shaotian had run off to. He was still burning and in pain, so his speed was slow, but he was still getting away.

"Is he going to burn to death?" Alex asked.

"No," Scarlet said. "I don't have that good control over my flames at such a distance. He will be able to extinguish it if he tries to."

"Then what?" Alex asked. "Are you letting him get away?"

"Get away?" Scarlet chuckled. "How is he getting away? He's still in my sight, isn't he?"

Alex was slightly confused. "What are you--" his words stopped in his mouth as deep fear grew inside of him in an instant.

"Oh," Scarlet looked at him. "You might want to back away for this one."

Alex quickly flew back and watched in surprise as he realized what he was watching. This was the first time he was seeing it for sure.

When someone reached the final realm in a major realm, after a certain way through the realm, their Qi would start to change.

A certain way into the Mind Tempering realm, one could start to convert their Common Qi to True Qi.

A certain way into the True Emperor realm, one could start to convert their True Qi to Saint Qi.

Now, Alex was seeing someone in the Saint Transformation realm, who had converted a tiny bit of their Saint Qi into Immortal Qi.

That was to say, this would be the first Immortal attack he would have ever seen in his life, and it was coming from his own bonded beast.

A tempestuous wind moved around Scarlet as she prepared for her attack. She had a very small amount of Immortal Qi, and even then it was causing such a phenomenon.

Godslayer watched through Alex's eyes as well and spoke in a somber tone. "It has been a while since I've seen a phoenix use this attack."

"What attack is it?" Alex asked.

"Fiery Shard of the Primordial Sun."