1595 A Show of Skill

As Shan Wangjiu swung away his days, Alex made him keep moving through the forest, to the lake and beyond into thick grassland that had more than seen their fair share of battles. 

The open space gave way for more people to fight, and Alex managed to find someone after reset who was willing to fight him. The woman challenged him first.

She was with a group as well, although consisting of only 4 people, and had been another one of the people who had fought and won against him. She had to leave to protect her juniors from being needlessly challenged, but now that Alex had come to her himself, she was more than happy to fight with him again.

Alex brandished Midnight, accepting the challenge that was thrown at him.

The woman used no weapon, fighting only with her skills. She started the battle with a spinning spiral of gold and blue energy that she tossed at him.

The strength of the attack was strong enough that if he did nothing, he would most likely die. His physical strength alone wasn't enough to stop the attack, and he had to use Qi to protect himself.

But Alex felt stubborn.

He grinned, sending out a sword slash that exploded the moment it came into contact with the gold and blue energy.

At the same time, Alex moved to the side, sending another strike toward the girl.

Lightning filled her eyes before thunder filled her ears. A bolt of lightning flew in an arc that a sword slash would follow and got close to the woman. 

It was stopped by the woman's armor that she wore underneath her robe. Still, she felt the force of the lightning strike, surprised by how strong the technique was.

Alex stood smiling, looking at the woman who failed to grasp why she, a Saint Soul 9th realm cultivator, was taking so much damage from someone who wasn't even Saint Soul 4th realm yet.

She assumed Alex was doing something here, perhaps using some incredible pill that only he had. She even imagined that he must have been hiding his cultivation base the entire time to play the pig in front of them all.

Whatever the case, she wanted to beat him even more now. She no longer fought for just the challenge.

Alex fought, in part for himself, and in part to show the Shan Wangjiu, who was watching from far away, what it was to be a sword fighter as a cultivator.

Due to the lack of close distance between cultivators during a battle, close combat techniques were mostly useless. Things such as footwork, momentum, balance, and a host lot of other things that were important to know as a swordsman were quite useless when it came to a cultivator battle.

He was still planning on teaching them to him, but he was also preparing him for real fights, which he mostly already knew.

Alex swung a fire slash at one of the incoming attacks that was barely stopped. Then he swung again, a water slash making for the woman.

A water serpent quickly formed around the woman, its tail striking all attacks that came toward her.

Alex saw that as an opportunity and stopped pouring Qi into Midnight. His sword carried only a white light that filled it as he swung it at the snake's tail.

The tail slammed the attack away, which was weaker than all other attacks that Alex had thrown at her, but the relentless attacks that came afterward made it hard for the woman to concentrate on her attack.

He was on the defensive, having to stay inside the blue serpent that wrapped around her and wait for an opening that Alex would give her.

But he never did.

Alex felt his head give a soft thump as the early signs of incoming headaches showed itself. So many attacks filled with Sword Qi, one after another, strained his Intent quite a lot.

It wasn't bad enough that a headache started right the moment he began sending them out, but if he kept at it, it was going to do so. 

Still, he continued. He continued throwing attacks, training his Sword Intent to become stronger with each attack. The girl saw an opening or two to throw out her attacks, but on the whole, she was kept to the defensive.

She quickly realized that Alex was too strong for her when he wasn't just keeping himself to Sword Intent.

'Just a little more,' she told herself. 'Just a little more and his pill's effect will run out. Then he'll be weak and I'll win.'

She did not want to give up on the fight when she believed she was so close to victory.

At that very moment, she realized, she found a big enough opening. Alex had stopped attacking, allowing her to attack back. Whether it was a mistake or divine retribution for using a forbidden pill, she did not care.

She made a few hand gestures, causing her Qi to move in such a way that she was able to create a large golden bell above her head.

This was a technique that came from one of the players and was now one of the greatest techniques of her sect.

The bell fell on top of her, forming another defensive structure around her. But it wasn't all defensive at all.

She covered her fist with golden energy and punched the left side of the bell from inside. A loud and sonorous sound targeted Alex and Alex only. 

It hit him, sending a wave of nausea that came as a result of the sound. It was a mental attack and the woman was sure he would lose because of it.

She saw no sign of a mental defensive artifact, so she was more than sure it was working.

Then, she moved to the right, slamming the other side of the bell, and sent out another sound. This time, however, instead of being a mental attack, it was a Qi attack.

The attack came in the form of a wave, threatening to destroy everything in its path.

Alex released the breath he had been holding all this time, and with it, he also released the sword strike he had been preparing.

The wave split into two out of nowhere, dispersing violently as if a rock to a flock of pigeons.

Before the woman could understand what had happened, the golden bell split into two and then her armor cracked apart as well.

Her chest opened wide with fresh blood leaking out of the wound and she fell to the ground, no snake or bell around her any longer.

The buzzing talisman was the least of her worries as the woman thrashed around in violent pain that made her nearly faint.

It was only Alex who arrived and fed her a pill that she was finally relieved from all of the pain.

"My apologies," Alex quickly said. "I was trying to hold back, but your sudden mental attack made me throw out a stronger attack than I had been expecting to."

Before the woman could say anything, he hoisted her onto her feet and let the rest of her group take care of her.

Without waiting for a reply, he walked away, taking Shan Wangjiu and his dropped jaw with him.