448 Thank you

The man clutched his stomach and tried to stop the bleeding, but the blood just kept flowing out.

'I will die anytime now if I don't find any medication,' he thought. 'How are these kids not hurt after taking so much damage. Did I not hit them? I'm sure I did. Then… do they have medicine?'

The man started to get greedy. "Yes, that must be it," he said. "I will kill you and find medicine for myself."

"Get ready," Wan Li shouted.

The man suddenly leaped forward and swung down the spear. However, midway through, he lost his consciousness once more.

However, the very next second, it was back once more. He was getting used to this happening and immediately focused back on heating.

Wan Li had thankfully stepped out of the way and hit the man to the face with his sword.

The man grunted at the pain, but there was not even a cut. The damage was akin to being hit on the wrist with a ruler.

It hurt just enough to make him make a sound. "Dammit, which one of you keeps attacking my mind, I can't even see you move," the man said.

"Come here and give me your storage bags. I need the pills," he shouted and ran towards Wan Li once again.

Alex needed to keep his spiritual sea at least mostly full, so he could check for danger.

He ran forward and teleported in at the right time to block one of the attacks and was thrown away.

Wan Li attacked the man with rocks and also sent out slashes. The man took everything head-on, but grunted in pain.

Alex quickly got up and teleported in to take another attack with his sword this time.

"Urghh!" he grunted at the force. It was quite a strong force, but—

'It's nowhere near the level of what a True Realm cultivator should be. This feels more like he's in the upper realm of Mind Tempering realm,' Alex thought.

'I can do this!'

He fought against the man for a little longer and was steadily realizing that his strength really wasn't very high.

'Is it because he's injured?' he thought, but he couldn't get any answers.

The man was slowly starting to lose it. "No! I don't want to die. Give me a pill! I don't want to lose my talent!" he shouted.

"What?" Alex was surprised. 'A player?' he thought.

"AAARGGH! Give me a pill!" he shouted and started waving around the spear with no rhyme or reason. Alex teleported out, but Wan Li was hell-bent on fighting, so he didn't leave.

The two clashes weapons, but it was very clear who was going to win here.

"Goddammit! Brother Li, why aren't you leaving? You will only die," Alex shouted.

"No, I will kill him, and then I will leave," Wan Li said.

Alex wanted to leave, but not while Wan Li's stubborn ass was still fighting.

"Shit!" he screamed and teleported back in to fight. Neither of their hits was dealing much damage.

Alex used different slashes, Penta Sword techniques, Iron Fist punch, Palm of the sun, and even tried using his fire to attack, but they didn't work.

His damage was high, but not high enough to penetrate through that white film of light covering the man's body.

They both got into close combat and started hitting the man who was just wildly swinging around his spear.

Alex was about to go in for another attack when he noticed something behind him.

Suddenly, massive roots sprung out from the ground and attacked both Alex and Wan Li. Alex could see the attack through his spiritual sense, so he dodged, but Wan Li was struck on the back of his head.

The roots were massive, and they suddenly started constricting Wan Li's body like they were snakes wrapping around their prey.

Wan Li tried to use fire to burn the roots, but they just didn't take any damage. He was about to try and use lava, but he lost consciousness.

Wan Li was out, but the roots did not stop moving. Alex could start hearing Wan Li's body getting wrapped tighter and tighter.

"Die! You goddamn NPC. Give me your loot," the man shouted maniacally.

"Stop!" Alex shouted and went in to attack, but the man didn't stop.

"You die too!" he shouted and roots started wrapping around Alex as well.

"Dammit," Alex shouted and teleported out.

"Fuck! How do you keep teleporting? Do you have a skill? Give it to me," he shouted and started swinging at Alex.

At the same time, Wan Li was getting crushed slowly. 'Shit! I will have to make him stop,' Alex thought and launched another Heaven's impact but it did no damage basically aside from giving him a headache.

"Damn you! So you were the one with the mental skill. I will kill you and get that too," he shouted.

Alex felt like he was trapped. His opponent wasn't going easy on him, and he couldn't leave either due to his friend's life being in danger.

"Fuck!" he said. Suddenly, his dull sword started to glow slightly white and Alex attacked.

TING

The man felt a far greater force from his opponent now. "What?" he was surprised.

Alex calmed his mind as much as he could with only a single thought being there.

'CUT'

He dashed and slashed at the man and nearly ripped the sword out of his hands.

He kept attacking and the man could feel more and more pain as the attacks landed on him.

"What's going on? How are you so strong suddenly? Fuck! Did you break through? Screw it, I will do it too," he said and pressed something in midair.

Suddenly, Alex felt his opponents' cultivation elevate a realm higher and frowned. 'Did he breakthrough just now?'

He was horrified. He had never come across a fight where his opponent broke through in his cultivation mid-fight.

'This is going to be annoying,' he thought and started attacking once more.

The man too started attacking once more to quickly kill Alex and find some pills. He couldn't even leave without the pill even if he wanted to now.

The attacks were hard and Alex was having a hard time damaging the man. He could wait it out and the man would surely die due to the blood loss, but Wan Li would die sooner if he waited.

His sword was glowing bright yellow by now with a hue of white light around it as he weaved through the man's attacks and hit him all over.

Still, he wasn't hurting the man enough to even make him scream out. 'That untimely breakthrough made him stronger, shit!" he thought.

He needed to up his power too, but unfortunately, he didn't have enough Qi to breakthrough right now.

He continued fighting but he was slowly losing the fight now.

Just then, he heard soft cracks from the side. He looked towards Wan Li and realized his bones were starting to crack.

'No, I need to hurry. I can't just fight him; I need to beat him. I need to…' Alex's heart started beating when he realized what he had to do.

'I… I need to kill him,' he thought. He was horrified that he even came to the conclusion, but he had to do it.

'If I want to save Wan Li, I can't just beat him, I need to kill him.' His resolve got stronger and his intention towards the battle got clearer to him.

'KILL'

His sword shined brighter as it flew towards the man.

'No, I can't kill people. I can't be a murderer,' he thought. The sword slammed at the man's spear, but couldn't do much damage.

Alex's resolve had faltered at the last second.

CRACK

However, the bones of his friend behind him reminded him of what he was fighting for.

'No, this is different. I'm in a different place. I'm at a place where he isn't hesitating to kill me or my friend for his own gain. So, I shouldn't be hesitating either.'

'If I need to be a murderer to protect me and my friends, then I should gladly become one,' he thought.

'I will gladly become one. I will gladly kill him.'

'KILL'

His clear resolve brought back the shine his sword has lost and attacked the man once more.

The sword clashed with the spear, but the spear wasn't able to stop the sword and was pushed aside.

"WHAT?!" the man was surprised. Then he saw something bright golden swing towards his waist again.

Alex felt the hardness of the white light he had just hit and the sword didn't go in much further. But, it had gone in just enough to cut the man's skin and harm him.

'I can do it. I can kill him.'

'KILL'

He swung once more. The man's confidence was faltering and he tried to block with his hands now that his spear was gone.

However, that was a really bad idea for him as the sword cut halfway into both of his arms.

Even though he was cut, his blood didn't escape from his arms. All of the blood had already left his body. The man was solely surviving on QI alone now.

If Alex hit him enough, then that too would end and Wan Li would become free.

'KILL'

Alex brought back his sword and slashed it once more. The man tried to dodge but moving aside only made Alex's strike land on his arm.

In a single slash, his arm was cleanly cut off.

"ARGGHH" the man shouted in a hoarse voice. He started shouting "Log out! Log out!"

But he didn't leave immediately. The system didn't let him log out while he was in danger and gave him a warning instead so he knew what was at risk if he did.

However, before he could agree to the condition, a golden blade slid past the warning notification and drilled into his heart.

The man's eyes lost color and he fell to the ground. His body started convulsing before a hoarse voice escaped from his body.

"T-Thank you."

Then, the man died.

<Congratulations. You have killed 'Honey_Truth29'>

No more notification arrived after that. No rewards, no punishment. The game only told him what he had done.

He had killed the person. He had killed people before, but never had it been this directly. Never had it been intentionally.

Seeing the bloody body on the ground with white eyes and a blank look, Alex felt like vomiting. Thankfully, he contained himself and forced himself to come to terms with what he had done.

Alex felt horrible for killing the man, but what was more horrible was hearing the last words of the man.

'Thank… you? Why did he thank me?' Alex thought.

"Urghh" he heard  Wan Li take a deep breath. He immediately forgot about killing the person and turned around to go see Wan Li.

Wan Li's body was pale and he could see blood dripping from all over his body from the bones that stuck out.

"Oh no no no-no. Hang on for a second, brother Li," Alex said and searched amongst the few True pills he had.

"Ah, here it is. The Bone Restructuring pill. This will help you," he said and slowly put it onto Wan Li's mouth.

The pill slid down his throat and soon Alex could see the effects of the pill.

Within seconds, Wan Li's bones returned back to how they needed to be, and he was all but fully healed.

"Brother Yu… you saved me?" he asked as his consciousness returned back to him.

"Yes. Are you fine?" Alex asked.

"Is he dead?" Wan Li asked.

Alex sighed and said, "Yes. Yes, he's dead."

"Good. One of my parent's killers is dead," Wan Li said. "But… the rest of the Black Venom group is still alive, especially Black Venom himself. He must be the main person who killed my parents."

"I will make sure that he and the rest of them find salvation for my parent's dead through their death as well. I won't stop until the lot of them are dead."

"But… I'm too weak right now. I will need to get stronger," Wan Li said as he gritted his teeth. "I couldn't even kill a weakling of the group and needed your help, Brother Yu."

"Let's go back to the sect, brother Li," Alex said.

" No," Wan Li said. "Not until I have found my revenge." Suddenly Wan Li punched Alex.

Alex blocked the punch but was still sent flying back. When he got back up, Wan Li was gone.

Wan Li was nowhere to be seen even with Alex's Spiritual sense. "He's… gone," Alex said in surprise. 'Did he use an escaping technique, or did he… fully learn the invisibility and Concealment techniques?'

Alex stretched his spiritual sense to the fullest and looked around, but no matter what he couldn't find Wan Li at all.

"Sigh, I guess I should leave," he thought and reached into his storage bag to pull out the boat.

But suddenly, a massive pressure landed on him and dropped him onto the ground.

Someone strong had arrived in the forest.