Alex felt a strange sensation in his deep sleep. He felt something scratch along the side of his waist. He was still half-asleep, his mind not fully recovered from the attack on the Storm God’s seal the day earlier.
He carelessly swiped at his waist, and that seemed to do the trick for a while, but then the itch returned again. It was a minor annoyance at first, so Alex didn’t even bother to open his eyes for it. But slowly, the itch grew to slight pain, before fully growing into something hurtful.
Alex immediately opened his eyes at that moment and turned to look at what was hurting him. However, there was nothing there at all. The entire area was empty, and yet, he felt a deep sensation of pain on his waist.
Alex tried to feel what was happening, at which moment a strong burst of light came from his waist, followed by a massive explosion.
The next moment, Alex found himself outside in the middle of the street, rubble all around him. He was fully awake at that moment, hearing the screams of many people around.
He grabbed at his waist, the source of the pain he felt at the moment. A patch of his clothes was burned off, along with a dark patch of skin below that was slowly recovering.
Alex’s eyes grew wide in shock at seeing that wound. What was there in Hell that could hurt him enough to burn his skin?
He looked on ahead, staring at something that slowly made its way out of the smoke and dust.
A glowing yellow scorpion-like beast hovered out of there, its body resembling a lizard. Alex recognized the beast as being either the same beast or the same species as the one that he had seen the first Sunheart come out of.
But it was no beast at the moment. It was too illusory to be a monster of the desert.
It turned its head to the side, looking toward something. Alex turned his head as well and saw a wounded family trapped under the rubble, completely knocked out from the explosion.
The explosion that had thrown him out of his place had destroyed the other houses around it as well.
He still wasn’t sure what the cause of the explosion was. What was it that he was looking at, this yellow glowing illusory beast that should have been dead already?
The beast tried to go for the unconscious family, at which point Alex moved in instantly. As the beast struck down with its stinger, Alex punched back in retaliation.
The clash created a shockwave that Alex hadn’t expected.
‘It’s strong?’ he thought in surprise. He could not imagine how anything in this place with such little Qi could be strong, but it was. There was something else to it as well.
Alex looked back at his fist and saw a pale redness to it, as though his fist had been slightly burned by the attack. He looked back at the beast, confused.
What was going on? Why were its attacks hot?
He heard more screams from all around him and worried that the beast might end up doing something entirely dangerous. While the beast wasn’t so strong that he had to worry about his own safety, his lack of ability to use Qi beyond a certain distance made it so that he couldn’t protect others if the beast decided to ignore him.
As such, Alex dashed toward the beast and began pummeling it down. With each punch and kick, he felt as if he was hitting a barrier made of lava. Its body felt corporeal, entirely because of the burn he got each time he attacked.
Little by little, the glow of the beast began to fade as its burns became weaker and weaker as well. Then, after a significantly strong attack, the glowing beast fully dispersed.
As it did, Alex felt a strong wave of Yang suddenly disperse in all directions. It took him a moment to realize that the beast had been entirely made up of Yang instead.
‘What… what was that?’
He spent mere moments thinking about that before turning around to go help the wounded. He threw away the rubble and pulled the family out from under it. The parents seemed all right, mostly strong due to their body cultivation. But the child was wounded and bleeding.
Alex quickly reached for his storage bag to bring out the pastes, when he realized that he didn’t have any storage bags at all. All of his storage bags were missing.
He panicked. The child needed care and he didn’t know where he had lost his storage bags. He got up to go search for it in the explosion, but thankfully other people arrived with their own pastes and began helping the child.
They had medicines, so Alex did not need to worry.
The child was going to be fine.
“What was that explosion?” someone asked. “What did you do?”
“Me?” Alex asked. “I didn’t do anything. I don’t know where that beast came from.”
“I saw what it was,” someone else said at that moment. “It was a Sun Wraith. A Sun Wraith infiltrated into the city somehow.”
“Huh?”
“Sun Wraiths?”
“Dear god!”
People began exclaiming in shock and fear all around him.
Alex took in the words. Sun Wraith.
That’s what it was? he thought, surprised. Where did it come from?
“Alex!” a voice called for him, and Alex turned. Gorang had come up to him, with Tala following some distance behind.
“Are you okay? What happened here?” Gorang asked.
“It was an illusory yellow beast that attacked me,” Alex said. “The others are calling it a Sun Wraith.”
“WHAT?” Gorang exploded in shock. “A Sun Wraith attacked you? Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine,” Alex said softly.
“He’s not just fine,” someone said at that moment. “I watched the whole thing. This young man defeated the Sun Wraith all by himself.”
“Yes, I did too,” someone else said. “If not for him, many people would’ve died today. He single-handedly saved all of us.”