The moment Alex felt the drapes around his face drop, he knew he could no longer remain there. He did not need anyone thinking anything else.
The pause in attacks allowed him to leave. He immediately flew up, leaving the area.
However, before he could get particularly far away, a person appeared next to him at a sudden speed and punched him. Alex crossed his arms to block the attack, and somehow he was still sent flying into the ground.
Alex walked out of the sand where he had crashed, trying to fly away again. He didn’t even waste any time trying to think about what had just happened. But as he tried to, he suddenly felt a piercing pain shoot through his mind.
Alex lost all control of his body and stumbled to the ground. He tried to keep his wits, but for some reason, he could not do anything at all. What was happening to him felt far worse than what he felt when he attacked the seal every night.
‘I need to fight this!’
Alex gathered all of his determination and tried to push against the pain. The pain immediately lightened, and he could finally focus on what was happening around him.
Several of the black-robed people had surrounded him at some point, all of them simply standing there doing nothing.
That couldn’t have been true, as they were clearly doing something to him.
“Don’t fear, boys and girls. This is no Death,” a voice said loudly.
Alex turned toward that voice, still continuously fighting against the pain that attacked his mind.
A middle-aged man in black robes, showing his salt and pepper hair and two flesh-colored horns, walked inside the circle formed by the other figures, and stood mere arm’s length away from Alex.
He kicked at the sand, making the sword fly up, and then grabbed it. He looked at the sword for a decent few seconds. “You do use a sword, but it is the wrong color,” he said as he reached Alex’s face with the sword.
Alex tried his best to move, but his body still refused to listen to him for some reason. He could only do just the most basic of things.
The sword slid into Alex’s drapes, and the man pulled it off. He revealed Alex’s fair face and dark hair for everyone else to see.
Sounds of gasps came from all sides, and the pain faded for just a moment.
Alex immediately took the opportunity to push it back entirely, but before he could do anything else, the middle-aged man kicked Alex back into the ground, before grabbing his arms and legs to constrict him to the ground.
“Keep your cool!” the man shouted. “He’s not Death. Don’t let the Array falter.”
“Yes, Chief!” many voices replied in unison, and Alex felt the full force of the pain come slam back down onto his head. He fought it back again, but only to the point where he could keep it from knocking him unconscious with the pain.
‘An Array?’ Alex thought even as he tried to struggle to get out. ‘Is this a battle array?’
He attempted to use his body to fight off the pain, which he could usually do when someone else tried to suppress him with just their aura. However, it wasn’t working.
This clearly wasn’t an aura that was suppressing him.
It was pure Intent.
Whatever these people were doing, they had found a way to use their Intent to attack Alex into being unable to do anything. The most he could do at the moment was to try and bear the weight of the Intent of the dozens of people that were surrounding him.
“Someone go get my daughter back. She must still be fighting,” the middle-aged man said, still sitting on top of Alex.
Alex grunted, the sand pressed against the side of his face, some getting into his mouth.
“Get… get off me,” he let out.
The man looked down with a clear look of surprise. “Since when did the people of the greater cities start coming to our secluded little world to sabotage our tradition?” he asked. “Do you youngsters have nothing else to do?”
Not much of what the man said made sense to Alex. Not that he could speak much either. Just fighting off the pain was taking all of his energy.
“Chief, are you sure that’s not…”
“What do you think, Runin? Would Death ever lose to us?” the Chief asked.
The other man shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.” The fear in his voice was quite strong, but he seemed to be managing it.
“What do we do now? Do we kill him?”
“No,” the Chief said. “Killing him would do nothing. We need answers and some payment for all of this. We’ll need to set a bargain with this young man, or whoever may be assisting him.”
“Father!” a loud voice caught everyone’s attention. The young lady who had been fighting the crab from before came walking up the sand hill, seemingly annoyed by all the ruckus.
“What is going on? Why was my battle disturbed?” she asked as she walked to the Chief.
“The test has been sabotaged by this young man, so we must stop it for now,” the Chief said.
“What? But we barely just found the right beast after weeks of searching. I cannot bear to wait another few weeks before my ceremony is complete.”
“I’m sorry, Xichen, but it cannot be helped. If there is disruption, you have to start over.”
The woman seemed to grumble a little under her breath, but any feeling of anger and dissatisfaction she had scattered away from her when she saw Alex’s skin.
“Death!” she shouted almost immediately. “Father, you caught…”
“It is not Death,” the man explained to his daughter. “Death wouldn’t be caught so easily by me. Besides…”
He grabbed onto Alex’s hair, lifting his face to show to everyone.
“He’s a man,” he said. “And if what we know is right, Death is most definitely a woman.”