Alex figured that he had been brought back here by the people who had captured him, so it should have been their city or their tribe.
He looked around, somewhat confused.
‘They didn’t bother locking me up in some other place,’ he thought. ‘Do they think they can keep me here with such minimal security?’
There were only half a dozen people there around him and not a single person was facing him at all.
Alex slowly moved away from his bed, checking on himself. Aside from his stolen storage bags, nothing was out of place at all. It was a shame that he had those taken away from him, but he couldn’t get himself to worry about them.
Alex quickly used a technique to turn himself invisible. He hoped no one would notice that he had left. The headache he felt was still there — which he was ignoring for the moment — but as he moved away from the bed, it began getting stronger and stronger.
At a certain distance away from the bed, a little less than halfway to where the guards were standing, Alex felt the pain reach a point where he couldn’t bear it at all.
He felt so disoriented by the pain that when he walked back to safety, he hadn’t even realized that his invisibility had come undone. He had no control of his Qi when he was struggling against the pain.
He quickly looked around from a point of safety, trying to search for dozens of people all around him, that were secretly using their battle array to keep him there.
However, there really was no one else there at all. While it was dark outside, he could see that he was in a small depressed spot on the ground, that seemed to lead up far away into several silhouettes of houses and some sort of pillars that he couldn’t see in the night.
‘There is no one here using their array on me,’ Alex thought. ‘There is no Intent pressuring me. So, what is going on? Why am I still getting hurt?’
He moved once again, this time trying to fully test how much further he could go. He used no other techniques at all.
Alex tried his best, pushing against whatever it was that was trying to mentally suppress him.
Even then, he only managed to go about halfway to where the guards were standing — 15 meters of the total 30-ish meter distance from his bed.
Alex’s test hadn’t come with no grunts or grumbles, so people had noticed that he had woken up. So, a few of the guards had left to seemingly let the others know that he had woken up.
Alex walked back to the bed and sat, feeling relieved from the mental pain. Although it wasn’t fully gone, and somewhat lingered even where he was.
‘This thing is different,’ Alex realized. ‘It’s not Intent that is suppressing me, but some sort of Spiritual barrier. It is attacking me mentally.’
He wondered how much stronger it could get at the furthest point. Where even was the furthest point? Given that the guards seemed comfortable, Alex was certain it was inward, maybe around 20 to 25 meters away from him.
‘It can’t be anything other than a formation, can it?’ Alex thought. Only a formation could create such a barrier.
‘I suppose a script can do everything a formation can. In fact, it might just be a script even.’
To him, it wasn’t natural to think of scripts as a replacement for formations since scripts didn’t prevail as much in the Human Immortal realms. They were mostly used by the Demons.
‘Hell has demons,’ Alex thought. ‘A coincidence?’
For the briefest moments, Alex wondered if he was in one of the Demon realms, but the thought vanished just as quickly as it formed. Alex knew the names of all 9 Demon Immortal realms, just as he knew the names of all 18 Human Immortal realms, all 3 Beast Immortal realms, and all 3 Unclaimed Immortal realms.
‘It could be a minor Demon realm, but I can’t see that being the case,’ Alex thought. Considering most worlds were ranked based on the strength one could reach, Hell would certainly rank high since anyone could reach the Immortal realm, at least in terms of Body Cultivation.
Maybe it was a place outside of rankings, since there was no Heaven here.
Alex’s thoughts vanished in a flash like water on a hot skillet when he saw figures approaching his small patio. He got alert as he saw the middle-aged man that had captured him, along with his daughter, a black-haired dark-skinned young woman.
Alex could almost see some bumps on her forehead even from this distance, a far cry from the slanted horns her father had.
They stopped a few meters beyond where the guards were, around the same area where Alex thought the barrier ended.
“You have woken up,” the chief said. “Are you perhaps hungry? We will bring some food to you right away.”
Alex answered with a question. “Where am I?”
“Back in our city, of course,” the chief said. “Where else would we take you?”
“And… where is this city?” Alex asked.
The chief’s lips stretched into a thin smile. “Now, now. There is no need to act so oblivious,” the man said. “Do not worry about the sabotage. You may have colluded with one of the other tribes, but I forgive you for that.”
The young woman’s eyes widened next to her. “Father!” she nearly shouted. “You can’t—”
The chief silenced her with a look, before turning to Alex, waiting for him to speak.
Alex narrowed his eyes. “I hope you know that you are gravely mistaken about everything here. All of your assumptions, you are wrong.”
“All of it?” the chief asked, his smile unceasing and creepy. “Alright, we are wrong. If that is what you wish for us to think.”
Alex frowned upon hearing that. “I hope you will just come out and say what it is that you want, since I do not believe that my words have changed anything here at all.”