Alex cut through the enemy closest to him, surprised by how easily he could achieve that. The man didn’t even try to run away like the one he had just bisected. He simply stood there, doing nothing to stop Alex from cutting him.
As the blood of the dead man empowered him, he searched for another enemy.
Alex turned around, seeing a woman fleeing. She was an enemy too. His figure vanished in a red blur, arriving right in front of her. As she screamed, he chopped off her head.
That had been so easy too.
Alex turned, charging for another enemy.
He cut down a dozen or so people before he started getting bored. ‘Where are all the strong fighters? These are just cowards who run away.’
He took a moment to think who here was stronger. It took him far too long to remember about the 3 Extolites. But each time he wanted to go fight them, he remembered that he had already killed them.
‘Then who do I fight?’ he thought. He wanted to fight someone. Anyone.
Searching for the closest person, he turned and charged. He arrived before the person, raising his sword up high to cut down. As he did, he froze.
The person he had come next to was a boy of barely 15. Fear had paled his face, his feet no longer listening to him.
As Alex stood there with his sword raised high, the boy closed his eyes, giving up on his life.
‘A child?’ Alex thought upon seeing the boy. ‘Why am I trying to kill a child?’
He took a step back. The child was so defenseless that it didn’t make sense to him why he had to kill him. He looked around at anyone else he could kill, and all other people were in a similar state as the child.
Everyone was scared and defenseless.
‘Why am I…’
Alex took several steps back. ‘Who am I fighting?’
He tried to remember. It was the 3 Extolites, wasn’t it? Where were they now? It again took him a while to remember that he had already killed them.
‘Then why am I still fighting?’
Alex placed his empty hand to his head, the strange rhythm of his heart pulsing through his head as well. His mind was consumed by it, making it hard to think about other things.
‘I don’t have to fight,’ he thought. ‘There is no reason to kill anyone else.’
And yet, Alex could feel a clear compulsion to keep fighting, to draw more blood. This form of his demanded he continue.
“No!” Alex spoke out with clear intent. “Withdraw!”
His irregular heartbeat suddenly stopped before regular beats resumed inside of him. The lull he was put under slowly vanished, along with the pain that it brought.
While his focus seemed to lower, his perception increased, allowing him to take in more things than just what he was focused on. He hadn’t realized just how little information he was receiving at each moment.
He had even ignored his spiritual sense in that state for some reason.
His tall body grew somewhat smaller, his form returning to a proper state. Blood dripped from around his body, the blood armors reverting to what they always were.
The itch around his scalp, back, and lower back vanished as well.
When everything reverted, Alex felt as though all energy had been drained from him. He faltered to the ground, tired beyond understanding. His body was still full of Qi, but somehow that didn’t help him feel good at all.
He looked around at the things he had done. Killing those that were helpless. These weren’t innocents, of course, and yet Alex couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit of guilt at killing them.
They had given up after all.
He stood up finally, looking at the scared young boy that was before him.
“Leave,” he told the boy. “I won’t hurt you.”
The young boy opened his eyes and screamed before closing them, staying where he was.
Alex frowned for a moment, but then he looked at himself. The redness around his skin hadn’t gone away. It had reduced, but his skin was far redder than it should be.
It would take some time to disappear.
He shook his head and walked away from the street. The boy would know soon he was free to leave.
As Alex walked back, he couldn’t help but reflect on what he had experienced. He wondered what exactly had happened. Why was there so much compulsion in him to do harm, to draw blood?
He even feared that had he not trained his Intent for so long while he was imprisoned, he would likely have taken a long time to stop himself from killing many more.
‘Was it the half-transformation?’ Alex thought. ‘Or was it an interference from the seal?’
He wanted to understand what it was that had gone wrong. ‘Or is this just what a Devil is supposed to be?’
He feared he wouldn’t know for a long time.
Alex walked by the bisected Jianyu, and reached around his body to find his storage bag. He also took the damaged whip, thinking of turning it into a sword as well. While his current sword was good, the metal it was made with wasn’t the best.
Making a sword with the whip’s metal might gain him a far better sword.
Alex walked back into the compound of the Grayhounds and stopped the moment he walked in. The scene inside was one of a massacre, something he had done without thinking much at all.
It was terrifying how many people he had killed today without even feeling bad for a single death.
Xichen and Goyin stood before a corpse with a sword stabbed into its chest. Walking closer, Alex saw the sword was the half-bent sword he had thrown away, and the corpse was the Grayhounds’ chief.
Alex only remembered cutting away the chief’s arm. He hadn’t killed him.
It was these two, mother and daughter, who had done that. They had taken their revenge where they could get it.