Alex looked at the dead Lioness and huffed a little.

"That's one down,

" he said and carefully looked at the other nine. The other lionesses were also a little wary now that he had successfully killed one of them despite not having a cultivation base at all from what they could sense.

"Dammit! It's still not really working. I need to do something else if I want to truly fight without any assistance,

" he thought. Although he had stopped everything, he was still using his spiritual sense to check around him in case the beasts sneak attacked him.

He needed to be on guard at all times and Spiritual sense was absolutely necessary for it. However, he also thought that it was stifling his sense of danger and made his actions inhibited.

"No, not yet. It's suicidal if I stop my spiritual sense now,

" he thought. He wanted to fight at the worst position he could and come out on top, but he also knew his limits.

The beasts got hold of their fear and started making their way towards him slowly.

Alex looked at the three that had bad cuts on their head and necks and decided to go for them next. He jumped in once again to attack the one closest to him.

The Lionesses paw blocked the sword from hitting its head, but at the same time, it was also sent flying back a bit. Alex immediately used the sword to block another attack and used the momentum to turn around and hit the lioness on the back of the head.

He saw another lioness targeting his head from behind and immediately flipped his blade to stab backward. The sword stabbed through the neck of the midair lioness and killed it on the spot.

He was about to twist the blade to let it loose, but another beast attacked him from behind, so he had to let it go and roll away.

At the same time, another beast attacked once more. One after another, he kept dodging every single attack as the 8 lionesses attacked him one after another, not giving him a single moment of rest.

'Sh*t! They're trying to stop me from taking another sword out,' he thought. He was starting to get annoyed at that.

Another one of the lionesses jumped at him, but he didn't run away this time. Instead, he met the paw of the lioness head-on and punched it back. With his other hand, he punched the lioness on the now open head.

A large sound rang out as the lioness got punched with enough strength to the head get dizzy for a few seconds. Alex finally got enough time to take out the sword as the other lionesses couldn't attack with their friend on the way.

Just as the lioness was coming out of its dizziness, Alex swung the sword down on its shoulders. He barely managed to cut two inches deep when the sword got stuck in the lioness' shoulder.

Another lioness attacked from behind at the same time. He twisted through the air as he grabbed the handle of the sword and swung at one of the lionesses with the entire lioness on the sword.

The lioness got released from the sword and went flying into another lioness. Alex quickly looked to the side and saw the lioness with a large cut on its head.

He immediately made his way up to it and dodged its attack before delivering a massive strike on the already wounded head. This time, the strike went past the skull and actually hit the brain, killing the beast in one strike.

"7 more,

" he said as he looked around. He kept track of where the two lionesses that were slowly losing all blood through their neck were. Any minutes now, they would die, but Alex wanted to make it just a little bit quicker.

He dodged another attack and slipped through the many lionesses like a slippery snake as he made his way to the one with the bleeding neck and killed it.

Similarly, he went through them, losing a sword in the process, and killed the other one too.

Now, only 5 were left.

'Is this low enough?' he thought. He was wondering if she should drop the spiritual sense at this point but decided not to. The lioness with the 6th Meridian Tempering cultivation was too scary for him in his current situation.

So, he went back into the fight again. After another few minutes of struggle, he managed to kill 3 more lionesses. The remaining two were really angry now.

Alex was huffing a lot as using just physical ability to fight was very taxing. It was especially worrying to him that the remaining beasts were at the 4th and 6th realm of Meridian Tempering realm. However, with only 2 remainings, it would become easy to fight now.

Finally, he felt like it was okay to let go of his worries and took in his spiritual sense as well. He was purely going to use his sword fighting techniques to fight the two beasts.

With no more spiritual sense, he could kiss goodbye his perfect guard, but he needed to do that to improve.

"Come!

" he shouted at the two beasts.

He didn't wait for the two of them to come and jumped at them himself. His sword wasn't strong enough to harm them at once, and his body wasn't strong enough to survive multiple of their hits, but he still ran towards them.

He struck the weaker lioness and dodged when the stronger one attacked. He fought the two beasts and the more he did it the more he frowned.

'This is not what master mentioned. I'm still not thinking of the sword as part of me, and me as part of the sword. I let the sword have intent, and the sword gives me its sharpness,' he thought.

He felt like he was understanding something that was right in front of him but was just out of reach.

'Intent, I should let the sword know my intent. No, the sword is me, I am the sword. I don't want the sword to cut. No, I… want me to cut the lioness.'

'CUT'

He let himself know of his intent, and let the sword do its own thing. As long as he and the sword were one, it would understand.

He went forward and slashed.

He didn't know if he was hallucinating it or not, but he felt like his sword has a simple white outline to it. However, it was too faint to know if it was really there because it was, or because he wanted there to be one.

He sliced at the weaker lioness who barely managed to dodge it. However, even as it dodged the attack, a thin amount of hair fell from the lioness' neck.

'I did it?' his eyes brightened as he thought that.

To him, that was definitely a success, however small it was. He was starting to figure out the concept behind the intents and he was so happy that he wanted to celebrate. All of a sudden, he tried to move to the side, but…

BANG

He was suddenly hit from the side due to a moment of carelessness. He flew through the air until he hit a tree and broke it in half.

"Ughh!

" he said as he stood up. As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw one of the lionesses attacking him, so he rolled over to dodge.

'I can't focus elsewhere right now,' he thought and quickly got up despite the pain on his right ribs. He truly believed that some of the ribs had to have been broken for sure.

Still, he would have to be beaten up a few more times to be dangerously injured.

He stopped thinking about what just happened and prepared to attack once more.

'I am the sword. I want to cut. I need to cut. CUT!' he thought once more and dashed forward to slash at the weaker lioness who tried to block his attack.

However, as if the sword had gained a new life and increased sharpness, it cut through the paw-like it was a piece of butter.

"RAWR!!

" the lioness screamed in pain and jumped back. Alex was surprised once more.

'T-that's way too high damage. That's at least in the middle of Meridian Tempering realm,' Alex thought. Up until now, he had been hacking and slashing really hard to cleave through the neck of the lionesses, but the attack just now didn't have as much force behind it.

Due to his focus behind the intent, his attack hadn't had as much intensity behind it, and it still managed to do quite a lot of damage.

'Do intents not follow a person's cultivation base and all have their own damage?' he wondered. He thought back to the competition in which Du Yuhan fought 3 similar strength puppets and overpowered them by just increasing the intent.

Then he won against that guy from his own group by revealing the Sword Qi, which was the next stage after Sword Intent. Even though his opponent's cultivation base was clearly higher, Du Yuhan even managed to beat him.

In fact, Du Yuhan had even managed to push back a True Realm cultivator.

"Does that mean…

" He quickly stopped. This was simply too early to be making conclusions and he needed to keep on fighting.

He quickly dodged and rolled aside when the stronger lioness attacked. The lioness didn't let him take any rest and came back to attack every time he dodged.

Alex jumped back, rolled to the side, and dashed sideways so many times that he was starting to get dizzy. 'This isn't going anywhere,' he thought and quickly started calling back his intent.

He needed focus as the intent was in no way natural to him yet if he could even call it that at the level it was at. However, the lioness kept on attacking without stopping.

Alex was starting to get a little tired as well. He couldn't keep it going and needed to finish it soon. Suddenly, he stopped dodging.

The weaker lioness had decided to join the attack, and he welcomed it with open arms. He got hit on the sword, but at the same time, jumped backward to lessen the blow. He was using the momentum from the lioness' attack to get away.

'Finally,' he thought. The lionesses ran towards him, but he didn't need to worry about them as he had ample time to prepare now.

'Cut… cut… CUT!!' he thought to himself. The white light that tethered on the edge of visibility and invisibility appeared once more as it covered the entirety of his sword.

The stronger lioness attacked him right then. He rolled forward to dodge the paw and came face to face with the weaker one. The weaker lioness used its left paw to attack him, while he used his sword in return.

"CUT!

"

His sword passed through the left paw and well and went halfway into the skull. He couldn't fully cleave the skull, but that wasn't necessary as he had already damaged the brain and the beast was dead.

He pulled the sword out and turned around to fight the final opponent.

Both of them wasted no time and ran towards each other. Alex's sword was still glowing a little from the intent he had set up.

'CUT!'

He kept reminding himself as he fought the beast. Somehow, his sword wasn't strong enough to cut through the body of the stronger lioness as he did with the weaker one.

'So that's the extent of my sword intent's damage?' he wondered. Still, the sword cut the skin and flesh of the lioness pretty easily and after a minute of continuous fighting, he managed to put so much wound on the lioness that it was simply too much for the lioness to continue fighting.

Alex struck aside the paw and took the opportunity to drive the sword through the left eye of the lioness, killing it finally.