Alex was down on the ground as pressure crashed all over him. This pressure was way stronger than the person he had just fought before.

In fact, it was stronger than that time Zexi had him pinned on the ground in the alleyway too.

‘No way! Someone in True Lord realm? Or maybe even higher,’ he thought. The aura was less than his masters’, but he wasn’t sure by how much.

He tried to use his Qi to escape but no matter what he did, his Qi just wouldn’t move. The pressure was too much for him to use any technique.

Warm energy rushed from within him that lowered the pressure on the inside, but he was still unable to use his techniques.

“So, someone is indeed here,” A voice came from behind Alex. He quickly sent out his spiritual sense and noticed a lot of people around him.

‘Shit!’ he thought.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a corpse. Hey isn’t this that new guy Phillip or whatever his name was?”

“I think so. Boss, someone killed your arrogant new star.”

“Wait, didn’t he have a small group of his own cause he wanted to act like a leader? Where are they?”

“Probably dead like him, right? Hahaha”

People started laughing all around Alex. Finally, a person landed in front of him.

“Is he alive, boss?” someone asked.

Alex could see a fully black-robed person with a black mask that had a single design that made it look like a snake’s tongue was coming out of it.

Other than that, there were 2 holes through which amber-colored eyes were staring at him.

“You look young. Did you kill my person?” A hoarse voice escaped from behind the mask that made the boss sound like he had lost his voice after speaking for hours.

Alex didn’t answer. He was too busy checking how much trouble he was in.

His spiritual sense could now clearly see the nearly 3 dozen people surrounding him.

Each and every single one of them was wearing a black robe and a rather tight-fitting black mask on just on their mouth and nose.

“Are you conscious kid? The boss is asking you a question,” a man said. However, he didn’t come close to Alex and stayed far away.

“He’s conscious; just look at him fidgeting,” the boss said.

Suddenly a force pulled Alex off of the ground and he was face to face with the boss. The pressure crashing on him lowered and he could finally move his body around.

He could also use techniques with the pressure mostly gone, but now that he was away from the ground, he had lost his chance to escape too.

He wanted to turn invisible, but just a single burst of aura would make him unable to stay that way. He wanted to conceal his aura, but it wouldn’t work against someone at a higher Major realm than his.

He wanted to simply teleport away, but everywhere was surrounded by the goons. Teleporting would still leave him within the encirclement, in range of the boss’ intense pressure.

So, he really only had one choice, and he did it.

His Spiritual sea churned as a massive vortex appeared that quickly turned into mist and flew to the sky. They gathered there to form the shape of a fist and it escaped away from that place.

Heaven’s impact flew directly at the boss, but just before it hit the boss, the mask glowed a shiny white and his spiritual attack was stopped.

“Oh, you just used a mental skill on me? How? I didn’t see you use any techniques,” the boss said with a chuckle in his voice.

Alex was horrified. His one plan that should have worked, didn’t.

‘How?’ he thought. ‘Mental protection items are so rare. How does the boss of a bandit group have those?’

‘It’s the mask. I need to get rid of it,’ he thought. His sword was still on the side of his hand, dangling beside him.

From what he could see, the boss still believed him to be unable to move. He didn’t know that thanks to his inner warmth, he could now move.

‘I need to take this opportunity carefully,’ he thought.

“Yeah, I’m sure he killed him. That is truly a surprise. A Mind Tempering realm kid killing a True realm cultivator. Hmm…” the boss looked around.

“He must’ve gotten help from what I can see. Someone else was here and they ditched him.”

“Were you betrayed? Do you want to take revenge on the person that left you behind?” the boss asked.

“I… I want to,” Alex said. “I want to kill him. He ruined my life.”

“Hehehe, do you hate society like every one of us here?” the boss asked.

“Yes!…” ‘I need to fight.’ “… I do.” ‘Soon.’

“Hehe, but then you will have to—”

Alex suddenly swung his golden-white sword across the boss’s face and cut the mask in half.

Alex was still hanging in the air, but he saw the boss’s mask drop from his face.

“A woman?” he asked in surprise.

“You!” the boss’s normal, female voice was revealed once the mask disappeared.

Alex was about to use his Heaven’s Impact, but he suddenly felt that he was in a state of euphoria. He almost couldn’t do anything.

It felt like his mind, body and spirit became one. However, just then he felt his mind get hot and that woke him up.

He woke up just in time to see the notifications about the toxins being destroyed from his body.

He looked up front and saw the woman’s face anger up. He then saw her taking out another mask from her storage bag and was about to put it on.

“Oh no!” he thought and immediately sent out another Heaven’s impact. This one managed to barely slip through and hit the boss just before she put on the mask again.

Just as she put on the mask, she lost consciousness too. Her control over Alex dropped and he fell to the ground. He immediately started his Earth Devour techniques.

His Qi traveled across his body at incredible speed and came out from under him to open the ground. But, even as that happened, he could see the boss’s eyes coming back to life.

He didn’t know if Heaven’s impact wasn’t as strong due to her putting on the mask, or if the mask had mental healing properties, but she had recovered from her unconsciousness and he was in trouble.

The ground below him had barely opened when the boss stopped herself from falling and immediately sent a palm attack towards him.

Alex felt like he had lost his control over the Focus mode and time was back to moving slow.

He could see the slow opening of the ground and the palm attack flying towards him at incredible speed.

He knew for sure if the palm hit him, he was dead. And… it seemed it would reach him before he escaped.

He was doomed.

He started worrying about what to do. Whether to teleport or to use an attack of his own, but that was impossible.

His body was still sending out Qi for the ground below him, and he couldn’t use it right now. Even if he could, it wouldn’t be fast enough to dodge the palm attack that was right in front of his face.

‘Am I dead?’ he thought.

Suddenly, something flew out of his robe and stood between him and the palm attack.

Bright yellow light shined from it and a golden barrier appeared in front of him just in time to block the attack.

Alex looked at what it was and was thoroughly surprised. “Master’s talisman!” he shouted.

The talisman managed to stop the attack and both of them disappeared.

The ground opened up fully and swallowed Alex while the rest of the people there couldn’t see what had happened at the last moment.

“That… That bastard saw my face!” the Boss’s hoarse sound appeared once more. “Find out where he went! I want him dead.”

The boss spread out her aura all around her and suffocated her followers, but couldn’t find any sign of Alex.

The other bandits were shocked to see their boss rage like that and didn’t dare make another peep.

“Go find him, you bastards!” the boss shouted.

“Yes, boss.” Immediately, everyone jumped out of their place and went around the forest to search.

* * * * * *

Alex was released from the ground and he quickly stood and immediately went invisible and hid all of his aura.

He then cleaned himself of all dirt and looked around.

‘Am I far away? I hope I didn’t go closer into towards the inner forest,’ he thought. He slowly flew up above the forest and looked around.

‘Where do I go now?’ he wondered. He flew up even higher, but all he could see was the forest. He had come in way too deep.

‘Do I leave or do I stay around until the morning arrives?’ he thought.

He looked around more to make sense of anything, but his eyes could see nothing for the forests and trees. There was not a single thing around him to tell him of his location.

“Sigh, I guess I will wait until the morning then,” he thought and went down to the ground.

Instead of staying in one place, however, he decided to keep moving and find some alchemy ingredients throughout the night.

So, he chose a route he thought was correct and started moving. The night had just started and there was a lot of time still remaining for the sun to come up.

So, he did all he could and moved forward.