“You don’t have to worry about beating her,” Alex said. “There are a few elders there. All we have to do is hold out until they wake back up.”

Du Yuhan looked to the right and saw that there were in fact some yellow-robed figures on the ground that were barely visible in what little light there was.

“What’s wrong with them?” Luo Mei asked as she got close. She worriedly looked at Alex’s arm and saw that his left elbow had turned into a stub. He would now forever be missing an arm.

She then looked around at the destruction and the deaths of the many disciples, and she too started feeling the rage.

“They are sleeping,” he said. “Her voice puts them in a sort of hypnosis where all they can feel is happiness and lose their mind in it.”

Du Yuhan’s face got a little confused. “Her voice? Is it a sort of skill?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” Alex said. “She doesn’t seem to have any control, so I would say it’s more of a unique body constitution she was born with. As long as she wears the mask, she won’t be able to hypnotize us, but… at True Lord realm, I doubt that would be necessary.”

“Why isn’t she taking off her mask then? Won’t that make it easier for her?” Du Yuhan asked with a confused face.

“Because if she does, she will be the one that loses the match,” Alex said. Alex looked down at his leg to search for his sword. That was when he found it still attached to the chopped-off arm.

“Are you okay? Does it hurt?” Luo Mei asked from behind.

“No, it doesn’t hurt,” Alex replied, but he only answered the second half of the question as he too was unsure about that first half.

Was he okay? He had just lost his arm, something that would normally be considered extremely important to anyone. However, it was just a game. Losing an arm meant nothing really. But was it really that simple though?

He really wasn’t sure what to think right now. He looked for answers deep within him, but they just weren’t there.

He took the left arm and sighed when he realized there was no use of it anymore. He had spent so much resources and time improving his body, and it got cut just like that.

The higher realm cultivators truly were very scary.

He then looked at his stub and sighed in relief when he saw that it was cut beneath the beast space where Pearl used to stay.

‘Thank god!’ he thought. If that part of his arm had been lost, he would definitely have lost his bond with Pearl.

He quickly looked towards Black Venom, wondering why she hadn’t been attacking all this time. When he did, he stared right into her amber eyes that were very confused at the situation.

She was still wary, but her sickle was in her hand, ready for combat at any moment.

“Should we attack?” Du Yuhan asked.

“I don’t think we have a chance of victory if we do,” Alex said. “So, it’s better to wait for now. Let’s see how long we can stall.”

It turned out, it wasn’t very long. Just half a minute later, Black Venom started cursing, asking who the hell the new arrivals were.

After not getting any answer from them, she got angry. Her sickle glowed bright yellow as she got ready to attack.

“Sister, you should leave from this place,” Alex said.

“I’m not leaving,” she said.

“Sister, you have no chance of survival, please just leave,” Alex said, but Luo Mei didn’t listen. She stubbornly stayed as her rage was making her not think straight. She wanted revenge and she wanted it now. That only made Alex more anxious about the situation.

Black Venom sent off an attack, and immediately Alex put out all the defenses he could. Du Yuhan and Luo Mei wasted no time and put up their own barriers as well.

It was like adding another layer of thin glass in front of an oncoming cannon, but that thin glass was better than nothing.

They could’ve easily dodged the incoming attack. However, if they did, the house behind them would be destroyed and the disciples in them would then die. They didn’t want to let that happen.

Alex marbled his skin and used everything he could to push off the stray metal energy back. Since the slash was flying through the air, rather than being attached to a weapon, there was a lot more stray energy than last time which helped him quite a bit.

Alex brought forth his sword and used it to strike at it once again. Only, this time he used the flat side of it since he didn’t want the blade to strike him again.

Alex wasn’t sure if he could stop the attack at all with just one hand, but he had to try.

Just then, he saw something white glow from right next to him. Even without looking, he could tell that Du Yuhan was going to attack as well.

Motes of white light circled around him before coming to his sword and glowing it fully white.

On the other side, Luo Mei was using some sort of water skill.

When the yellow slash appeared next to them, all 3 of them launched their attack at the same time as well.

A massive explosion rang out from where they struck the slash. All 3 of them were sent crashing into the buildings behind them.

Alex took the brunt of the damage as he was the closest to them, but thanks to that the other two were relatively safe.

Alex’s whole body hurt as he stood up from the rubble. The disciples inside the house looked at him with a terrified face after seeing him burst in.

They had no idea what was going on outside, so this was way too sudden for them.

Alex checked himself and found that his knee was dislocated. He held the sword with his hurting palm and used the hilt of it to hammer the knee back to its place.

He wobbled a little when he finally fixed it and stood up. He hurriedly walked out to check Du Yuhan and his sister, but it seemed that they were fine as well.

“Not dead yet, huh? I thought you new brats might have been a hidden genius or something. Looks like you are just slightly stronger than your peers, not enough to trouble me at all,” Black Venom said. Her sickle glowed yellow once again.

Alex felt his heart skip a beat when he realized that they were spread too far apart. They wouldn’t get back together in time to protect themselves if Black Venom decided to target any of the three.

“Oh no!” Alex thought. He was in the middle so he had to run towards someone. Du Yuhan was to his left and Luo Mei to his right.

Before he could even make a choice, Du Yuhan shouted at him. “Save her,” he said.

Alex lost all hesitation at that moment and ran towards his sister. He didn’t care about Du Yuhan, he couldn’t. He had his priorities… and so did Du Yuhan.

However, Black Venom’s target was never the two anyway. Since the beginning, it had always been Alex.

When she saw him running towards Luo Mei, she realized that he cared about her and was going to protect her.

So, she decided to kill both of them at once. She brought up her sickle and threw the attack.

Another golden slash flew through the air, targetting both Alex and Luo Mei. Both of them were a bit hurt from the last attack so they couldn’t muster up their full strength.

Still, they did their best to give it all they had to stop the attack.

Alex could feel that this attack was way too strong, and doubted if he could stop it at all. Still, he had to give it his all, after all, once more there were disciples behind them they had to protect.

He put all his strength into his sword and sent out an attack at the incoming slash. His attack disappeared like snow in a raging fire. It was useless. He was going to die.

The barriers they had put up crumbled like it was nothing and the slash came flying towards them, barely losing any strength at all.

Just then, something fell from the sky at blisteringly fast speed and crashed in front of the two of them.

The force of the slash striking whatever had dropped created a big enough shockwave that the two of them were sent flying back, but this time they didn’t suffer any damage at all.

Alex immediately stood up to look at what had appeared in front of them and saw the backside of a shield.

“I’m sorry I arrived so late,” A voice came from high above as the figure slowly drifted down. “I was busy dealing with the bandits outside, so I couldn’t read your message soon enough.”

The figure looked around the sect’s destruction with a hint of sadness behind his eyes. “If I did, I probably would’ve been able to save some of them,” he said.

Alex and Luo Mei’s eyes started to shine as happiness and relief returned back to them.

“Are you guys alright?” the figure finally landed and brought out his shield from the ground before turning towards the two of them.

“Senior brother!” the two of them shouted at the same time. Liu Xun had arrived just in time to save his Junior disciple siblings.