At the same time, a barrier of blue appeared around her, stopping Alex from seeing what she was doing.

Then, the barrier crumbled as many sharp icicles remained around her.

The girl grabbed one of the icicles and threw it at Alex with her full force while continuously driving down her wave of spiritual energy at him too.

Alex swung his sword and crushed the icicle coming at him.

Then, two more came. One right next to him and one quite far away. Alex easily dodged the one that was further away and broke the one that was next to him.

Even as the wave of spiritual energy crashed down on him, the girl didn’t stop the barrage of icicles at him.

Alex blocked the ones he needed to, but most of them he simply dodged.

’Is this girl trying to tire me out?’ he thought. She clearly wasn’t planning to hurt him with the icicles, so Alex wondered if her plan was to make him use up as much Qi as he could before she completely dominated him with her own power.

’She doesn’t know how much I have, and that will be her downfall,’ Alex thought.

Just as he thought that the icicles around the girl ended, she showed a happy smile like a crazed maniac.

”Finally,” she said as she stopped her spiritual attack and pulled back her spiritual sense.

Alex’s own spiritual sense finally spread out freely with no obstruction. And when it did reach around him to see the neatly lined icicles, suspicion grew in his heart.

Then, the icicles melted, and of the nearly 30 icicles that were on the ground, out of 8 of them, black metallic rods appeared with a leather flag on top of it.

”Shit!” Alex cried out and tried to run, but it was too late.

A massive barrier of crimson light appeared all around him, blocking his escape. Worst of all, the formation rods were outside the barrier.

”I finally… got you,” the girl said with a heavy strain on her voice. She hadn’t done well attacking him with her spiritual sense with such persistence.

Alex attacked the barrier with any and every skill he had. Fist, Punch, slash, anything he could think of.

Alex even tried to use the Earth Devour technique to escape, but the barrier blocked it.

’Dammit!’ he thought. His lack of experience when it can fighting a strong human opponent had become his downfall.

Then, he started feeling groggy. ‘Disorienting formation?’ he wondered, but that wasn’t it. He could clearly see the woman outside eating a pill with no problem.

If he was being disoriented, then the direction or the angle of what he saw would become disoriented as well.

’Why is my head feeling so heavy?’ he thought.

As if to answer him, the girl spoke. “It’s a Spirit Restraining formation. Inside that formation, your spiritual sense will be restrained to a mere fraction of what you can truly use,” she said.

Alex struck the formation as hard as he could. If his attack was strong enough, he could surely destroy the formation even from the inside.

If not destroyed, he could use up the spirit stones and cause that to have the formation fail.

So, he continued attacking.

Then, something happened that caused Alex to drop his sword. He looked in front of him and saw the girl use some sort of spiritual technique on him that was making him really groggy and sleepy.

Alex used his spiritual sense to fight back, but he was barely able to push it back. He didn’t bother getting down to grab the sword and instead brought out the other, better sword to attack with it.

Then he continued sending out a barrage of attacks at the barrier.

The girl frowned. ‘How strong is his mind? Why is the Spiritual Dream Sequence not starting already?’ she thought and pushed further.

She even ate a Saint rank Mind Recovery pill to restore her lost spiritual sense in a matter of minutes as well as eat a Spiritual Enhancement pill to improve her mental strength for a few minutes.

She just needed a few minutes of him not fighting back before the formation fully suppressed his spiritual sense.

As the strength of her attack grew, Alex was unable to keep up his own attack and slowly, he succumbed to the dream she put him in.

* * * * *

Alex opened his eyes in the midst of many people, all of whom were wearing black clothes.

’Where am I?’ he thought for a second before he realized there was a casket at the center of the group.

They were outside, and this was a funeral.

Alex looked to his side and saw his Aunt Liz crying her eyes out while holding a little Hannah next to the very young-looking Uncle Rob.

Aunt Liz never seemed to age after hitting her prime, but why was Uncle Rob so young?

Alex heard some sniffling behind him and turned his head to see his mother’s young face, filled with tears.

He then looked around, hoping to find his father, but he wasn’t there at all.

”Where is grampa, mama?” Alex was surprised to hear his own voice come out of his mouth.

Helen only cried louder, unable to answer.

’Ah!’ Alex thought. ‘This must be grandfather’s funeral. I was… 3 at the time, right?’

Alex’s grandmother had died before he was even born, and about 10 years after that, his grandfather had died as well.

’What is this? Am I back in time?’ he thought. ‘No, this feels more like a dream.’

’What a vivid dream,’ he thought.

”Thank you all for gathering here today,” a man’s voice boomed even without any speaker.

’Father!’ Alex thought as he looked towards the front of the funeral to see his, young but still brawny, father speak while holding back his tears.

”My father,” Alex’s father started and went on a speech about how good a man his father was, and how he had on his own opened a farm at the end of nowhere, and did such an amazing job raising two fantastic children.

Liz could only cry louder as she heard the speech.

”This is a grim day for us, but we will not let it stop us,” Alex’s father said, his voice booming with every single word.

”As my father used to say, whether you are beaten or hurt, you let that pain go through you, change you, and then you stand up and keep moving forward.”

”I know my father wouldn’t want us to stop here and would want us to do better, keep moving forward, and make him proud.”

”So, that is exactly what we will do. You hear that, father. I won’t stop! I will keep moving forward and make you proud.”

Alex looked in stun as he had never heard his father say something with so much intensity and conviction.

He wanted to see more, but even as he did, the people blurred like ink drops on water, and the scene in front of him changed.