Fu Tao was forced to close his eyes because of the massive explosion that shook his very senses itself.

Alex was sent hurtling backward from the shockwave, but most of the explosion had actually taken place inside the barrier so he was mostly fine.

He quickly got back up, worried that Fu Tao was going to attack back, for fortunately for him, Fu Tao seemed completely dazed by the explosion to attack.

Alex also noticed that his earrings had stopped buzzing which meant the explosion had done the trick. The formation plate was cracked all over, which meant it would be impossible to use it anymore.

Now that the mental pressure was gone, he would—

Alex paused. A mental attack struck him directly, surprising him a bit. It didn’t hurt, nor did it get him disoriented. For the most part, it felt like someone had blown strong winds at him, where he had to steel himself a bit to not get pushed back.

However, the hit wasn’t the thing that surprised Alex. It was that he had actually been hit in the first place.

His senses quickly moved to the earrings that had stopped buzzing and only then did he realize why.

They were dead. His earrings were destroyed. He didn’t know if it was the mental pressure that did it or the explosion, but they were gone.

Which meant, Alex would have to rely on his own spiritual sense to protect himself.

Alex’s spiritual sense suddenly spread out in response. They wouldn’t let Fu Tao’s own senses pass through at all.

A clash of spiritual senses occurred in the center of the stage which only the referee could see. And as far as he could tell, it wasn’t even a fair fight.

Alex’s spiritual sense was way too strong, nearly double as strong as Fu Tao’s own spiritual sense as he pushed him back.

Fu Tao realized this as well and couldn’t help but be surprised at the fact that there was someone else in the younger generation that had a stronger spiritual sense than him.

How was an expert alchemist, whose Qi, body, and sword were strong as hell could possibly have the time to forge such a strong mental strength as well?

Fu Tao got hungry for whatever Alex had.

A wave of spiritual energy rolled out from Fu Tao as it approached Alex’s own spiritual sense. This was an attack formed using spiritual sense, so it was in a way stronger than just plain spiritual sense.

Alex still managed to block it, but he had to concentrate on his spiritual sense just in front of him.

Alex waited for Fu Tao to throw out either a formation plate or more fire attacks. However, something different happened.

His fire attacks stopped as an ice spear formed in his hand. He tossed the spear at Alex, which Alex easily destroyed.

Alex got confused. Why was he suddenly switching to ice? Did he decide to change his approach just in case the fire wasn’t doing anything?

Before Alex could think of an answer, another long icicle was thrown at him, which Alex destroyed with his sword.

Alex twisted his body a bit to dodge the third icicle. The fourth one wasn’t even close to hitting him.

‘Wait a second,’ Alex thought.

He destroyed the 5th and the 6th icicle that flew towards him. However, the 7th one flew a bit too far from him to even require dodging at all.’

However, Alex teleported right in front of the icicle and struck it with his sword breaking it into a million pieces. One of those pieces, however, was a long and thin metal rod with a leather flag on top of it.

‘Formation flag,’ Alex realized. He remembered this exact same attack done by that Fu girl in the demon realm who was trying to steal his secrets to make herself stronger.

‘Is he trying to put me in that dream state just like her?’ Alex thought. It was possible that it was some other formation, but either way, he couldn’t let that happen.

The formation flag flew back to Fu Tao who quickly threw out more icicles.

Alex tried to destroy the icicles to get to the formation flags that would be hidden inside them, but due to the constant attacks on his spiritual sense, he didn’t realize that a formation plate had at some point appeared beneath him.

A barrier sprung up around him while another barrier sprung up around the formation plate.

Alex tried to teleport out of the formation, but it seemed the space was constrained within this place.

Alex wasted no time in destroying the formation as he sent barrage after barrage of attacks at the barrier around the formation plate.

With just a few True Spirit stones to it, the plate could barely handle more than a few punches. However, that was just enough time for Fu Tao to plant the formation flags all around the barrier.

By the time Alex destroyed the formation plate, the other crimson formation was already active and it was pressuring his spiritual sense.

It was a Spirit Restraining formation, where one’s spiritual sense would be pushed down to be a mere fraction of what it was.

At the same time, more and more spiritual attacks landed on him from Fu Tao.

Alex struggled against the barrage of spiritual attacks as his spiritual energy was constantly depleting from having to protect himself from both the formation and Fu Tao.

Alex knew he wouldn’t last much longer under their constant attacks, so he needed to get rid of either of those two.

Since it was impossible to touch Fu Tao given that he was outside of the crimson barrier, Alex could only attack the barrier itself.

He lifted his sword and struck it as hard as he could.

The barrier shuddered, giving Fu Tao a sense of dread. Given how well made the formation flags were, the barrier was supposed to be quite sturdy. However, it still shuddered under Alex’s attack.

‘Dammit! Just how strong is he?’ Fu Tao couldn’t help but wonder.

It was quite hard to pinpoint Alex’s strength. His True Qi was denser than any other True Qi out there, however, it wasn’t as strong as a normal Saint Qi.

If Alex had to guess, he was somewhere in between True Emperor 9th realm’s True Qi and True Emperor 9th realm’s Saint Qi.

Given that, his attacks were doing quite a lot of damage to the barrier. However, while the barrier shuddered, it still didn’t seem like it was going to break.

The two separate mental attacks piled on him and by now, his spiritual energy was half of what it normally was, and it was still depleting fast.

‘I need to break it fast,’ he thought. Alex struck the barrier more and more but the barrier didn’t seem like it would break. It looked like it was on the verge of breaking. It only needed something… stronger.

Alex couldn’t help but sigh. ‘Do I have to do it?’ he thought. He had wanted to use this as a surprise attack, maybe catch Fu Tao off-guard and defeat him. However, it seemed he would have to use this it save himself from the barrier.

Alex transferred the sword into his left hand and then flattened his right hand. A vigorous and vibrant yellow Qi flowed into his palm.

Alex felt the strength of the Yang Qi in his palm and then shot it out towards the barrier.

The Palm of the Sun attack skill created a yellow palm-shaped attack that went on to strike the barrier at an incredible speed.

Fu Tao watched the attack without much thought as it seemed like a desperate attack from Alex to get out of the situation. However, when the attack landed on the barrier, his eyes went wide in shock and surprise.

In one fell sweep, the crimson barrier crumbled down into nothing and the formation flags went dull. The pressure that was constantly applying on Alex more than halved as only Fu Tao’s mental attack was on him.

With his spiritual sense released fully, he could easily fight that.

Alex smiled when he saw the barrier crumble too. He was surprised that it worked just like he wished, but that was to be expected.

After all, what else would he expect from the attack where he had poured all of his newly formed Saint Qi into.