20 IMPENDING DEATH

Alex ran towards the carriage that had been attacked, headstrong. He was too emotional to think straight. He had forgotten about the fact that there were people stronger than him amongst his targets.

A civilian that had escaped saw Alex running towards him.

"Young sir please help me." The civilian begged.

"Move!" Alex shouted in anger, shoving the civilian out of his way.

Alex picked his pace up. His speed increased beyond what he expected. He was moving as fast as 70km/hr. Such speed brought an intoxicating feeling to Alex. He wanted to move faster than he already was. He felt the QI in him raising his limits, the muscles in his leg contracting. It felt like he couldn't be stopped. He felt free.

A sudden realization hit Alex, he wasn't proficient enough in the manipulation of QI -- to be able to probe a cultivator's realm.

'Damn, what am I doing?' he asked himself…

"Boss an origin realm cultivator is approaching us."

A short muscular, crude-looking bandit with a shaved head and stubble on his cheeks, said to the leader of their group. The bandit had his left ear missing, hooded eyes, and a machete hanging on his back.

"Deal with the nuisance swiftly. This place is close to the walls of the capital city, there might be guards patrolling the vicinity." The leader of the bandits stated.

The bandit that reported to the leader is a rank-three nascent realm cultivator. The bandit quickly headed towards the incoming nuisance….

While Alex was reprimanding himself for acting on impulse, making a rookie mistake of not identifying his targets first before approaching. He didn't notice that a bandit was heading his way. He felt his hair stand on his skin. His instincts tugging at him to dodge, from where? To where? Alex could not identify.

Alex instinctively stopped in his tracks and stood still. Soon as he did, he saw a fist quickly flash in front of his face. The fist scratched the tip of his nose and left a bruise on it. The bandit had appeared beside him and he didn't know when.

Alex felt chills go down his spine. This feeling of impending death, he had not felt it in a long time. This feeling that accompanied him every day for 2 years, after the death of his family. He knew that death was lurking around the corner at this moment.

'Return to safety quickly.' Alex thought frantically.

Alex hurriedly stepped back, trying to put some distance between him and his assailant…

"Oh no!" Camron cried out when he saw Alex being attacked by a nascent realm cultivator. He tried to rush over to where Alex was, unfortunately, he was obstructed by the three origin realm bandits and the remaining two nascent realm cultivators in the bandit group.

"Damn it!" Camron cursed out, feeling like he was put in a tight spot.

'Why did you have to end yourself like this Alex?' Camron felt like Alex had just committed suicide, he also felt responsible for his impending death. He looked over to where Evan was and saw that he was already engaged with the two disaster realm bandits. Camron sighed and began his battle with his multiple assailants…

Alex, attempting to put significant distance between him and the bandit, turned his back on the bandit and started to run away from his attacker. He felt a rough hand grab his wrist, twist and locked his elbow, and simultaneously his movement too. He couldn't move because he knew that if he did, his wrist and elbow will break. Alex turned his head to assess his situation, he saw the bandit throw a death blow at him, aiming for his head.

'If I get hit by this blow, I am very sure I wouldn't have the chance to use Lazarus before I die.' Alex said to himself.

Alex raised his feet from the ground and forcefully dislocated his wrist and shoulder purposely, to dodge the death blow in time. He used his knee to hit the bandit on his head while he was airborne.

'Thud.' His attack startled the bandit, he wasn't expecting it.

"Ssshh, is his head made of steel?" Alex exclaimed.

He sucked in cold air and said in pain. Alex maneuvered and landed on the ground, he could feel as his mind was getting clouded by the pain from his dislocated joints. He quickly and skillfully relocated his joints, like he had done this sort of thing several times before. The pain he felt now was still mind wrecking, but it was a lot better than what he felt previously.

"They are definitely going to swell." He glanced at his wrist and shoulder.

"Slippery slime." The bandit said and chuckled at Alex's attempt to escape. He didn't get frustrated that Alex had successfully dodged his murder attempts.

Alex tried once more to escape, he felt his impending death nag at his instincts.

'Whoosh!'

Alex shifted his upper body to the side, dodging the machete that slashed at him. He barely escaped the machete, it left a gash across his abdomen.

"Argh!" he bellowed as blood spurted out.

He jumped backward-looking for breathing space. Alex could not confront the bandit, his opponent was faster and stronger than he was.

The same impending death came nagging at his instincts once more.

'Whoosh.'

Alex tried to move backward but tripped and fell on his back while trying to dodge the bandit's machete once again. It left another gash on him, this time on his left shoulder.

He grunted in pain as blood spurted out once more from his body.

'Distance, distance, safety, escape, quickly. Do something.' Alex repeated these words in his mind several times. He rolled on the ground and dodged another slash from his assailant.

"Argh!!"

His impromptu roll caused his injuries to hurt more than they already were. He swiftly got up and sprinted away from his assailant.

'A weapon, I need a weapon. But where can I get one? Sh*t!! I can't keep dodging his attacks forever.' He thought frantically.

Alex knew that he was dodging solely by relying on his instincts, dodging at the last second.

'Damn, how could I forget about the storage ring. I'm a Goddamn fool.' He fumed in his head. Alex was angry with himself for making all these ghastly mistakes. He remembered that there were a few weapons in his ring.

From his ring, Alex quickly brought out a spear that was silver in color from its top to bottom. The spear was a good 7'ft tall in total. A triangle-shaped blade at the top, at the length of 3'ft and its pole at 4'ft. The pole had the image of a dragon twisted around it. He did not know why he chose the spear - it just felt right to him.

Alex stopped running and held the spear vertically. With the spear in his hand, he finally felt like he could breathe. He felt comfortable, even with the bandit present.

"A weapon would not save you from me, it would not make any difference. I will still hunt you down, you are my prey." The bandit proclaimed and assured Alex.

"Kill!!"

The bandit cried out as he went airborne, a few meters above the ground. Quickly closing in on Alex.

Alex stood still, turned, and watched as his opponent approached him. Surprisingly, he was calm. He could finally see the bandit's movements, slowly, he could also predict his trajectory. Raising the spear, he started to skillfully twirl the spear, side to side.

'Noise and hunting don't go together.' Alex lectured in his mind.

He looked at his opponent who was in the air, still quite a bit far from the reach of his spear. To him, the distance wasn't an obstacle, at the moment Alex felt like everything within a certain radius - was within his reach.

With a calculative expression on his face, Alex focused on the bandit's throat. He felt crazed, he stopped twirling the spear and jabbed the bottom of the pole -- aiming at the bandit's neck.

'Squelch!' The sound of the bandit Adam's apple and vocal cords crushing echoed out.

The bandit went mute immediately upon impact, his eyes started to water, his jaw froze as he spurted blood out of his mouth.

'How is this possible, the bottom of the spear – it was like it teleported. What did this slime d…'

'Slam!'

The bandit was hit once more, this time with the flat side of the blade from the spear, on his head, while he was still startled by the first attacked.

'It happened again.' He thought. Not being able to comprehend his predicament.

He was sent crashing into the floor, creating a little crater on the ground from the impact.

"What is happ…." Before he could complete his sentence, he spotted the sharp silver tip of Alex spear approaching him – aiming for his left eye.

'Splat!'

The last thing the bandit eyed was the silver spear, and the last thing he heard was the sound of his eye and brain being stabbed at.

"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter." Alex grinned as he recalled a quote he memorized back when he had just joined Death's door organization. He couldn't remember who said it, but the saying had always stuck in his head.