The Messenger of Death

Alex chuckled at his friend's reaction. "You don't even know the worst of it. But she gave me the poison so that I could use it to… protect myself, so she says." He lied.

"If you want a cultivation pill then you can have this." He brought out one of the primrose pills that he stole and gave it to Camron.

After collecting the pill, Camron observed the pill. "This pill, why is the scent so familiar… Alex, you didn't." He looked at Alex with a stunned expression.

Alex smiled at Camron. "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't." He said as he got off the bed.

"You! I put my life on the line for your innocence. If he had checked your ring and saw this pill in there, then I wouldn't even be alive at the moment." Camron was still baffled at the fact that Alex was the thief.

"Nonsense, I wouldn't have allowed him to kill you." The smile on Alex's face only got wider.

"But how did you do it? I know for a fact that you didn't leave the tea house that day. And I also know that you were busy making out with Miriam, so how?" Camron's baffled expression turned into that of a curious one.

"I have my ways, besides, they weren't the owner of the pill in the first place. They too, took it off someone, and what I did was to keep the ball rolling..." Alex picked the little box that Nana sent to him and placed it in his ring.

"Now it remains two pills. Why did you give this to me?" Camron asked.

"For you to choke on, what else?" Alex glanced at him as he gave him a sarcastic reply.

"I mean you stole it because you need it right? There's no need to give this to me." He pushed his hand that was holding the primrose pill at Alex.

"I'm not as generous as you think I am. I only gave you that because it was of no use to me personally. Nana said that a person can only consume one of this pill, taking any more than that will be useless. It can make you stronger, and by making you stronger we can take in other missions that have greater rewards." He explained.

"Oh…" Camron retracted his hand. "You could have given this to anyone else, or even sold it. But you still chose to give it to me." A playful grin crawled up his face.

He placed a hand over Alex's shoulders and dragged him closer. "You say that you are not generous, if this is not generosity, then are you secretly in love with me? Although I don't swing that wa-"

-Thud!!

"Oughff!!"

Alex elbowed his stomach.

"Ouch!!" Camron held his abdomen as he gently sat down on the bed. "Okay, I deserved that. But, argh!! You didn't have to hit me that hard." Camron Laid on the bed folded.

"I remember telling you that I would castrate you the next time you did something like this. You should be grateful that I only gave a hit on your stomach." Alex wanted to laugh, and at the same time, he wanted to keep a serious expression. He chuckled and quickly turned it into a coughing fit.

Camron caught on to his act and he smirked. "You wouldn't do that." He uttered as he stood up.

"Make any gay advances towards me again and you'll find out if I will or won't," Alex smirked back.

"Hey, I already told you that I'm not gay, I don't swing that way. You are just fun to tease." Camron spoke up to clear out any misunderstanding that Alex might have taken from his tease.

"Indeed…"

Alex took in a deep breath and went and stood by the window of the room. He pulled the curtains open and let the rays of sunlight grace his room. As he stood there and watched the clouds pass by his window.

"What to do today?" He thought out loud.

['How about we start with investigating what those lights we saw on the foreheads of the others are. Then after we are done with that, we can make plans on how to kill Vincent. Although we might not need the test subjects anymore, I say that we kill them just for the heck of it.'] Al suggested.

['I wasn't planning to spare the test subjects either way.'] Alex concurred with Al's plan.

['How do we investigate that?'] Lex joined in on the conversation.

['Well, first we need to see an X-ray of us. If we have the same thing as they do, then we might be able to get an idea of what it is.'] Al answered.

['I'll get on it.'] Alex said.

"Alex, there's still a third pill, right? I was wondering if you could give the last one to any other member of our group. You know, to help us get stronger and prevent those other groups from looking down on us." Camron pitched his idea at him.

Alex turned and faced him. "That doesn't sound bad. Give me time to freshen up, when I'm done we'll get right into that. I assume that they are still in my living room, right?"

"On point," Camron chuckled.

"They must think that this is our base." He whispered as he made his way to the bathroom…

Alex entered his bathroom and did nothing until he heard the door to his room open and closed. He was waiting for Camron to leave before he proceeded to do anything.

['How do I get an X-ray of myself, I've never attempted to do it on myself with the skin crawler before.'] He wondered.

['I also don't know, ask the system.'] Al stated.

"System, is it possible to perform a live X-ray on me?" He asked.

*Affirmative, does the user wishes to do so?

"Yes."

*Initiating the 'fifty-fifty' feature.

On his skin, Alex could feel the right part of his face vibrate. Slowly the skin crawler on his face had divided itself into two. One was covering the left part of Alex's face, while the other fell to his hand.

"Wow, I never knew that it could do this too. It's not expensive for nothing." Alex raised the part that fell off his face, and everything he saw with his left eye was a transmission from the part of the mask that was in his hand. He turned the part in his hand towards his face and now he could see his face with his left eye.

*Initiating X-ray vision. Initiated.

Alex closed his right eyes and looked at himself through the left eye.

"Holy moly. What the f-"

['No need to curse Alex.'] Xander interrupted. He wasn't a fan of curse words.

"Yeah, yeah. Hell!!" Alex exclaimed again.

On Alex's forehead were three small horns, one in the middle, one at the left part of his head, and another on the right part of his head. The one in the middle was black in color, the one on the right-hand side was rose gold, the one on the left was red.

['What we saw on the heads of others is different from what is on ours. That one by the right, it looks a lot like Xander's lightning.'] Al pointed out.

Just after Al pointed that out, little streaks of lightning flashed on the small horn. The red one changed to fire and then to lava, then it returned back to being red. The black one had no change. This alone had confirmed to Alex and his alters that the lights that they saw on the heads of others were the elements that they used.

['But Camron's own was a black wisp.'] Alex mentioned.

['Yeah, and ours is a horn. I don't think everyone's own has to be a light.'] Al pointed out.

Alex continued to look at the horns on his head. He raised his hand and touched his head, trying to see if he could touch his horns. Contradictory to his expectations, his hand passed through the horns, and he couldn't even feel them at all.

"I suppose that it's a good thing that I can't touch them." He muttered.

Alex opened his right eye unintentionally, and when he saw his right eye through the left eye, Alex was frightened. He threw the mask that was on his hand to the floor and backed away.

When he looked into his right eye, he saw 3 red and black pupils that were intersecting each other forming a reuleaux triangle in the middle. The pupils were red and the part where they intersected, was black. The red part of the eye was as red as blood. Those eyes were very terrifying to Alex.

['Did I hallucinate or that was actually real?'] He wondered when he started to calm down.

['I… I don't know. I also saw that terrifying eye.'] Al stated, he too was in a perplexed state.

Alex gathered his courage and picked the mask up. He slowly brought it up to his face so that he could take a proper look at his right eye. When the mask was positioned over his right eye, Alex was stunned again.

"What is the meaning of this? It was there just a few seconds ago. You also saw it, Al, now why can't I see it again?" The place where he saw the terrifying eye, was now devoid of any eye, as it should have been in the first place.