The Messenger of Death

-Fwoosh!!!!

Alex took in a deep breath and then he breathed fire from his mouth aiming at the shrine and everything in it.

Everything that his flames touched caught on fire like they had smeared petrol on them from the get-go. The pillars, tiles, and the 137 hearts that floated mid-air in the shrine were all set ablaze…

-Skee!!!!

The 137 hearts that were placed in the shrine started to melt, slowly and steadily. The three berserkers that dealt with Alex and knocked Xander out, cried out in pain. They had their hands place on their chest as they laid on the ground, rolling slowly and screaming.

**********

At the entrance of the village…

After they had tied and cuffed the berserkers, restraining their movements. They all turned their attention to the corpses of their fellow teammates.

"No, Vicky, Kiba." Amelia sobbed as she held the hands of her dead teammates.

She wasn't the only one that had started sobbing, some of the rest too joined her.

Sara looked at the faces of everyone and she felt a throbbing pain in her heart. She felt like it was her fault that they were put in this kind of situation. Sara was a step short of depression.

"Sara, it wasn't your fault," Camron reassured gently as he hugged his sister. They had grown up together and after all these years he had an idea of how his sister's attitude was.

"I was the one that picked the mission up, even after Amelia said we should go for something a bit different. I was hell-bent going with this mission for reasons that I don't know of.

If I had just listened to her, we wouldn't have to go through the predicaments we went through tonight and they would still be alive." Sara's voice was shaky when she spoke. She pointed at the blood-drained corpses on the floor.

"Death is certain in the path of cultivators, so is pain and sorrow. This is just a phase, one that wasn't caused by you or any of us here. None of us had any idea of what was going to happen." He cleared out.

Despite his strong front, Camron was also feeling depressed, but he couldn't show it because it was only going to make his sister feel worse than she already did. So he chooses to be strong for his sister.

"Let's keep their corpse in our storage pouch and take them back to the school. At least their families will have the chance to bury them." Lenny said in a stern voice.

Both the Aegis team and Nior team had lost some of their members. The members of the seraphim team looked at their selves and felt relief. They couldn't explain why they felt like that when they have only known each other for roughly 2 weeks. They just felt like they were lucky.

The events that took place in the Agelong forest had caused them sorrow and trepidation, but it has also brought them closer to each other…

-Skee!!!

The berserkers that were tied up and had been silent all these while suddenly shrieked out in anguish. Their cries were louder than they had ever cried. It was so loud that the eardrums of those that were in close proximity with them, raptured. They forcefully broke out of their restraints.

-Skeee!!!

"Stay away from them!!" Drake shouted as he retreated far away.

They thought that they would have to engage in another battle with the berserkers and they were starting to have mini nervous breakdowns.

Fortunately for them, the berserkers weren't concerned about them. All the berserkers started to crawl into the village, slowly and painfully heading to the shrine. All of them could feel their hearts melting and they wanted nothing more but to stop what was happening to them.

"Why are they heading into the village?" Emma asked.

Everyone stopped their retreat and looked at the berserkers, when they saw that they weren't being chased at, and how the berserkers were moving they were relieved and confused.

"Alex is inside the village." Camron pointed out. He wanted to charge in there but he was stopped by his sister.

"You will only be a burden to him if you go, so would any of us." She shook her head. Recalling the way he manipulated the lightning element.

Camron already knew that he was a burden and it was eating at him. He squeezed his fist and made a vow to himself to do what it takes to get stronger when they go back to the academy.

************

The more flames that Alex spewed, the stronger his bloodline suppression became.

-Puff!!

Suddenly Blood squirted out of the orifice on Alex's head. He dropped to his knees and used a hand to support and prevent himself from lying flat on the floor.

['Alex what's wrong?'] Lex asked.

Alex was in so much pain at the moment that he didn't hear Lex when he spoke.

['Alex!'] Lex repeated but he still didn't get a reply from Alex.

['Alex!!'] Al called and he also didn't get any response. ['Answer us goddamn it.']

In spite of the calls that his alters made, Alex couldn't hear a thing that they said.

"Arrgghh!!"

He screamed in anguish. Alex fell to his back and arched his waist up, he was in so much pain that he didn't notice that he had dislocated his knee due to the unnatural way he arched his waist.

"Arrghh!!"

Alex cried out, and as he did the whole world turn black and white in his eyes, the blue-colored sky wasn't blue anymore. A crimson light as thin as a strand of hair materialized right on top of his pupils, they formed a circle and hovered a few inches away from his eyes.

-Chink! Chink!!

Alex heard the clanking sounds of chains. They filled his ears, he felt like the chains were wrapping itself around his wrists and ankles.

"Noo!!!"

Alex heard a woman scream, while everything in his sight had turned black and white, images of people he had never seen came into his view. The woman was holding a dead toddler in her hands, sobbing.

"Why!!"

This time it was the cry of a man in bronze armor. It looked like he had been fighting a war, with the blood of horses and beasts flying everywhere.

"Mother!! Come back!!"

This time it was the sobbing face of a little girl, her mother had just been hit by a stray arrow and she was bleeding to death.

Uncountable scenes of people he had never seen, dying, filled his view. Even to someone like Alex that had killed a lot of people, it was very disturbing for him to watch.

He felt like his brain was going to explode with the multitude of information that it was processing at the same time.

"Arrgh."

His cry this time was very weak, he didn't have the energy to express his anguish vocally anymore.

Alex vomited more blood, and then as he did that he could feel the life slipping out of his body. His life force was reducing rapidly. The pain that he was feeling now wasn't physical or mental, it was spiritual. His soul was being tormented now.

-Lub dub!

His heartbeat had slowed down to just a beat every 3 seconds, and it was still getting slower. Alex was dying.

"Death." He heard the voice of a thousand people speak at the same time, uttering that word.

"Death!" This time it sounded like the wailing of a ghost.

"Death." Alex heard this one and felt like someone was whispering the words into his ears. He turned his head to the side and he saw that there was no one there.

-lub… dub.

His heartbeat got even slower, his eyes started to close and he started to lose consciousness...

"Drink this." Alex heard the voice of a child that he didn't recognize, asking him to drink something that he couldn't see because his eyes were closed.

"Drink this and you might survive." The voice said once again.

Alex struggled to open his eyes. As soon as he did, he saw the blurry image of something white and something like a gold-colored thread wrapped around the white blurry image. Soon his sight cleared a bit and the blurry image got clearer.

It was the wisp, it brought a white ceramic bowl for him. He struggled and stretched his right hand to collect the bowl. After he collected it, he brought it straight to his lips and took a glance at what he was about to drink.

It was blood, and life force of all the cultivators that the berserkers had drained of their blood, including those that he came here with.

At this moment Alex didn't care about anything like morality or humanity, if he drinks it and dies then he dies. If he drinks it and survives, then he would be thankful.

He parted his lips and sipped a bit of the blood. Immediately the blood touched his tongue, it evaporated in his mouth.

-Crrkktt!!

Alex hurled his hands at his neck and started to strangle himself, he was shocked because he wasn't the one in control of his actions. Every cell and atom in his body started to overheat.

Crimson circles and big as a person's chest appeared and stacked itself over his head. The circles were just like that of a magic circle, only that it had runes inscribed on various parts of its structure.

The suppressing prowess of his bloodline augmented and continued to do so for a while. It crushed the three berserkers that had been wailing in agony not too far from Alex, into bloody paste, and it destroyed every structure and building that was within 4km. including the stone hearts of the berserkers.

That was how strong Alex's bloodline suppression was.

The magic circles stacked above his head absorbed the remaining blood in the bowl. When it finished doing that, it disappeared. The golden wisp followed suit, it also disappeared as it has completed the objective that it was given.

Every berserker stopped moving. They had finally died for good. And so had the unnatural phenomenon that had been happening to Alex. Everything had died down.

Alex stopped moving, he was soaked in his own blood. His flame was still burning the shrine but it started to die down too.