931 Fighting Together

'Let's go.' Alex informed Aria and asked her to run beside him, not behind him.

Aria nodded and ran forward, matching his speed.

Doing his job, Melvie decided to watch them from the air. She maintained a distance between them, so the monsters would notice them first instead of her.

Alex kept going forward and found the forest right near the coast. He entered the forest without changing his direction and ignored the monsters that were supposed to be outside his range of detection even though he could see them using his Spirit Eyes.

After around a minute, Alex found one right in front of them. "9-Star Martial Monarch in our front. You can fight this one."

"I understand." Aria nodded and released her Spiritual Energy to sense the monster. It turned out to be a snake monster. Its width was around three meters, but the length was about twenty meters. With a big body like this, it was the perfect target for Aria.

"I have spotted it," Aria informed him as she placed her hand on the handle, ready to draw her sword.

The snake opened its mouth, trying to swallow her.

Aria flicked her sword to shift it to the side, preparing to pull out her sword to ultimately kill the snake in a single slash. She jumped a little bit higher to match the snake's head.

As one would expect from a monster, its instinct was strong as it predicted it would die. To prevent it from dying, the snake closed its mouth and decided to hit Aria with its thick skin.

This was where Aria smiled. Everything was going according to her plan. The sword had shown a bit of its blade, but Aria suddenly sheathed it back, landed on the ground, and jumped toward the snake's neck or around that spot since snakes didn't have a neck.

"!!!" The snake realized that the first movement was a fake, and she planned to kill it with this second movement.

It tried to lower its head to stop the blade, but Aria's movement was too fast. She drew her sword and slid it on the snake's beheading its head in a single slash.

"Ho?!" Melvie widened her eyes, starting to get interested in what Aria had shown. That fake movement was gold. If there was no movement like that, the snake could only be killed after several rounds and a few times using Sword Arts. However, Aria decided to end it in a single slash. It allowed her to conserve her energy.

If she could keep this up, killing a few thousand a day wouldn't be a problem. Although the level difference played beautifully in this exchange, Aria's sword style was indeed one of a kind.

She decided to write it down on a paper because there might be something more to show her later.

"I have killed it in one strike," Aria reported.

"Understood." Aria nodded and put every single Alex's advice in her fighting style while beginning to follow him again.

"Nonetheless, it's a good strike. Good work." Alex's voice sounded happy and couldn't help but put a smile on Aria's face.

It was hard to get praise from Alex because he always nitpicked every single detail, but when he praised someone, it was genuine praise that led one to smile.

"Thank you." Aria thanked him before finding a monster to their right. And it was certainly a group, not an individual monster. "To my right."

"Sure. Let's go." Alex nodded and informed her of the number. 'Five 7-Star and one 8-Star Martial Monarch. Make one-second distance from me. I will get their attention first, and you shall handle the killing.'

'Yes.' She nodded and slowed down until they had around twenty meters. It shouldn't be a problem for her to shorten this number in one second. She could do faster, but she thought this distance was perfect.

As soon as he found the monsters that turned out to be a kind of turtle species. He released a bit of his killing intent to grab their attention.

The turtle immediately panicked for a moment before noticing there was only a single person there. Their heads stuck out proudly as they were going to fight Alex.

Alex released more of his killing intent and his Martial Saint energy to scare the turtle, forcing them to have a slower reaction speed. He did this to create an opportunity for Aria.

Of course, after the hellish training from Alex, she could somehow understand which way she needed to go and what kind of actions she needed to take.

Aria went to the right until she could see four 7-Star turtles aligned. Lightning sparked in her boots as she leaped toward them at lightning speed.

"First Dance. Z Swing."

Aria swung her sword from right to left to behead the first turtle's head and left to the right to separate the second turtle's head from its body. It repeated once more to kill the third and fourth turtles.

Due to the distance between each other, she needed to use her full speed to make sure they couldn't react.

Normally, making zigzag slashes like that would take an enormous amount of energy, but Alex had refined that movement to lessen the burden in her hand. It was by using her off hand to slash in the opposite direction. At the same time, the movement of her wrist shifted the burden from her wrist to her arm.

And as soon as she cut down four turtles, Alex smiled and used the confusion that Aria brought to appear in front of the 8-Star Martial Monarch turtle and cut it down.

When the last turtle saw it, it tried to swallow Alex, but he shifted his body, spun, and kicked the turtle on its chin before slashing the neck.

Within a few seconds, six turtles had died without being able to do anything. Alex immediately used his Spiritual Energy to find their monster cores and collect them.

Melvie sucked a cold breath as she couldn't believe what just happened. Aria's movement was already surprising enough because she could handle four turtles only three stages below her in just one movement.

But Alex's assistance by manipulating their attention and reaction speed by his killing intent was magnificent. He seemed to have understood the monsters perfectly or, more accurately, how they worked.

She then remembered the fact that these two managed to get 350,000 points in only a few days. It required them to kill at least four thousand monsters. And it seemed to be not a fluke.

She opened the paper again and noted it down. Unfortunately, she couldn't see Alex's real strength yet because the monsters were not his match. In fact, Alex only used a minimal amount of energy in that killing intent as his attack was purely physical. In other words, Alex could kill them even more efficiently than Aria.

"How is it?" Aria asked.

"Not bad. But you need to watch out for your momentum too. If you are too fast, you won't be able to stop in time, and the enemy might use that chance to surround you."

"I understand. Unless I want to escape, I won't be going this fast." Aria nodded, taking every single Alex's input.

"Good. Let's continue." Alex then led her to another place filled with 9-Star Dogs. Their height alone reached two meters, so it wasn't your average dog.

As expected, Alex asked Aria to do the same as the turtle while Alex released his killing intent to grab their attention.

"Waf!"

The dogs charged at him, four from the front and three from each side.

Because of this, Aria decided to handle the right flank that was closest to her.

"First Dance. Z Slash."

In one move, she slashed the three dogs on the right side as Alex watched her movement and understood that he only needed to handle the one in his front.

Because of that, he stepped forward with his sword, facing four dogs simultaneously.

The four dogs leaped toward Alex simultaneously and used either their teeth or paws to strike at him.

Alex took a deep breath and slashed his sword, hitting them right at their teeth and paws. He simply decided to overpower them by using his strength and Divine Weapon.

However, the other three dogs had turned around and were about to strike him.

Alex kicked the first closest dog while cutting down the second one. When the third one jumped toward him, Alex only ignored it and killed the one he kicked earlier. As for the third one, it couldn't reach him as Aria cut it a meter before it hit Alex.

"Good work."

"Thanks." Aria felt a bit happier when she didn't hear a single complaint from Alex. It seemed this one was a perfect score.

"Oi, oi. You guys are sick." Melvie couldn't help but exclaim as she approached them.

Alex and Aria decided to take a break and looked at her.

"Even though they were only Martial Monarch monsters, you two just killed them like killing a chicken. Most disciples could only kill them in a few strikes." Melvie raised her hand in amazement. "Anyway, do you want to move toward the inner island?"

"We are probably going to stay in this area for a while." Alex shook his head before glancing at Aria. "How do you feel? I mean, moving that fast."

"If you include the killing intent in the area, it certainly makes one tired faster. Still, I think it's fine to go for two or three more hours before checking my condition." Aria waved her hand, telling Alex she was fine.

"That's good then." Alex nodded. Although he didn't say it, he realized that the killing intent was decreasing their attack power and disrupted their movement, making them subconsciously use more energy for their attack.

However, their power was a bit too big, so Aria had yet to notice.

"I see. I thought you were going to the inner island right after this instant, but I guess you are careful enough to not fall into a simple mistake like that. Well, most people have difficulty adapting to such an environment, so they use a few days to adjust their state. No, you two are too weird to even be able to move like that right after entering the island." Melvie sighed.

Alex and Aria didn't care about her praises. When they heard that the others actually entered in the same state, they realized that this was just something normal. In other words, the sect didn't have an intention to kill them.

They could finally feel relieved.

"By the way, how long are you planning to stay here?" Melvie asked.

"Probably seven days," Alex answered. "We are not planning to get used to it. Instead, we want to make it feel like this is our home before moving to a more dangerous place."

"I see. I can relate to your choice, so I only wish you luck." She nodded and thought for a moment. "I will stay with you two probably for another two hours before going to the coast earlier. I will check on you on the third or fourth day and next week before you go to the Inner Island."

Aria nodded. "Then, I think it's time to get going again?"

"One more question." She stopped them. "How long have you fought together?"

'Tell her it's been three years.' Alex didn't want to make it suspicious, so he chose this.

"It's been three years since I formed a group with him." She smiled. "It was a secret from my father though, or else he would get angry." 

"I see." Melvie nodded. "Then, let's go."