Separate them. How the fucking hell was I supposed to do that?

I looked around me and noticed all those gemstones surrounding the area. I picked a loose one, and it happened to be a ruby. How nice.

First, I gave it some of my pure qi by placing it close to my chest at the same time I concentrated on exuding my qi. A few moments in, the raw gem was glowing with my power.

That easy, eh? When one had a strong qi…

Done, I returned my attention to the two men in the distance and then, with all my might, I threw the gemstone across toward them.

Boom! The gemstone hit against the dark qi surrounding the two lords, and an explosion erupted like the blast of a grenade. Instantly, the two lords jumped back and withdrew as the pure qi sparkled, attacking them.

I took the opportunity and ran to stand in the middle of the battlefield, Aaron's curved sword in hand and ready for slaying if given the chance.

Felix and Caleb started walking around me, bodies tense and eyes on me as they tried to get to each other at the same time. But of course, I wouldn't let them have even the slightest of chances and determined to stay exactly in the middle.

"Move!" Felix roared at me.

"Hell no!" I roared back.

Caleb attempted an attack, but I knew better. I swung Aaron's sword at the same time I unleashed—I had no idea how—my pure qi along my arms and onto the sword. Instantly, the sword burst aflame with fiery white qi, which awed me into speechlessness.

Holy shit! I can do that?

No time to bask in the glory of a new skill, I moved in toward Caleb and swung my sword wide.

Instantly, a gust of pure qi was released and traveled across the distance at the speed of light in the form of a curved blade, smacking Caleb right in the middle, thrusting him back so hard and so fast that the man couldn't respond.

Caleb hit against the wall of the barrier, causing a slight creak of the shield in the process. Then he fell to the ground with a thud.

I was about to rush over to him when the man rose, a dark grin across his face as he wiped blood from his bleeding lips.

Slowly, he walked toward me, and once he was close, he said darkly, "Alfie, move!"

I said, just as darkly, "Like hell I'll move. Listen here, you two pussies."

I cringed at myself. Shit! What the hell was I doing? Calling two mighty demon lords pussies? Like I had ever used that word before on anyone. Jesus!

That aside, I was determined to show them just how stubborn I was and continued my lecture.

"Look here, Felix, Caleb, if you both don't behave yourselves and stop this nonsense right now, I swear I will never let you kiss me ever again."

There, I had said it.

To my other side, Felix said, "Move, Alfie! Let me get rid of this bastard before I claim you."

I stomped my feet and said loudly and clearly, "I will not move until this nonsense is stopped."

Suddenly, Felix said, "You leave me no choice, darling."

He cunningly released his dark qi, and I saw the trail of it, looking like a hand. I knew he was intending to use that to capture me. To my other side, I noticed that he was emitting another qi toward Caleb. At the same time, Caleb was emitting his dark qi as well, directed toward Felix, curving around me.

I reacted by releasing my qi toward the sword. Then I swung and cut off the hand qi that came toward me. I even did a fancy flip as I cut the damned thing in half and then rolled over and landed on my feet like a gymnast. How the hell I could do that, I had no clue. Why in heaven my body was so light like a feather when I jumped was beyond my thinking right now.

Behind me, Felix's and Caleb's dark qi smashed and collided with the other, bursting and battling. One moment it was Felix who was winning, with his qi pushing Caleb's back, and then the next it was the other way around.

Up above, the chanting from Lord Noah, Ethan, and Victor was getting stronger, and I felt that Felix and Caleb were getting weaker due to the suppression spell.

Lord Geoffrey shouted at me, "Alfie! Do it. Now!"

I nodded and then released my pure qi into the sword again. Once the white flame burst like a raging inferno along the blade, I raised the sword over my head, and then with all my might, I swung, blasting the inferno of pure qi in Caleb and Felix's direction. In a split second, it hit smack in the center where their qi met.

A glowing, bursting, and electrifying orb was produced and then expanded, and just like that, it detonated in one big bang, hitting every one of us within the barrier.

The blast was so strong that it even broke the shield and brought down Lord Noah, Victor, and Ethan—their bodies colliding with trees and smashing those to smithereens.

I, too, was blasted back, my slender body flying like a piece of cloth in a tornado. Gosh, I felt like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, when she had been whisked away in that tornado before landing in the world of Oz.

I knew that I'd smash against something soon, like a tree, and I'd probably either get very severely injured, which would bloody hurt, or die a horrible death.

As if by instinct, I forced qi out of my core, and instantly, it formed an orb around me. As I smashed against a tree a second later—as predicted—I was protected and found myself bounced back like I had landed on a soft mattress or something. Then I found that I was floating in midair. Somehow, I had figured out how to use my qi to fly. Or float in midair like the lords had done.

Deciding that I'd celebrate my newfound ability later (yet another one in such a short span of time), I flew toward Caleb first, who was unconscious and lying there amongst the wreckage. There, I commanded my qi—which now looked like a concentration of glowing lines or ropes—to wrap around his body and bring him up to me, allowing him to enter my bubble.

Unconscious and floating in my glowing bubble with me, I placed my hands about Caleb's temples and then I closed my eyes.