As the distant banging sound got closer, Alex finally started seeing houses that weren't closed at all.
He got curious and went up to one of them, but before he could, another woman came out of nowhere and walked towards it.
Alex didn't stop her at all and simply stopped to see what she would do. As he watched, the girl placed her palm on one of the doors and poured her Qi into it.
The rune on top of the door that looked like a mix of numbers 6 and 2 shined with slightly blue light, and a barrier shone for a split second like a thin film covering the whole house.
Seeing that it didn't work, the girl then took out an Axe from her storage bag and slammed it onto the wall again, creating a loud banging noise.
'Is this what is creating all the banging noise,' Alex thought.
The girl did whatever she could to open the stone door, but she couldn't. So, in the end, she had to leave.
Once she did, Alex finally walked forward to check up on it.
The house looked so poor. The wall didn't look very smooth, instead of like flat stones piled on top of each other. The door to the house was a solid flat rock, that Alex wasn't sure would swing at all.
'Now that I think about it, the other houses were fully open. Did you perhaps have to break it open once the rune stopped working?' he thought.
He was curious how runes worked in the first place, but since no one here had any idea, Alex would have to give up on the door.
'Wouldn't hurt to try,' he thought and placed his palm on the rune that looked like the mix of 6 and 2.
With a thought, he poured in his Qi and the rune glowed yellow.
'Yellow? Not blue?' Alex thought with surprise. He thought something would happen, but after a second, nothing did. The yellow light disappeared and everything returned to normal.
Alex couldn't help but wonder why there was such a difference in the color of the rune between him and the girl. Was it because of his Yang Qi?
That would mean that the girl from before was likely someone proficient in Water Qi.
Alex punched a few times, hoping his physical body would be strong enough, but as expected, something that even the Saint realm cultivators couldn't open, he wouldn't be able to open it either.
He left that house and walked away. The distant banging was getting closer, but it was still a good few hundred meters away. However, by now, he could feel the aura of the people gathering at that location.
"Something big must be going on there for so many people to gather," he thought to himself.
There was some empty house along the way that Alex wanted to check, but without even looking, he could tell that not a single thing inside had been left there when they were raided.
With the closed houses, not budging an inch, Alex had no choice but to go to the very top of the mountain where over a hundred different people were gathered.
The top of the mountain was a plateau with a single house that looked massive compared to the other locations.
The design too looked better than most of the houses he had seen. The stones that made up the walls were uniform and slick. There were wooden frames around the house that had clearly stood the test of time.
And at the center was a stone door with a complicated script that Alex couldn't understand at all.
With not a single tree around them, Alex was surprised at how well kept this place was despite being thousands of years old.
Alex saw disciples of various sects and clans that he didn't recognize as well as rogue cultivators that were curious about the house as well.
As he got closer, he could finally make up the words that were written just above the stone door.
Since it was written in the demon language, Alex could easily read it.
House of the Undying.
'Undying…' Alex thought to himself. He wondered what that was. Was that the name of a person or perhaps an attribute of his? Name of the demons that lived in this realm? A clan? Maybe a sect?
He also wondered if there was perhaps a person inside the house, that hadn't died until now despite how many years had passed. That would truly make them Undying for sure.
As he slowly pushed the sea of cultivators, he reached a location towards the front, from where he could more or less see what was happening in front of the house.
Alex saw about 3 people standing in front of the door while a smaller, but equally important group of nearly 20 people stood behind them.
Of the ones that were going to attack the door, there was a woman with a strong physical body. She wore brown robes and held a large hammer in her hands as if it were weightless.
She ran forward with the hammer and slammed onto the door. A blue film appeared around the door, absorbing all of the damage. Even as it did, it flickered a little, never solid like the ones in the other houses in the mountain.
"Not me either," the girl said and moved away from the door and back to the group of nearly 20 people, standing next to people that wore very
A man stepped forward with golden robes that had a criss-cross pattern all over them. A black sword appeared in his hands which glowed with golden light.
Even as it did, Alex could see white light appear on his sword. Not an outline, but the entire sword was clad in the white light.
Alex couldn't help but feel a sense of envy when he saw that. 'Sword Qi,' he thought to himself.
The man slashed and the golden-white light struck the door. Once again, a blue barrier shined around the place and absorbed all of the damage.
However, still, it flickered a bit like an unhealthy barrier that was just about to end.
The man shook his head. "I told you guys it was useless," he said and went back to the group again.
Finally, the last man moved forward with no weapon in his hands. He wore a red and white robe as if it was originally a white robe that had been ruined by a red rain.
As Alex watched him, the man brought out a vial from his storage bag and undid the stopper. Then, he poured the contents of it out onto his hands.
As the smell of iron drifted across the wind, Alex knew what this was.
'The hell?' Alex thought. He couldn't tell why the man was pouring out blood onto his hands. Then, the blood slowly moved out of his palm and floated in the air.
The young man pinched the blood with his thumb and the side of his index finger and pulled on it as he used the index finger of his other hand to aim it at the door.
He stretched it as far as he could, and soon the blood looked like it was taking the shape of an arrow.
With a snap, he let go of the blood arrow, that flew through the air like a normal arrow and struck at the door.
As everyone expected, the blue barrier appeared to block the attack. But also as everyone expected, the barrier still flickered.
"Alright I give up," the young man said and returned back to the group. As the group of 20 or so gathered there Alex couldn't help but look at them in sheer astonishment.
These were the descendants and disciples that defined the young generation of the Luminance empire. These were the strongest of them all.
Alex looked at the big lady with the hammer, the short-haired man with the sword, and finally, the man that used blood.
Every single of these three was in the True King realm. If the target of any of these attacks hadn't been the door, but rather Alex and the others standing here, he had no doubt that the 3 of them could win against them all.
Fear crept up in Alex's heart but quickly overshadowing it was another feeling.
He was excited when he thought of the future when he could reach the same level as these people and fight with them on the same level.