Chapter 167: You’re Not An Awakened...
Chapter 167
[Would The Host Like To Finalize This Purchase?]
"Yes, buy it now. " Alex replied without a moments worth of hesitation.
Immediately, a soft chime rang in his ears as the translucent screen shifted to process the purchase. The glowing text quickly updated to show the deduction of his hard earned desire points, displaying a brand new balance on the interface.
[Congratulations host! Purchase Successful! -80 Desire Points]
[Current Balance: 2532 DP]
Almost instantly, the translucent blue screen vanished almost immediately, and a small elegant looking glass vial filled with a shimmering pink liquid materialized directly inside his right palm.
Alex tightly gripped the bottle a bit, with a small wave of relief washing over his chest as he looked at the sleeping potion.
Moving quickly through the almost frozen world where time was still moving twenty times slower than normal, Alex walked up to where Annie stood with her hand slowly going down.
He stopped right in front of her, looking at her beautiful and angry face for a second. He then let out a small exhale, and muttered under his breath,
"All right, here goes nothing."
With gentle movements, Alex used one hand to tilt her chin up slightly, carefully opening her plump pink lips that look really tempting right now, but he shook his head, there would be plenty of opportunities in the future.
After convincing himself with those thoughts, he then uncorked the vial and slowly poured the entire sweet smelling, and shimmering pink liquid straight down her small throat. As he did all that, he made damn sure she swallowed every single drop before stepping back to a safe distance.
Once he was perfectly positioned, Alex took a deep breath of relief and waited for the Eye Of Chronos ability to deactivate on its own, since there were only a few seconds left anyway.
With a sudden rush of color and normal sound, not the one that felt like it would take forever to finish, the entire world finally snapped back to its normal speed.
The crimson Supernova ball, completely missing its intended target thanks to him, tore through the empty space where Nyx had been standing just a moment ago. It shot across the yard like a comet and collided violently with the massive and very expensive gates of the estate
BOOM! What could only be known as a catastrophic explosion of blinding red light and scorching heat erupted, sending a violent shockwave ripping across the entire area.
Just the sheer force from the damn blast was so immense that the feeling of the ground trembling beneath their feet and the rushing wind could be felt clearly from even such a large distance away.
Various debris rained down in a wide arc, but luckily, because Alex had moved everyone beforehand, the destructive blast range didn’t meet any of them.
Annie’s light blue eyes snapped open completely as the shockwave threw her hair wild. Realizing that her attack had hot nothing but air, air! She grew furious.
"How did you... Ahh!" She snarled, with her delicate hands already materializing a dense, crimson energy that began to rapidly expand, growing visibly bigger and far more unstable than the last one as she prepared to create another attack, the size of five basketballs combined into one this time and it was still growing bigger for crying out loud!
But just as she was about to launch the massive attack that scared the shit out of everyone present, her movements suddenly faltered. A strange, heavy sensation washed over her head, and she felt her eyelids grow heavy.
And aside from all that, a sweet, unfamiliar taste lingered on her tongue, making her brain feel very fuzzy and slow. The energy dissipated as she stumbled a step forward, looking at Alex with a shocked and confused expression as she clutched her temple.
"What... what did you just do to me?" Annie demanded, her voice shaking as she struggled against the overwhelming drowsiness claiming her mind. "Tell me! What is this?"
Alex just stood there, crossing his arms over his chest as he gave her a relaxed, almost smug grin.
"Oh, it’s nothing to worry about, beautiful. Just a little something to make you sleep a bit. Nothing too serious, I promise."
"You...!" Annie roared, completely losing her temper. And why won’t she be, when her chances of killing Nyx, and escaping had been destroyed.
She forced her body to move, charging furiously toward him with everything she could muster. A loud sonic boom echoed across the courtyard as she broke through the sound barrier, the immense force of her feet ripping deep, jagged lines into the earth as she moved at supersonic speed.
In just less than a fraction of a second, she crossed the distance and appeared directly in front of Alex, raising her fist to strike him down.
But before her punch could even leave her side and connect with Alex, the sleeping potion completely took over her body. Her light blue eyes rolled back into her head, her arms dropped loosely to her sides, and her entire body collapsed forward falling completely unconscious onto the ground.
Alex quickly caught her limp body before she could hit the ground too hard, and carefully lifted her up in his arms. Wiping a handful of fake sweat from his forehead, he let out a loud grin.
"Finally... looks like everything worked out just well."
Doris and the others let out long sighs of relief from the distance, while Nyx stood silently, watching him as he laid Annie gently on a clean patch of grass. Just as he was about to turn around, he suddenly felt a silent presence approach him from behind.
Nyx looked at the sleeping Annie, then shifted her gaze back to Alex, her expression unreadable. She looked at him once more before speaking in a low, remarkably serious voice that left no room for argument.
"Follow me to my study. Right now."
Recognizing the sudden change in her tone, Alex silently followed her through the ruined terrace, walking inside the now messy mansion and heading straight up the stairs until they entered her private study. The expensive wooden door clicked shut behind them, sealing them away from the rest of the house.
The moment they were completely alone, Nyx turned around to face him. She didn’t waste any time, crossing her arms as she looked him dead in the eyes.
"You’re not an Awakened, are you?"
Alex felt his heart skip a beat. Did she find out something just now? But days of secretly practicing how to make his face look as calm as possible, allowed him to force his face to stay completely calm. He raised an eyebrow and let out a light chuckle.
"Are you being serious right now? How can you think I’m not an Awakened when I literally just displayed Ascendant Realm type of strength outside? How could I be anything else?"
Nyx didn’t look like she was buying his act for even a second. She only let out a small, intelligent smile, with her sharp amber colored eyes gleaming with absolute certainty.
"First, in all my years I have never seen another Awakened with more than two skills," she stated calmly, counting down on her fingers. "Those with three are exceptionally rare, historic anomalies if you think about it. But you... you have continued to display multiple entirely different skills. It’s almost like you have a new skill each time I see you."
Alex kept his expression neutral, but his mind began to race. Crap!
"Two," Nyx continued, her voice steady and cold. "I’ve come to notice that in terms of physical prowess, you have an edge over those of Awakeneds in the exact same realm as you. I’ve noticed it for quite sometime now, from the time you were facing Gnash, to what Jade told me about, when you were fighting the Chinese fighter from the Kade family, to how even during training with Jade and Doris, I was told your speed and reaction time were all off the charts."
"I could go on if you want, Alex, but the one thing that really confirms everything is your fight with Senior Jefferson."
She paused, letting the name hang in the air between them.
"The old monster’s special ability was not able to work on you at all. So far, it worked perfectly on both Jade, Doris and all my other Awakened fighters, suppressing them entirely. But it clearly didn’t have a single effect on you. Do you know why that is?"
All Alex could do now was remain silent, with his green eyes fixed on her. She was bound to find out sooner or later.
"It was because you don’t actually use primordial essence," Nyx concluded, a faint dangerous edge to her voice. "Old monster Jefferson’s core ability is to make Awakeneds feel completely disconnected from their core, meaning they cannot access primordial essence to cast their unique abilities."
"Yet you were able to move and cast abilities without a single hitch."
She leaned against the edge of the wooden desk, and said after a short pause.
"I was able to come to an hypothesis and narrowed it down to two things, that could be the possible reason why you don’t use primordial essence..."