Alex didn’t ask Nabia to stay and she didn’t ask him if she should. Their strange partnership bloomed like a moonflower at night and they became inseparable, except during the days when she completely ignored his existence.

Alex, of course, didn’t mind. Even though he realized he had met the love of his lives, he had to continue to move forward, by gaining more knowledge and cultivating. At some point he even shared his theories on the soul particles and soul brands, without telling her he was actually an old man, of course. That gave them additional axis to revolve their lives around, besides the crazed intimate part that is.

Time flew by fast and another batch of new students arrived. It was already the second after Alex officially became the librarian.

Even sitting in the library tower he could hear the cheers of the new geniuses after they were introduced to their new combat teacher and cries of pain right after.

‘Life couldn’t be better!’ Alex smiled to himself and stepped out the library only to pale right after.

Dozen or so meters away from him stood a youth, a young saint, probably one of the new students and besides him was an older saint, a lady. From the deep shock she was in staring back at Alex he could easily tell she recognized him after all these years.

“Long time no see, lady Dalia!” Alex smiled and in a foolish hope to somehow get out of the situation, politely greeted her, “Is that your protege?”

“You!” She pointed a bony finger at Alex, “How can it be you?! How can you be here?”

The saintess was quivering in anger, but then resolutely straightened up and shouted, “Die!”

But a split second later with a groan fell on her knees blood seeping from all three of her eyes.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Alex asked with voice full of irony, “Did you think I’m still eight years old or something?”

The mind technique Dalia intended to use hit the brick wall that was Alex’s soul brand and caused a backlash. Apparently it was so heavy, she was basically unconscious, even though her eyes were still open.

The boy besides her stupidly watched the proceedings, but then suddenly screamed in panic.

“Help! Murder! Someone is trying to murder my teacher!”

Alex sighed and sat on the library’s stairs.

‘F*ck!’ He cursed, ‘I’m so gonna miss this place!’

A couple minutes later the whole academy gathered in front of the library. The boy hysterically tried to explain how Alex magically crippled his teacher, but the old saints were not idiots, they immediately could diagnose the backlash lady Dalia was having. Despite that Alex was put under a formal house arrest.

When leaving, he noticed Nabia’s worried pair of eyes in the crowd, but only smiled and slightly nodded. There was nothing she could’ve done and luckily she had enough willpower to not jump out and start kicking everyone’s ass randomly.

For now Alex had to stay in his official residence and a couple of saints guarded him. Luckily they he had a relatively good relationship with both men and they let him sit peacefully at the entrance, while minding their own business couple dozen meters away.

All three knew this was a formal procedure, because there was no way someone could run away if all the saints of the empire were after them. Alex also knew his limits, thus didn’t resist or flee, putting a silly hope on the official trial to come.

When the sky darkened, Nabia finally came over and the two saints moved even further away to give them some privacy.

“I thought you’ll be … you know where …” Nabia whispered while gently squeezing Alex’s hand in secret.

“Can’t risk it. You’ll need that place in the future.” Alex helplessly smiled back.

“Don’t speak like that!” She slightly punched him.

“I’m just being realistic.” He said, “You know it better than I do.”

They sat in silence for over an hour. The sky had completely darkened, but neither had moved. They sat so close they could feel each other’s warmth and Alex didn’t want this moment to end since it might be the last time he could touch her.

“Maybe … maybe there can be a fair trial …” She weakly said well knowing how silly that assumption was, therefore Alex only sighed and shook his head.

“You know it’s unrealistic. That b*tch will scream about me being a rebel and a rebel’s son and that will be taken as a proof. No one cares if I’m loyal to the empire or not. The fact that I killed a saint and crippled another will be another moronic proof of my guilt even if it happened in self defense. This empire is built on the power of saints and I broke two of its pillars – that is all that matters.”

“Then … then I’ll ask for my father’s help …” She suggested in even weaker voice.

“That won’t work either.” Alex suddenly hugged her, kissed on the lips and stood up, “Isn’t that right, your imperial majesty?”

“Oh?” A tall stature slowly walked over from behind the house.

The man was dressed in black and there was a large straw hat on his head completely hiding the face. He was practically a ghost and normally no one should’ve been able to see him.

“When did you notice?” Emperor Cirius asked.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Many years ago when Alex listened to his lecture, emperor’s voice had this magical property that made everyone fall in a slight trance when listening to him. At first Alex thought it was a special orator’s talent, but now he could feel how the flow of Qi got rebounded against his soul brand making him immune against the speech technique. Of course, emperor was a monster of a different caliber and didn’t experience even the slightest backlash contrary to lady Dalia.

“When you arrived. First you sent everyone away so basically there is only three of us on the whole Eastern peak.” Alex explained.

“You knew?” Nabia asked in shock, but Alex immediately realized she didn’t mean the same emperor did.

Seeing him nod, she asked, “Since when? And how did you find out?”

“I guessed it during the first or the second year. His scent is somewhat similar to yours, except it’s that of rotting leaves.” Alex said.

“Is that an insult or a weird compliment?” Emperor asked with a tad of annoyance in his voice.

“Neither.” Alex shrugged, “Each person has their own scent, that’s it. You know, eyesight is not the only sensory ability we can train.”

“Are you a dog or something?” Emperor suddenly began to laugh.

Even if it wasn’t a technique, Alex felt himself shuddering at the dry sound.

“Does it matter?” He asked in return suppressing the discomfort.

“No.” Emperor’s laugh suddenly stopped and plainly said, shaking his head.

“Please, don’t argue, you two!” Suddenly Nabia took a couple of long strides and positioned herself between them.

“It’s fine, Nabia.” Alex said putting his hand on her shoulder, but immediately sensed a cold killing intent washing over him.

“No, it’s not! He has this look … as if he’s going to kill someone.” She said almost in tears.

Alex could guess how helpless she felt, but had no clue how in the dark and under that hat she could discern how her father looked. In the end he blamed everything on the female’s intuition and didn’t dwell on it.

“Mhm.” He nodded, “The imperial majesty thinks they have to.”

“No! I forbid it! Father, you can’t!” Nabia finally couldn’t hold back and actually began to cry.

Unfortunately her father was not as soft as Alex would’ve liked.

He said, “He actually can’t help it. Because of his ambitions he considers me a threat. And even if his intuition says otherwise and his daughter begs, he has to eliminate me.”

“We will leave! Dad! We will leave the empire and you’ll never see us again!” Nabia hysterically begged, but only Alex responded.

“That also doesn’t matter. He intends to turn the whole world into his empire. In his eyes we have nowhere to run. My guess is that he actually thinks he is doing you a favor.” He explained, “You are closer to thirty than to twenty, but he still considers you his little girl. He also thinks that you are too young and inexperienced to understand, and will definitely forgive him in the future. Or if you don’t, he’ll have to carry this burden … sigh ... what a bunch of nonsense.”

“Hmph! What do you know?” Emperor snorted in return.

Actually Alex wondered why he was even allowed to talk. The only reasonable explanation was that his majesty still hadn’t clearly thought on how to cleanly knock out his daughter first.

Alex knew that one of the emperor’s eyes could see the soul particles, albeit not to the detail Adil’s could. All that emperor could discern was Nabia’s and, especially, his soul brands and had no clue how to deal with them. But knocking out his favorite daughter with a hit on her head he simply couldn’t.

Alex looked back at the emperor and sarcastically said, “I know that I live my life in peace and let others live as well. How about you?”

“Don’t anger him!” Nabia turned around and punched his shoulder.

“It makes no difference.” Alex shook his head, “He has set his mind on killing me because he sees me as a threat. My father was capable of taking on several saints at the same time and your daddy sees from my soul brand that my potential might be even higher. Obviously he’s just an old egocentric who thinks that the world revolves around him, but in our situation there is nothing we can do. And remember – no matter what happens, don’t fight him!”

Emperor didn’t argue and Nabia could only sob.

The three stood in silence for a moment and then Alex asked the emperor, “Can we have a minute?”

“No!” Was the immediate answer.

Feeling that Nabia will start to cry hysterically any moment, Alex hurriedly said “Alright! Listen! I’ve told you everything – let’s meet again, ok?”

“Do you really think you’ll have a chance?” Emperor dryly laughed and a split second later Nabia passed out in his hands.

Alex ignored the emperor’s inhuman speed at which he knocked out his own daughter and laughed back, “You never know unless you try, don’t you think, old man?”

Emperor had no clue what Alex meant with his last message. In fact, only two other people – Nabia and the old Adil could guess he was actually speaking about the meeting in the next life.

Emperor gently put his youngest daughter in the grass and said, “Out of respect for my daughter I’ll give you a fair chance.”

Alex wordlessly stared back at him. How could killing the daughter’s beloved be in any way respectful?

“But for me to not use any mind techniques on you I need you to answer a question.” Emperor continued ignoring Alex’s weird expression, “Is ‘Collins’ the real surname of your father? Was the legendary man from Haldenburg called Phil Collins?”

Alex’s expression turned increasingly weird until he began to hysterically laugh. He laughed for over a minute and when he finally managed to get hold of himself, his face was full of tears.

“I’m sorry, your majesty. That was not the sign of disrespect – it’s an inside joke, you wouldn’t understand.” Alex explained, “But to answer your question. First – you know you don’t really have the ability to use any mind techniques on me, even if you knock me out. Second, I beg of you, please don’t go around the world exterminating people with my family name. My father was, in fact, called Collins, but he was an orphan and so am I. There is no reason for paranoia.”

“Alright! Then let’s get started!” Emperor seriously nodded, took off his straw hat and for the first time Alex saw his face.

Actually it was not remarkably different from the many emperor’s statues he had seen before, except the three eyes in his forehead looked even more creepy.

‘F*ck me! How the hell am I gonna fight a monster like you?’ Alex inwardly cursed, ‘Those with one extra eye already freak me out … how should I choose which one of his eyes to punch? Or would that be a discrimination against the other four?’

They both dashed around the Eastern peak trying to ‘feel’ each other out, but neither had actually landed a hit. Alex felt that the emperor was faster and stronger, but not by that much. The years soaking in the Qi pond were not wasted, although he already guessed that the emperor did the same procedure during his youth.

‘Alright.’ He thought, ‘Maybe not everything is lost. I’ll just fight him as if he was some kind of a monster from out of space … ye … like those creeps in the ‘Star Wars’.’

Alex found this thought particularly amusing, but then froze for a split second.

‘Star Wars! She was in the f*cking ‘Star Wars’!’ He finally remembered the name of the actress that kept bugging him for over a decade and for some reason felt relieved, ‘Nabia’s twin was Natalie Portman!’

But suddenly the smile vanished from his face and the black of the night transformed into complete darkness. Emperor Cirius never intended to fight fair in the first place and the five steel arrows that penetrated Alex’s heart from different directions were the proof of that.

After realizing he couldn’t instantly deal with the annoying bastard who seduced his favorite daughter, emperor led the foolish northerner to the place he prepared as a back up and during the split second his opponent slowed down – used the Qi brands on the hidden arrows to instantly kill him. One couldn’t conquer the world by playing the ‘fair game’. In fact, according to the emperor’s understanding – everything was fair as long as it served his goals.