The Messenger of Death

Alex wasn't as good as he thought he was in making plans, and he wasn't ready to ask Al for help.

['Al, do you have any plan in mind?'] Lex asked, he knew that Alex would be too stubborn to ask by himself.

['Plan for what? I don't have any plans. Well, if someone apologizes to me, I might come up with one on the spot.'] Al responded lazily.

['Ha, apologize to you? I don't even know what I did wrong in the first place. You know what, I don't need a plan, I will make things work for me.'] Alex stated.

['This fight has been going on for over a month, can't the two of you stop arguing?'] Xander was tired of the two of them arguing.

['A fight you say. I can't bring myself to fight with this kid.'] Al said smugly.

['Silence is the best answer to a fool.'] Alex thought as he ignored Al.

['Says the wise guy that can't come up with a plan, typical.']

"If no one wants to wear the disguise then the moment that we are seen, they might turn hostile towards us. And when they do turn hostile, a fight will surely break out.

If we are not able to deal with them quickly, the other spots that we are meant to check out might speed up things before we have the chance to reach there.

In other words, we have to kill them quickly and silently before they can alert the others." Alex explained.

"There are 24 guards out there." Adrian peeped and relayed to them after he had counted them.

"That's a lot." Alex blurted out.

"And someone wanted to go out there." Katherine glared at Drake after he said that. 'And I still will.' She wanted to say, but she knew that it would be stupid of her to do so. She would be jeopardizing the mission.

"System, infrared mode," Alex whispered.

-Ping!

*Activating infrared mode, please stand by. Infrared mode activated.

Alex, with the assistance of the skin crawler, pinpointed the positions of the guards. There were indeed 24 guards here, but apart from them, he couldn't see anything else. This made Alex frown.

They were all aware that beneath them were structures that had been buried by the desert sand, but in infrared mode, these structures were nonexistent.

"System, filter out the thermal radiation of the sun." He uttered.

*Thermal energy from the sun filtered.

Alex's view became darker as if the sun had already set and the night was upon them.

['All objects in the universe emit some level of radiation, why can't I see the buildings?'] He wondered.

['You forget that such rules don't necessarily apply to this part of the universe.'] Xander reminded.

['I know that believe me, something tells me that these structures under the desert sand aren't as simple as we think they are.'] Alex mentioned and Ogun crossed his mind. ['This might sound weird, but I have a feeling that this place is connected to Ogun in some kind of way.'] He added.

"System, X-ray mode," Alex commanded.

*Switching to X-ray mode, please stand by. X-ray mode activated.

This time, Alex's teammates heard what he said.

"System? What are you talking about? And what is X-ray mode?" Drake's curiosity got the better part of him.

"Use your imagination," Alex replied softly. He didn't want to waste his time thinking of a way to explain what he said to Drake.

"Use my imagination, but… you know what, forget about it."

Alex looked below and saw that there were indeed people in the buried structures, and they were all alive and kicking. When he used infrared mode, he couldn't see them because of the specialty of these buried structures.

Another thing that Alex noticed was that these people in the buried structures, they all had some kind of black gaseous substance hanging on one side of their bone.

Alex recalled the first time that he had seen something like this, and it was on Camron.

The difference between theirs and Camron's is that the dark gaseous substance emanates from the mark of Ogun, and Camron's own emanates from his forehead. And Camron's own is thicker than theirs. 

Alex looked around, searching for the entrance and counting the people that he spotted with the aid of the X-ray vision. Alex had counted over 107 people, and automatically, the system marked everyone that he counted.

One of the reasons he was checking the place out was to figure out if they were going to hold a ritual here.

"They won't be holding a ritual here," Alex revealed. "But they have something important hidden in these buried structures, if not, why put this many people to guard a buried building?"

"How do you know that?" Drake questioned, he doubted Alex's conclusion.

"My imagination." Sarcasm dripped off his Alex's response. "Behind these guards is the entrance. We have to take care of these guys silently if we want to enter this place silently."

"Easier said than done," Drake muttered.

"I know, but I have a way to deal with them. Just didn't think that I would have to use this skill." Alex mentioned.

The skill that he was referring to is the one that Nana taught him, Ice age: Explosion. The reason why Alex didn't consider using this skill in the first place is that he feels irritated by the skill. Because of it, he suffered when he was training with Nana.

Although he is somewhat proficient in using the skill now, he still saw it as a hassle, and still compared it with the one that Nana showed in the ordain plain realm.

"Are you sure that you can deal with them silently?" Gustavo asked.

"Just watch and see." Alex took in a deep breath, and when he exhaled, cold dew exited his nostrils. He raised his hands and brought them to his chest level.

Suddenly, above his hands, snowflakes the size of a chicken egg, materialized. He created 26 snowflakes, and this amount was his current limit. Any more than this would strain his body and core.

"Woah! Since when could you use the water element?" Drake exclaimed as he raised a finger and was about to touch one of the snowflakes.

"Don't touch it!" Alex and Emma cautioned immediately. Emma slapped his finger away from the snowflake.

"Why not?" Drake complained.

"The QI in one of those flakes is enough to cause fatal damage to you." Emma pointed out.

While the rest of the teammates couldn't sense the QI in the flakes, they couldn't tell how frightening they were.

Alex frowned when he heard Emma talk about the QI within the snowflakes.

['One of the specialties of this skill is that people aren't able to sense the QI that is within the flakes. Is she able to sense the QI because of her affinity with nature?'] Alex wondered.

['She has indeed gotten stronger, but this is no time to think about this, finish the mission first.'] Xander reminded.

Alex nodded his head and used his telekinesis to make the snowflakes float towards the guards. Because of their nature and size, none of the guards noticed the snowflakes.

The rest of the members of the seraphim team were watching intently, waiting to see what the snowflakes were capable of.

After a few seconds, one of the guards noticed that there was something shining in front of his face. This was the desert, the sight of a snowflake here would have anyone confused. The guard raised a hand and attempted to catch the snowflake.

As soon as his hand came in contact with the snowflake, it exploded, and so did the rest.

As if someone had dropped a huge tank of liquid nitrogen on the area, the whole place was covered in ice. It froze the guards, the structures, and even the dust that the wind had been playing with.

Alex looked at his handwork and smiled, feeling proud that he was able to reach this level.

"What in the nirvana just happened?" Drake whispered in awe of what he was seeing.

'This wasn't just using the water element, this is a whole other level.' Gustavo thought.

"Just what exactly have you been doing when you were away? Can you teach me how to do this? My affinity with the water element is not bad." Katherine asked.

"I already told you guys what I did when I was away. If you knew what it took for me to learn this, you wouldn't even consider learning it, also, I can't teach it to other people. Unless you want to incur the wrath of my master." He replied.

"C'mon, they are not dead yet, just frozen. We can one-hit kill them while they are restricted." Alex added and came out of their hiding spot.

He ran towards the frozen guards and brought out his swords, Alex began beheading the frozen guards.

The rest of his teammates followed behind him and started doing the same. In no time, they killed all the guards that were there. All of them were missing their heads.

Alex could undo the ice that his snowflakes created, but he decided to leave it as it is, just in case there were people that were sensitive to the smell of blood in the buried structures.

"Alex, you've grown stronger, and so have we. The next time we encounter enemies, leave them for us to deal with. We will show you what we are capable of, we can't have you carrying us around." Adrian grinned as he said to Alex.

"Sure, I'll be looking forward to that." Alex chuckled as he made his way to the entrance of the buried structure…