The night before:
Alaric sat at the entrance of the room, guarding his friends against any possible hostile cultivators that might enter. His legs were crossed, and his eyes closed, not because he was sleeping during his shift, but because he got used to sitting this way in his long meditations as he nurtured his core and in his other cultivation sessions.
His mind was frequently disturbed by intrusive thoughts about killing others ever since he was saved. He attributed it to the trauma he had endured, first at the hands of Clarissa and later at the abuse of the evil cultivators.
He was very sensitive to sound, something to be expected given the fact he was cultivating Sound Qi, so he didn't miss the change in Ken's breathing when the latter woke up.
·?θm 'Team Leader is awake, but it's still my turn to guard. Maybe he will come to talk to me.'
He became Ken's fan throughout the journey, and it only intensified when he learned the young boy concocted the healing pills he was consuming. He never heard of the pill Ken gave him to treat his core and help it absorb Qi, which made Ken an amazing alchemist in his eyes.
His hopes only rose when he heard that Ken was really getting up instead of going back to sleep. Interacting with Ken granted Alaric respite from the recurring waves of murderous thoughts that plagued his mind, which strengthened his admiration for the boy.
"Hello, Team Leader, may I help you with anything?"
He opened his eyes, worried that his beloved leader will think he was sleeping during his guarding duty. He spoke in a dignified manner, trying to seem as natural as possible to hide his excitement.
"There's something I came here to talk to you about. More precisely, to warn you from."
Alaric was caught in surprise; he didn't expect Ken to have any worries in the labyrinth. He already noticed that the group was surprisingly strong. While he was the strongest in his former team, he was only tied for the second spot in this one.
"What is it?"
"Do you first have a technique to prevent sound from leaking outside? I don't want to wake up the others."
"Of course, we can speak now freely without disturbing the others."
Alaric's face turned serious when he realized it might be something that Ken doesn't want the team to hear. He used a simple sound technique to channel his Sound Qi and create a small bubble around them that prevented any sound from leaking outside.
"There's something that happened in our group before you joined us, and it's important you know it since I know how much you hate backstabbing."
"Yes, you mentioned that you had members that were also traitors. I thought they were dead, is it what you want to tell me?"
Alaric was curious how it was relevant since those members were already gone, probably dead.
"They are dead, I killed them. But it's not what I wanted to tell you. You know how I always say you should honor your friends by helping others who are getting betrayed by their friends, right?"
"Yes, I think about it a lot."
The young man truly put a lot of thought into it. He kept imagining himself killing traitors all the time. Mostly the first ones would be Clarissa and her team, but soon he'd see scenes of himself intervening in strangers' affairs and punishing the guilty ones.
"What you don't know is that Bryce isn't much better. He agreed to attack me along with the other 2, but he got cold feet when the battle broke out and my strength was revealed. He pretended not to be any part of it and left them to die. Since he wasn't a threat to me, I spared his life."
Alaric widened his eyes when he heard it, and he glanced at Bryce hatefully. He didn't like the man because of his cowardly nature, and he believed Ken's story without any doubts.
"Why did you spare him? He is worse than a normal backstabber. He first backstabbed you, then also betrayed his partners in crime; he doesn't have a shred of morality, and he will do it again when he has the chance!"
Alaric half talked and half shouted as he tried not to burst out in front of Ken. He didn't believe they had such a person in the group.
"I also think the same, but I didn't feel well about taking his life despite not actively attacking me. Only after I talked to you, I understood the danger of having someone like him in our group."
Ken talked complete bullshit, but he spoke righteously with a saddened tone.
"We can kill him right now."
Alaric exuded killing intent as he looked at the sleeping Formation Master, and Ken quickly channeled his Bloodlust to block any killing intent from leaking.
"It's not the time yet. I have a better idea; when we fight the monster of the last room, we can stage an accident and let the monster kill him instead of us. This way he can make up for his mistakes by helping us to fight the boss before he dies."
"Are you sure we need him? What if he betrays us first?"
"He won't. He is a coward, and he knows nothing can outweigh the risks of going against me. Don't forget we are in the labyrinth where only other fourth-stage cultivators can attack us."
"You make a good point. I will follow your plan then."
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Back to the present:
Alaric's next attack was off the rhythm, clashing with Daisy's technique and canceling it. A punch from a fifth-stage cultivator was nothing to scoff at, and Bryce found a bloodied hand inside him.
"NO, BRYCE!"
Daisy screamed when she saw her friend cough blood and collapse on the floor. There was a fist-sized hole in his chest, right next to his heart, and his lungs were destroyed. He couldn't breathe anymore.
"It's your fault, why did you sabotage my technique?"
She shouted at Alaric who continued fighting as if nothing happened.
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