Unaware that Aster had completely stopped paying any kind of attention to them, the many pairs of cultivators from the different forces that suffered loses at Aster's hands, or more accurately his swords, spread throughout the sky and targeted the people that Aster was seen with earlier.
That's right, since the green robed elder realized that targeting Aster directly wasn't working, he secretly ordered the disciples of the Supre Elental sect and the forces affiliated to it, to go after Alice and the others.
The difference between what happened earlier is that he set so rules up, for starters they couldn't attack in large groups, at most it should be one pair per target, this way Aster wouldn't have a justification to interfere in the na of "evening" things out.
And second, he only sent said orders to the strongest mbers of the group, so each pair consisted in at least one peak Star Tribulation cultivator and either a peak Star Axys or an early stage second Star Tribulation.
As to why the green robed elder decided to sent a pair against a single of the girls, it was because he saw so of the girls from the Black Sword faction fighting against two or even three enemies without Aster interfering, so to not lose face the sa should apply to the mbers of his own group.
What he didn't know is that if Aster wanted to, he would have cut them all down regardless of anything, but there was no need for him to act, in fact he even pitied the poor bastards for aiming at so specific mbers of his team.
Speaking of which, the first four sets of pairs of enemies arrived at the location they were assigned to, just in ti for the nearby distortion that their targets were guarding, to activate and let out a strange looking multicolored fruit of so kind.
Seeing their two targets flash towards the previously ntioned fruit, the four temporary sets of allies exchanged gazes and nodded at each other before rushing towards their respective targets according to what they discussed beforehand.
All the peak Star Axys cultivators blocked the path to the multicolored fruit, while the peak Star Tribulation ones appeared in front of the targets to directly attack them, the idea was to both wound them while stealing the resource they were targeting.
"Hi missy, your boyfriend really pulled a fast one on us so don't bla us for being …", the one leading the Star Tribulation cultivators, a tall bulky guy from the Iron Hall of the Supre Elental sect punched towards a red honey brown haired girl with red eyes, only for his sentence to be interrupted midway by an elegant and pretty looking fist that casually blew his whole arm and shoulder, alongside his clothes defensive formation and everything.
What's more, that wasn't Alice's aim, for her it was as if she squatted an annoying fly out of the way.
"Get lost trash", with unadulterated disdain, Alice's fists then exploded in a red light with black borders which turned into a violent teor that was shot frontwards, devouring also the other Star Tribulation enemy that was supposed to attack her but was frost due to the shock caused by the previous scene.
At the other side, the two Star Tribulation cultivators were burning in yellow flas as they observed their target, a platinum blue haired girl who for so reason they found extrely alluring, despite she not wearing anything revealing nor doing anything remotely close to appealing, of course we are talking about Aria.
The previous is normal, even when her yin is at its minimum thanks to Aster absorbing all the excess her body constitution produces, Aria is naturally alluring for the opposite sex, her natural attraction is usually nullified by Aster's overwhelming yang, which is the reason as to why she hasn't been specially targeted by others so far.
But the effect is reduced whenever she isn't near him, like right now, of course it doesn't instantly disappear, but the other party are dual cultivators, aning they are rather sensitive to anything rich in yin energy and they are only a few ters away from Aria on top of it.
"You are in the way", Aria's cold voice woke the two guys who felt anger due to the clear indifference towards them, just as they prepared to use their yang flas to burn that arrogant ice-cold girl, they saw a light blue flash and the next thing they knew was that their bodies froze into ice blocks, their yang flas included.
Aria whose body was radiating a pretty blue haze due to the low temperature caused by her spirit energy, bypassed those two to then thrust her rapier frontwards releasing a large freezing stream… in other words she didn't even target those two they were frozen simply by being grazed by the spirit energy that overflowed out of Aria's body.
'Why are they fighting between themselves', was the last thought that both those frozen guys and the ones that were dragged into Alice's attack, before that red teor clashed against the ice stream, those guys who were trapped in between were turned into shards or consud by the red teor until there was nothing left of them.
"Booooom!", both energy attacks fiercely clashed in the air between Alice and Aria, causing a loud explosion and a shockwave before actually cancelling each other.
"Tsk", both Alice and Aria clicked their tongues after seeing that none of them had gained the upper hand in the previous clash.
"As I thought it would take forever for one of us to co out on top even in a simple exchange of attacks", mumbled Aria.
"I didn't use a spirit weapon though, so I would say it's my win~", happily said Alice only for Aria answer.
"Humph, in case you forgot I'm a soul cultivator, you might trick others but I can see the armor covering your fists, you used your star but I didn't", don't try to cheat lewd princess", said Aria, she avoided using the word "dragon" in public to not cause any troubles, Alice was more of a lewd princess than dragon princess in Aria's eyes any way.
Alice mischievously giggled, she had never, ever, used the invisible mode of the golden armor, since she loved being a pair with her beloved brother, so she thought she could trick Aria by doing so, unfortunately it didn't work.
"Heh, you make it sound as if that would have made a difference, let tell you but in "stealth" mode the increase in strength is not even half of what I normally get", dangerously said Alice to which Aria casually added.
"So, what, without Rigel's flas my spirit energy is not even a third part as cold as it can get".
Listening to those two arguing with the other, the four Star Axys cultivators that were blocking their path to the multicolored fruit, finally reacted, realizing that let alone being a match for those two, they weren't even in their eyes.
'They are actually fighting each other in the open in the middle of a battlefield!', they inwardly scread to then turn around and try to snatch the fruit that was slowly falling from they sky before escaping from the battlefield, unfortunately for them, the reason as to why Alice and Aria were fighting was to determine who between them will go first in the next round of dates if the treasure, they got from their distortion was the best one.
So, their attention was glued to said treasure even when they were competing against each other, aning that those guys were as good as dead for trying to ss with their "ticket" to win the first turn in the next round of dates.
"Humph!", both Alice and Aria snorted before they turned into red-black and blue-white flashes, respectively, that clashed in the air.
"Aghhh!!!", the four enemies were blown away by the explosion of spirit energy that their clash caused, either being frozen till the point they suffered cold burns or had their bodies devoured by a red light with black borders that corroded their flesh, in both cases the results were horrifying screams before they disappeared into the distance, whether they were dead or not was unknown.
…
While those two caused a catastrophe just to decide who will have their date first, at another part of the battlefield, two pairs of cultivators wearing the dark gray robes of the Iron Hall from the Supre Elental sect, blocked the path of a black-haired girl wearing light silver armor.
Unlike the ones that targeted Alice, these guys didn't separate their Star Tribulation and Star Axys mbers, since they knew each other so they did care about the survival of their younger/weaker mbers of their teams, that and they reached the conclusion that it was easier to first target the "weak" link and then join hands to deal with the strong one if needed.
"You don't seem interested in the wellbeing of your teammate in the least, inner conflict perhaps?", said one of the Star Tribulation enemies, to which the black-haired girl simply shook her head.
"All of you are trash that rushed your advances with resources, so there is no need to worry, you'll be dead in a few seconds anyway", said Tiana, to then add to herself.
'It's not like I'm eager to go on a date with him… I just want to get back at that lascivious dragon princess, I'm sure she'll be pissed if I take the first turn, yeah that's it', Tiana's black hair faded to a white-silver color, which made he four enemies raise their guards.
"Heh, so you are a body and soul path cultivator, bad luck we all cultivate body and energy", said the one who spoke earlier, who is also the one leading the two teams of two.
The bodies of the four of them then shone in a heavy dark gray light as their skins gained a solid tallic layer, the Iron Hall of the tal peak of the Supre Elental sect focused body tempering and tal attributed techniques, these four specialized in defense which was perfect as their objective was to stall Tiana while the attack-oriented teams dealt with the other target so that they could take over.
"Stay behind and provide support in case she tries to use any soul techniques…", the leader who was in the middle of assigning roles to his three teammates, was taken aback by seeing Tiana appearing in front of the other Star Tribulation cultivator of the group.
His pupils contracted like needles the mont he saw the fierce looking weapon in her hand slashing towards his teammate, just for the latter to cleanly cut all the way from his shoulder to his abdon.
"Aghhh!", with blood coming from the large wound that was slashed by Tiana's glaive, the Star Tribulation cultivator fell from the sky, heavily landing on the ground splashing blood all over the area a second later.
"Brother!", the Star Axys cultivator who was teaming with the guy that just died, saw red, but just as he was about to blindly charge against Tiana, the leader of the group finally reacted.
"Stop fool, she is using her spirit weapon so take yours out!", she yelled as he took a tower shield out of his spatial ring.
"You guys are too slow", Tiana's voice was like a bucket of cold water, the leader and his direct teammate who had managed to take out their spirit treasures, saw the head of the guy was yelling at the white-silver haired girl, fly out the next second.
What surprised them is that she didn't use that dangerous looking glaive but… her bare hand to cut through the iron skin spirit technique their fellow disciple used.
"Impossible!", scread the sole Star Axys cultivator with disbelief, the one who died might not have had a defense as solid as his, but it wasn't too far from it, both were tal attributed main body path cultivators, the only difference was that his spirit energy was of a better quality so the iron layer condensed on top of his skin was tougher, a difference caused by his higher ranked upbringing when compared to his friend.
In other words, if his friend could be killed by the white-silver haired girl with her bare hand, the sa could happen to him.
"S-Screw this, why haven't those bastards returned yet!", he scread to then turn around and escape as fast as he could, he actually abandoned his cousin who was the leader of both teams.
"No, wait you fool!", the team leader tried to warn him not to show his back to the enemy, as he caught a glimpse of what killed the other two, but it was too late, a thin yellow thread of light flashed for a fraction of a second and the Star Axys who was running away was split in two horizontally, his lower and upper body then fell from the sky a second later.
The team leader whose face was gray ashen, directly injected as much spirit energy as he could into his tower shield, creating a defensive wall of tal spirit energy around him to then flash in a random direction in a try to escape from that horrifying glaive and the girl who wielded it.
'This can't be happening, weren't the spirit treasures working at less than half capacity due to the disruption caused by the distortions… then how can her glaive slash through our defenses which are spirit techniques!', he inwardly scread in his heart.
As if Tiana could read his mind, the answer to his doubt was given the next second as she appeared in front of him.
"The formation in my weapon is not the origin of that attack, but a simple "guide" to help use my own power", she casually said as she slashed her glaive towards the enemy, who finally understood why his teammates stood no chance when attacked by Tiana. Explore stories at empire
That thread of light landed a fraction of a second before the physical attack and he could feel the tal attributed spirit energy which he used to protect himself and reinforce his tower shield, being stripped away.
It was like wearing a thick coat with a missing part of the warming material, in a winter day, the difference was clear as day, but only for the one wearing said coat, the worst part was that the window between the "weakening" effect and the actual attack was too small, so he couldn't reform his defense before he was cut by the blade of the glaive.
"Crack!", without spirit energy powering the already weakened defensive formation engraved on the shield, as Tiana repelled it with her innate ability, the purely physical defense of the shield was slashed by the glaive that did have the reinforcent created by Tiana's spirit energy as well as the physical impact caused by its materials.
Needless to say, but the result was that Tiana's glaive slashed the shield like fruit, what a joke, the blade of her glaive was created with tal that was imbued with Aster's blood, causing its golden tone, though it had a much darker tone compared to Aster's swords, since it had to be adjusted for Tiana's light attribute.
"Blegh!", the enemy saw his shield and defensive spirit technique being cut apart as a whole and he vomited blood, the slash reached his flesh and though unlike his teammates he wasn't split into two, a large wound opened all over his frontal body, causing his eyes to roll backwards before he fell from the sky, his fate unknown.
Tiana didn't bother to check on the enemy, though she didn't externalize it, she was actually worried about the teammate assigned to him, after all she had never seen her participating in a battle before, what's more the faction to which she belonged wasn't really battle oriented.
"I got a bit too engrossed in this thing's compatibility with my fighting style…", mumbled Tiana as she gazed at the glaive that Aster gifted her, she couldn't help but admit that she was actually better with the glaive than with a traditional spear, despite the years of training in difference.
'I should thank him… no Tiana, don't fall for such an obvious trick, he is a pervert who likes to tease others… but he did it to help and properly respected the limits, ughh, I'll thank him just a little bit', inwardly cursed Tiana.
She couldn't bring herself to not enjoy the benefits of her first "real" date with Aster, which weren't only her changing her spear to a much more fitting glaive, but her parallel thinking and reaction ti getting way better, she got used to consider "fast" the speed used by Aster, aning that unless she fought a Genesis Manifestation, it would be really hard for soone to escape her reaction ti.
Leaving aside the poor Tiana whose hair returned to its normal black color as she was inwardly argued with herself, while she flashed towards her teammate's area, said teammate found herself surrounded by tal cladded enemies.
"Don't waste ti, attack her at the sa ti", the one leading the two pairs of enemies, ordered the rest of the group to all attack Dahlia in a group.
The three tal cladded figures nodded and turned into gray flashes that jumped at Dahlia in different directions.
The light brown-haired girl from the Green Lotus faction, reacted by reaching her right hand towards her neck and grabbing a silver pendant she always wore.
"Clang!", continuous tallic colliding sounds echoed through the area as Dahlia used the object, she grabbed with her right hand to block the punches of the three enemies, she was forced backwards with each attack, but she managed to parry all of them.
"What was that?", mumbled one of the attackers, he felt a slight numbing sensation lingering on his fist, his eyes then followed the origin of said sensation, it was a regular sized silver colored tal hamr.
"Star Tribulation or not, how did a single path energy cultivator block our attacks head on without suffering any wounds", exclaid one of the Star Axys enemies.
Dahlia was a rather unique case within Aster's team, she was a single path cultivator and had reached as high of a realm as the middle stage of the Star Tribulation realm and had yet to let alone start but even choose her secondary path.
The reason is quite simple though, she didn't enter the sect with battle-oriented objectives, as she joined the Green Lotus faction, her original aim was to beco an herbalist specialized alchemist like her aunt.
But then she realized that while she enjoyed growing, taking care and classifying spirit herbs and other natural resources, she had a certain interest in exploring, in other words she had the love for nature that her aunt had, but there was a little spark of desire for adventure added to the mix.
The problem was that to leave the sect for the missions of the Green Lotus faction, one had to either be at least an early-stage Star Axys with a secondary path within the Earthly realms as well, or a Star Tribulation in a single path.
Which gave birth to her current situation, in which she was seen as "weak" by others for being a single path cultivator.
However, one thing that many ignore is that she has adventured outside of the sect quite a few tis already, with and without higher ranked cultivators escorting her, in other words despite she not being a veteran, like Iris or Nerissa, she has quite a bit of experience.
Also, while being an inner disciple as of current, she is only an early earthly realm secondary path away from being a core disciple, sothing that hasn't really piqued her interest… until a couple of months ago.
"Toughness around four, endurance around three, nothing special for a peak Sky grade or even half Stellar grade material", mumbled Dahlia, her green eyes shinning with a calculative light in them as she observed her opponents.
"Crack!", the next second, cracks appeared on the tal clad that covered the three guys that attacked her, making them nearly freeze in shock.
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