Leaving aside, Lilia making fun of Aster and Layla's sparkling eyes while she gazed at him, Aster focused on Iris, though her fight had ended, the red-haired straightforward girl hadn't gone to see how was Nerissa doing.
Because she still had so matters to tend to in her own battlefield… looting, well that was the idea until she realized that in her outburst from earlier, she either damaged the spatial rings of the enemies by cutting the spatial mineral used as storage with sword hand, or by burning parts of the runes engraved on them with her flas.
In other words, she cut and burned a ton of money because she got a bit too "heated" in the spur of the mont, one shouldn't bla her though, she had kept her real talent hidden as to not cause too much trouble, not even for herself but for the three sisters and Layla who was one of the few people in the Redheart family that took care of her.
So, it was normal that after finally getting so freedom, she would wreak a bit of havoc, Aster in fact expected it, but Iris didn't know this "side" of her.
"…" the poor red-haired girl felt her face burning, out of the four rings she destroyed three, the one from the captain was of a better quality which is why it survived but the runes were going to need a bit of work to safely open it and depending on the contents it might not be worth the hassle.
Seeing Iris gazing at him with those pretty red eyes of hers, while clearly feeling ashad of this result, Aster chuckled at her.
"We have a pretty skilled rune master that could use training in the rune restoration departnt, so bring it to her and it will be fine", he said.
"Mm… sorry", mumbled Iris, only for a bright smile to bloom on her pretty face when she heard Aster's next words.
"More importantly, since we'll be seeing each other daily now, what do you say if we find a chance to improve your control over the output of your flas and sword?".
"Yes~", as always when it ca to swordsmanship, the red-haired Iris was incredibly enthusiastic, but for a change a second "subject" appeared in her mind at the sa ti.
'Will it be one of those "dates" I have heard about, or just swordsmanship training or elental manipulation training… a date with swordsmanship and elental training!', she excitedly thought, unaware that flas sparked around her due to her bright mood.
Forgetting about the embarrassnt of having destroyed the spatial rings of the enemies, which she originally wanted to gift to her friend, Iris happily flew towards Nerissa's battlefield since knowing that rival of hers she should be finishing things up as well.
Needless to say, but it was hard not to find her reaction cute, but as much as Aster wanted to enjoy it, the multiple gazes piercing his back made him instead change his focus to Nerissa's battlefield.
….
A few minutes ago, when those two directly moved as far as possible from each other within the sa area, which surrounded the distortion that Aster had selected for them, Nerissa looked from the corner of her eyes at the ones chasing after her with a slightly interested light shining in her eyes.
For a good reason, the four going after her were from the Redheart family and more accurately, like the two representatives that belonged to the core disciples of the Fire Branch from the Supre Elental sect, who were related to Iris's other cousin, they belonged to the Blazeheart family.
It was impossible not to notice it, since they really liked to call themselves "Redheart" and also wore said last na on their backs, well they were only allowed to do so if they had a certain amount of blood purity and above, like these guys who were about to join the Redheart faction within the Supre Elental sect, after having beco strong enough to directly join as either inner disciples on the upper side or low and middle tier core disciples respectively.
Having calculated that the distance between herself and Iris was long enough so that they wouldn't obstruct each other due the contradictory nature of their attributes, Nerissa slowed down and then faced at the direction from which the enemies were coming.
The way she stopped flying at high speed and changed the direction in which she was moving was so smooth that it made the captain of the team that was coming after her, frown for a second, but then he was reminded of the information they had gotten about their target.
That's right, unlike what one would think, these guys from the Blazeheart family purposedly targeted Nerissa.
'Right, she is a water attributed energy and soul cultivator', it wasn't the captain's fault for having forgotten about it, since their original target was Iris, so the extensive information report they were practically told to morize, was that of Iris, only recently due to a certain incident that caused a ruckus in the Redheart family their orders changed.
And their target was changed only a few hours ago as well, that being said the reason as to why the captain kind of forgot about it, is because he as well as his subordinates… looked down on the blue haired girl they were sent after to.
'Cousin, do we have to fight a water cultivator, can't we straight go for that mixed princess and put an end to this?', asked one of the peak star axys subordinates to the captain, making sure that their other teammates heard him as well, since he was representing them to ask what was in their minds.
'I know what you guys are thinking, but this was an order if we hurry up and fulfill it, we can go have so fun as well', said the captain to which the other peak star axys added.
'I don't want to complain, but isn't that blue haired woman the disciple of the Fey's Purple Lightning Princess, it wouldn't be funny if the Fey decides to go after us…'.
Even if they have so footing in the Supre Elental sect, they aren't part of the higher echelon in part because of Iris not following the family's orders, so if they were to be specifically targeted by the Fey, they would definitely suffer, after all the Redheart as a whole is at most a low ranked first tier force and the Fey are a ruler family whose branches each go from middle to high ranked first tier forces by themselves.
Seeing the slightly doubtful expressions on his teammates faces, the captain inwardly sighed.
'That won't happen, for starters that blue haired girl is not related to the Fey family at all, according to the report I got from our "informant" she was found and taken in by the Purple Lightning Princess alone but hasn't been included into any of the dynamics from the Fey family', he said to then add.
'Also, and I shouldn't be telling you this, but our elders managed to strike a last-minute deal with the Ocean Aquamarine family, since they hate the Lightning Athyst family with all their hearts and due to so troubles, they were caused by that arrogant black-haired bastard from the Myriad Occupation sect, they compromised to stand on our side if we targeted a notorious mber of their sect'.
'And it just so happened that our target was that blue haired woman which perfectly fit the description, so it was like a gift from the heavens, if anything we have to not kill her right away but crippling her is fine to pressure our real target'.
When Iris stopped paying attention to the communication talisman from the Redheart, the mbers of their family received the order to bring her back when the chance appeared, however then Aster got involved and the situation beca complicated as they beca unable to directly bring her back using the distortions and the fact that she wasn't answering to the ssages of the family as an excuse.
And just when the people with the highest authority from the Redheart family here, which are those two female elders, were squeezing their brains on how to solve this, without having the need to inform their superiors that Aster was literally asking them to bring their ancestor in person to pay him an insane amount as ransom to even be allowed to talk with the one they were supposed to bring back, an opportunity presented by itself.
One of the two distant cousins of Iris, ntioned that she had so sort of rivalry with the top disciple of the black sword faction, which happened to be heard by Wade whose brother was attacked by Aster earlier, and so the Redheart and the Ocean Aquamarine reached an agreent.
Go after Nerissa, cripple or preferably kill her and they will contain Valentina, since despite her status in the Lightning Athyst family, Nerissa is not accepted within said family, due to her attribute not being lightning, which ans whatever happens to her, the Lightning Athyst family won't invest much into the matter, so Wade who does have the high echelon from the Ocean Aquamarine family backing him, when it cos to ssing with the Lightning Athyst family, promised to side with them and deal with the aftermath.
As to what do the Redheart win with this agreent, easy, since they can't directly bring Iris back with them and the Lord of the Twin Sword valley, does have the backing of the young master from the Talis, they decided to target the only other person from the Myriad Occupation sect that they had information about Iris hanging around with, Nerissa.
Like the captain said, it was as if a cake had fell from the heaven, now they didn't have to worry about repercussions from the Lightning Athyst family and could use Nerissa to pressure Iris into coming back with them it was a win-win situation in their minds.
"I had so expectations because you guys are from Iris's family, so I thought it would be interesting, but this is getting boring", a calm and llow voice returned those four to the real world.
The captain as well as his three subordinates all snorted, not because of the insulting part but because they were grouped with Iris by Nerissa.
"We'll finish our discussion later, follow the plan and let's put an end to this", said the captain to which the other three nodded as they all took out their respective spirit weapons.
The four of them were sword users, but unlike the usual team, their swords were all different from each other, the captain used a heavy sword with a length of three ters, the vice had a one edged sword that would focus on ample area slashing attacks, as for the peak star axys guys, the one who was directly related to the captain used rapier for rapid and precise thrusts, while the remaining guy had an undulates snake like sword to cause hard to cure wounds.
Four different swords with different focuses, it's also worth ntioning that all of them were body and soul cultivators, which is the combination that should give them the upper hand against Iris who is an energy and body cultivator, but they are also on the positive side against Nerissa since the body path is strong against the energy one and though they aren't energy path cultivators to deal with the soul path of the enemy, they are soul secondary path cultivators themselves just like Nerissa, so the scale tilted in their favor anyway.
Aster who was observing the fight, raised an eyebrow at the strategy those guys were going to use which was rather obvious.
'As main body path cultivators with fire attributes and being sword users, they plan to overwhelm her in every aspect from all sides, it's a good strategy if your team consists solely in offensive focused people, they even went as far as to make sure the swords they used were different than their target's one', he thought.
One of the rare things in which Nerissa and Iris coincided was that they both used the sa type of sword, a one handed double edged long sword which was a pretty balanced choice, this also contributed to the fiery rivalry that sparked between those two, besides the fact that their attributes are complete opposites being water and fire respectively.
And the four enemies didn't use that type of sword, since it was to be expected that Iris and thus Nerissa who uses the sa type of sword, would have experience in dealing with it.
"Heh, for a usually "timid" water attributed energy cultivator, her words are rather fierce", jokingly said the rapier user star axys guy to the captain, who chuckled at his younger cousin to then give the signal they have agreed on, very much to the amusent of Aster who couldn't help but smirk at that comnt.
The four of them exploded in flas as they used a movent technique to turn into fire streams as they shot towards their target, only to be forced to suddenly stop, since said target had appeared in front of them midway through their charge, what's more a sharp looking royal blue ring of water spread with her as the center perfectly aiming at the four enemies who had positioned themselves to surround Nerissa in the four directions.
The captain and his subordinates looked with disdain at the strange water ring which actually avoided to confront the flas that they had released when they stopped their charge.
'Humph, as I thought, damn coward water cultivators', inwardly cursed the captain, whose mind Aster could practically read just based on his cocky expression.
'That Nerissa "timid", nonsense', he thought.
Contrary to what one would think, when those two have their encounters, the one that first takes the upper hand in the offensive is usually not Iris but… Nerissa, as the short exchange that they had in the sky of the valley back then, suggested.
Of course, that doesn't an she is stronger than the red-haired straightforward girl, but it's a situation caused due to the sa reason that those four were about to learn.
The cocky smile on the face of the captain froze on his face as his instincts warned him of the incoming danger, at the sa ti the previously "average" looking ring of water gained an unmistakable sensation of fierceness to it, sothing that one wouldn't expect from an attack that actively seed to avoid a direct confrontation against the flas they radiated earlier.
The previous forced the four enemies to release more flas to defend themselves from the incoming ring of sharp water, only to realize that their flas wouldn't be able to vaporize the attack of the blue haired girl in such a short distance, in other words despite they being the body main path cultivators, they actually ended up at disadvantage in this close combat exchange.
'Dodge!', the captain ordered to his three subordinates, however just like their realms, their reaction tis were different, the captain, the vice and the guy with the rapier were fast enough to retreat in ti to avoid the most dangerous part of the attack while at the sa ti using their swords to deflect what they couldn't dodge.
However, the young cousin of the captain was a bit slower and also his sword style was not supposed to be used to block, since a rapier is used to pierce the enemy, aning that when Nerissa appeared in front of them, the rapier user was thrusting his sword frontwards, thus not giving him the chance to block at the height of his neck, which is where Nerissa's ring of water ultimately aid at.
"Booom!", the result was first a loud physical impact as those three blocked the sharp water ring with their swords, the pressure behind the attack caused a loud thunder like shockwave to echo through the vicinity.
"Aghhh!", a pained scream was the second sound that could be heard, followed by the captain's voice cursing.
"Damn it!", he as the fastest in terms of speed and reaction ti, flashed at the side of his cousin and took advantage of the length of his heavy sword to help his cousin, but since he had to block earlier he still couldn't reach completely in ti, so instead of cutting his neck, the attack missed its mark by a dozen of centiters and ended up taking the left arm of the rapier user, all the way from his shoulder.
In slow motion the captain saw Nerissa's calm face and he gritted his teeth as he grabbed his cousin and retreated alongside his other two subordinates who reacted in ti, all this in less than a couple of seconds.
Having regrouped a few dozens of ters away from Nerissa, the captain imdiately used his flas to stop the bleeding of the guy who lost his arm, while he took a healing pill he had in his pocket, naturally he couldn't grow back his arm with that, though he indeed had a pill to help a limb grow back, the new arm will be weaker so it was better to reattach it later.
Speaking of which, the rapier user gazed at the vicinity looking for his severed arm only to see Nerissa casually taking the spatial ring out of his left index finger before she tossed the severed arm aside.
'This bitch!', the rapier user guy saw red, he was the only one that had the attack aiming at him from the left instead of the right side, since the water ring released by Nerissa bent in a strange shape when it beca fierce all of a sudden.
He thought it was because since he is right-handed ant thus wields his rapier with his right hand, the enemy aid at his left to further make it impossible for him to block with his sword in ti, but turns out… she did it so that if he lived, she could still get his spatial ring which rested in his left index finger.
"Such a la fire won't work against , hurry up and use your intents, if you don't want to die that is", casually said Nerissa with her fluid and llow usual voice.
Naturally the previous deeply offended those four, the guy just lost an arm included, since they are from the Blazeheart or in their words the Redheart family, aning that unlike the Bladeheart, their specialty and pride is their elental manipulation.
In the Redheart family there are clear trends for the three main branches, the Bladeheart focus in their swords with the energy and body paths as their base, the Fireheart focus in their attributes with body and energy paths as their base and lastly the Blazeheart focus in their elental manipulation with the body and soul paths as the base.
You could say that they take aspects from both of the other families, since they don't completely focus on their fire attributes nor their spirit weapons, but in the manipulation of the fire elent to then apply it to everything, included their spirit weapons, which is why they consider themselves to be the most refined among the three main families.
Since their manuals don't put much emphasis in their attributes at their early stages, but in manipulating the flas they can create due to being fire attributed cultivators, they take a lot of pride on it and Nerissa directly trampled on that with her words.
"Blaze Commandnt!", the four of them shouted at the sa ti as they exploded in flas.
However, unlike before were they all turned into the default orange colored fire, differences appeared on the flas surrounding them, the flas of the peak star axys guys gained a darker tone while the ones on the vice and the captain directly changed to a blue color.
Even then, there was a difference in the tone between those two, with the captain having a darker blue tone coloring his flas.
"Don't confuse us with that mixed blood from the Fireheart family, who can't use the best elental manipulation technique within the Redheart family, during our initial formation we instead focus on reinforcing our fla manipulation, going as far as taking the body path instead of the energy one to make it harder but much more aningful when we create and control fire".
"And then the soul one to further amply precision and control, thus enabling us to change from the average to the base dark orange flas and then the first level blue flas with a way higher temperature", said the captain.
The voice of the captain hadn't even finished his sentence when the four of them turned into flashes, since she took them by surprise earlier, they wanted revenge for it and they even went as far as to not simply slash their swords at her but use a spirit technique alongside their surprise attack.
The four appeared around Nerissa, blocking her from every direction to then release their attacks at almost point blank at the sa ti.
"Fire Wave!", flas of three different colors engulfed the blue haired at the sa ti, turning her vicinity in a fla pillar that raised into the sky.
Just as a satisfied smile began to appear on those four faces, a despite pretty and llow, nightmare inducing voice for them, dragged them all the way from heaven to hell.
"Rising Tsunami", the pillar of flas then exploded into small wisps of fire that were drown in a huge water wave that manifested with Nerissa as its center.
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