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nAster noticed those two managed to dodge the attack of his soul weapon were slightly different to the other Mortal Transcending cultivators, though the five used to be all at the peak of the Mortal Transcending realm, these two had a different feeling overall.

n“They are diluting and dispersing the scent with some kind of spirit treasure, but there is poison in their wind”, said Vivian with a calm expression.

nAs soon as her soft voice left her mouth, the two that were charging towards Aster, changed targets to kill Vivian on the spot.

n“Clang!”, the smiling expressions the two cultivators had thinking Aster wasn’t able to react on time, disappeared as soon as their weapons, a green spear and a yellow sword clashed against Vivian’s frail looking body.

nUnder the surprised eyes of the two cultivators, their weapons were blocked by a thin layer of golden light that suddenly appeared on the frail looking girl, they tried to kill.

n“What the hell is this!”, the two cultivators lashed out against Vivian again and again with their weapons, and their hearts sank as the characteristic sound of metal cracking echoed through the area.𝒐𝐯𝐋xt.𝗰𝑜𝕞

n“Crack!”, they looked at their weapons just to see that the tip and blade of their weapons respectively, were now chipped.

nVivian’s dim eyes looked at her skin which was now shining with a pretty dazzling golden light and she smiled at Aster.

nThe two cultivators were beyond words right now, although they had blood from the royal lineage, they were just some distant branch relatives that were sent here, it was both a chance for them to find some fortunate encounter, but at the same time a way to make them risk their lives.

nA moment ago, they heard the frail looking girl giving away their ace up their sleeves, so they immediately tried to get rid of her, but instead of that ended up destroying their treasured spirit weapons.

nThey weren’t in the wrong though, in front of Vivian whose essence itself was a myriad of poisons, their petty tries to mask the toxicity in their wind were meaningless, it was like a kid trying to show off his knife skills in front of a veteran.

nWhat did take Aster by surprise was that he couldn’t detect the poison in the air, when his nose is pretty sensitive, he could smell Vivian’s since they met for example.

n‘Well, that sharp nose of yours comes from your dragon lineage, as you haven’t unlocked the head piece of the paragon boy manifestation, so it could because those two aren’t pretty girls, lascivious dragons~’, Rya’s playful explanation echoed in Aster’s mind, making him bitterly smile.

n‘Come on, I could smell the poison of that bitch who tried to poison Angela and I can assure you she isn’t pretty, I think it’s because their poison is too shallow that they need to build some to use, the amount was probably non-lethal, though I did notice there was something ongoing, Vivian could notice it right away’, answered Aster before he turned to see Kana.

n“When you want to test an enemy, a good way to get the information you want is letting them think they have outsmarted you”, of course he noticed they aimed at Vivian, but didn’t go after them because he knew the paragon body was enough to block them.

nSeeing Kana and Vivian softly giggling the two cultivators were livid, they gritted their teeth looking at their weapons created with the feathers of a Storm Roc of the Genesis Manifestation realm which were now practically useless and their hearts tightened, knowing they have kicked an iron plate.

n“This young master, can you tell us from which Divine Firmament or honorable family you come from, our Storm Roc family is not your enemy and we just want to take in a former member of the family”.

n“If you help us get our family together, our matriarch will be more than happy to compensate you for your trouble, in these chaotic times another ally is better than a possible enemy”, said one of the two cultivators with a feigned warm smiling expression.

nAster snorted, these guys had lost their will to fight after seeing that their treasures made with materials that are out of the reach of people in the Mortal planes, were done in after a couple of attacks against a non-resisting enemy, so the logic way to explain it was that they were dealing with someone from a higher ranked Divine Firmament than their Divine Feather Firmament, which would also explain why the rebellious princesses of the Sun Graceful Luan and Moon Stream Luan clans, where following the black haired youth in front of them.

n“Who of you two will tell me everything about the people from your family that isn’t here, or more accurately that are still alive at this point?”, asked Aster.

nSeeing that they were ignored and that the sounds of battle and explosions of spirit energy around the camp were slowly disappearing, the two cultivators exchanged gazes before they both became lime green toned twisters that escaped on two different directions.

nOr at least that was the plan, but their faces became twisted when they were both caught by two giant armored arms which brought them near the black-haired youth, who has become a living nightmare to them.

nAster saw that after they were grabbed by the manifestation of the paragon body their faces paled,

n“V-Void T… blegh!””.

nAs Aster was about to ask them something, he was surprised to see the necks of the two guys suddenly twisting by themselves, before their heads literally imploded as a green bird symbol appeared on their foreheads.

n“Ah, damn that’s why I hate dealing with branch family members, really important lesson, when you want to get answers make sure to catch a direct descendant, because the branch ones are often seen as disposable so there is a 70-80 percent chance they are under a restriction, so if they let their tongue lose, they are dead”, mumbled Aster.

nLuckily, he blocked the explosions of their heads with the hands of the paragon body manifestation, or not only Kana would have seen that gore scene, but they would have been splashed with pieces of brain and blood.

n“Even big brother can’t control everything”, said Kana as she hugged Aster’s right arm, earning a few head pats from him.

nAs Aster was about to say something to Kana, he heard an identifiable voice saying.

n“Last lesson of the day, unless you can control everything, you can’t protect anything”, Aster frowned, he gazed at their surroundings and he could bet his life that there wasn’t anyone else around.

n‘Rya, did you hear anyone speaking to me a moment ago?’, he asked.

n‘Mm, no, the last one to speak to you was Kana’, said Rya with a slightly confused voice.

nKana noticed Aster was suddenly thrown out of his usual relaxed self after she joked about him not being able to control everything, and she thought he was upset due to the fight ending in such an abrupt way, so she softly pecked Aster’s cheek to cheer him up.

n“It’s fine, big brother can still get the information he wants later from the other bad guys~”.

nAster smiled at Kana for cheering him up, of course he wasn’t upset about that, but because of what he just said a moment ago… in fact he realized he didn’t even speak out loud as he thought, because Vivian also turned to see him and asked.

n“Are you okay, you seemed to be lost in your thoughts for a split of a second, I thought there might have been poison released due to those two’s death, but that wasn’t the case”.

nAster nodded in response.

n“Yeah, I was just distracted for a moment, let’s reunite with the others there is still a ling way to reach the place where the trial will take place”, said Aster, still he used his soul energy to strip all the corpses form their spatial rings and other treasures they had, before he turned them into dust using annihilation, with the exception of those two whose heads exploded, he put those corpses in an empty ring which he then put in his pocket, because he might have an use to them later and he had zero empathy towards them as he knew what they wanted Kana for.

n“Mm”, both Vivian and Kana didn’t say anything about it and they left to go see how were the others going.

nOn the way Aster observed the huge change in the landscape resulting from the battles of the others, the whole east side was an ash and crystal land, due to Natasha’s flames burning down the camp, and the sand itself being heated to the point where it crystallized.

nThe west side where Charlotte fought was the complete opposite, the building cored and melted away while the sand had turned black and leaked out a cold aura.

nBut Aster had to admit that the most shocking result was Mylene and Camila’s battlefield, half of it was full to the brim with silver

/golden metal spears and spikes raising from the ground, while the other half was literally a crater left by some kind of horrifying impact that surpassed the cushion capacity of about one hundred meters of sand and reached the rock layer below leaving a dent on it.

nBesides that, there were some earth walls risen at random places of the whole camp as well as mounds of sands which were probably Ixas’s and Espi’s work.

nAster saw the group had already gathered and they were coming to assist them, and he inwardly nodded.

n“I thought you were still fighting since half of the place didn’t became a disaster zone~”, said Natasha with a playful voice, referring to that attack Aster used back against the woman from the Storm Roc family.

nMylene and Camila couldn’t help but laugh at Natasha’s joke, even Charlotte had a hard time limiting her smile to the corner of her mouth.

n“Well, it seems fighting together had brought you closer ladies, did any of you were able to interrogate one?”, asked Aster.

nBut the collective answer was the same, a head being shaken, with only one exception… Espi.

n“Hiss”.

nThe white sand wyrm hissed and then used its tail to point at the corpse of one of the Star Tribulation cultivators.

n“Big brother, Espi is saying that person was trying to sneak out of the camp while we were fighting, and there is something on his pocket”.

nLeaving aside the fact that Kana was somehow able to understand Espi’s intentions, with just a few hisses and some gestures, Aster waves his hand and took what was in the pocket of the corpse with his soul energy.

nIt was a letter which was stained with blood, after reading its contents Aster grinned.

n“Well, well, well, karma is a bitch”, mumbled Aster as he kept the letter in his ring before he looked at the group that was still surprised that Kana could understand Espi so esily.

n‘Controlling everything will be such a lone life, when you can’t do something just ask for help, there will be people to protect and help you and that’s what a family is meant for’, thought Aster as he randomly patted Kana’s head, forgetting that strange occurrence, or more accurately surpassing it, but that is a story for another day.

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