Following the trajectory of the multiple severed arms and legs as well as the screams, the elders of the Marsh Domain and Pleasure Palace sects saw that the group which was previously surrounding the girls from the Black Sword faction, were now all missing from two to three of their limbs.

Most were squirming and rolling on the air due to pain, while the only one who only lost one limb, an arm to be precise was pale as a ghost and trembling in fear, it was a

member of the Bayer family, one of the many.

‘E-Even if runes aren’t working properly, just blocking a single casual slash was everything it took for the defensive formation to be destroyed, what the hell is that sword made off!; he inwardly screamed.

Since runes weren’t working properly, only formations of a certain level and above could even activate and not only that, but the effects were greatly reduced, that’s what caused such a headache to Ophelia and Amanda, since beside being outnumbered they couldn’t rely on their spirit treasures at their moment of need.

The guy from the Bayer family felt superior, since as a direct descendant he had access to higher graded spirit treasures, so unlike others he had some extra layers of protection, not to mention that while defensive measures were working at less than half of their usual power, the same applied to attack type formations.

But then, earlier, he barely managed to see a golden flash zig-zagging through his group followed by all of them losing arms and legs, the only reason as to why he only lost one arm is because his clothes took the first slash saving his leg from being taken.

However, the formation exceeded what it could block as of current and was destroyed, not to mention that there was a thin cut on his thigh from which blood was coming, meaning that the attack wasn’t properly blocked,

And the worst part is that he could tell that none of the two attacks he received were particularly focused on him, they were part of a series of slashes that came from the golden flash that bypassed them without even looking at them directly.

Seeing the frightened state in which one of the members of his family ended and the miserable status of the other members of the group, the elder of the Bayer family immediately turned to see the elders of the Marsh Domain and Pleasure Palace sects, to then say.

“This is nothing like what you mentioned, what is going on!”, he demanded, unfortunately before those two could even finish processing what they were seeing, a plethora of similar screams forced them to look in another direction.

“Aghhh!”

“No, someone block it!”.

A few screams later, another round of severed limbs could be seen falling from the sky, this time the perpetrator was clearly visible for everyone, a black-haired youth wielding a golden sword with each hand.

“Boooom!”, with lightning crackling on his feet, Aster became a golden blur that flashed through every nearby group of disciples from the sect which were being surrounded and openly attacked with the intention to kill.

Slashes flew in every direction and before they could even react, they had lost legs and arms, curiously, the groups that had less members teaming up against the girls of the sect, lost a smaller number of limbs.

Naturally after an initial period of shock, the scene of their disciples, family members and hired mercenaries, since among the ones surrounding the girls of the sect were also rogue cultivators, the pained screams returned the respective elders to the real world. “Stop you little bastard!”, shouted the masked elder from the Marsh Domain, the ones being mostly targeted were the disciples of his sect, they often ended only having one arm or leg left, of course this was done on purpose by Aster since he noticed that they were all using lethal poisons against the junior disciples, given that unlike the veterans they weren’t skilled and experienced enough to forcefully restrain the poison and have a chance to take an antidote.

“Hahaha, good job kid!”, William’s thunderous maniac laugh was like the sound of nails on a blackboard for the elders, so now imagine how the felt when he mockingly added. “Don’t worry if they surrender and give up all their possessions, they might only lose a limb or two before being beaten up to a pulp”.

The elders gritted their teeth, to then glare daggers at Valentina, since there was no point on trying to argue with the crazy bastard from the Talis family, but the Fey were known for their negotiating stance.

“Hey, Purple Lightning Princess, what is the meaning of this!”, yelled the blue robed female elder from the Pleasure Palace, seeing that not even the female disciples of the Pleasure Palace were spared from having their arms and legs cut off.

“Tell that crazy bastard to stop, unless you want to openly go on a war against both of us”, viciously added one of the half step heavenly realm protectors from the Marsh Domain, an old man with grayish skin, just to see Valentina brightly smiling at them as she said.

“Members of the young generation suffering the consequences of overestimating themselves, isn’t a valid reason for an all-out war, but by all means go ahead and fill a complain”, Agnes who was fed up by the attitude of those shameless dual cultivators sharply added.

“In any case, the tournament format for the competition between the Myriad Occupation, Marsh Domain and Pleasure Palace sects, wasn’t chosen to benefit us, but you already know that, considering you were the ones that asked for it”.

The male protector from the Pleasure Palace sect, whose name was Keller, remained silent the whole time, while secretly communicating with the other half step heavenly realm protector from the Marsh Domain, a woman in her thirties.

Aster who had just finished “evening” things out on all the nearby groups, resulting in more than three hundred people losing their limbs in less than five minutes, he would have continued without stopping, but he found all the possible paths blocked by the ones who were leading the next groups which he was about to visit.

All the groups which he had dealt with so far, were attacking the young girls of the sect basically the teams made out of the inner disciples Heavenly Ranking, the enemies were all Stellar Constellation and Stellar Axys realm cultivators.

But the ones surrounding him, were leaders of groups that targeted the core disciples of the sect, in other words, Star Tribulation cultivators, all of whom had started walking on a secondary path already.

“Mmm, twelve early, six middle and two peak stage ones”, said Aster as he observed the twenty guys who were surrounding him in every direction, not only they had the precaution of putting a few hundreds of meters of distance between him and themselves, but they had a wide variety of focuses, in terms of paths.

After quickly scanning them, Aster simply shook his head, which made one of the two cultivators leading the group, a masked guy from the Marsh Domain sect at the peak of the Carnal Disaster realm with a sturdy looking build, to snort behind his mask.

“What, are you having doubts now that you can’t ambush us like you did with our juniors?”, he said, to which Aster chuckled.

“Nah, I’m amused by the fact that a little girl with close to no experience could understand something and you guys didn’t”, he said to then add.

“If you want to bully someone, make sure that you are stronger than them”, his figure then scattered in countless particles of golden light, leaving the twenty enemies in confusion and panic since they couldn’t feel Aster’s presence anymore, he was

completely gone!

“Watch out!”, the voice of Keller, the male half step heavenly realm protector from the Pleasure Palace sect, made reached the ears of the group, but it was too late, everyone looked around until they found the black-haired youth, his two swords were piercing the chests of two middle stage Star Tribulation cultivators.

Aster casually retrieved his swords and the now two corpses, fell from the sky, heavily landing on the ground the next second.

“Why would I need to ambush trash without solid fundaments due to having rushed their advances with resources just to flaunt a higher realm”, he said as he rolled his swords to get rid of the blood that was staining their blades.

While the remaining eighteen enemies surrounding him, went silent, the elders of the families to which the dead belonged, were livid.

“How dare you!”, shouted a middle-aged man, the ones who died were his nephews, the most talented members of the young generation of his family, which were scouted by the Marsh Domain as core disciples and were even given precious resources to help them advance for the incoming tournament, they were going to be allowed to join the Poison Valley if they stood out during this event but now, they were dead on the ground. Seeing the expressions of disbelief on the faces of the elders from the families that weren’t involved in the current conflict with the Myriad Occupation sect’s disciples, Aster chuckled to then say.

“Don’t tell me you thought I only cut off those guy’s arms, because I was afraid of killing

them, the only reason as to why I didn’t go for their necks is because they are “training partners” for those girls, so I just balanced things out a bit…”, Aster took a second to then let out a bit of his murderous aura, his previous casual expression was gone, it was as if he was an unsheathed sword itself.

“The only outcome of coming after me with ill intentions is death”, it was as if a bucket of cold water was poured on all the involved people’s heads, though Aster became relatively well-known due to him killing Edward, most of the ones that heard the rumors didn’t believe even half of it.

Not only because the Stall and Fey families were involved, but because the rumors said

that

t was a completely one-sided fight, Edward couldn’t do anything to defend himself and was killed easily, so everyone believed that it was an exaggerated story to glorify the Myriad Occupation sect… until now.

Seeing their seniors die without even the chance to scream, combined with the intimidation of Aster’s murderous intent, the twelve early-stage Star Tribulation cultivators, couldn’t keep it together, they turned around and fled.

What a joke, until a few says ago they were inner disciples at the Star Axys realm, far from reaching the Star Tribulation realm, they broke through thanks to the resources that the sect gave out all of a sudden, add to that the fact that as dual cultivators, the rule is that their battle prowess is often lower than the realm in which they currently are, they knew they stood no chance against Aster.

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“Stop you idiots, don’t break the encirclement!”, shouted the peak Carnal Disaster guy from the Marsh Domain sect, just to see a golden blur flashing around the battlefield, before all those guys could even get far, they fell from the sky with holes on their chests,

they were all dead.

“Shit, what are you waiting for, attack him all at once!”, yelled the masked guy, he took out the dark green spear which was mounted on his back and charged towards Aster, not without gazing at the other peak tribulation cultivator of the group, a girl from the Pleasure Palace who is a peak Spirit Trial realm cultivator, in other words a soul

cultivator.

“Fire Pillar!”.

“Wind Vortex!”.

The remaining four middle stage Star Tribulation enemies, were all energy cultivators,

they divided in teams of two and attacked Aster from afar at the same time, the result was a fierce fire explosion caused by the fire and wind complementing each other, those were techniques used by the male disciples of the Pleasure Palace.

Even if the Pleasure Palace’s main focus was dual cultivation, only the top disciples were taught yin or yang-oriented techniques, since they are rarer than the usual elemental

ones.

“Booom!”, a loud explosion echoed through the sky as fire spread in the vicinity,

producing a large fire cloud that swallowed Aster, or at least that was the idea, but he simply dodged it by flashing upwards, to get out of its range.

“I’ve got you now, you slippery bastard, Swamp Dragon Thrust!”, the guy from the Marsh Domain appeared in front of Aster, with his dark green spear aiming at his chest. He knew that he was no match to Aster in terms of speed, so he made the energy cultivators force him to move so that he could attack him by surprise, he disregarded his previous words about Aster needing to ambush his enemies after seeing him kill those

two so easily.

“Crack!”.

“Aghhh!”.

But he was the one to be surprised, his dark green spear was cut in half by one of those

golden swords, not only that the attack continued and slashed his chest, however, the next round of fire and wind wide area attacks arrived just at that same moment. “Booom!”, a second fire cloud manifested in the sky, the fire shrank revealing an Aster who once again wasn’t hit by those four’s attacks thanks to his extreme speed, as well as a masked guy with a large slash on his chest, he did survive though, since those four

attacked Aster in time.

“Cover me!”, shouted the Carnal Disaster cultivator, as he retreated towards the girl from the Pleasure Palace, the four energy cultivators saw Aster going after their sole body cultivator and they gritted their teeth, if that guy died then no one will be able to tank

even one of Aster’s attacks, so they poured everything they had into their next attacks.

“Fire Pillar Break!”. “Wind Piercing Vortex!”.

A fire cloud of about three times the size and intensity of the previous ones engulfed Aster and everything nearby him, the explosion also sent the guy from the Marsh Domain flying with slight burns, since he was too close as he was being chased by Aster. “Eat that you bas…”, the four energy cultivators who were panting while they kept injecting their spirit energy into the fire cloud to make as much damage to Aster as possible, saw in horror how Aster casually came out of the fire cloud, completely unscathed.

“I-Impossible”, said one of the other four, not even the corner of Aster’s clothes was

burnt, which shouldn’t be possible even if he had a defensive treasure, considering the interference caused by the distortions.

Unfortunately, their doubts will forever remain unanswered, since the next second their

heads flew out of their bodies, as Aster flashed towards the guy from the Marsh Domain who had nearly made it to the side of the girl from the Pleasure Palace. “Blegh!”, Aster’s sword pierced the back of the enemy and came out from his chest,

making him vomit blood, however instead of dying, his previously muscular body instead withered, making Aster frown.

“Move your ass already, damn it!”, shouted the guy while he was still being skewered by

Aster’s sword.

“Done!”, the girl from the Pleasure Palace shouted back and a strange sight displayed in front of Aster, the body of the enemy split into a thin and withered young man which fled at high speed and a bizarre looking centipede which was being pierced by his sword,

the centipede then exploded into a black smoke cloud, which produced sizzling sounds in contact with air.

‘Damn I even had to use the Life Saving Centipede, given to me by the envoy of the Poison valley, die already!’, inwardly screamed the guy from the Marsh Domain, that was his trump card, a once in a lifetime treasure that could save him once. Aster swung his sword, dispelling the poisonous smoke, at the same time a translucent blue snake sank into Aster’s chest, the girl from the Pleasure Palace saw her yin charm technique successfully landing on the enemy and she took a breath of relief.

“Kill him before he wakes up!”, she said in a hurry, the guy from the Marsh Domain,

wanted nothing but hack Aster to death, he destroyed his spear and made him lose a precious life saving treasure, not only that but he will be in a weakened state for the next year at least, in fact his realm will probably be reduced as well. So, he took a poisoned dagger out of his ring and rushed towards Aster’s side, just for

him to feel his body tremble when he reached around five meters of him, his instincts

screamed danger but it was too late, he realized that Aster was conscious the whole

time.

“You monster”, he managed to say before his head separated from his neck, in his last. seconds of life he got to see the girl from the Pleasure Palace who had retreated the moment he turned around to attack him, without caring of whether it worked or not. “Bitch’, he thought before his life ended, speaking of the girl from the Pleasure Palace,

she who was fling at full speed, heard the now dead guy from the Marsh Domain say “you monster” and she knew that their strategy was a failure.

“Damn it, I put all my yin energy into that, how the hell was he not affected!”, she inwardly screamed, that being said she was happy to have retreated ahead of time, she was about to reach her master’s side and saw from the corner of her eyes that Aster was

still in his previous position.

‘Luckily master told me about the life saving technique used by the Gu faction disciples of the Poison Valley’, she thought to then put on a pitiful expression as she looked at the male half step heavenly realm protector, wanting him to protect her as soon as she left. the range of the distortion’s rules.

But then, everything went dark for her, the last thing she managed to hear, was the

sound of someone snapping his fingers, the explanation to the previous can be found on

a third party’s point of view.

Let’s say the male half step heavenly realm protector, Keller, who saw his newest recently accepted disciple safely reach a few meters away from him and felt happy, thinking that even if Aster destroyed a team formed of the captains of twenty groups, with ease, he probably had run out of spirit energy at this point. Just to frown upon seeing her strange behavior, she had a dumb lust-drunk expression

on her face, which shouldn’t be the case since he hasn’t made his move yet, then in an even weirder turn of events, she… exploded in yellow flames and the creepy part is that

she didn’t even seem to notice it, and instead seductively gazed at him before turning into ashes. In case you wonder what happened, the answer is actually really simple, that girl used a charm yin technique against. Aster, which not only failed because his yang easily overwhelmed the yin energy she tried to inject into him, but also committed the grave mistake of messing that violent dragon lineage of his.

So, his Dragon Aura retaliated in kind, by sending a highly concentrated ray of yang

energy towards her, it wasn’t detected as an attack because it wasn’t, it became one,

once it was inside of her, just like the technique she used, but instead of a little snake, it was a dragon version of it.

First, it “charmed” her numbing her senses, preventing her from even noticing she was

dying from the inside and then when Aster snapped his fingers, she exploded in yang flames and died without anything left, it might not sound so bad, but… she recovered her senses at the last second, so for her was as if everything stopped and then when it continued, she was in pain and dying, truly a horrifying technique but she had used with others before, so it is poetic that she died in the same way.

But let’s leave the reasons aside for now, Keller felt the anger surging from the bottom of

his existence.

“Bastard!”, he roared like a mad beast, not because that girl died, but because she died

without having returned everything, he secretly fed to her to help her raise in rank and

realm.

‘Five damn years of careful nurturing, I even used my personal funds to bribe the envoy

of the Yin Yang Paradise to scout her!, he inwardly screamed to then glare at Aster, with literally flaming eyes.

Just to see him smirking in his direction, making him grit his teeth. ‘Keep smiling brat, once all this over you are dead meat, just like all the bastards from

the Myriad Occupation sect’, he thought.