For the past few years, after barely escaping the death that Daniel had inflicted upon her, Kreah had wandered the universe similarly to how the rest of her siblings had. She would often challenge other children of Iewah, or participate in wars as a mercenary, and at the same time, just like her sister Minah, the Tamer, whenever she would find a cultivator worth taking in, she would use her system to force them into submission, creating a group of loyal cultivators that would do anything for her out of sheer love.
The power of her system was of mental and spiritual nature, and forced the spirit of cultivators into developing an infinite love for her the very moment their eyes would land on her, poisoning the cultivator’s mind into becoming one of the Lover’s followers.
This power, just like the ability to enforce karmic retribution on others of the karmic system, worked on other children of Iewah too, and was extremely difficult to avoid. Yet, ever since she had obtained this power, only one person had managed to come close enough to her while avoiding becoming one of her loving slaves.. And that person, was Daniel.
Now, for the second time, Daniel’s fingers were wrapped around her neck, and in her mind there was no doubt that her death was only a matter of whether Daniel felt like killing her, or not.
"Kuh! H-How..?" she muttered while grabbing Daniel’s wrist in an attempt to force herself out of this situation. But, alas, her power at the eightieth phase of high immortality could do nothing against Daniel’s power, which he was voluntarily limiting at the two hundredth phase of true immortality.
"You should have done anything in your power to avoid reappearing in front of me.. This is the problem with you spawn of Iewah. You obtain a bit of power, and you fool yourself thinking that you are unbeatable.." Said Daniel to the angered, and yet fearless Kreah, who instead of arguing or pleading with him, painfully turned her head towards the hooded figures that stood behind her.
Daniel could feel the terrifying power hidden behind those black robes, and behind at least one of them, he could feel the presence of another system, but to his present self, this level of power was of no threat whatsoever.
"No no no.." Said Daniel before tightening his grip around the girl’s throat, and forcing her to look back at him. He then turned to look at Kreah’s loving slaves, "A single move and I will throw her into the void. We will see then if her failsafe ability can transcend dimensions." he said before opening a small portal, behind which one could see the shattered and chaotic space of the void.
The tallest of the hooded individuals uncovered his face, revealing a young face with sharp features, and an expression filled with worry. He alone was the most powerful entity within their group, and the main power within the Lover’s army, but to those who knew him personally, he was known as the Elementalist. "What do you want?" He asked with a worry that bordered anxiety.
What Daniel wanted was to kill this problematic shadow of his past, but above any violent instinct he was feeling, in his mind, was the image of Alesia. Rescuing her was the most important thing, while this night event was an unknown factor to his plan. He knew that if he simply killed Kreah, she would be resurrected into one of the bodies of her followers, and the only result would be to start a war against her group members, which could possibly cause him to be kicked out of the planet before the wedding.
As he thought of what to do, the nervousness of her followers started to increase, to a point where they began to consider attacking while Daniel seemed distracted.
However, right before this stalemate could advance in any direction, the group of spiritual cultivators that had investigated the sudden meteor outburst noticed suspicious movements in the forest, and reached the area where Daniel and the others were currently in.
"What is going on here?!" Asked the old female bishop with anger.
"This is a personal matter, bishop. I would be grateful if you wouldn’t meddle in it." Said Daniel while once again tightening his grip around Kreah’s throat, and forcing her to start waving her legs with panic. This simple action sparked a fire in the hearts of the subjugated cultivators, who stepped forward and prepared to attack.
"STAY WHERE YOU ARE!" Shouted the old woman to the Elementalist right before he and his companions could pounce at Daniel. Then, after making sure that Kreah’s followers would not attack, she turned to look at Daniel, and barked, "You are a guest here! Isn’t it impolite for a guest to kill another in their host’s home?"
Daniel turned to look at the old woman with a grim smile, "If I wasn’t strong enough, by now, one of your guests would have killed me already." He said, omitting Alesia’s involvement, or any other events that had taken place that night. It was imperative that the spiritual faction thought that what was happening, was a classic encounter between two children of Iewah.
The old woman looked at Kreah’s group with confusion, but just as she was to start questioning the reason why they were there in the middle of the night, Daniel continued by saying, "Oh well, I am not as barbaric as my siblings. I will let her leave, in a moment." He then turned to look at the Elementalist, and presented his free hand to him.
This action caused confusion on the face of the Elementalist, who looked at him with a puzzled expression.
Daniel shook his head in contempt, "Your artifact. Give it to me, or I will throw her into the void.. Even if it will end up starting a war." He said with a threatening tone.
The Elementalist finally understood what Daniel wanted, but while the love he was feeling would have caused him to hand over the artifact without thinking twice about it, all he did after hearing Daniel’s words was to look at Kreah.
"You have three seconds." said Daniel after noticing the restlessness of the spiritual cultivators, which increased in number by the second.
"I don’t have one!" barked out the Elementalist after realizing that there was no other option but to tell the truth. Then, as he realized that Daniel did not seem to believe him, he added, "She has already absorbed it.. I don’t have one anymore."
Daniel tsked at him before turning to look back at Kreah. He then said with a smile, "At least I know you have one too." As he finished speaking, he moved his right hand into the girls robe, and started to poke around. After about a minute, Daniel found a small bottle of perfume hidden inside one of the robe’s pockets, inside which was a transparent pink liquid that emitted an enticing smell capable of numbing one’s mind.
Just by casually looking at it, Daniel realized that that object was the artifact of Kreah’s system, and by smelling the residual scent left on the external part of the small bottle, he immediately understood what its use was.
Created to compensate for the weaknesses of the owner’s ability, this artifact produced a scent that, once smelled, would numb the mental power of a cultivator of any level, causing them to be weaker against the powerful love that their affected spirits would unleash onto their minds. The name of this artifact was ’Love at first Sent’, and its power was the reason why a relatively weaker cultivator such as Kreah, had been able to control a feared entity such as the Elementalist.
To prove the claim that the Elementalist had gifted his artifact to his beloved, was the fact that this scent seemed to be unaffected by the presence of the elements, and instead, would use them to travel towards any direction dictated by its owner. This proved that Kreah had indeed taken the artifact of the elementalist, as well as merged with her own to increase its power.
After taking the small bottle away from her, Daniel noticed the hate in Krewah’s eyes, which did nothing but widen his smile, turning into a sight that sent a shiver down her back.
"Can you give me as many mental protective talismans as there are cultivators here? You will get them back in a few minutes." Daniel said to the female spiritual cultivator.
"What do you want to do?" She asked with suspicion.
Daniel responded by saying, "I am resolve this peacefully. You have my word."
The bishop did not like having to trust the word of one of Iewah’s children, but since they were so close to the Empresses’ palace, she would have done anything to avoid any disturbance to her emperor’s happiest day.. So she agreed, taking a few protective talismans from within her spatial ring, and throwing them towards Daniel.
Daniel quickly grabbed them in mid-air with his essence, then injected his own power into the formations placed on them, causing the formations to start to change.
These talismans had been created by a powerful mental warrior who, at the moment of ascension, had obtained the gift of mental fortitude. Unfortunately, his mastery towards that ability was much less perfected than Daniel’s, who was easily able to overwrite the formations he had left with his own.
The spiritual cultivators looked with shock as Daniel transformed these talismans, on which the spiritual faction had had to rely on during their many hostile encounters with the mental factions, into something that perhaps, not even the leader of a mental faction would be able to create.
For a moment, the old bishop felt that no matter what would happen next, her faction would still gain from what Daniel was doing, so she decided to remain quiet, and observe.
As Daniel finished to boost the power of the last one of these artifacts, he summoned a series of gentle streams of wind that picked up each individual talisman, and carried them towards the members of Kreah’s group.
It was only now that the Lover realized what Daniel was doing, forcing the anger present on her face to turn into worry.
The moment the last one of these warriors took hold of these talismans, the mental fortitude embedded into them invaded their minds, creating a shield that separated their consciousness, from the endless stream of love of which they were constantly being poisoned.
With the smile still present on his face, Daniel finally let go of Kreah, which did something that none of the spiritual cultivators expected. She opened a portal that led as far away as her powers allowed, and crossed it without turning back.
Soon after Kreah left, the subjugated cultivators began to shake their heads, almost as if in an attempt regain their clarity, and renounce the feelings of love on which they had acted for the last few years. They could still feel the residue of Kreah’s system, but now, their minds were free to rationalize these feelings’ true nature and intent.
The first person to come to was the Elementalist, who looked down in shame at the thought of all the things he had done.
"Why the long face?" Asked Daniel with his still present smile, a smile which pierced the man’s ego right when there was no confidence that could protect it.
The elementalist’s mind filled with anger.. an anger that due to Kreah’s absence, he could only unleash on Daniel, but he quickly stopped himself as he noticed the powerful spiritual cultivators, who were observing his every move, and were ready to act.
"No fighting on Anima." Said the female bishop.
It did not take long for the Elementalist to change the target of his anger towards Kreah, whom if possible, he would have killed on the spot.. But since he still had his system, he found solace on the thought that for that, there was still time. "I won’t be staying for the emperor’s wedding. Extend my congratulations to him and the bride." He said before waving his hand, and opening a flaming portal. He then turned to give a last disappointed look at the small bottle that Daniel was holding, before walking through the portal.
Before the portal could close, however, the protective talisman flew back through it, and landed on Daniel’s hand.
Without her artifact, for Kreah to be able to once again subjugate the Elementalist would be as difficult as it had been when she had tried to bewilder the Tamer and the Swordsman, who would have easily killed her if not for the support of the already subjugated Elementalist, so there was no reason for Daniel to leave such a powerful mental talisman to him.
Similarly, he took each and every talisman back from the recovered cultivators, who joined the elementalist in their hunt for the woman that had controlled them like puppets.
As the last of these cultivators left, only Daniel and the spiritual cultivators were left. In the former’s eyes Daniel could see the desire for both the mental talismans and the Lover’s artifact, but before they could think of a way to obtain them, Daniel pocketed the small bottle, and threw the piled stack of talismans back the them, which right before reaching the female bishop, went back to their original power.
"A peaceful resolution." Said Daniel with one last smile before walking deeper into the darkness of the forest, and leaving the group of spiritual cultivators without words.
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