The girls saw Aster returning with a passed-out girl and they looked at him with suspicious eyes, which made Aster bitterly smile.
"Oi, do I look like the kind of guy who will do something to an unconscious girl, just because she is pretty… not to mention she is related to Valentina and so she is Agnes's acquittance".
Aria who suddenly tightly hugged Aster's arm, pouted.
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I now understand what the dragon princess mentioned, you always meet new girls no matter where you go, humph~".
Aster didn't know whether he should laugh or cry, naturally he understood Alice was referring to the situation with Sarina, Zartia's exploration was supposed to be for Alice to get all of Aster's attention, and he ended up bringing another woman home, that being said he did give lots of love to Alice, so it's not like she lost anything.
It was a recurrent joke for the girls, that Aster will always meet some beauty wherever he goes, like that pair of pretty Luan girls who even asked him to marry them at first sight, according to Kana's storytelling.
"Ahem, she is strong and yet she was reduced to this state, she has important information anyway, so we don't lose anything by helping her", said Aster.
Aria and the others giggled, naturally they were just joking, how could they leave someone related to a friend die in this forsaken place, not to mention her determination was praise-worthy.
Not only that, for the first time since she met Aster, Aria saw someone from the young generation which she is sure is stronger than her.
'Mm, she is older than me and she is also a Star Tribulation, I'll be stronger when I break through', she thought.
Aster watched Aria suddenly becoming competitive and he found her rather cute, all this happened because if Nerissa would have participated in the little dynamic the girls had with the sisters of the Black Sword faction, she would have gotten a chance to go on a date with him.
'This girl's sword intent is stronger than Iris's, she just hasn't gotten a chance to put a foot into the third level, I guess I should expect as much from someone who caught the interest, of one of the young misses of the Fey family', thought Aster.
They soon left that area of the forest and walked until they reached an open spot deeper into forest, the trees had started to become less, but in exchange they were bigger and wider, that was the way to discern how deep one was into the forest.
Aster beckoned and his soul energy gently placed the passed-out Nerissa on a large rock, her face was quite pale and her closed eyes were frowning as if she was in pain, Aster's eyes glowed he placed his hand on her belly and his spirit sense coursed through her body.
It's obvious she was being afflicted by some kind of yin poison, but Aster had to see how bad was the damage to decide how to treat her, after all yin had a lot of different effects.
After a quick inspection, Aster found the origin of her problem, her right thigh had a though small, quite deep wound which was covered in a bandage.
Aster frowned, the bandage was now pitch black, which shouldn't be the case even if the blood had dried up, he used sharpening on his index finger and cut the bandage, the wound below was quite unsightly.
It was clearly made with a sharp object and it had made the nearby skin to turn dark blue, the blood that came out of the wound was also black as it had been corroded by whatever was used to cut her.
The other girls saw the wound and they frowned, the wound was made in a way that a piece of flesh was taken out when the weapon used finished the cut, not only that judging by the new pink new skin that was surrounding the wound, in a try to cure herself, Nerissa actually cut a piece of her own flesh.
Unfortunately, the yin poison spread too fast and she became unable to continue, even if she cut her leg, the result will be the same, Aster peeked into her ring and the shelves which contained pills and elixirs had been knocked down and the bottle were spread here and there.
Some detoxifying pills were missing, so that explained how she could get this far despite having been poisoned, she might have been able to return to the entrance if she didn't meet those greedy guys, which forced her to circulate her spirit energy, once again making the poison activate.
Blue flames lit up in Aster's hand, first of all he had to cleanse the wound, and Rigel's flames were perfect for the job, the flames quickly washed away the black color and the dirty blood that had condensed around he wound, returning her skin to its original pretty pale tone, the flames also entered her body and cleansed the poison that had spread in her bloodstream.
It was to the point that the wound started bleeding regular red blood, meaning the wound was clean.
"And now we just have to get rid of that disgusting ghastly energy that is trying to hide", said Aster.
His eyes changed to those of a dragon and he could see a dark blue skull, which was trying to invade Nerissa's soul layer, yang is related to the physical body and yin is related to the soul, but that is an advanced property of those energies, which shouldn't appear in a middle grade Stellar System.
At least not in an average one, the Myriad Occupation sect and the places who had backers from the ruler level families of the four Heavenly Quadrants were an exception.
The blue skull seemed to notice, it had been discovered and so it stared at Aster, its empty eye sockets shone as it tried to attack him, but it was met with a gaze of disdain.
"A mere evil spirit dares to act so high in front of me, bring a Ghost King if you want to compete with me in terms of soul energy!", said Aster as he summoned the incomplete black sword soul weapon.
The little thing made a few turns around Aster happy to have been called, before it followed Aster's order and dived into the body of Nerissa, since it was a weapon condensed with Aster's soul energy it will only bring harm at his will, and so Nerissa's soul wasn't affected.
The skull felt the crisis and tried to pry into Nerissa's soul layer, but it was soon stabbed by the incomplete black sword and then cut into pieces, unfortunately besides Felicia the others couldn't watch Aster's awesome performance, though Camila did feel where the evil spirit was, since it was something caused by a spirit treasure, probably a cursed one.
Aster saw the pained expression disappearing from Nerissa's pretty face, her breathing stabilized as well, she now looked as if she was just peacefully sleeping, though the wound on her thigh was still open.
To his surprise there was something preventing her from healing, which explained why even after she removed a piece of flesh, the new tissue was still affected and the wound only worsened.
Anyway, in terms of regeneration he had probably the best medicine in the whole Stellar System.
Aster waved his hand and a bottle with a bright red liquid appeared in his hand, this was an elixir Mylene prepared exclusively for the family, since it used his blood to further increase the effect.
He then removed the lid and left a couple of drops fall on the open wound.
"Hisss", with a low sizzling sound the wound the wound closed at an insane speed, to the point that it was visible for the naked eye, something that would scare those who didn't know about Aster's abnormal blood's effects.
In a matter of seconds, Nerissa's thigh was perfectly healed, there wasn't even a trace of a scar, as if the wound never existed to begin with, her skin looked even better than before, this elixir was fully focused on healing the physical body, and it was instantaneous unlike drinking Aster's blood directly which needed to be absorbed by the body, though it had other effects like recovering cultivation, like Sarina experienced firsthand.
"Woah, as expected of Mylene, though this will only work for those below the Heavenly realms, this Red Dragon Blood elixir is amazing", said Eris after seeing the instant effects of the elixir.
Aster then did one last check up, just to be sure there was nothing else hidden in Nerissa's body, that evil spirit was quite tricky after all, after a couple of seconds he nodded, satisfied with the result.
"She should wake up anytime soon, watch her over, I want to see what's inside the rings of those two guys, thought hey come from righteous sects, the stains on their auras are now visible for my new eyes, so they might be from an evil sect and if that's the case then we have some trash to take out", said Aster.
"Mm", the girls nodded, Aster took out the two rings and injected his spirit sense into them, besides the regular, resources and spirit jades he didn't find anything first, but then he caught a hint of a sealed area within the space of the rings.
Which he then ripped apart using his soul energy, to reveal a small coffer, inside of it there were some bottles of aphrodisiac as well as some half-assed evil dual cultivation methods, for the woman from the Pleasure Palace, it was basically a way for her to steal both yang and yin to make herself prettier and remain young, naturally killing the other party, the usual.
As for the one in the ring of the masked guy, it was a way to cultivate poison in the bodies of women by making them swallow some kind of parasite and then feeding them resources, until they died and the poison was created.
Though despicable that didn't prove they were part of an evil sect, many rogue cultivators who later ended up joining a force or sect had bloody pasts, that being said, they clearly wanted to use a high ranked "resource" as Nerissa to greatly improve their cultivation.
"Heh, it seems we have to teach the Tsarai and Zoldia Stellar Systems a little lesson, since they are being so lax in their rule enforcing", sinisterly said Aster.
He didn't take out the things, as to not affect them, since they will be his proofs later on, and instead he kept the rings in the mind space, to not have them on himself, just in case.
Aster heard Nerissa's heartbeat changing and he knew she was waking up, so he returned to where the girls were and waited.
Aster didn't pay attention to it earlier, but her attire was rather unique, usually the clothes used in this world are a mix of western modern clothing and European middle age armor, if he were to compare them to what he knew from his time back at earth.
Though there wasn't technology per se and things didn't use electricity to work, it wasn't barbaric as one would expect, since there were spaceships, but Nerissa was using a completely different kind of clothes, ones that resembled eastern ones.
It was blue attire that resembled a dress with only one sleeve, dark blue knee socks as well as a scarf which seemed to be made out of the fur of some spirit beast and also dark blue wood sandals, everything in different shades of blue which perfectly combined with her long straight black hair with blue ends.
…
"Mm?", Nerissa's eyes slowly opened, she first inspected her current state and frowned upon noticing that she no longer felt any pain nor unpleasant sensation in her body, she even regained access to her body cultivation which has been suppressed since she was wounded.
She slowly stood up and then looked at her surroundings, there were a few girls around her with amicable expressions, and lastly a black-haired youth which looked familiar for her.
She loosened the grip on her blue jade sword, a few of the last memories she has before passing out, was a smiling expression which perfectly paired with the youth in front of her.
Her eyes wandered around Aster's figure and she noticed a pretty outstanding ring in his left hand, the emblem of the Twin Sword valley was hard to forget, as it is the holy land of the Battle Peak to which she belongs.
'Wait a moment, black hair and golden eyes… and surrounded by girls, wasn't that the description the little sisters gave me of the Lord of the Twin Sword valley which big sister Agnes brought to the sect?', she thought.
She noticed that her clothes were perfectly in place, besides her veil which was removed, probably because she stained it by coughing blood on it, her pretty blue eyes then directly gazed at Aster.
She is one of the original disciples of the Black Sword faction, as her position as the highest one among them in the ranking would suppose, and so she was there at the first stages when male disciples started being accepted, and saw their despicable means.
And yet when she was in that dying state, she felt comfortable enough to trust her life to this guy in front of her, which honestly intrigued her, she could tell he didn't play any dirty tricks while she was out.
Not to mention the wound which she wasn't sure if even the elders of the sect, with the exception of her master and her mysterious background or probably the Alchemy Ancestor of the sect, could heal, was magically gone.
"Thanks for helping me, I'm Nerissa Belial from the Black Sword faction, if I'm not wrong, you are our first little brother, Aster, right?", she said with a calm voice.
Aster was surprised to hear her calling him little brother, since so far, all the girls from the Black Sword faction call him senior brother, due to his status as a Holy Son, not to mention he looks older than his actual age.
Still, he didn't really care about such things, it was easier if Nerissa recognized him, without him having to explain too much.
"Yes, here I can show you this as a proof of my identity", said Aster as he gave her the notebook Valentina handed him.
Which was the perfect proof, since it was Nerissa herself the one who won this information from the first ranked disciple in a fight.
'Master told me she wanted to introduce someone to me once I returned from my mission, but it seems that will no longer be necessary', thought Nerissa as she returned the notebook to Aster.
"If you don't mind, I'll call you Aster, you can call me by my name too, formalities aren't my thing…", Nerissa suddenly stopped talking midway.
"Growl~", her stomach made a loud sound, which made her face redden, she ran for a whole day earlier and after being wounded, for some reason her access to her spatial ring was interrupted and she just managed to bring some medicines to suppress the poison, so she was death-hungry right now.
Aster softly laughed, he took out one of the many dishes Sarina prepared for them, and gave it to her, she had a lot to tell them anyway, and this place was perfect for them to sit down and hear.
"Thanks", Nerissa didn't stop in ceremony and gladly accepted the offer, maybe it was because she hasn't eaten anything or because it was Sarina's cooking, but it was obvious he was enjoying the food quite a bit.
Aster observed her carelessly eat the food offered by a stranger and he couldn't help but say.
"You didn't even check it, hat if it was poisoned, I found a lot of aphrodisiacs in the rings of those two guys that were attacking you earlier you know?".
Nerissa looked at Aster, without stopping eating as she said.
"Mm, I was hesitant when I heard that big sister Agnes brought a man to the faction, but the little sisters didn't stop praising you since the moment I set foot in the city, my master was the same, and I kind of understand why after meeting you".
"You are like us and won't harm nor abandon your comrades no matter what, at least that's the vibe I perceive from you, to be honest it's hard to explain since I never experienced something like this before with someone I just met, and a man on top of that".
Aster raised an eyebrow, certainly the disciples of the Black Sword faction were hand-picked by Agnes or Valentina only, before him there were only girls and they all treated each other as sisters, so she wasn't necessarily lying.
'Hehehe, what do you think darling, when I left, I asked those two, to only choose good girls for my Battle Peak, but you still have a lot of work to do so good luck~', Lilia who was playing around in the mind space witnessed the exchange between her son and the girl who basically represented all the disciples of the Black Sword faction and she giggled as she thought to herself.
Nerissa finished the food on her plate and then cleaned it with her water spirit energy before she returned it to Aster.
"Thanks for the food, now where should I start… the Fritz are stupid enough to call people from a high ranked Stellar System here, those guys did something which made chaos to break havoc in the Silicon Forest", she said with a vengeance filled voice.
If she were to meet the ones who caused her to suffer, she will personally rip their limbs off, her pride took a blow after all.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢