Getting Aster's greenlight, Aria was all smiles, which made the other girls sigh, those two created their own little world at every chance they had.
"Ahem, you two can flirt later, how about you cast that ice thingy on us too?", said Tiana.
Aria pouted, her little moment was interrupted, she snapped her fingers and the others were covered by an unharming thin layer of ice, and their images blurred before they disappeared.
This technique Aria created isn't as simple as just covering in ice and soul energy to cast an illusion, the ice is containing their vital signs such as breath and heartbeat, essentially urning them into inanimate objects.
Naturally it is still far from being perfect but for these undead who guide themselves by instinct and whether they feel an undead or a living being nearby, is perfect.
The group then entered the area where the undead were all squeezed together, it was hard to know where one skeleton started and other ended, they looked more like as a whole entity in the form of a sea of bones and blue flames, than an army of undead.
And in the middle of all that a small gap opened all of a sudden, for a group of people to walk through, it was none other than Aster and the girls that were passing by while being ignored by the undead.
In fact, the previous groups could have thought of a way to surpass this obstacle without the need of sacrificing others, but they wanted to do it fast so that they could get the treasure waiting at the end of this underground space, for themselves.
What Aster didn't understand is why they thought what was waiting at the end of the road was a reward, but that is because he rejected participating in the game, while the others didn't.
After running for around twenty minutes, they finally reached the other side of the sea of undead, what lied ahead of them was a large red gate, Aster immediately frowned, the gate was made of wood and its color was brown originally as some small parts showed, but it was painted red with blood.
Not only that, the unmistakable sound of metal colliding and people shouting could be heard coming from that gate.
"Don't wander around, Camila you take care of the front, Felicia guard the rear, Aria and Tiana the right and Nerissa the left, no matter who it is, if they attack you, kill without mercy", said Aster.
The people that were participating in this thing, were blinded by greed at this point, they didn't even stop to reason whether it made sense, that someone was gifting them Stellar grade treasures, just by killing some random earth realms cultivator, the cost-reward was too uneven, and nobody gifted money for free.
The other party is not always malicious, for example Esmeralda, she put those tests to find a suitable host, and all, because she needed one to grow stronger, there is always a benefit involved, that's something Lilia taught him since he expressed his desire to become a cultivator, a long time ago.
The girls organized in the formation Aster told them, since no one had any particular disagreement, Aster remained standing in front of them, since his defense is the best in the group.
Aster opened the gate and as he expected there was a chaotic battle ongoing in the room, he noticed that the door behind them disappeared, and since this was a "cooperative stage", he got to see the intentions of the one who set up this place.
He saw a bloody sign like the one that was installed in front of the stairs that led to this place, but this one had a different message.
"Feed the blood gate to advance to the next trial, those who finish it will receive a portion of the inheritance of the Blood Despair Sovereign, the larger the number of survivors, the smaller the amount of inheritance you will get".
Aster snorted, this sign basically urged the participants to kill each other, and that's what inspired the chaotic battle that was taking place right now.
"Clang!", suddenly the sound of metals colliding drew the attention of the girls, they saw a few guys who were stopped midair when they tried to ambush them, their weapons were stuck against an invisible wall, which was naturally the protection of the paragon body.
Aster swinged his golden sword and those guys paled, they immediately tried to beg for mercy.
"S-Senior, spare our lives we'll swear to give you our part of the inheritance…ahhh!".
But it was too late, before they could finish, their bodies were cut in half by Aster using Ghost Sword, Sharpening and a thin layer of annihilation on his sword.
Aster ignored the recently deceased and looked at the gate which was at the other side of the room, it was similar to the one from which they came in, an ominous blood red wood gate, and it had fully been dyed due to blood.
Apparently with each death the red tone darkened, but judging by its color it should have been red enough to be opened, the people in the room where still fighting each other to reduce the number of competitors.
That being said, Aster saw a few groups which weren't participating in the battle, their weapons had blood on them, meaning they had killed their part and simply stepped out of the battle, still they didn't leave.
Apparently, everyone reached a mutual understanding of not opening the gate, until there was a certain number of people left, Aster counted the guys he cut in half a moment ago and there were exactly six, the same number as his group, which meant those six were probably among the weakest, and since another six joined, they had to kill or die, not that Aster cared, since they came at them with the intention of attacking them, he killed them first.
"Let's keep advancing", said Aster as he led the girls through this large room, in which the people aimed to kill the others.
Naturally the groups that had finished their fights, noticed Aster's group which was ignoring everything and going towards the exit.
Before Aster arrived at the exit, a few people approached them, among them a guy whose eyes were closed left his group to talk with them.
"Hey there friend, you already killed the same number of people that conform your group, just step aside and wait for the others to finish their battles".
Aster saw that cunning snake eyed guy, who probably was the one who suggested the dynamic of killing the same number of people as the number of members of your group, and he ignored him and directly approached the gate to open it, which made all the ones who had finished their fights surround them.
"Yo, so we have a little saint who wants to stop the massacrer here, I'm sorry but we all voted earlier and decided that the fewer the better, I hope this brother doesn't go against the decision of the group…".
The head of the snake eyed guy suddenly separated from his body, making the pupils of the others who were surrounding Aster's group contract like needles, none of them saw what happened.
The girls all took out their weapons and prepared to fight, but it wasn't needed, the individually strongest in this room was that snake eyed guy, who was just a peak Star Tribulation cultivator, his battle prowess wasn't that bad as he probably could fight early-stage Mortal Transcending cultivators.
But let alone Aster, Aria or Felicia could have killed him easily, everyone was separated from their original groups, it didn't escape Aster's eyes that there wasn't a single Mortal Transcended or above here, they were probably grouped together, unfortunately for these guys Aster's group didn't split, so Camila and Felicia were still with them.
And it was Felicia the one who cut the head of that guy with her clawed gauntlets, her spirit pressure made all the others jump backwards as they realized she was a Mortal Transcending, and not an average one since she easily killed the snake eyed guy.
"Anyone else?", asked Felicia with her usual smiling expression, which in contrast with the headless corpse on the floor, was quite scary.
Since they weren't instantly killed, the crowd immediately dispersed thanking the heavens that they didn't act before, or their heads would have rolled on the ground along with that guy who organized everything.
Aster then opened the gate and the battle that hasn't stopped since it started, finally ended, very much to the displease of some of the strong guys that wanted to get a bigger share of the rewards, but seeing the fresh corpse laying down at Aster's feet, they swallowed their complains, such was human nature, if one is weak then others will trample on you for any reason, even a gaze can earn you a one way ticket to hell, if the other party is stronger than you and feels like it.
On the contrary, if you have the biggest fist, then no one would dare to complain or stand in your way, it's a simple principle, naturally that's just on the surface, since who can assure to know what others keep in their hearts.
Well, Aster can do it in a very selective group of people, but that's another story, anyway, now that Aster ended the purpose of this room, everyone saw a small array appearing in front of them, from which a book with a red cover appeared.
Though everyone's book had the same design, the number of pages differed from person to person, it wasn't hard for Aster to deduce the reason, since the book that appeared in front of him had six pages, there was also one in front of Felicia, which surprisingly had the largest number of pages in the whole room, with a total of ten.
Each page represented one death, apparently since Felicia killed the snake eyed guy, she got his rewards instead, not like she cared, after reading the title on the cover of the book, she put on a disgusted expression, a rare sight, since she normally has that smiling carefree expression on her face.
"Blood Devouring Flag", was the title of the book, and it was apparently a type of support spirit technique, but if it was a normal one then it wouldn't have kept the greed of these people piqued.
The first page explained what kind of technique it was, it could be considered in the line between an evil technique.
Basically, it consisted in killing enemies and absorbing their blood into a flag which's design appeared in the first page too, and surprisingly one fully operative was given along with the book to Felicia.
Everyone saw with envy how Felicia got the complete reward of the previous room, and as if their prayers were answered, a new bloody sign appeared in the room at which they entered after Aster opened the gate.
"Random team members of those who got at least three pages will be brought here, chose between giving your rewards to the one who got the best result previously, or snatch the rewards for yourself".
Arrays started appearing on the ground at random place, and different people started appearing from those arrays, well they had one thing in common and is that all of them were Mortal Transcending cultivators.
"Elder, you finally returned".
"Uncle, you are alive".
And similar comments could be heard across the room, before all the gazes fell at one place, the place where Aster's group was currently to be more accurate.
Aster saw the wolf-like expressions on the faces of those people and he took out his sword from his ring, since he knew what they were thinking right now "There is so many of us, we can do it".
This too was also a part of human nature, even a stupid decision seems wiser when is taken as a group, in this case the belief that a pack of wolves can hunt a dragon.
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