Felicia looked at the red flag which was floating around her with disgust, in paper a treasure who grew stronger by absorbing the blood of the defeated enemies, was actually amazing… if only it wasn't a lie of course.
"Humph, wanting to play tricks with spirit energy in front of me", coldly said Felicia, but as she proposed to destroy the flag with her black gauntlets, Aster stopped her from doing so.
Not because he considered this fake treasure valuable, but because he wanted to utterly destroy it with annihilation.
"Let me do it", he said, which made Felicia smile.
"Sure, young master~", she jokingly said.
Aster chuckled, he extended his finger towards the flag and before the thing which seemed to have some self-aware could escape, a thin line of dazzling golden light was shot from the tip of his finger.
"Screee!", the line of golden light pierced a hole through the flag, and black incorporeal skeleton poured out of it, trying to escape, unfortunately, just by being exposed to annihilation, their existences faded away.
Mylene could personally testify, that having one's soul exposed to annihilation is one of the worse sensations a being can experience, and that was when Aster didn't wish to kill her, just punish her.
Those evil spirits that were inhabiting the flag and feeding off the blood of the dead, screamed as they suffered the horrible pain of being erased out of existence by annihilation.
Aster smirked, he could have purified the evil spirits instead of erasing them, using Rigel's flames, but why should he be considerate towards the enemy.
And as Aster expected large amount of murderous aura, came from the red gate which led to the next room, to which the group would have advanced… if they were still alive.
He welcomed the incoming murderous aura with his own murderous aura, and the girls were surprised to see two ash-gray waves clashing near the red gate, making the air tremble, there was no sound or explosion, but they could see the distortion caused on the atmosphere.
Nerissa slightly frowned as she gazed at the black-haired youth which was calmly standing in front of the group, besides those who are sheltered and grow like flowers in a greenhouse, there is no cultivator who hasn't killed before, it's not a matter of personal preferences but a matter of survival, your enemies won't spare you just because you show them mercy after all
But there is a wide gap between killing some enemies here and there, and massacring a huge number of cultivators, which is the requirement needed to manifest murderous aura, to the point that is visible for others.
She was even more surprised, because normally those who manage to manifest murderous aura like that, are homicidal maniacs who often end up in evil sects, due to their endless desire to kill.
But Aster doesn't look like them at all, she has fought a couple and you can see the corruption on their faces, since killing is like a drug for them.
'This little brother of ours, keeps getting interesting with each second', she thought.
…
After Aster cancelled the murderous intent coming at them, with his own making it retreat, he opened the gate and then his group advanced to the next room.
Many gazes fell on them as they walked into this new area, Aster even recognized one among all those people, it was the guy from the Pleasure Palace which used to be teamed up with five girls, including some low ranked elders which were apparently part of his harem.
But now he only had two companions left, taking the one Nerissa killed into account, that meant another two died, the ones who remained were the two Sea of Knowledge cultivators that followed him.
Besides him, there were another three groups with a similar number of members, all of them clearly survived bitter battles on their way here, which would explain why the guy from the Pleasure Palace lost two companions on the way.
Anyway, Aster wasn't here for them, so he ignored the others and then watched at a black crystal altar which was placed in front of them, this was the last room of this underground space.
So, if they were in the tomb of an expert, this is where they will receive their reward after surpassing the trials prepared by the dead expert who wanted to leave its inheritance behind for the young generation.
Blue flames suddenly lit up on the altar and then the slightly vague figure of a man wearing blue robes appeared.
"Welcome to the place of rest of the Blood Despair Sovereign, those who managed to reach this place have surpassed the tests and proved to be worthy of my inheritance, take out your Blood Devouring flags, I will impart the full manual to you", said the spirit with a dignified voice.
Aster saw that the other four groups besides him all had a way more developed red flag, than what Felicia achieved, naturally that meant they killed a lot of other participants on the way, the only one who didn't look happy was the guy from the Pleasure Palace, who actually had a regretful expression on his face.
It didn't escape other people's eyes that Aster's group didn't have a red flag, no, in fact he didn't even have the red cover book which explained how to craft one, which shouldn't be possible, as they arrived at the end of the underground space.
"Congratulations, from now and onwards all of you have become heirs of my Blood Despair Valley, if you manage to enter the Heavenly Realms before the five thousand years old mark, then you can claim all the treasures left behind by this Sovereign", said the spirit with a benevolent voice, as if he truly cared about the young generation who will carry on his legacy.
But then he looked at Aster and his voice turned cold, as he pointed at him.
"What happened here must only be known by those that have been accepted in my Blood Despair Valley, my heirs get rid of those morons that rejected my inheritance, and I shall grant you another reward!", he shouted.
To Aster's surprise, instead of four groups of idiots courting death, only three turned around and glared at him, the guy from the Pleasure Palace hesitated before it crushed an amber stone which was hanging from his neck, a large amount of yang was released and then he broke a talisman that transported him and his two companions out of this place.
"As one would expect from a dual cultivator, he had a pricey yang treasure on him, though creating this opportunity to ignore the lingering yin energy's interference wasn't probably its function", said Felicia.
Yang enhancing treasures are not only quite expensive, but there is always a high demand of them, among practically every male cultivator that exists, since polygamy is the most normal route chosen by male cultivators, sometimes a little help is needed to fulfill one's responsibilities as a man.
For dual cultivators, it's even more important since cultivating for them, literally requires them to have a lot of sex, naturally female dual cultivators will choose those who can "train" for long periods of time, and many rounds, that's what a yang enhancing treasure works for.
But that guy destroyed it to release all the yang energy stored inside in order to escape from this place, as to why he did so instead of trying to kill Aster over the promise of more rewards, no one knew why.
"Tsk, that paper tiger got all sentimental because two of his bitches died earlier, what a fool, he can always get more women as long as he becomes stronger, that's why dual cultivators which feign to have moral are so weak hahaha!".
Naturally now that he was gone, others didn't miss the chance to badmouth him, which they didn't do earlier because weak or not, that guy belongs to the Pleasure Palace, which stands at the top of the middle grade Stellar Systems with Galatia and Zoldia.
"Now let's get rid of those…", before they could finish speaking, their heads separated from their bodies, and Aster's image who flashed from where he was standing a moment ago, appeared in front of the black crystal altar where the spirit of the man, remained unaffected by the death of those who "inherited" his legacy.
The spirit saw Aster pointing his sword at him and he sinisterly laughed, the newly made corpses shrank and their skin stuck to their bones, also the red flags of which they were so proud of, left their cold corpses and returned to their legitimate owner, the ghost which acted as if he was giving away his inheritance.
Or it would be more accurate to call it an evil spirit at this point, since he isn't a spirit form, like Eris or Mylene used to be back at Prasil.
"You should have run like that poor bastard who realized the truth of this place kid, now why don't you stay behind and become nourishments for my revival hahaha!".
The ground trembled and a giant black undead with blue fire covering its body emerged from below, that was the thing that nearly killed Nerissa back then, a Void Manipulation grade undead.
Aster remained calm, he stabbed his sword on the ground and then injected a small amount of annihilation into it, which made the previously smile on the face of the evil spirit to freeze.
"What the hell did you do, you bastard!", he angrily shouted.
Aster smirked, maybe for others they were invisible, but his eyes could clearly see the runes that were engraved on the ground and walls of the room, what he did was erase a part of the formation using annihilation, and then everything collapsed.
The result is that the evil spirit stopped receiving soul energy from those who died in the mist filled area from before, and also from the black crystal altar below him, which was restraining the souls of all those who died here.
"Aghhh!" the evil spirit roared, his previous noble appearance was gone and he screamed as his body separated into many different deformed spirits, and then become one once again, but his face changed every time and so did his mood and expression.
"You, how dare you get in the way of my glorious revival!", he shouted, his voice changed three or so times, between a child, an old man and a woman's voice along the way.
The voice of the old man was the "dominating" one, Aster's eyes could see that he was forcefully integrating fragments of other evil spirits and using them to recreate his soul, so that guy must be the so-called Blood Despair Sovereign, or at least a fragment of him which was left behind at the time of his death.
"What, your lame rune mastering abilities are clearly visible for me, not to mention you are only taking advantage of this place's nature, to set up your formations, destroying them is too easy", said Aster.
That's right, along the way he discovered the true nature of this underground space, it might have been taken over by this sentient evil spirit, but it wasn't under his control, the spirit just placed some formations, taking advantage of the fact that this is a node of a large-scale formation, which probably englobes the whole silicon forest.
The evil spirit who was now having troubles to keep his personality in control screamed at the giant undead.
"Kill them all, we'll use those women's yin and this bastard's yang to revive!".
Aster jumped backwards, he looked at the girls and pointed at the giant undead.
"I leave the skeleton to you ladies, the other might be just a corrupted soul fragment but it still once used to be a Soul Sovereign, which is unheard of in the four Heavenly Quadrants", said Aster.
His pupil had turned in those of a dragon and he was actually excited, maybe because he is the first dragonkin who can cultivate his soul, but he felt the desire to clash with an opponent with a strong soul.
His dragon self was telling him to crush the evil spirit in front of him.
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