Even if the evil spirit seemed to have genuinely surrendered and accepted his death, Aster didn't drop his guard, Camila didn't remove the spears that were restraining it, and he didn't let go of the skull of the giant undead, at the slightest sign of the evil spirit trying to play any trick, he will kill it on the spot.
The girls on the other hand started picking the loot of the previous battle, all those undead had yin accumulation crystals working as their cores, instead of dantians, so after they were destroyed, their cores became resources for others.
The evil spirit saw it and he chuckled, he had already used all his cards in the previous battle, the formations he controlled collapsed when Aster broke some of their parts using annihilation, the swarm of undead he controlled were destroyed, his other half was defeated and the evil spirits he was using to fill the missing parts of its spirit form were destroyed, not to mention his movements were sealed, it was a complete defeat.
Aster sat on the ground as he waited for the evil spirit to continue its explanation, he didn't urge it to answer faster, because he could see the soul fluctuations on the head of the evil spirit, meaning it was going through its memories.
For those whose sous had damaged, memory loss is quite common, take Rya for example, her soul is so full of cracks that it is amazing she can keep herself together, though she is doing a bit better nowadays.
It took around ten minutes for the evil spirit to finish what it was doing, his expression changed quite a few times during that period of time, but ultimately it remained clam as he said.
"Sorry for the wait, it's been a while since I was "myself", well to be more accurate, since I remembered who I was… anyway, this place which you call "Silicon Forest", is an ancient battlefield contained in a pocket dimension that suddenly appeared my native galaxy".
Aster raised an eyebrow, the term pocket dimension is an archaic way to refer to secret realms, it's been really a long time since anyone called them like that, also no one knows when the entrance to the Silicon Forest was created.
When the ancestor of the Fritz of a few dozens of generations ago was assigned to rule this Stellar System by the Drage ruler of that time, the area where the entrance appeared was barely starting to show signs of spatial fluctuations, and it only appeared later.
In other words, since the times didn't match… that meant there was another entrance somewhere.
Aster kept his conclusions for himself and listened to the evil spirit which continued with its story.
"At first when this place opened it was considered by everyone as a treasured land filled with yang attribute resources, which helped many cultivators advance, however the prosperity soon turned into calamity, because this place was a huge trap, my galaxy was invaded by people from another galaxy which used this place to lure cultivators here".
"Naturally we weren't weak and those who were trapped at the peak of Heavenly Realms saw it as an opportunity, and thus a war started between the two cultures, nothing out of the ordinary since the weak will always become stairs for the strong to ascend".
"In fact, after many battles, we both became acquittances and the killing stopped, instead of that a bridge between two civilizations was built and we explored deeper into this place, originally the size of the land was around one thousand times what it is right now, based on the range which my senses could reach, but a lot of the forest was destroyed during the last fight".
Aster nodded, that explained why the outer area of the Silicon Forest was a lifeless desert, while the middle area was had some green besides the crystal trees, also those crystal formations could probably be the primitive form of the trees, that are now growing once again to recover the forest which was lost.
Still the current Silicon Forest is huge as of current, even if you were able to survive the scorching heat of the three suns to fly over the dome-like treetop of the forest, to fly and do some air recognition, you'll only see a limitless dome-like tree top all the way to horizon, since deep area of the forest also had the crystal trees, and you can only see where it starts due to the ominous sensation of being near its entrance.
And the evil spirit said that it used to be one thousand times bigger, that is insane, it means this place was quite a few times larger than the Treasure Planet of the Myriad Occupation sect, which is massive, the number of resources one could find in such a large secret realm is hard to imagine.
But then the evil spirit regained a hatred filled expression, it's just that this time it wasn't antinatural like before, nor it was directed to Aster.
"It was then when some members of the young generation accidentally discovered the true nature of this place, it wasn't a promised land but a trap set up by a third party… every time someone died in this pocket dimension, it was drained of all their yin or yang depending on the situation, and all of that was absorbed by the ground".
"Originally we didn't pay any attention to it, since we weren't actively attacked by the crystal trees, only by spirit beasts, so we just took it as part of the nature of the ecosystem".
"But that wasn't the case, it was a formation which was doing it, a formation so large and well-created that even the Soul Sovereigns that initially visited this place, couldn't notice it, because it was placed in a "forbidden" area of the pocket dimension", said the evil spirit as he looked upwards.
"Those guys actually used celestial bodies as formation nodes, something unheard off, and so the around 50 suns and 50 moons that used to occupy the nearby space of the pocket dimension, were actually a galaxy sized formation, that gathered and refined yang at day and yin at night".
"You see, one of the reasons as to why we clashed with the other civilization is because they were focused in yang-oriented cultivation, and we were focused in yin-oriented cultivation, as my army of undead might suggest, it wasn't a coincidence that an entrance to this place opened in both of our galaxies".
"When we met the owners of this place, we realized we both were played and formed an alliance to retaliate, this old rogue cultivator only joined because one of the members of the young generation which discovered the trap-nature of this place was my disciple… she was cursed by those guys and died in pain in front of my own eyes, how could I overlook such an insult!".
It took a few seconds for the evil spirit to regain its cool, even if it feigned to only care about its face, Aster could see he was actually angry, as the saying goes even a tiger won't eat its cubs, everyone has something they cherish, naturally understanding the evil spirit is different from sympathizing with him.
The evil spirit saw the unwavering expression on the face of the black-haired youth and he clicked its tongue.
"Anyway, we joined hands to bury our enemy in common and at first the tides were in our favor, until one day… the sky cracked and a giant hand made out of the strongest spirit energy I have ever seen descended upon this place, everyone who was in this place died without leaving anything behind, the only exception was me who was at the entrance and managed to see what happened but survived because I jumped through the gate just in time".
"I could barely react on time despite having cultivated my soul to the peak of the Soul Sovereign realm, but that wasn't the end of my surprise, while the galaxy-formation repaired the pocket dimension I managed to catch a glimpse of what was in the area no one managed to explore before, because those guys never allowed us to take a single step into that area, even at the cost of their lives".
"There was a cage with blue and yellow chains surrounding it, the 50 suns and 50 moons were sealing and nurturing whatever was caged inside, the rest is easy to figure out, we realized the guys who were already giving us a hard time to defeat were mere pawns".
"My Frost Bone Heavenly Quadrant wasn't low ranked, so we had a few records and legends about the ones who live in places above us, unfortunately no one was able to surpass the Heavenly realms for such a long time that we didn't have any sponsor to cover our asses".
"The same applied to the guys from the Flame Meridian Heavenly Quadrant, who were our allies, and so we just did what any normal weak place would do and tried to submit to the guys from that place, so that we weren't erased by that god-like attack that could split the sky of our galaxies and destroy planets from distance".
Aster saw the evil spirit clenching his fists, even through the retrain of Camila's spears, but he didn't do anything, he already knew the evil spirit regained some mobility, because it wasn't an evil spirit anymore, but a soul fragment, still lightning can hurt souls, but Camila's lightning property is too weak for that as of current, earlier it worked because the opponent was an evil spirit.
"And the response we got was… send every male and female below the Transcending realms into the ancient battlefield immobilized, as a proof of submission, they wanted to wipe out the younger generations, so that only the old men will survive, in that way we won't have any future but being their slaves, since it will take too much time for the new generations to grow".
Aster frowned, he naturally asked Natasha and Charlotte, what were the dynamics between the Divine Firmaments and the Mortal realms, he also asked Mylene but her information was outdated, so the Luan girls had a better image of the current situation.
And it was as he expected, even if they were from the Divine Firmaments, anyone who has surpassed the Heavenly realms can't descend to the Mortal planes, maybe some secondary branches of the families of the Divine Firmaments live on the Heavenly Quadrants, but they aren't that overwhelmingly strong.
"Unless… that was a Heavenly Conqueror with the capacity to cross at least two major realms, someone from a main branch visiting the secondary branch to see how is the "business" of the family going", mumbled Aster.
The evil spirit's eyes glowed, surprised to see that the back haired youth, who he estimates to not even be fifty years old, has such understanding about the world beyond the skies of the Heavenly Quadrants.
"Kid, so you indeed come from one of those places, I should have known it, there is no way someone without such a backing can fight head on against a Void Manipulation, while not even being at the peak of the Earth realms!", exclaimed the evil spirit.
Aster didn't say anything, he was born in one of the lowest ranked Stellar Systems in one of the lowest ranked Star Clusters, naturally he doesn't come from a Divine Firmament, though his spirit and soul energies are pure enough for Natasha and Charlotte to believe he comes from a Divine Firmament indeed, and he isn't the only one.
Eris and Mylene also confused Lilia as a direct descendant of a Darkness Desolation Dragon when they met her, something that is only seen in the Divine Firmaments were dragonkin live, the girls were also way above the average of found in the mortal realms, being able to cross realms to fight.
Naturally not everyone that lives in the Divine Firmaments is a genius, there are mortals there too, and there are even normal people according to Charlotte, the difference is that is easier for them to surpass the Heavenly Realms, and their Heavenly Law doesn't suppress anything pass that, so for them it is common knowledge, also there is Divine Energy which if Aster's theory is right, is an advanced more refined version of spirit energy.
The evil spirit hesitated, what if he was giving an enemy information, wouldn't his last act of rebellion millions of years ago, go to waste, he wondered.
But then to his surprise Aster shook his head.
"I'm from a Heavenly Quadrant, probably in a similar level to yours, I think there are some people related to higher ranked places, but they are too weak and were destroyed by the rulers of the respective Heavenly Quadrants", he said.
Back then, when Mylene's existence was revealed, Lilia recognized her last name, but the description she had fitted with the members of the distant branches of Mylene's family, which were eliminated by the Drage a long time ago.
The evil spirit gazed at Aster and only after it confirmed he wasn't being lied to, he continued.
"While some were willing to become lapdogs for those guys, there were people with some backbone who weren't willing to become slaves, serving the strong is one thing, but becoming someone's bitch is another thing", said the evil spirt with a wild smile on his face.
"So, all the Heavenly Realm cultivators that had some balls joined and attacked this place in a try to destroy it, whatever that hand was, it was only able to attack us with the support of the galaxy-formation, which was linked to this pocket dimension, so we just needed to destroy it and then purge what was left from the invaders".
"Unfortunately, even with the powers of five hundred peak Heavenly Realm cultivators combined, we could only destroy two of the suns and three of the moons before those guys noticed us, and then the slaughter started".
"The giant hand didn't attack us for some reason, but giant pillars of light descended and killed some of us, also their army of pawns surrounded us, it was then when we decided that if we couldn't win, we might as well drag those bastards to hell with us, so we all detonated our dantians", said the evil spirit with a crazed expression.
Aster raised an eyebrow, a Genesis Manifestation can already destroy a small sized planet with some time, and a peak Transcending realm, like Lilia can do so with just a move of her hand, sure she is way stronger than others, but that's a recognized scale.
A Heavenly Conqueror is strong enough to single handedly suppress a Star Cluster, according to Lilia, that's why the minimal expression of territory in which a Heavenly Quadrant is divided is a Star Cluster.
So, imagine more than four hundred of those self-destroying themselves at the same time, the result is a catastrophe of incredible proportions, and still the silicon forest survived and there were still three suns in the sky, as for the moons he could see two the last night, and there was a reason to it, which the evil spirit confirmed a moment later.
"We couldn't obliterate this damned place, and some of the nodes of the galaxy-formations survived, the core of it to be more accurate, luckily we did manage to expulse those bastards out of out galaxies and closed destroyed their entrances, a piece of my soul and my flesh survived and I landed in what was left of the ancient battlefield".
"The armies which accompanied us became lifeless bones and were assimilated by this place, then the cycle of the three suns and moons continued, I was asleep for countless years being kept alive by the overflowing yin of this place, until people started entering once again, or more accurately until people started dying here again".
"Some evil spirits were born out of them and my resentment allowed me to attract and consume them to somewhat return to life, with m flesh I created that giant undead and after some time I realized that the objective of those guys survived too, so I wanted to revive, snatch that thing and then become strong enough to bring horror and carnage to their galaxy just like they did to mine!", poisonously spouted the evil spirit, before it calmed down again.
"Who would have thought the day when a rogue cultivator like me, would seek revenge for the death of some unrelated guys… no I just can't forgive that they dared to look down upon me, that's what kept me alive up to this day".
Th evil spirit then gazed at Aster before it sinisterly smiled.
"So, do you want the treasure at the center of this place, kid, it's something which was worth the death of hundreds of peak Heavenly realm cultivators, and the extermination of the branch of a family from those high places kekeke".
Aster softly snorted, whatever the case was, there is a big chance that the Diamond Bone Orchid is growing near the center of this place, since it's a spirit herb which can keep growing without any limit according to Rya.
Just like diamonds, they compact and become more precious with more years, Rya only needed one that was within the Mortal realms, but the flower which will be the base for her new skeleton will keep growing with her, just like any living being, that's the property she needed from it.
But it seems that there was another treasure here on par with it, or maybe even better, depending on the situation, he doesn't mind taking it if it's useful for the girls, there is no need to encage a Bone Orchid after all.
"Speak", he said, making the evil spirit, or more accurately the soul fragment of the Blood Despair Sovereign smile.
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