It didn't take Aster and the others too much to reach the next battlefield, in which Camila and Felicia were fighting, or more accurately the battlefield in which those two were beating a Void Manipulation spirit beast to a pulp.
Seeing the place filled with golden metal spikes coming from below the ground and also perfectly defined pieces of missing land, Aster chuckled.
The beast those two chose was the one from the mammal army, in this case it was a bear of around one hundred meters of size, with each step it made the ground tremble and in terms of sheer physical strength it was the best among the four Void Manipulation spirit beasts.
Unlike the snake Aster and the others fought, the bear had more mass, its body was massive and it was incredibly imposing, but that was before, right now it was collapsing on the ground, there were tons of huge golden spears piercing its body, including a one hundred meter one which pierced its chest.
But that wasn't all, besides the part of its body that made it look like a porcupine, the other side of its body seemed to have been gnawed at by some kind of fierce beast, there were a lot of missing parts of its fur, skin and meat.
Aster who was carrying Aria like a princess, descended from the sky next to the now corpse of the bear, where Camila and Felicia were casually chatting.
"Didn't you tell me that your spears had a hard time piercing a defense type Genesis Core, so how come you could easily bypass the hide of the bear and made holes in its internal organs?", suspiciously said Felicia.
"I could ask the same, wasn't your innate ability lacking a bit to be able to fend off the attacks of the bear, then how come you made it retire each time it touched that black hole you created using your soul energy?", mumbled Camilla.
Their conversation was interrupted when they both noticed Aster arriving, after exchanging a knowing gaze, Camilla said.
"It's a tie this time, but I will win next time".
"My daughter also uses a spear, I won't be defeated by a spear user easily", answered Felicia, then the two of them giggled and approached Aster.
As if they weren't in the middle of a heated discussion a second ago, they looked at Aria who was resting in Aster's arms, with suspicion filled eyes.
"Was the snake so easy to defeat that you even took your time to flirt with little Aria?", jokingly said Felicia, thanks to her energy constitution she could see the yang energy of Aster aggressively moving inside of Aria's body as if it was saying "she is mine", while Aria's calm yin energy was enveloping Aster, gently soothing him.
Aster chuckled in response feeling bad for Eric, a mother that can always tell when her son has been in contact with a girl, is a living nightmare, not like he was any better, since Lilia was always keeping an eye on him and Alice, so she knew what they were doing all the time.
"Aria is just a bit tired; she stalled the snake by herself for a total of ten seconds, we were only able to kill it so easily thanks to her", said Aster as he gently caressed Aria's pretty face, making her giggle.
Being in contact with Aster was helping her recover from the oversensitive status caused by using her Ice Fairy form, so the more he was touched by him the faster she recovered, that's in part why Aster carried her like this.
Camilla couldn't help but look at Aster and the others with surprise written all over her pretty face, she expected Aster to have used his giant golden armor, but she couldn't see traces of aura treasure on anything but his hands, meaning he just cladded his hands with the armor.
"You killed the snake without using your golden armor?", she asked with a curious voice, that question also made Felicia curiously looked at him.
As Aster was about to tell those two how the fight went, a seventy-meter sparrow with very few feathers left in its body was brought down from the sky by and landed next to the corpse of the bear.
At the same time, Agnes who was lifting a pair of giant black green sickles with her left hand and a ten-meter beast core with her right hand, arrived next to them.
"Sorry for the delay, almost every part of this stupid mantis was poisonous so I only brought what has some use".
"You had some troubles with that thing?", she said as she looked at the dead sparrow-like spirit beast, which was missing almost all of its feathers.
Eris nodded in response.
"Yeah, that bird moved way too fast so I had to bombard it which destroyed almost all its feathers, what a shame I wanted to use them to create talismans for the store".
Aster didn't know whether he should laugh or cry, the sickles of the mantis which Agnes fought were not only incredibly sharp, they were protected by its exoskeleton, and yet they were cleanly cut with a single slash, the cut was even seared leaving a crystal-like scar wound on them.
As for Eris, she shot down the fastest spirit beast of the bunch without breaking a sweat.
'Well, I guess it was supposed to be like this, only the Law Integration spirit beasts are strong enough to pose a threat to those two', he thought.
Now that the Void Manipulation beasts who had some use of reason were gone, the Genesis Manifestation ones teared each other, they were in frenzy and even after the winner was decided, the remaining beast was too wounded to even move, and it actually died trying to eat the cores of its defeated enemies, in other words there was no winner, they just mutually destroyed.
"Absorbing that black fog into their bodies made them go crazy, it feels slightly to your murderous aura, but weaker", mumbled Aria whose face was resting against Aster's chest.
Aster nodded, that black fog was corrupted yin energy, probably the moons in the sky were being manipulated by eighter the Law Integration spirit beasts or the Glacial Liger, so now the yin being radiated by them wasn't pure anymore.
A strange scene then unfolded in front of them, first the black fog in the vicinity disappeared, at the same time the corpses of the Genesis Manifestation spirit beasts turned into black ashes.
But at the same time, the black fog disappeared from the vicinity and the area was cleansed from any of its influence, even the ground returned to a brown color instead of the previous black color.
But that wasn't all, Aster saw that the crystal trees suddenly started glowing in intervals, it was as if they were communicating between each other, after a couple of seconds the trees started trembling, they actually parted way to create a small path.
Some of the roots of the trees then approached the yang barrier made by Eris, but stayed outside as if they were waiting to be invited.
"Now that is something that you don't see every day", said Eris, she turned to see Aster as if she was asking for his opinion and after seeing him nod, she beckoned and a small aperture was opened in the yang barrier.
The largest root entered though the breach in the barrier and approached Eris, surprisingly, runes appeared on the root, the crystal trees were trying to communicate with them.
Eris read the runes and then translated for the others, since they were actually divine runes, not used for a formation but just as a language.
Apparently, the crystal trees were formed by the combination of the vegetation that was native of this secret realm from the very beginning and the dust resulted from the yang chain links which were destroyed after the final battle led by the Blood Despair Sovereign.
"They are somewhat similar to the result of my formations combined with my wood element, but after all these years they had developed "conscience", their task is to keep the prisoner as well as the yin spirit beasts in check, so that it won't escape", she said.
The tree root then turned to "see" Aster, and more runes appeared in its bark, before Eris continued acting as the mediator.
"They say that out of the three formation points, two are being besieged by the spirit beasts which cut the connection creating the eclipse by controlling the moons thanks to yin chain links which were absorbed by them".
"And since they have seen we possess a yang chain link, and can use it, they want to invite us to the remaining central point to discuss the possibility of working together, whether we go with them or not, they promise to not attack us as long as we don't attack them, but they won't help us too".
Aster raised an eyebrow, apparently this time he did meet a plant who has gained wisdom, which isn't that uncommon in the Divine Firmaments from which this secret realm descends.
'An enemy of an enemy is an ally huh', he thought, there is only one problem here, will the trees sit still when they realize he is planning to take the Glacial Liger and collapse this place.
There is a high chance that both the trees and the spirit beasts end up being his enemies, but for that same reason this chance to go to one of the main points of the formation, which also a base of some kind for the trees, without having to fight a way to it, is quite tempting.
If he deems the trees to be an obstacle, he can kill the conscience with annihilation and then take over the control with Eris's help.
"How can I trust what they say?", asked Aster to Eris, to which the root answered in runes, which Eris then read.
"Soul Oath, it says it will make a Soul Oath to not attack us unless it is provoked, anything past that will depend on whether we want to help or not".
Aster nodded, the tree isn't stupid, it probably deemed Aster to be dangerous to have as an enemy, so it's trying to woo him in to its side, at the very least it is willing to ignore his presence and let him do as he please as long as he doesn't attack the trees.
"Fine, tell it I accept to visit the main point of the formation", said Aster.
Eris nodded and then the tree root lit up, the strange scene of a plant doing a Soul Oath took the girls by surprise, Aster's eyes changed into those of a dragon as he made sure that they weren't being tricked.
Since the oath was true, then Aster gave the greenlight and Eris dispelled the yang barrier, he kept the chain link in the mind space just in case the trees tried to play come tricks, also the girls remained together, at the first sign of hostility they will retaliate with lethal force.
The tree root then guided Aster and the girls through the path that the trees opened, the trees on the edge were numerous but they were relatively weak compared to the magic beasts.
But as they deepened into the path that opened for them, the number of trees diminished but the aura they were exuding increased, they were all radiating small quantities of yang energy to keep the yin spirit beasts aways.
Though it seemed like there were still numerous trees, there were just a few whose branches and secondary bodies, filled the area, but they were a sole entity.
The scenery remained the same for around half an hour, until they finally reached an open space, well open in every direction but above, he finally understood why the treetop was a dome-like structure, what lied ahead of them was a castle surrounding a huge tree that reached the sky, its top was connected to the rest of the crystal trees, forming the dome.
Camila's eyes glowed, she pointed at the highest part of the tree as she said.
"Aster, I can feel a similar but stronger treasure to that chain link there!".
Aster nodded, he could see the insane amount of yang gathered in that area, that huge tree was supplying yang to the rest of the forest now that the two of the suns were blocked by the moons.
'Oh, so each central point is linked to one of the suns', he thought.
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