While Aster and the girls were having a nice rest… some more than others, at another part of the forest, on the middle area to be more accurate the situation wasn't as enjoyable.
Besides the around eight thousand survivors from the original batch of participants, around three thousand cultivators on the Genesis Manifestation realm and a small number of other random cultivators in the Mortal Transcending or Sea of Knowledge entered on the second batch.
For a total of more than ten thousand cultivators, a force worthy of reckon, specially because the ones who entered aren't average cultivators, but the most outstanding elders in their respective realm from their respective forces.
Though the vast majority could only cross some minor realms, there was a core of people that could fight at the early-stage Void Manipulation level, not to mention the ones from the four bigger forces which attended this time, besides the Myriad Occupation sect of course.
The Pleasure Palace, Marsh Domain, Steel Tower sect in other words the locals, as well as the "guests" from the Castle Armored sect, whose elders this time were specially prepared by their respective forces for face's sake.
Being able to individually match a peak Void Manipulation enemy, for the first three forces, while the elder from the Castle Armored sect whose surname is actually the same as the name of a high ranked Stellar System
Kasteel as in the Kasteel Stellar System which is in the top ten within the Dragon Legacy Heavenly Quadrant, actually exuded an even stronger aura, though from a secondary family, it was assigned to this mission by the young master of the Castle Armored sect in person, to make sure everything went well.
And yet that group had now reduced in half, mostly the members of the young generations were the ones that died, when a large armies of spirit beasts appeared in front and behind of them, a fierce fight started.
The groups from the big four easily made a way for themselves, but they naturally didn't help the others, unless they accepted to serve their respective forces, it was literally kicking someone when they are down, but what could they do when the other option was ending on the stomach of the spirit beasts who seemed to have gone crazy and were destroying in their path.
Some groups refused at first and formed a temporal alliance to open up a path for themselves, but their alliance crumbled when four Void Manipulation realm beasts appeared all of a sudden.
Those beasts weren't out of control like the other ones, in fact they were quite smart, since they first aimed at the weak group, among the group that didn't accept to become subordinates of the big four, there were a small group of four that could fight with early-stage Void Manipulation enemies.
The problem is that the beasts were all middle stage Void Manipulation realm and with the boosting effect of the moons, their strength almost reached the high stage, so it was a one-sided massacre.
When the tree falls the monkeys scatter, so after seeing the strongest ones in their group being effortlessly killed, the others tried to seek refuge in the groups of the big four, but they weren't taken in, with some exceptions, like some men and women with decent looks by the two elders of the Pleasure Palace, some lucky people who had poison related affinities by the masked elder of the Marsh Domain, some pretty girls by Patrick's request to the elder of the Castle Armored sect saying they were "offerings" for the young master, just in case, and a small group that is subordinated to the Fritz, but didn't want to give up the resources they had found.
Only then, the strong elders acted and killed the Void Manipulation beasts, the battle took them a couple of hours since they didn't want to use too much spirit energy and kept a low consumption just in case, which caused a lot of collateral damage, including the lives of some of the newly joined guys.
But ultimately, they won and didn't suffer any wounds, they also eliminated the whole army of Genesis Manifestation beasts and then kept their yin accumulation crystals and beast cores respectively, for themselves, making a little fortune on the spot.
Some of the people related to the ones who died as collateral damage had grim expressions when they heard why those five let the others die, even if they could have easily saved them.
"They were just dead weight, who didn't know their place, from the very beginning they should have just offered what they had in exchange for their lives, but they decided to be arrogant while being weak, it was normal for them to be killed".
After saying that the five strongest elders divided the rings of the dead people in five parts, and left the corpses there before they left this part of the forest.
Angry or outraged, the ones related to the death kept the corpses in their rings, after being robbed of all the other contents and followed in silent.
Naturally the representatives of the big four groups were in cloud nine, well all of them besides the guy from the Pleasure Palace who was completely alone now.
"Elder Ray, Lady Dorothy, we must leave this place now, if we stay, we will all die, the thing which killed two of my companions controlled the strongest yin energy I have ever seen… in terms of realm it wasn't as strong as the Patriarch, but that yin corroded my two companions despite their high resistance towards yin thanks to the peak Stellar grade manual they we reusing!", he shouted with an altered expression, it is clear that the things he experienced in the tomb of the evil spirit hit him hard.
"How unsightly, a coward doesn't deserve any partners, get lost", the female elder slapped the disciple making him fly a few meters, by the time it landed he was dead.
"It was just a distant relative of the patriarch, but just an inner disciple, with so many offspring no one notice if one trash dies anyway, at the very least I won two new cuties to warm my bed", said the male elder as he wrapped his arms around the two outer elders who once were accompanying the now dead disciple from the Pleasure Palace.
The other three strongest elders didn't pay attention to the drama, in the Pleasure Palace unless you were outstanding, it was normal to get your partner stolen one way or another, those two women saw the chance to get in the bed of a core elder and they took it on the spot.
The masked elder from the Marsh Domain still softly snorted as he said with a mocking voice.
"And they call us poisonous, fucking whores".
The elder from the Castle Armored sect suddenly stopped walking, it's not like he wanted to join those people from inferior places, but because there was a strong presence ahead of them.
The other elders also noticed the newcomers and they came out of their respective groups to confront them.
"Tsk, more Void Manipulation spirit beasts, there must be some really good treasures deep into the forest to have been nurtured so many of them", said the masked elder.
"Kiki, humans killed our explorers".
"H…umans strong".
"Grhghg I smell food".
"Scree, there is blood in the wind".
The five elders frowned, the beasts that just appeared were different, instead of the huge bodies that normally spirit beasts have, these four recently arrived beasts were smaller, in the same order, there was a two-meter ape with gray hair, a blue tongued lizard with a bump in its forehead, a two-meter centipede and lastly a human sized swallow.
The ape who was the one who could articulate words better left the group and then said.
"Humans, you are strong, our pack leaders asked to look for the ones that killed a group of our strong comrades, follow us we have an offer for you".
The masked elder snorted and then a dark green mist leaked out of his body.
"A monkey dares to demand something from this senior, become organic waste for my poisonous marsh!".
"Booom!", but then, the centipede spat a purple cloud from its snout and the two attacks cancelled mutually, the surrounding land on the other hand wasn't so lucky, the earth actually melted into a sticky solution and even the nearby crystal trees weren't able to resist the corrosion and were destroyed.
The masked elder prepared to release his Genesis Core, since these enemies were clearly on another level compared to the previous beasts, the ape was preparing to do the same since he was attacked a second ago, but the monitor lizard who was the second with the better capacity to speak, stopped it, at the same time the elder from the Castle Armored sect extended his hand and stopped the masked elder.
"Enough", they both said.
The masked elder slapped the hand of the elder of the Castle Armored sect away, his spirit pressure exploded out of his body.
"I'm not one of your lapdogs, if you get in my way, I'll kill you", he coldly said.
The atmosphere tensed up on the spot, in terms of head on combat, probably those two were the strongest on the group, the elder from the Steel Tower sect, which is actually a cousin of the patriarch, yelled.
"Hey, who are you calling lapdogs you poisonous bastard, isn't your Marsh bullshit allied with the Rimar Stellar System, who are you trying to fool here".
The masked elder snorted.
"Yes, but we are allies with a contract, our young master genuinely joined them and is now on the top of the new core disciples, we didn't beg for it!".
The spirit beasts each seemed to have selected the one to whom they wanted to talk, and the temporal truce between the human cultivators had also come to an end.
And so, the groups separated, the masked elder found interesting the poisonous ability of the centipede so he went with it, the elder from the Castle Armored sect chose to go with the ape, since he recognized it as the superior beast in the group, the couple of elders from the Pleasure Palace went with the monitor lizard and lastly the Fritz elder actually didn't follow the people of the Castle Armored sect but chose to go with the swallow.
Unfortunately for the survivors their numbers reduced one more time, since some didn't want to work with the spirit beasts that killed and devoured their companions, and now there was only four thousand of them, a thousand per group.
The Fritz elder wanted to use this opportunity to get rid of a nuisance to their plans, but no matter how much he looked for the gray-haired girl, in other words the gatekeeper of the Silicon Forest, she was gone.
'Tsk, that bitch left without anyone noticing, I wanted to get the information she got from that old man who found the flower back then… it took us so much resources to kill him in a way that looked natural, so we could use that flower for the sake of our sect, and she dared to accuse the patriarch in front of everyone, making the clan head fight with the patriarch', he thought.
And so, different conversations were held by the four different armies of spirit beasts and the big four groups that were left, what the beast didn't take into account was that the clash between the centipede and the masked elder, drew the attention of the Yang Runic Oak.
High ranked Void Manipulation level fights aren't supposed appear in the middle area of the forest after all, without the beasts noticing, some runes appeared on the crystals of the nearby trees and the whole scene was observed by the Runic Oak.
"So, what do you say human, you help us kill the others, including those disgusting trees, we will give you resources from the forest and a third of the possessions of other humans, we can help you get rid of that masked bastard too", said the ape to the elder from the Castle Armored sect.
The elder nodded but before sealing the deal, he added.
"Make it half and half, also I want to talk with your boss, my sect has Heavenly realm experts, so don't even think on trying to pull any tricks, unless you want to be annihilated that is", said the elder from the Castle Armored sect.
The ape's eyes glowed with cunningness as it nodded.
"Sure, half and half it is, you are the strongest in the group after all", said the ape, but inwardly he had other plans.
'So, what, if our boss manages to devour that spirit ice, his lineage will evolve to a whole new level, forget about the Heavenly Realms you idolize so much, we'll be able to go to the stars like our ancestors', it thought.
Similar conversations happened with the others, with different conditions and rewards, each army got to make an alliance with one of the four groups, ironically this happened not because of the explorers that were killed earlier.
But because the beasts that Aster's group got rid of, the four Law Integration spirit beasts were able to feel when their strong subordinates died, they haven't left the baes for too long and were exterminated in less than thirty minutes, such strength gave them a bad premonition.
That's why thinking the responsible were the four groups, they ordered their seconds in command to make an alliance with them, humans were greedy by nature, they just had to offer the proper price and that was it.
And the pan worked perfectly, with the only problem that the Runic Oak was one step ahead of them, having formed an alliance with the ones that made the spirit beast felt threatened.
Now that the sides were defined, it was time for the confrontations to start, with the guide of the spirit beasts, each group took their own path towards the center of the forest, more specifically to where the two main nodes that were isolated resided, they had to cross the yin black stone wall still, so it was going to take them a few hours to get to their destination.
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