While Aster was ascending through the sky to go and see how was Sylas’s fight going, inside the wind wall created by Sarina Lyre had lifeless expression, a moment ago she felt her “lover” die and her last chance of escaping died along with him.
Not only that, although she didn’t see how Aster killed him, she did see him flying towards the clouds so it was easy to understand what was going to happen, their mission utterly failed, just because Robert felt jealousy of a kid that was going to see the naked body of Sarina which he hasn’t got even a slight glimpse before.
At this point her mental state was unstable, she kept mumbling a lot of nonsense that Sarina couldn’t understand but there were some things that she could.
“Where did that monster come from? 15 years of my life wasted in this stupid place, just opening my legs to that useless excuse of an archduke and some random kid suddenly appears and destroys my plan, you have to be kidding me!!!”, she yelled.
Sarina shook her head, “it seems that Robert was an asshole from the very beginning and here I thought he might have change along the way”.
Kana was 12 years old this year, so taking into account the fact that she only fulfilled her duties as a newlywed wife in the wedding night once, then Robert knew Lyre more or less four years before Kana was born, so he was already allied with Riga at that point.
Seeing Aster disappear into the clouds, Lyre gritted her teeth, she took out a black pill and swallowed it, her body started withering until her skin was basically stuck to her bones, she looked like corpse, her eye sockets were empty but she still pointed at Sarina.
“At the very least, you will go down with me, the only reason I can find for that monstrous kid to help, is that he has taken a liking to you, so this will be my parting gift… my father will avenge my, Luonto has its days counted!!!”.
After saying that her body exploded into a black and red mist, no matter how much Sarina tried to dispel the mist with her wind, the thing didn’t go away, she started flying to avoid it but it seemed like she was locked as the target because it followed her.
“What the hell, I have heard of the red poison mist which appears when these lunatics suicide, but no one has said that it follows you… that black tone is the same as the thing she tried to use to ruin my face before”, she thought.
Today Sarina has witnessed a lot of things that had no precedent, Robert becoming something that looked like a corrupted, the weird living black liquid that Lyre used and the new suiciding pill she used to leave behind this black-red mist who was following her right now.
After almost 10 minutes Sarina managed to disperse some of the red mist, but she was also touched by it which finally did put an end to the situation, as if the mist understood it had fulfilled its purpose it disappeared after “infecting” Sarina.
Unfortunately for Lyre, after using two dosages of Aster’s blood as antidote, her body had gained some resistance against poison so Sarina only did a small cut in her left wrist where the poisonous mist touched her and after bleeding a couple of drops of black blood which contained the poison her blood returned to the normal red color, and the affected area also changed back to the normal pale color of her skin, instead of the blackish tone that indicated the infection.
She carefully kept the drops of infected blood in a bottle.
“I bet that old woman will have a lot of fun analyzing this new thing the Riga guys have developed”.
Sarina smiled seeing that the fire in the capital was finally disappearing, the soldiers were patrolling the streets and people were gathering in safe areas, compared to what could have happened if Aster wouldn’t have appeared in her life, the result was extremely better.
She was specially amazed by the effectiveness of the elixir he gave her, most of the strong cultivators from Riga incorporated poison in their spirit techniques, just like Lyre used the essence from Robert to create her lust poison, the other cultivation manuals used by them inclined to the way of a poison master.
That’s why she found amusing that Aster seemed to be a perfect counter for them, his flames made him immune to corruption and he had this elixir which made their poison basically useless.
“They should choose their opponents more wisely next time”, she mumbled before descending next to Alice and Kana.
As soon as her feet touched the ground Kana left the barrier and hugged her mother, contrary to what Sarina expected, her daughter seemed to be excited instead of sad, as if all her worries disappeared for some magic reason.
“Mom!!! did you know big brother Aster is the golden knight?”.
Sarina laughed, she understood why her daughter was acting like that, although it was for a short period of time, she saw Aster using some kind of golden armor which to be honest made him look quite gallant in her eyes and it seems her daughter thought the same.
She patted Kana’s head while smiling.
“I didn’t know it when I met him, but yes your big brother seems to be a descendant of the golden knight”.
Alice had a weird expression in her face, “Personally I wouldn’t use the word “knight”, to describe him… but he does certainty look quite nice using the paragon body, it’s something that he got thanks to my love after all”, she thought.
Unlike what was happening in the ground where the girls were discussing about such mundane things, above the clouds there was a completely different scene, when Aster was going upwards, he felt something blocking his way as if a thin layer of wind was separating the sky below the clouds to the one that was above them.
Of course, that wasn’t enough to block his path, with only a swing of his sword a breach temporarily opened and he was able to keep advancing, once he left the area where his vision was obstructed by the clouds, he saw two things.
First that the layer of wind that blocked his path previously extended all the way within his line of sight and secondly, he saw Sylas having a fierce battle with the black robed man, each time their weapons collided a strong shockwave will send huge gusts of wind a black smoke flying in all directions, only to be contained by the layer of wind that was attached to the clouds.
It was clear that Sylas was not only fighting against the man, but he was also protecting the civilians in the capital from all the black smoke.
The black robed man laughed out loud seeing the couple of wounds in Sylas’s body from which black smoke was pouring out, compared to the single wound affecting his body.
“Perhaps fate is quite unfair, to think that the great “Luonto’s sword” general, known by inducing fear in the border is going to die so ungraciously just because of protecting some commoners and that excuse of a king that is in charge since the death of the previous one”.
Sylas spat a mouthful of blood, he smiled while directing his gaze towards a certain direction.
“All is fair in war, but that goes in both ways… wouldn’t you agree kid?”.
A third voice joined the conversation.
“Come on, I was about to finish that bastard to wrap things up, what is the meaning of this old man”, said Aster.
A moment ago, he was preparing a surprise attack to finish the black robed man when Sylas suddenly spoke.
Sylas laughed.
“Let this old man have some fun, how about you take care of the consequences of the battle for me, so I can finally start fighting seriously”, he said.
Aster sighed; blue flames covered all the clouds in a huge extension of the sky.
“Fight to your heart’s content, but finish it soon, you are the only one left”.
The black robed man finally couldn’t keep silent.
“What the hell do you mean by that… no wait first than anything who are you, how is a mere elemental core kid flying?”.
Aster shook his head with a ridiculing smile.
“Dead people don’t need answers”.
The old man was about to argue when all his senses screamed, but before he could react a green spear with wind rotating at an incredible speed on its tip, pierced his chest.
*BLEGH*.
The impact destroyed a big part of the black robed man’s chest and made him vomit blood combined with little pieces of his internal organs, he tried to speak but another spear pierced his mouth putting an end to his life.
Sylas stretched his arms.
“This guy was too green to be a black general, the only reason as to why he was alive was because it kept spreading that disgusting black smoke which I haven’t seen before in every direction… if it weren’t for you using those flames to block it, it would have taken me more time to kill him”.
The corpse of the old man didn’t fell as it was being held by the spirit energy of Sylas, he waved his hand and kept it in his spatial ring.
Seeing Aster’s confused expression, Sylas laughed.
“It’s a gift for an old friend, she will analyze this guy to see what the hell was that black smoke, seems like the Riga continent has advanced while we were fooling around, this time if it weren’t for you, the capital would have suffered a calamity”.
Sylas doubted a second before continuing.
“I don’t know where you come from kid, but you have done enough to be considered a hero in Luonto, you even look like the golden knight, I bet Kana is going to cling to you a lot from now and onwards, so treat her well hahaha”.
Aster sighed.
“Let’s not speak about that, for now how about we finally take a break… we might need to talk about something but it can wait until tomorrow”.
Even if his reserves annihilation were practically endless due to Hyperion, his spirit energy did have a limit and he still hasn’t gotten any rest since he arrived to this planet, although depending on how things with Alice went later, he might not get any rest anyway.