While Erick was being scolded by his mother probably because he escaped to venture outside of the sect, Aster inspected the newcomers.
Erick’s father was easy to spot, he was basically an older version of Erick, a tall bulky man with short brown hair and beard, the most surprising thing was that he was an early-stage Star Tribulation cultivator now, which meant that in three years he broke through from the middle stage of the Stellar Axys realm.
The man seemed to notice Aster’s gaze, he turned to see them and although he didn’t know Aster’s appearance, he immediately recognized Lilia, which made him put on a slightly stiff expression.
All the current heads of the important families in the Rodia star cluster knew about Lilia, she used to be the dream of everyone when they were younger, of course most of them realized she was out of their leagues and simply gave up, with the exception of Isaac, but the fact remained that they knew she was way stronger than anyone.
Even after getting into contact with his current wife and her sect, he could somehow feel that Lilia was still stronger than Tanner.
“Ahem, brat are you not going to introduce your friends to us”, he said as he cleared his throat, although it was impossible to not remember Lilia after seeing her once, he never approached her at the few times when they met back then, so they were complete strangers.
Erick thanked the heavens that his father gave him a way out of his mother’s nagging, he approached Aster and smacked his shoulder as he introduced his parents to him.
“Brother Aster, this is my father Baron Asher, the patriarch of my Asher family, although most of the work is done by my uncle Egil”.
Baron was about to offer Aster a handshake when he heard his son throwing dirt on him, which made him inwardly curse, still he knew his son’s personality so he feigned ignorance as he presented himself.
“Erick has told me a lot about his “brother”, it’s a pleasure to meet the young master of the Wolfstein family in person”.
Aster accepted the handshake as he answered.
“Same here, just call me Aster, Erick is a friend of mine so there is no need for formalities”.
While Baron had a hard time accepting calling the son of the strongest person he has ever seen, directly by his name, Erick laughed as he dragged Aster towards his mother.
“I told you dad, brother is like me, we both hate complicated stuff HAHAHA”.
“Here brother, she is my mom, Felicia Garland, she is a relative of my master, so we are like a big family”.
Aster inspected the woman in front of him, unlike Erick or his father, Felicia didn’t have a tall or muscular build, she was average reaching about 1.7 meters and had a slim constitution, her hair which reached down her waist had an ash gray tone and her eyes had a yellowish honey color, something interesting considering all the people in this place had dark colored hair either brown or black, she was also a Star Tribulation but unlike her husband, she was at the peak stage.
Felicia noticed her husband’s weird behavior and she raised an eyebrow, but it didn’t last long before remembered the story of a certain “Goddess” which supposedly arrived at the Rodia star cluster, still she honestly greeted both Aster and Lilia
“My son’s friends are always welcomed, that lady over there must be miss Lilia, please feel at home while you are here”.
Baron nearly choked with what he was about to say, his wife read him like a book, also his expression made Aster notice Erick’s mother had quite a strong personality, despite her gentle appearance.
‘I guess that’s why Sofia managed to tame Erick’, thought Aster as he chuckled.
As for Lilia she limited to nod, as she smiled behind her veil.
“It’s a pleasure, you can call me Lilia, my darling rarely recognizes someone as his friend, so this is quite a happy occasion”.
Both mothers seemed to get along quite easily, which surprised not only Baron but even Aster, still now that the presentations were over, Aster asked what was happening, since he could feel Alice’s spirit energy running wild from time to time in the middle of the crowd.
“Uncle Baron, can you tell us what is happening… one of the two sources of spirit energy is my older sister, is there some kind of misunderstanding?”.
Baron bitterly smiled, although he thought the young girl which was arguing with his daughter was somewhat similar to Lilia, her hair wasn’t black so he discarded his supposition, but it turned out to be true.
“There is no need to worry, those two little girls seemed to enter into some kind of argue over some trivial matters and decided to solve it through the way of the Barbarian Heart sect… a competition of strength, it’s not a true fight so there is no problem”, said Felicia as she giggled.
Aster didn’t know whether he should laugh or cry, he specifically told the girls to not cause any troubles and not even half an hour later, Alice was already fighting with someone.
‘I guess I should have expected it from sis’, he thought as he walked through the crowd, followed by Erick, at first the people didn’t move aside, until Aster leaked some of his spirit presume making the disciple of the Barbarian Heart sect feel as if they were spotted by some kind of dangerous spirit beast.
Luckily, they recognized Erick and thought it was him, so instead of feeling offended, they were proud that their young master seemed to have gained a better control over his special boy constitution.
Once Aster reached the center of the crowd, he saw a small platform made out of some kind of black mineral, there were some seats around it on which Aria and the other girls were sitting enjoying the “show”.
On the platform a white-yellow and a dark-red shadow were clashing from time to time creating shockwaves, followed by the sound of metals colliding, after a couple of rounds the figures stopped revealing two girls, one had light brown hair, red eyes and was wearing a red get up with some black metal ornaments.
The other one was a bit taller, she had long hair which started black but lightened at the ends reaching a similar tone to Felicia’s, her eyes were of a dark yellow tone similar to the ones of a wolf, as for her get up, she wore a black combat suit which adjusted to her lower body, and a long white and blue blouse, over that she used an armor made out plaques of some kind of spirit beast which protected her upper body, arms, hands, neck and hips.
Aster turned to see Erick which scratched the back of his head as nodded.
“The one fighting with sister Alice, is my older sister Tiana Asher, brother let’s interrupt them before…”.
Before Erick could finish speaking, Aster saw Erick’s sister taking out a large spear which immediately exploded with a white-yellow light.
Alice softly snorted as she drew out her sword which was covered in dark flames.
“Beat her sister Alice… wuuh!”.
Kana which was cheering from the seats was suddenly interrupted, when Aster gently pulled on her cheek.
“You little girl, why are you adding more fuel to the fire”, mumbled Aster as he played with Kana’s soft cheeks, although it was meant to be a “punishment”, Kana instead seemed to enjoy it, making Aster chuckle as he interrogated the others.
“Didn’t I say to not cause troubles, why didn’t you stop Alice?”.
The girls stared at each other, until Aria took the initiative to explain.
“The dragon princess found a certain material in one of the street stands, she wanted to buy it, but the guy who owned it said that someone paid a third of the cost to book it, she offered thrice the price and the seller accepted, but then that girl arrived, you can imagine the rest”.
Aria doubted for a second before she continued.
“I don’t know who she is, but in terms of battle prowess I don’t think she loses to me, and she is also a dual path… body/soul cultivator”.
“And that’s not all, just like that boy, she also has a body constitution… but I don’t I don’t know what it is, nothing I have heard off before, darling”, added Lilia as she arrived next to them.
What caught Aster’s interest was that she practiced body cultivation as her base, something he hasn’t seen anyone do, so far, although he still hasn’t asked the twins how they cultivated, and that wasn’t all, but she actually gave up on the energy path for the soul path which is incomplete in this plane of existence.
“Haaa!”, Aster came out of his daze as he heard to girls shouting at the same time, then everyone covered their eyes due to a dazzling white flash which was produced as Tiana’s spear and Alice’s sword clashed.
“Mm?”, Tiana frowned, she didn’t feel the drawback from the clash running through her spear, which shouldn’t be possible as the other party had an incredibly high physical strength.
Alice on the other hand knew what was happening, she slowly turned to see the seats near the border of the platform and saw her brother’s gaze piercing her like an arrow, which made her ass twitch a bit, knowing she’ll receive some “punishment” later.
When the white flash dimmed, Aster dispelled the giant golden armored hands of the paragon body, which he used to prevent Alice and Tiana’s weapons from clashing.
While most of the people were blinded and didn’t see the manifestation of the paragon body, besides the girls, Baron, Felicia, Ritz and Tiana also saw it, Ritz was the less surprised as he has seen Aster smashing cultivators on the star tribulation realm against the ground back at Riga.
Baron also has heard some stories from his son, but he thought there were some exaggerations mixed in between, as for Felicia, her eyes seemed to glow with interest as she evaluated Aster.
‘Judging by his appearance and his aura, he should be younger than what he looks and yet… he easily contained not only Tiana’s but even that girl’s attack at the same time’, she thought.