?chapter 653 is chaos better than order? (part 8)

    it was as if time had stopped for matt, his body was completely immobilized and his mind was slowed down to the point that it took him a few seconds to realize what had happened to him.

    ''t-this bitch poisoned me, but how?, he inwardly screamed as he actually burned his lifespan to force yang radiance to activate as a last resort to get out of the frozen state that was assaulting him.

    yang radiance is a technique that can use both the reserves of yang in a cultivator''s body and their as fuel, those two are replenishable up to a certain point, however it can also burn one''s lifespan to get a stronger burst, it is quite a versatile technique as it has many different uses despite its high cost.

    in this case, matt focused on the cleansing effect of yang to break out of paralyzing status that was afflicting him and it worked.

    "i won''t die in such a stupid way!", he shouted as he took a green pill out of his robes to then swallow it whole, what followed was his body glowing in a green light and he deactivating his yang radiance.

    "phew", letting out a sigh of relief, matt''s expression twisted as he cruelly glared at the blond little girl, wishing to rip her apart over the near-death experience he just had, just to see that she... wasn''t even looking in his direction.

    "heh, all that talk about not getting distracted in a fight, just to be stupidly enthralled with that monstrous bastard, was what he thought, unaware that it was the last action of his life.

    while the lights went out for matt without him even noticing it, the scene was different for the little girl and anyone who was observing the fight, like matt''s uncle a middle-aged man from the pleasure palace wearing yellow robes and the badge akin to an inner elder from his sect.

    from his point of view, matt''s skin turned purple, he stopped blinking and then foam came out of his mouth before he fell from the sky, the worst part is that he didn''t even seem to register the fact that he was dying.

    needless to say, but the elder was trembling due to anger, but before he could even think on trying to retaliate a huge pressure fell on him, like a bucket of cold water, making the elder look at his right where agnes whose eyes locked him for a split of a second, made his back drench in cold sweat.

    "tsk", clicking his tongue to hide the embarrassment brought by being intimidated by a girl younger than him, who was also a peak genesis manifestation cultivator like him, the elder focused on the battlefield where his nephew died just for him to clench his hands upon the sight of... the spatial ring on matt''s hand flying towards the hand of the little girl.

    kana extended her hand and grabbed the ring to then inspect it with her spirit sense before nodding to then mumble.

    "mm, there isn''t any "bad stuff" attached to it so according to big brother i can keep it for now and ask him or sister eris to break the lock later".

    kana then felt a familiar gaze on her and cutely giggled to her insides.

    hehe, i bet big brother will be happy to see the result of our lessons and my secret training, happily thought the little girl as she kept the ring in her pocket.

    normally spatial rings block themselves when their owner dies, that is the most spread safety measure used on them, for the average ones at least, however personalized ones might have tracking formations, which most cultivators forget when plundering the spoils of war.

    so, naturally aster taught the little girl to always look for "bad stuff" when taking things from "strangers", before teaching her to loot her enemies, as for the unlocking part, she had to take it to him or eris and never try to open them by herself.

    not because she might screw up and destroy the contents, aster didn''t care if she blew up mountains of resources if that helped her obtain the ability to crack up locked spatial rings, but because there might be some stuff in those rings which he didn''t want the little girl to find.

    it might seem weird that he was so protective, given that he taught the little girl to kill and rob enemies, but there were some sick bastards out there with really dark stuff in their rings, like those coffins which drained people alive to then be used as resources for some evil technique or whatever, he found in the rings of those bandits back then. and the little girl didn''t have the need to see that, with knowing that there were bad people from whom she should protect herself in every aspect was enough for now, aster would take care of the rest so that kana''s gentle heart could remain untainted. speaking of aster, he couldn''t help but laugh at the happy smiling expression on kana''s face as she discovered him paying special attention to her fight.

    ''even i didn''t expect her to use the "gathering arrow" like that, he thought. that arrow with a drill shaped tip, was also one of the ten designs he created for kana, but unlike the other nine, it was used for training, basically its function was to create currents of wind by gathering wind spirit energy from the atmosphere, which then had to be controlled by the little girl, it was a part of her training to get closer to wind. in case you wonder how did that kill matt in such a way, that is because kana added esmeralda''s fragrant wind to the technique, she used to take advantage of its special property, which is the capacity to blow away any toxins and impurities.

    the little girl made that huge cyclone was mostly created with the wind spirit energy gathered by the arrow to draw in all the leftover particles of poison and poison spirit

    energy in the surroundings which are normally harmless in low concentrations after a poison cultivator... like the hundreds of people from the marsh domain fighting in the vicinity, use.

    naturally let alone them, just the remains of vivian''s poisons even in small amounts would have of course made the danger alarm ring on a cultivator''s mind, but this is

    where fragrant wind came in.

    kana created a secondary layer with fragrant wind to contain all the poison and kept it separated from the outer cyclone otherwise the thing would have been not painted in a plethora of colors like vivian''s heart, but also it would have radiated an incredibly poisonous aura.

    and with that, the attack bypassed matt''s senses, allowing the little girl to shower him with all that concentrated poison, she released the fragrant wind so fast that the enemy didn''t notice it and there were so many poisons combined that it a second for all of them to take effect, hence why he even had a chance to drink an antidote, unfortunately that only solved less than a tenth part of the poisons that caused his death.

    but if you think that the previous is the most notorious part about how kana won her fight you are wrong, the end was of course perfect but aster was more impressed by

    the process.

    ''she stablished the fact that she was faster in the mind of the enemy, tricked him to pay attention to the wrong part of the arrow making him change to close combat, to then land a heavy attack that proved she wasn''t weak in close range combat either, which made him go for middle range energy based fight that wasted his spirit energy reserves and lastly used the previously instilled "wariness" to the arrow obtained thanks to the bombardment arrow, so that he would dodge instead of interfering with the gathering arrow''s function, not to mention she simply absorbed back the fragrant wind which means she preserved most of her energy reserves!

    each step she took led to the next one, she even took into account the smallest details, for example the fact that as a right-handed person, something that kana learned by seeing with which hand matt wielded his sword, he would pay more attention to his left side as that''s where his defense would normally be weaker, and taking advantage of that she choose to attack him from the right when they were clashing up close.

    what''s more it didn''t end there, she aimed her punch at a part where the body is weaker but that aren''t normally targeted due to the lack of chances for a fatal blow, the sides which aren''t protected by bones but don''t align with a vital point. though for humans practically any wound to the organs might be fatal, for cultivators that''s not the case, anything that doesn''t cause an insta-kill in other words the heart and head for the flesh and the soul for the spiritual, has a chance of survivability, even if they are cut in half horizontally of course, if their vitality is strong enough, they can

    be survive if they are patched up in time.

    wickedly smiled feeling his though not overflowing, still unusually strong yang energy, despite his relatively low realm compared to theirs.

    the dark blue haired captain was a peak star tribulation, the second in command an

    early stage one and the other two were peak star axys all cultivated in the energy path mainly and had the body as their secondary one, while eric is "just" an early-stage star axys cultivator, though his secondary path which was the body one was at the stellar constellation realm which was unusually high for being a secondary one.

    ''perhaps he''s talented in the body and that''s the cause of the unusually strong yang

    he''s got, thought jen as she said.

    "we''ll be back soon dear senior brothers", having given the order, the four girls from

    the pleasure palace flashed towards eric, but jen suddenly felt a threatening sensation which forced her to prevent her subordinates from advancing.

    she frowned after realizing that the dangerous sensation didn''t come from the enemy

    they were about to attack, but from the brown long haired girl that stood just as tall at their target, who had appeared in front of them.

    "you whores from the pleasure palace will have to fight me if you want to approach my fiance?e", said sofia making those four grit their teeth.

    being a female dual cultivator even if not from the "pure" faction, didn''t mean a girl had to be sexually active, it only meant that they didn''t keep themselves away from members of the opposite sex, in truth there are many schools of thought among female dual cultivators.

    some choose to be in contact with multiple average partners at the same time, others with a sole outstanding partner exclusively and there are also some who instead of directly obtaining yang from men through sex, instead "trick" them so that they offer it in the form of energy to them.

    by tricking, we are talking about fake love promises, seduction without getting anywhere near actual intercourse and the like, needless to say but this method is even more harmful for the male than the usual yang draining through sex.

    as not only there is zero exchange of yin with a girl, when even the most female favoring dual cultivation techniques as long as they aren''t in the evil specter, still give some small benefit for the other party, but also it requires the male to basically use

    yang radiance in a daily basis, resulting in regular weakened periods, lack of time to cultivate and even regressing realms overtime.

    it''s also worth mentioning that a large part of the girls who "dual cultivate" this way, are prompt to get triggered when lumped together not only with those that just focus on getting as many partners as possible but even when included in the sole partner

    faction.

    so, you can imagine the hostile glares sofia was receiving from them, specially since those four could feel the dubitative stares from the guys of the iron hall, who were their next victims by the way.

    ''we can''t leave this damn bitch alone with those four, she''ll ruin our plan..., thought

    jen as she visibly got angrier to then say.

    "how dare you insult us, just because you at the myriad occupation sect are stuck up bitches, doesn''t mean you can slander us, me and my sisters have never had a lover, since we didn''t find anyone that picked our interest until recently!", she shouted with

    a "honest" voice to then add.

    "senior brothers, we will take care of this fouled mouth woman, please come to help us when you kill that guy~"

    and having heard those words, sofia flashed away which forced those four to follow

    after her, leaving an eric who was scratching the back of his head still confused at what happened earlier.

    ''i hadn''t fought any dual cultivators before and was eager to fight those girls so why

    did she suddenly get in the way?", he wondered. earlier just as eric was getting excited to fight a new type of enemy, he got a "don''t

    you dare to move a single muscle" message directly to his ear, from sofia who then

    proceeded as we previously saw.

    while for others it is easy to discern that sofia didn''t want eric to fight those four knowing the kind of tactics they were going to use against him, for eric it isn''t, in case you haven''t noticed that battle crazed brother of tiana, practically lacks the usual lust one would expect from a "wild" looking guy as him. it was to the point that he was relatively unfazed by let alone tamara but even lilia,

    aria and the others, that doesn''t mean he isn''t attracted to women, but eric is a rather simple-minded person, whose principal and major interests are drinking and fighting, it also helped that he grew used to the beautiful women thanks to felicia and tiana,

    of course, that didn''t mean sofia believed eric would fall for their tricks easily, she simply got angry at the fact that they were openly showing an "unhealthy" interest in her fiance?e, it was an incredibly rare instance of sofia showing jealousy! "oh well, a fight is a fight, it''s also the first time i go on a mission with brother aster,

    so let''s put on a nice show, you four attack me at the same time", casually said eric at the guys from the iron hall.