The rise of the pervert primordial - Chapter 758 - 758: The third day of the development trial (part 11)

There was no time for the princesses to properly regroup this time though, Aster directly charged the moment he saw them retreating, his sword guarding everything in front of him.

Though they already expected this to happen, those two still slashed their swords trying to gain time to recover their stance, but with their hands which hadn’t recovered from the previous clash being unable to draw out as much speed as before, their slashes hit nothing but the air.

That being said, the two princesses did the smartest thing in this situation and split, jumping in opposite directions, if they had to “pay” for getting one over Aster, then the best outcome was for only one of them to take the fall.

‘Cunning girls’, amusingly thought Aster as he saw those two putting as much distance between themselves as they could with such a short notice, indeed even he couldn’t slash two enemies with so much distance between each other at mortal level with a single wood sword and that was a priceless lesson for those cute girls, whose eyes were shinning as they saw Aster giving up in chasing after Agnes to lunge at Valentina without a second of hesitation.

“Humph!”, though the purple lightning princess knew that Aster did so out of efficiency and not because she was weaker or anything of the like, Valentina still softly snorted as she twirled her body as she was reaching the ground to then release the accumulated momentum with a slash of her sword.

However, the loud clashing sound she expected to hear didn’t come this time, in fact it took her just a fraction of a second, but she realized late that Aster had gone out of her sight.

“Unlike a cultivator’s spirit sense, even if your reaction time is really good, it’s hard to cover up for the natural blind spots in your eyes”, Aster’s voice would have sounded spooky for Valentina as it came out of “nowhere”, had there not been a clear teasing tone added to it as he spoke.

The purple lightning princess realized her mistake and tried to get away but the very moment her feet applied pressure to jump out of “danger” a not so strong but also not soft, strike landed on her back.

‘Ugh!’, that wasn’t Valentina complaining due to pain, though the attack did hurt, she is not body training maniac unlike Agnes, so her body is not as tough as hers, anyway what made her complain to her insides is that Aster’s attack was a descending slash that didn’t push her away but instead aimed to force down.

In other words, Aster had adjusted the way and trajectory of his attack so that it wouldn’t create any opportunity for the purple lightning princess to take advantage of, since her amazing reaction time allowed her to make use of that to either land a hit or get away safely, so for this clash her biggest advantage had been countered, in fact Aster even used her reaction time against her this time, just like how he used Agnes’s speed against her, earlier.

‘Using simple positioning and trajectory to counter me, humph… how amazing!’, despite the previous, Valentina was actually laughing to her insides, also while she had no option but to receive her third sword mark, that didn’t mean she had thrown the towel just after having her sword reach Aster once.

“Clack!”, just as Aster’s sword was about to get to Valentina again, Agnes who had rushed back as fast as her feet allowed her to, got in the way of Aster’s slash with an attack of her own.

That was enough time for the purple lightning princess to get back on her feet, but then a bad premonition was born in her heart as she saw, the slight smirk at the corner of Aster’s mouth.

“Agnes…”, unfortunately, her warning arrived a fraction of a second too late, just like with her, Aster used one of Agnes’s advantages against her, namely her confidence in her strength.

The sportsy sun diamond princess gazed at her right hand, which faltered for a moment when Aster forcefully smacked her sword to the side, another thing that cultivators tend to ignore is how much will the counterforce of the attacks of a mortal, can affect them.

To put in simple words, the stronger the impact of your attack is, the stronger the backlash will be at the moment of clashing and Agnes went beyond and above with the attack with which she scored her point, so without she realizing her dominant hand was forced to shake for a moment.

Nothing too noticeable but just like with Valentina, the result was a third sword mark appearing on the body of the sportsy sun diamond princess as Aster slashed his sword horizontally after smacking Agnes’s sword out of the way.

Only then did the black-haired dragon youth put some distance between those two and himself, because Valentina returned to the picture and Agnes regained her composure almost instantly.

‘They really are a couple of troublesome princesses…’, thought Aster as he saw the burning fighting spirit in those two’s eyes the moment, they solidified their stances again.

He didn’t retreat to give them time to recover, but because he could tell that they were about to accept getting their fourth sword mark each, in exchange for scoring another point as well, which would have meant that they would all be at four points each since he will take twice the “damage” from that reckless tactic of theirs.

“Ahem, wasn’t it supposed to be a temporary truce?”, said Aster only for the two princesses to exchange gazes before they smiled at each other.

“We are the bad ones here, so we can settle our scores after… getting rid of the biggest threat, it’s quite a commonly seen situation, right Agnes”, said the purple lightning princess.

“Mm”, the sportsy sun diamond princess nodded in agreement, which made Aster don’t know whether he should laugh or cry, those two were surely getting into the role.

“Looks like senior brother is in trouble this time~”, all this while the girls of the sect giggled and mumbled among themselves, they were really enjoying the show and for a good reason.

Agnes and Valentina were faring way better against Aster than anyone, Aster included expected them to, it’s not like they looked down on them nor did they underestimate those two, but people didn’t expect them to adapt to mortal combat style so fast.

Which is normal, no one has ever run an event like this in the four Heavenly Quadrants, so besides Aster and his girls who have sparred with, without and even with intermittent usage of spirit energy, no one else knew that despite how great were the differences between mortal and cultivator’s fighting styles, one could trace down some concepts of cultivator’s manuals back to mortal level teachings.

Even then, realizing it and using it to their advantage were two different things, so this only talked about how smart are those two princesses and the best is that, they were passing on such important “enlightenment” as a cultivator would say, onto all those cute girls whose eyes were sparkling.

‘I’m actually starting to feel bad for the poor bastards that will be facing those girls in the first battle’, thought Aster to then say.

“Miss Valentina is right, be careful when dealing with multiple enemies so that you won’t create a situation in which they can easily decide to join hands to deal with you, even if they don’t stand at the same side”.

Since he was taking a “lose” due to those two princesses putting their competitiveness between each other aside, Aster decided to turn his “misfortune” into an important lesson for the girls of the sect.

“Let this be a warning, it’s “too late for me” but when you find yourself in this kind of situation, focus in targeting one enemy first, good deals only work between two parties who stands as equals, everything else is a bad deal and it will create discord between both parts, discord that you can use to easily destroy your enemies”, said Aster, which made those cute girls both nod and also laugh.

Aster was talking as if he was a goner since he didn’t expect those two, to be able to suppress their competitivity in order to focus exclusively on him, which by the way made Lilia laugh from within the mind space.

‘Told you darling, the younger Purple Amethyst princesses are the most rebellious~’, said the dragon mother, making Aster sigh to his insides.

‘That godmother of mine surely has some strange interests when it comes to alchemy, an elixir to suppress one’s real and rejuvenate one’s body is not that uncommon, but one that would also rejuvenate the mind… that’s just asking for trouble’, he thought.

It’s not an unheard tactic, hiring a strong assassin or mercenary, making him eat one of those elixirs or pills, which would suppress their cultivation and rejuvenate their bodies to then send them to kill a rising talent from an enemy clan or force.

The whole point of the previous is to use an experienced fighter disguised as someone from the youngest generation, to deal with an actual newbie in the cultivation world, so if the elixir used would also affect their seasoned mind state, turning it into that of an actual younger person, it would be just self-sabotage, so an elixir like that is not something that would exist out of theory and history records.

Not to mention that, these kind of alchemy products are insanely expensive even for the upper first tier forces of the high ranked stellar systems, which is why though not that obscure of a tactic, the cases of it being used are extremely rare, amusingly enough all three in Lilia’s group have an assassination attempt like that, which is why Aster’s Fey godmother probably took interest in such a thing.

‘I’ll ask her to tell you a funny story regarding that, when the time comes~’, said Lilia as she was reminded of some stuff from back then.

Back to the fight, even Agnes and Valentina couldn’t help but softly laugh at Aster’s little joke, they both had the same number of sword marks and Aster didn’t let too much time pass between each one of them getting the third one, so he indeed indirectly helped them put their own competitivity aside.

“I bet he thought we would definitely not be able to join hands~”, said Valentina, deliberatively trying to sound like a “villain”.

“Mm, Aster underestimated our “hatred” for him~”, added Agnes as she followed her cousin’s play, it shouldn’t need to be mentioned at this point, but those two surely were having a blast, especially Valentina who had become a responsible girl by the time she started spending more time with Agnes, meaning that this funny synergy between them was also a new thing for the purple lightning princess.

‘Hah, she wasn’t friendly and cheerful back then though, I was the only one crazy enough to try and get close to her outside of the people from the four rulers and top three forces back then and luckily I had tried a spirit liqueur for the first time in my life during our first meet as well…’, thought Mikaela as she gazed at Aster.

She was wondering if the black-haired youth’s presence, had an impact in her friend’s youthful episode as in it helped “tame” her wildness from back then down quite a few notches, or if maybe it was that the elixir they took, wasn’t a finished product, because she believed the Ancestor of the Alchemy peak to be perfectly capable of feeding them such a thing.

After softly laughing at those two, Aster’s lower body tensed, which Valentina noticed and immediately raised her guard up, making Agnes follow right in time for Aster to charge at them.

Naturally those two had learned from their mistakes and now knew that their biggest advantages could also be used against themselves, so their guards had improved a lot and of course they won’t fall for the same trick again, which Aster knew, so no more tricks from his side.

“Clack!”, this time Aster went after Agnes, with a heavy slash from his side, he saw the sportsy sun diamond princess blocking with the flat side of her weapon instead of countering with a slash of her own, in part due to the improved guard we were talking about and in part because her right hand still wasn’t at its hundred percent.

But Agnes isn’t fighting alone and unlike actual enemies that simply join hands out of hatred for a common target, her “villain teammate” has good coordination with her, so Aster couldn’t push through Agnes’s defense before he had to dodge to the side, in order to avoid Valentina’s ambush from behind.

What’s more, the very moment Aster moved, those two did so as well, they even zig-zagged in a try to mislead Aster with which attack would be coming for him next.

“Clack!”, to be fair those two already look rather alike and moving fast enough, it would not be a far stretch to say that they were casting an “illusion” to confuse the enemy, like previously stated those two had gained enlightenment in finding common points between their cultivator styles and the mortal ones they are training to implement.

“I actually missed who was who at least three out of ten times, without spirit sense past a certain distance it’s hard to tell when they have the same hair color, similar clothes and the same weapon, even if there is a difference in their frame, unless it’s really noticeable”, mumbled the core disciple from the Red Sword, also nicknamed “the new Iris”, Brenda.

“That’s worth taking note of, what if we face a group wearing the same armor, or even if it’s just helmets but they have similar weapons, one of the leading guys could try to slip past us and get to our little sisters”, added her counterpart from the Black Sword, Amanda.

“We could try the reverse triangular formation mentioned by miss Eris, two covering the sides of the battlefield while one guards the back”, concluded Violet, which earned her a nod of approval from those two.

‘Though I doubt “he” wouldn’t take such a thing into account’, thought the three of them as they stole a gaze in the same direction, which was where Aster had just clashed swords with Valentina this time.

And here is the interesting part, he was aiming at Agnes, but those two smart princesses changed the pattern at the last second and didn’t move to the other side, but instead charged forward.

Aster noticed midway though, and he made the adjustment to his sword’s trajectory, since that’s one of his specialties, but Valentina skillfully extended her sword in front of Aster to then twist her hand to the side in order to deviate some of the impact, essentially blocking for Agnes.

And speaking of the sportsy sun diamond princess, she of course returned the favor, her sword was fiercely slashed from below, just in time for Valentina to retrieve hers.

And that was the sound of wood clashing against wood previously described, since Valentina perfectly deviated a large part of the impact, so the sound wasn’t that loud, anyway with Agnes heavily smacking Aster’s sword upwards, Valentina aimed to make use of the opening to leave an actual slashing mark on the tease-loving black-haired youth in front of her.

Agnes even further contributed my moving as soon as she had played her previous role, to try and block Aster’s retreat, her slash had exhausted its strength anyway, so she knew that she wouldn’t be able to reach Aster in time if she transitioned her attack upwards from a descending one, not because she isn’t fast enough, but because Aster would react and be fast enough to block a secondary attack like that one, unless Valentina opened a path for her.

The purple lightning princess lowered her stance and slashed at quite the low height, aiming for Aster’s knees and shins, maybe she held a grudge for Aster’s shin being stupidly tough and making her foot numb earlier.

But then a “swoosh” instead of a “clack” was what everyone heard as Valentina’s swift slash, cut the air, as for its original target, in other words Aster’s legs, they had raised from the ground, because Aster dodged by jumping.

However, unlike all the previous times, he didn’t jump away, but just upwards, so his position was the same, albeit around half a meter above the ground compared to before.

There is a reason as to why Aster hadn’t dodged like this, being in the air is dangerous for a mortal, they can’t fly nor use spirit energy to change their position once there is no ground to act as support, so remaining in the same position while in the air makes one an easy target, that’s why he always jumped and put distance between himself and the enemy.

This time he went for this chance which he had been “saving” because Agnes while playing her part perfectly, moved to block his retreat, so for a short couple of seconds, Aster was only facing an enemy.

“Clack!”, said enemy being the purple lightning princess who saw the sword descending diagonally at her and less fluidly than it would usually be, blocked with her own sword’s flat side.

Unfortunately, though she blocked the impact preventing her sword from flying out of her hands, Aster used a variation of the simple but effective if executed properly, combos he was trying to drill into those girl’s minds to both use and be very wary of, and transitioned from a diagonal descending slash, to a frontal thrust.

Since he did so almost at the end of his slash, the tip of Aster’s sword was aimed at Valentina’s side, the purple lightning princess still managed to react and jumped backwards but… a though small, noticeable red point ended up appearing on her thigh instead.

“Damn”, not angry but a bit frustrated, Valentina put more distance between Aster and herself and now, Aster was in the middle of those two, which might sound as if he is “surrounded” but the truth is that they were separated from the other now, which is disadvantageous for them, also the purple lightning princess now had four sword marks, one more and she was out.

Surprisingly for Valentina, Aster didn’t tease her in fact he looked at her with praise in his eyes, he had saved that to secure landing a hit on any of them and yet the purple lightning princess almost got away from it, had his own reaction time or speed lacked just a bit, she would have managed to avoid his attack.

“…”, pouting to her insides, Agnes gazed at Valentina whose face slightly reddened since she felt happy by being getting “recognition” from the “enemy”, at least until she saw Aster charging at her.

“Humph”, seeing Aster trying to take her out from the spar, Valentina returned to fighting mode, she nimbly jumped sidewards dodging Aster’s sword, which was then slashed towards her new direction.

‘What is that little girl waiting for’, thought the purple lightning princess, based in her calculations, Agnes should have arrived by now, but she was late, imagine if she knew that her delay was caused due to her taking a fraction of a second more than what it should for her to get her mind back into the fight.

“Clack!”, still, Agnes’s arrival time was within the permitted error margin, so her sword’s slash managed to prevent Valentina from being overwhelmed by Aster, though the purple lightning princess decided to add another point for the scold her cousin was in for later, right now she focused in dashing towards Aster, after she was forced to retreat continuously as she avoided his attacks.

In fact, Valentina took a page from Agnes’s book and traced her sword through the ground, raising a bit of dust, not the large dust veil that Agnes’s would draw with her heavy slashes.

But it was enough for her to block Aster’s sight for a second, which Valentina used to move behind of Aster, she wanted to get back at him for the red sword mark he left on her back.

“Ha!”, however, this time Aster resorted to brute force, taking a step frontwards he pushed Agnes to the side, safely dodging Valentina’s sword, but things didn’t end there, since Agnes was thrown out of balance, he slashed his sword at her as she fell.

With a thud, Agnes’s body landed on the ground but to everyone’s surprise she managed to dodge Aster’s sword by changing to lay sidewards at the last second and that wasn’t all, the side of her sword managed to touch Aster’s shin at the same time as she got a slash on her shoulder.

And to top it off, before Aster could finish the sportsy sun diamond princess with a second attack, Valentina arrived to save the day, giving Agnes enough time to get up.

“The fall wasn’t a faint, you changed your decision to dodge at the last time and prioritized scoring another point, thrusting that miss Valentina would react in time to interfere”, said Aster as he saw the traces Agnes left of the ground.

She was going to roll her body gaining impulse to get up, that would have for sure allow her to escape from Aster’s range, but she ultimately preferred to take the slash and land her own attack on Aster.

“Mm~”, seeing her cousin smiling from ear to ear as she gazed at the noticeable darker blue slashing mark on Aster’s shin, Valentina softly snorted at her insides.

‘How childish’, she thought, that being said, she felt a bit bitter that Agnes landed an attack on the spot she was aiming for earlier, as if Agnes knew what Valentina was thinking she also gazed back at her cousin.

Aster saw that those two’s trice seemed to be faltering and they were about to try and eliminate the other, since they had four marks each, he playfully said.

“As a reward for the incredibly good team work you have shown me, I’ll make sure to take you out at the same time”, naturally such a “boast”, made those two princesses sharply glare at Aster.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t say anything against it, because Aster had slashed them at the same time once before.

“Humph!”, both princesses snorted at the same time as they charged at Aster who welcomed their swords with his own.

“Clack!”, for a second Aster’s pupils contracted like needles, those two apparently still had a lot of fight in them, because by working together and slashing in the same exact way, they actually managed to make him take two steps backwards, before splitting to doe their own thing, namely slash and thrust using their own respective styles.

Valentina was first, she made a small twirl, helping her position herself behind of Aster at his left, to then thrust her sword at Aster’s back, at the same time Agnes who had simply jumped from left to right to then slash her sword at him.

Seeing the quick maneuvering and the straightforward strong attacks coming his way, Aster to the surprise of all those cute girls, actually let go of his sword.

The next thing the two princesses knew was that the world was turned upside down, their backs landed on the ground as softly as it was possible, in fact there was no sound of impact, however they both felt as if they had been actually cut, when they saw the new red mark that was appearing on their abdomens as Aster slashed his sword at them.

“Woaaaah!”, the girls from the sect couldn’t help but stand and cheer up, Aster had held onto those two’s wrists and then “smacked” them against the ground before they could react.