Chapter 501 Battle For The First Node (Part 1)
Perfectly pale and smooth skin, slender body shape with curves in the right places and beautiful platinum blue hair neatly spread on her back.
Who else could be besides Aster and Aria, after that intense lovemaking session, they had a nice rest, and then Aster carried Aria to the portable bathroom, Eris made two precisely because situations like this, one was for when he wanted to have some privacy with his girls and the other was for the whole group.
Previously he used the same as the others with Aria, and they naturally did some naughty things while in there, but there was no problem since they got dirty and cleansed after entering the bathroom.
But this time, after all what they did their bodies were covered in the fluids of the other, it would be a bit too much show themselves like that in the other room, so after having had a nice rest, Aster set up the second portable bathroom and then carried his ice princess there to spoil here some more.
Aria\'s heart drowned in sugar due to all the gentle cares of Aster, now that her act as a rebellious girl had ended, she simply enjoyed all the attention Aster tenderly poured on her.
By the time they finished, Aria was all smiles, Aster died them both and then they cuddled on the bed naked, after changing the bed sheets of course, they simply laid down and enjoyed each other\'s company, even if they weren\'t doing anything, it was pleasurable just to be next to each other.
Aria\'s pretty hand touched Aster\'s firm and manly chest, right now she could still feel his warmth inside of her, as a Star Maiden Aster\'s annihilation didn\'t harm her at all, so Aster could ejaculate inside of her without any worry and just prevent pregnancy with annihilation, similar to what Lilia could do with her destruction.
The difference of this method and using Rigel\'s flames like Aster had to do with Sarina before she fully became a Star Maiden, is that with the first method they received his sperm directly and with the second it was just yang energy.
Strangely the two had different sensations and benefits for the girls, the first was not only more beneficial since it nurtured the body around twice as much, but the girls liked the feeling more, confirmed by all of them since they tried both methods at least once, with Lilia\'s exception.
Aster saw Aria\'s flushed expression and he laughed as he rubbed her belly, while he kissed her cheeks and whispered sweet things to her.
Unfortunately, they were interrupted by the sound of someone knocking on the door.
"The Runic Oak is calling us", Eris slightly ashamed voice came from the other side, she had to deactivate the soundproof barrier to let them hear her.
Luckily at this point they had finished the hardcore part or Eris would have died out of embarrassment over hearing the lewd melody created by Aria\'s sweet cries.
\'To think I will have to worry about listening to Aster\'s perverted activities… damn bad luck, Mylene had it easier\', she thought.
She and the others pulled out sticks to decide who will go and call Aster and Aria, and Eris lost so she had to "expose" herself to Aster\'s shameless activities, she still did it without complaining, in fact there was an almost unnoticeable light of curiosity in her eyes.
"Okay, we\'ll come out in a second", said Aster.
After giving a small peck to Aria, they both got up the bed and put on their clothes, Aster kept the things in his spatial ring and they left the room to reunite with the others at the next door.
Needless to say, but the gazes of the girls fell on them as soon as they entered the room, Aster\'s face was thick so he didn\'t particularly mind, he would walk naked in his mansion at the valley, if there weren\'t others besides his girls living there, even then seeing him in light clothes or shirtless became a common thing for the girls, since he trained with them Agnes specially liked to see his toned figure with a sportsy attire, since she was the same.
Aria\'s face on the other hand exploded in red, but she held Aster\'s hand and just lowed her head a bit while she was started at by the others.
"Ahem, the three said it\'s ready to leave, but before that it has some news for us", said Eris.
Aster nodded and they left to the main hall of the castle, to their surprise the huge three that used to be standing tall in the center of the room, had shrank to around one quarter of its original size.
In exchange there was a two-meter yellow oak floating in front of them.
"I created a copy of myself that can move, the chain link will stay since it is sustaining the whole forest, but I\'ll have access to its power without any problem… woah, so your courtship was successful so you managed to mate with her, I didn\'t know humans could exchange yin and yang so easily!", exclaimed the small version of the tree, making Aria nearly faint on the spot.
\'What is this stupid tree saying\', she wondered.
Leaving aside Aria who had seal the tree in ice forever, the others giggled at the way it talked.
Aster on the other hand limited to laugh a bit, this tree only had had contact with spirit beasts, that\'s why it uses such a strange vocabulary when referring to humans, it technically wasn\'t a lie since he indeed successfully courted Aria and was rewarded for it.
"Ah, we can discuss that in detail later, the spirit beasts sent their seconds in command to meet the other invaders and now they have formed an alliance and are aiming to the other main nodes, they aren\'t as strong as the leaders of the beasts but they can make up for the lack of brain of the beasts", added the tree.
Aster raised an eyebrow; he didn\'t expect the spirit beasts to have enough wisdom to be able to think on making alliances, but if the yang caused a mutation in the tree, then it wouldn\'t be weird for the beasts who supposedly integrated one of the yin chain links into their bodies, to have become rational even before obtaining their human forms, despite their low ranked lineages.
As for the cultivators, it was within his expectations to have to fight them, those guys have gone mad over greed, Eris and Agnes told him they were more focused in finding resources than finding their juniors, with the exception of a few who had some decent backers in their forces of origin.
"We better get going, the space is too unstable so we can\'t use spatial formations after all", said the tree.
Aster nodded and they then left the castle, the tree actually shrank even more, until it was of the size of a hand, since this was its forest, it knew the best route and acted as the guide for Aster and the girls.
´…
A couple of hours later, a group of people led by a black-haired youth stopped advancing as they arrived at an area where the atmosphere waved from time to time.
"The space is fluctuating, we have arrived at the entrance to the next area where the second main node resides, once we open up a path, the beasts will probably notice us", said the hand sized Runic Oak.
But Eris shook her head, the four corners of her cube necklace separated and a barrier was created around them.
"This time is a yin-oriented barrier, it won\'t protect us, but it\'s effect is stealth, as long as we remain together, we won\'t be noticed by them", she said.
Besides the tree which felt uncomfortable due to being a yang-oriented plant, the girls and even Aster who is a man weren\'t affected at all.
"Leave opening the portal to me", said the tree, it glowed in yellow light and the nearby crystal trees shone in response, roots with the word "Portal" engraved on them, raised from the ground and then started hitting the air.
"Boom", contrary to what one would expect the roots actually managed to hit the "air", creating loud explosions, the space started to show signs of cracking after a few rounds of that and then a large breach opened in the air.
"Jump in!", shouted the tree, the roots were keeping the breach open, but the space was resisting, just as Eris said unlike the space of the Heavenly Quadrants, the space here was harder to manipulate.
At least regular Void Manipulation beings wouldn\'t be able to even create a small short ranged portal, the beasts knew about it and that\'s why they isolated the other main nodes by creating spatial barriers around them, to then disturb the space in the areas that let to where they resided.
Aster and the girls jumped into the portal and the tree followed after, the roots let go and the breach closed on the spot, now that they have left the area of influence of the tree, the scenery changed.
Similar to what appeared when they first entered the deep area of the forest, there was a grim atmosphere in here, there were black ominous clouds of yin energy on the sky, which were trying to reach the ground, but the crystal trees were stopping its advance.
This was the area of influence of the Diamond Bone Orchid, and even if it was outnumbered and isolated, it hasn\'t lost the battle yet, thanks to the half sun that remained radiating light on the sky and the chain link which was in its possession, it is still holding in.
As soon as they appeared on this area, the tree resonated with the nearby crystal trees to get information on the state of the node, but before that, it turned around to see Aster and then said.
"Do you have more companions in the Silicon Forest?".
Aster frowned, the girls were all with him and as far as he knew there wasn\'t anyone else on his side, since the others joined the spirit beasts.
"Why do you ask", he answered, making the tree use one root to point at the east.
"In that direction there is a woman fighting a Void Manipulation spirit beast, her battle prowess is high for her Mortal Transcending cultivation, similar to those two", said the tree referring to Camila and Felicia.
"And she also has a yang treasure with her, but hers is a bit different, it is stealing the yang from one of the crystal trees and using it to reinforce her defense", added the tree.
Aster\'s eyes glowed as a strange supposition appeared in his mind, but he needed to see it in person to confirm it.
"Take us there silently with your roots", said Aster.
The tree nodded a root raised from the ground and then started advancing with Aster and the others riding on top of it, it was similar to what the devil vines under the control of Mylene, did, back then at Prasil.
Aster asked the tree to transport them, because they needed to save their spirit energy for the incoming battles, unlike the tree they couldn\'t use the yang chain link as a power bank, to recharge whenever it was needed after all.
With the help of the tree, they soon reached a slightly deeper area, the ominous corrupted yin energy became thicker in this place, so much that there were visible black particles of it floating here and there, it wasn\'t that packed though, so there was space to maneuver without touching them.
And a few meters ahead of them, there was a battle ongoing between an alligator and a comparably small gray cladded figure, surprisingly every time the two clashed, the one who suffered was the alligator, its scales made cracking noises.
But that\'s not what made Aster surprised the most, but what he saw stabbed on the nearby crystal trees, a treasure he knew quite well as he had some of them.
"Yang Stealing needles, like the ones that were inside Tomas, a member of the Atria family", mumbled Aster.
His eyes became those of a dragon and then using some of his soul energy, he focused on what the gray cladded figure was using to defend against the alligator, it was a semi-sphere made out of black octagonal metal plates.
And similar to Camila\'s natal treasure, there weren\'t red marks on it, in other words it was as good as it could be in its realm, meaning it had zero flaws, which was probably the reason its owner was able to cash with a Void Manipulation being and come out unscathed.