A moment ago, Agnes saw Eris''s Genesis Core changing from defense to offense in such a smooth way and she had to admit she was impressed, writing a formation on top of another one is no joke.


    The purpose of a formation is settled once thetter is engraved, so going from full defense to full offense as Eris did, is not easy at all, Agnes''s doesn''t have too much knowledge regarding rune mastering, but that doesn''t mean she is ignorant about the subject.


    It''s not like she hasn''t seen anyone overwrite a formation like that, but all of them were Soul kings with a single special exception.


    ''Her soul energy doesn''t lose in terms of quality with cousin, and those runes are on par with William''s older sister ones, where did Aster find her… whatever I won''t lose either'', if anything Agnes felt the urge to not be left behind.


    And then she decided to respond in kind, her soul avatar appeared behind of her, the second Agnes which was surrounded by that orange halo, looked as realistic as always, the orange crystal armor that covered the important parts gave it a feminine charm, that took a big contrast considering Agnes''s never wore that type of clothes.


    Since her soul avatar looks exactly like her, Agnes always increased its brightness so no one could see its real appearance, she always wondered why her soul constitution took a form which is so contrary to her preferences.


    But nowadays she has found someone who she wants to look at her, and she no longer resents it, she even changed her attire a bit, out of her own will, it was a strange but pleasant feeling which she never experienced before.


    ''I should talk it out with cousin, since sister Valentina refused to talk about it'', thought Agnes as she put the matter at the back of her head for now.


    She ced her hand on her sword and her soul avatar imitated her stance, the difference is that thetter didn''t have a sword to grab, but that was solved a secondter when the orange light of which Agnes''s Genesis Core is made, gathered on her air next to the hands of the soul avatar.


    "Sunsh Swordsmanship:ary ze", with those words, Agnes unsheathed her sword, in less than a second the orange light which her soul avatar condensed was integrated into her sword, and then a thin sh of orange light was shot from her sword.


    The sh was so fast that it actually disappeared from in sight, the next thing the centipede knew was that a sense of crisis exploded in its heart, making it by instinct move, which prevented its head to be cut in half.


    But the danger wasn''t over, its carapace was cut as if it was fruit, a burning pain assaulted its back, and that wasn''t all, at the moment of contact the orange sh exploded into countless of invisible rays that spread all over the area.


    The centipede felt as if a rain of des assaulted its hard carapace, while the masked elder used his marsh to absorb the impact, and prevent his core from being damaged, unfortunately he didn''t expect that the cuts will ignore the viscous poison of which he was so proud and cut a whole portion of the marsh.


    And that was the result of Agnes''s swinging her sword seriously for the first time in a long time, as that was one of the techniques of her swordsmanship manual.


    The centipede noticed that the lower half of its carapace waspletely fractured due to the countless invisible rays, while the upper half as cleanly divided by the main attack, that''s what made it concede and form an alliance with the gori, because if thatnded on its head, he would have died ten out of ten times.


    ''Why the hell did those bastards bring these guys, I specifically told them to choose the strongest humans from the bunch!'', inwardly shouted the centipede.


    The seconds inmand of the four beasts screwed up, they thought that the ones that killed the scouts were the groups of the four sects, because the Runic Oak had invited Aster''s group to its castle and of course it erased any traces of them.


    Not that it would have made too much of a change since unlike the Runic Oak, the spirit beasts wanted the cial Liger for themselves, not to mention they would have attacked Eris after discovering she came from a Divine Firmament, but right now the centipede was cursing his subordinate for being careless.


    ''Whatever, with the monkey as my ally we can subdue the Liger and then escape from this damn ce, judging by the level of the humans that appeared there shouldn''t be any Heavenly Realm experts in this part of the gxy, we just need to go to where humans don''t and refine the Liger, then we can make the nearby spirit beasts submit and take our revenge slowly, starting from the ces of origin of this humans''.


    The hatred that the centipede and the other three spirit beasts inherited from their ancestors, wasn''t limited to the people from the Divine Firmaments, they hated humans in general, but certainly the people from the Divine Firmaments were their main target.


    The centipede gritted its teeth, cracks appeared all over its carapace before the ques exploded and fell from its body, revealing a new brown coloredyer that a secondter turned ck inked like the original one.


    The centipede was proud of the vitality it had due to being a spirit beast, but he wasn''t finished yet, something inside its body started beating, it was like the sound of a drum, which came from where the heart of the centipede was.


    Dark purple mist leaked out of the body of the centipede, the nearby ground as well as the walls made out of yang umtion crystals, immediately turned ck and melted, releasing a pungent smell, the masked elder''s eyes glowed and his Genesis Core actually drew the ck melted solution towards it.


    "Hahaha, what a good material, centipede produce more of it, we''ll drown this damned woman in poison!", shouted the elder.


    The centipede didn''t need to hear it twice, the ck purple mist intensified and everything in the nearby area turned melted and was absorbed by the marsh of the masked elder.


    "Why don''t you try to attack me one more time stupid woman, let''s see if your sword doesn''t rust under my poison", the elder suddenly seemed rather enthusiastic, which made Agnes softly snort.


    …


    Back at the battlefield inside of the barrier created by the four beasts, things intensified with each second that passed as the huge white liger shed with the headless armored giant.


    After suffering twice due to Aster foreseeing its tricks, the Liger changed its way of fighting to a simpler yet practical one, following the instincts of a spirit beast it decided to sh with everything it had against Aster.<novelsnext></novelsnext>


    At first Aster thought it was another trap, but then the Liger used its ws to scratch at the chest of the golden armor directly, no feint and no hidden agenda.


    Aster moved the right arm of the armor and used Cam''s spear to deflect the ws of the liger.


    "ng!", the sounds of metals colliding as well as sparks produced by friction were the result of the sh, Cam''s spear focused on piercing not cutting, so the ws were on par with the edge, if the tip of the spear had shed with them, the result would have been different.


    "Heh, so your ws are as sharp as a spirit treasure, but even among treasures on the same grade, there are differences is quality, and I have the ultimate spear on my side", said Aster as he looked at Cam, whose face reddened a bit.


    Naturally Aster didn''t say that just to see Cam blushing, though he did enjoy the sight, the reason as to why he said that, was because small cracks appeared on the ws of the Liger, that''s right after a few exchanged between Cam''s spear and the ice condensed ws of the Liger, the ws splintered, as for Cam''s spear, there were some bright marks produced by friction but the edges didn''t chip.


    "Roaar!!!", the answer from the Liger was a loud roar, its ws covered in blue light and then they not only were repaired, but the blue light dded them.


    "A fight of energies this time huh, bring it on", Aster focused his attention on the right arm of the amor and the yang radiance that was covering it, was channeled into Cam''s spear.


    For some reason the Liger didn''t attack Aster to prevent him from doing so, Aster had a reason as to why he didn''t stop the Liger from using its techniques, he wanted to tire it out, because he needed to get a clean shot on the yin chain, and he calcted that he was going to need all the annihtion he could wield as of current to do that, so there won''t be a second chance and the Liger wasn''t slow enough to be unable to dodge Aster''s attack, the expanded armor didn''t boost its speed unlike when he used thepressed version after he unlocked the leg parts of it, after all, and to move such a heavy thing at high speed, Aster wascking something, maybe another part of the armor will solve the problemter.


    But there was no reason for the Liger to not interrupt Aster''s preparation, ultimately Aster shrugged, what he had to do didn''t change anyway, immobilize the Liger, cut its connection with the yin chain and then make it form a contract with Aria.


    "Haaa!", the giant amor rushed towards the Liger, which pounced at Aster with its sharpened ws aiming at the chest of the armor, normally feline beasts like tigers and lions, aim for the neck, but the giant armor has no head, so it''s same to assume that going for the neck is useless.


    Aster of course noticed that the Liger was smarter than what the spirit beasts thought, that''s why he didn''t understand why suddenly it changed its way of fighting.


    "Booom!", the Liger jumped and tried to bite off the left arm of the armor, in its mind the ck vortex which was produced by it, was quite troublesome as it prevented it from using energy attacks, as a spirit element that is a huge disadvantage, though the Liger seems to be quite versatile.


    "ng!", as Aster was about to roll the body of the armor to dodge the attack, a ck wall made out of many octagonal metal ques appeared in front of the left shoulder of the armor.


    The fangs of the Liger which were covered in a blue glow scratched the metal wall but they were unable to pierce through it, Aster chuckled, Alexandra had joined Felicia and she was using her spherical shield in a t form to block the bite of the Liger.


    She didn''t say anything, but she nodded at Aster, she noticed that though Felicia''s ability could be used to block energy attacks, her focus wasn''t defense, and while the spear could be used to block physical attacks, that would make things drag out as it will take more time to tire the Liger out, so she also decided to help even if she wasn''t asked to.


    ''Mother I will disobey you and protect a dual cultivator just this time, if he can help you then…'', Alexandra woke up from her daze when the cold eyes of the Liger appeared a few meters away from her.


    Since its bite attack had failed, the Liger took advantage of the close distance tounch the blue ray attack from its mouth, this time it was aimed at Alexandra directly, the Liger was already having trouble only being able to use physical attacks, if that was countered too, then wouldn''t it be in a despairing situation.


    Unfortunately for the Liger, though theunching time of the blue ray was shorter, the moment the attack left its mouth, the ck vortex appeared and swallowed the blue ray without letting even a spec of it hit Alexandra.


    "Nice block earlier, shield girl", Felicia who reacted on time to dispel the energy attack of the Liger, gave thumbs up to Alexandra before she focused on the fight again.


    The Liger''s eyes widened in surprise, apparently it thought that Felicia''s vortex and Alexandra''s shield were the same thing, so it didn''t expect one to be casted after the other, and now at such a close distance, how could Aster miss the chance tond a proper hit on it.


    The right hand of the amor let go of Cam''s spear and the it formed a fist; Aster made it take some impulse and then he punched towards the forehead of the Liger.


    "Boooom!".


    "Roaaaar!".


    A loud thunder-like explosion followed by a pained roar and the sound of ice cracking echoed through the whole ce, half of the head of the Liger crumbled apart due to the impact revealing what Aster suspected.


    Inside of the head there was an ice block to which the yin chain was attached, that was the real body of the cial Liger while this giant form was just something it made to protect itself.


    The Liger was sent flying due to the impact, and it took it a couple of seconds to react, the head formed once again and then it roared towards Aster, this time its whole body covered into ayer of ice.


    "A defensepetition this time, no problem", mumbled Aster, as he ordered the armor to charge towards the Liger.