Chapter 618 Felicia’s intangible gauntlets & Alexandra’s reflection armor (part 6)
618 Felicia’s intangible gauntlets & Alexandra’s reflection armor (part 6)
Leaving aside Alexandra's imagination which was running wild as of current, multiple flashing figures followed by explosions and violent currents of wind could were constantly produced a few dozens of kilometers away where Aster and Felicia trained.
Or more accurately where Aster was being fiercely assaulted by a Felicia who was happily smiling in high spirits.
"Clang!", their images stopped for a moment as the incomplete black sword soul weapon clashed against Felicia's right hand which was covered in a black clawed gauntlet.
"Besides Eris and you I has never met someone who took the soul path as the secondary one and was still able to match up with my parallel thinking, but you know being too fast isn't good for a young man~", jokingly said Felicia.
Aster's lower lip twitched a bit, but instead of answering he pushed his free hand frontwards blocking Felicia's telekinesis attack, which came not too long after her verbal one.
"Booom!", the result of their telekinesis clashing at pointblank was a loud shockwave which made both of them retreat, for different reasons though, Felicia has a strong body as her main path is the body one, but her focus is completely offensive, similar to Tiana, so she retreated to not waste spirit energy on blocking the impact.
Aster on the other hand, retreated because while Felicia's soul energy couldn't pull soul energy towards it, the explosion disseminated small particles of it on the main area of impact and if he was touched by them, as minimal as it might be, they would slow him down which would allow Felicia to take the lead.
Seeing Aster avoiding her soul energy like the plague, Felicia chuckled and then feeling the refreshing and inspiring sensation that flooded her mind after every clash between her soul energy and Aster's, her smile furtherly widened as she charged towards Aster, her clawed gauntlets first of course.
"You both mother and daughter surely have a strange way to express gratitude", said Aster as he dodged the sharp claws of Felicia's gauntlet, to then kick her right side only for his leg to be caught midair by a black soul energy claw that emerged from the ground.
The moment that black claw made out of soul energy touched his skin, he felt his body being drawn downwards, it was as if the claw belonged to a mysterious monstrous being that tried to drag it into the darkness from which the thing emerged.
Of course that wasn't the case, others, soul cultivators included would be led to believe the previous, because unless one uses telekinesis, soul energy can't affect the physical world with high intensity.
But Felicia's innate ability affects everything which contains spirit energy and regardless of path, a cultivator's body contains spirit energy, thus allowing Felicia to create the illusion that she summoned an unknown entity is assisting her in the middle of the battle.
In other words, Felicia had already integrated her innate ability, her darkness attribute and an illusion technique to disturb the mind of the opponent, perfectly, which in part explains why her strength output was so high.
Of course it wasn't an easy thing to achieve, she managed to pull it off, because after reaching the peak of the Carnal Disaster realm, she couldn't advance anymore, so she put all of her focus on finding ways to increase her battle prowess without the need of a higher realm, that and ten years of trial and error gave birth to this technique.
Which is why she was marveled to see Tiana creating a technique that didn't lose against her own in terms of potential, in a matter of months, given their constitutions which are the same but with contrary attributes, even if Tiana managed to succeed faster, the difference would have been a year or two… unless she had a fortunate encounter, which she had, namely Aster.
'Mmm, what an interesting sensation, my soul energy is already as pure as it can be at my current realm, so unlike Tia, I won't be obtaining flashes of inspiration and insight caused by sudden increases on comprehension level, but it is still slowly but surely softening the bottleneck recently created on a path that didn't exist for me before', amusingly thought Felicia as she analyzed the influence that Aster had on her and Tiana.
The previous took some time to describe, but thanks to the magic of parallel thinking, for Aster and Felicia only a fraction of a second had passed she trapped Aster's leg with her innate ability, it is worth mentioning that she was already clawing towards Aster's chest with her left hand this time, while she pointed her right palm at his leg which was trapped by her soul energy to reinforce the lock.
Aster's golden glowed for a moment, he let go of the incomplete black sword soul weapon which perfectly understood his intentions, flying to block Felicia's left hand, while at the same time Aster threw his arms backwards, to then stomp his free as he also used telekinesis to impact the rocky floor.
"Booom!", the ground exploded in all directions, the curtain of dust produced by the impact acted in a strange way, instead of expanding like it should have, it contracted to reveal the result of the previous clash.
Aster was standing exactly at the same spot as before, with the difference that he was in the center of a thirty-meter wide and five-meter-deep crater, while Felicia stood at the border of said crater since she retreated to avoid the purely physical explosion Aster cause by stomping on the ground.
"That armor is cheating", mumbled Felicia, earlier she witnessed Aster ignoring the explosion and all the debris that flew in all directions, impacting him producing even more dust, which Felicia concentrated on a sphere of her soul energy which now floated above her right hand.
13:54
"That attack posed no real threat for you, I only blasted away the ground to force you to retreat while using my soul energy to dispel yours along with your telekinesis", said Aster.
"Humph, I was referring to my clothes, you haven't had to experience the pain of your favorite outfits turning into dusty rags when a fight breaks, thanks to that light protection and even if that fails, you can instantly clean yourself with those blue flames", said Felicia with an exaggerated aggrieved voice.
'So, she just wants more exposition to Rigel's flames, oh well we can hit two birds with one stone…', thought Aster for a moment before he snapped his fingers, making a think layer bright blue flames envelop Felicia from head to toe.
Contrary to how anyone would react when covered in flames, Felicia's mood brightened over the sight of those pretty flames which surrounded her.
"These flames are amazing, no wonder Tia's skin felt even smoother in our last bath", she said, which made Aster clear his throat to change the subject.
"Ahem, during the last mission I saw you appearing out of one of those black vortexes, was that spatial movement?", he asked.
Aster was genuinely curious about that, since moving through space without the help of a formation is territory of Void Manipulation cultivators and above, sure there are some exceptions but even the most talented monsters had only managed to do so after reaching the peak of the Genesis Manifestation realm, Lilia is an example of that.
In case you wonder why Eris and Mylene who are recultivating like Lilia, can't move trough space, when Lilia didn't lose that ability even after her realm regressed, it's easy, apparently the space's structure in this Mortal realm is quite different to the one they are used, so they have to train and learn all over again, they took it as an opportunity to refine their abilities so it's all good.
As for Agnes whose talent isn't lower than Lilia, she is still younger than her and just like the dragon mother and her sisters, she is currently focusing on her secondary path before entering the late Transcending realms, so she still has time to develop the ability to move through space, Valentina on the other hand had already demonstrated not to be inferior to the previous generation of Fey princesses before she broke through to the Void Manipulation.
Anyway, there is another case where people obtain spatial movement before reaching the Void Manipulation realm, but not only it's rarer but also has incredibly tough requirements, namely a spatial oriented body constitution, in the record that lists all the known constitutions of the four Heavenly Quadrants, there is only one spatial oriented body constitution.
And contrary to what one would expect, said constitution isn't even in the top thousand, because besides an increase in affinity with space, there are no other benefits, it might be a useful trick but the energy needed is still at the level of the Transcending realms, a temporary advantage below the Genesis Manifestation but above the Earthly realms is nothing to brag about.
Felicia shook her head, with a wave of her hand a black vortex appeared below her, before she suddenly sank into it, then another vortex opened a few centimeters ahead of Aster, from which Felicia creeped out, her long black hair and the dark void inside the vortex made her look like something straight out of a terror movie, however her pretty smiling face shattered that possibility.
"Nope, this is not spatial movement, unfortunately I can't ignore physical restrictions like walls for example, when I enter my vortex is more as if I become part of my darkness attribute, I can move faster than my maximum speed outside though, creating the illusion of travelling through space", she said as her upper half protruded out of her vortex, floating horizontally in front of Aster.
Aster couldn't help but recognize her craftiness, just by making her vortexes appear on top of physical surfaces, like a wall for example, she created the illusion of moving through space.
'Well, it seems like she really is skilled in the soul path, I wouldn't be surprised if she becomes an Illusion Queen later on', he thought, only to hear Lilia's not so happy rambles from within the mind space.
"So, it's more like entering another layer of this place than to dimensional travel, how does it look from the inside, strangely even with my eyes I can't see anything besides you floating in a dark void?", asked Aster to which Felicia nodded like saying 'It should be like that'.
"Mm, it's normal, to access this secret hideout of mine you have to have my Heavenly Behemoth energy constitution and darkness affinity, that or be invited and guided by me, otherwise you shouldn't be able to let alone enter but even perceive it, even Tia can't, the fact that you can still see part of me that's inside the entrance of the vortex, is already incredible", she said. frёeωebɳovel.com
"Hoh?", Aster's curiosity was piqued, when it comes to people who aren't Star Maidens meaning they unconsciously or not, resist his eyes, as of current he can reach up to the superficial layer of the soul when he inspecting their bodies and yet he couldn't peek into the place to which Felicia's darkness connected.
"What, do you want to come inside and get comfy~", said Felicia as she expanded the entrance of the vortex as if she was inviting him, only to giggle the next second.
"It's not impossible, mmm, let's see, Tia was curious about it as well, so she asked for me to invite her as her reward when she entered the Earthly realms, so you'll have to earn it".
Aster bitterly smiled, of course she returned his words right back at him.
'Sometimes I wonder who is the mother and who is the daughter… she is such a bad loser', thought Aster but he didn't exteriorize it.
"I'm joking of course, but it's a bit embarrassing to see that little girl having surpassed me after a little escapade with you, so if you help me reach the same point, I wouldn't mind giving you a little "darkness ride", what do you say?", added Felicia only for her to see Aster's previously "bitter" smile, changing to a mocking one as he said.
"Okay, but you'll have to use this movement technique during our little spar, I want to see more of it up close for future references", Aster still remembers how his eyes adapted to see the difference between regular rocks and the extensions of the Rock Gigas Andras, back at Esmeralda's realm, his dragon eyes continued to evolve, so perhaps with a little more experience, he'll be able to see through it.
"Fine, this little secret still falls behinds compared to your invincibility anyway, but doing so will consume physical energy so our train will be shortened", said Felicia with a feigned saddened expression.
Aster chuckled, she clearly wanted to extort more of Rigel's flames out of him, not that he minded though, since he was going to give them to her anyway.
"I'll actively add those flames to all of my attacks instead of only to my telekinesis, is that enough for you?", he said.
"Deal~", Felicia's eyes sparkled, with a single happy word, her upper body was absorbed back into the vortex which then disappeared from Aster's sight.
Aster observed his surrounding with his dragon eyes, while Felicia was inside that place, he couldn't detect her, however even spatial movement had a small window of time between the moment when the portal opened and when it was possible for the people inside to cross it and the same applied to Felicia.
Of course, this moment consisted in a fraction of a second merely and it would be reduced the more Felicia grew skilled in using this technique, but for now she knew it was impossible to directly ambush Aster with it, his reaction time was not worse than hers after all.
That being said, not being directly able to ambush someone doesn't mean you can't land a surprise hit, you just have to use your brain a bit more.
Aster's dragon eyes saw the space trembling at his right, a sign that Felicia was about to open a vortex, but as he prepared to send the incomplete black sword soul weapon which was now covered in Rigel's flames, in the same direction, Felicia's voice could be heard coming from his left.
"Since you are interested in my secret playground, a little hint, distance works different here, which means that… all calculations made from the outside are useless", suddenly another vortex appeared behind Aster, from which two black clawed gauntlets and a magnetic pull emerged.
Aster softly snorted, using his telekinesis he blew away Felicia's one and then his back exploded in blue flames which slapped away her hands, making the now blazing black clawed gauntlets to retreat into the vortex.
'Given the nature of Felicia's attribute and the threatening aspect of her soul condensed gauntlets, as well as the "pure" aura imbued in Rigel's flames, it looks as if I am exorcizing a demon or something like that', amusingly thought Aster.
Of course, it wasn't that his flames harmed Felicia, he just pushed her arms away with a discharge of spirit energy combined with Rigel's flames, in case you forgot about it, body is more effective towards energy, energy is more effective against soul and soul has the upper hand against body, she felt the impact but the flames had no offensive power, well a fresh sensation assaulted Felicia upon contact but that wasn't exactly detrimental for her.
On the contrary, she waited until the blue flames that were covering her arms extinguished, enjoying till the last second of exposure to them, before planning her next move.
'Just a bit more, the next one should do the trick, but it needs to be a full-frontal clash', she thought as she happily smiled, she was obviously happy that Tiana had it easier than her to find her way, but it is also true that after a decade of training she was dying to finally take the last step that she instinctively knew existed, despite having no proof of it.
Back at the outside world, Aster's pupils contracted a bit as distortions appeared all over the place with a meter of distance between each other, meaning that Felicia could appear from any of them.
Foll𝑜w current novels on fɾēewebnσveℓ.com.
Strangely, while normally the vortexes created by Felicia would drag anything which contained spirit energy into them, she could also prevent anything from entering, so Aster couldn't use those vortexes against her, only the one from which she emerged had to open after all.
Of course, he already tried it and neither his spirit energy nor soul energy were able to en