Chapter 396 The Troubles Never End (Part 3)
What can make these scum who had seen practically some of the worst things humans have to offer, to tremble in fear you might wonder.
If Eric was here, he would have recognized it right away, because it was something that left a big impress on him, and was now taken to a whole new level as Aster is way stronger now than back then.
Normally when Aster uses the manifestation of the paragon body, the armored arms, legs and truck which is what he has unlocked so far, are strong, vibrant and full of life, that is because they derive from a body constitution, which ultimately reflects the monstrous vitality Aster has.
You could say Aster and the armor are two sides of a coin, back then when Aster first met the twins more specifically when he fought Alessia, his wish for a stronger power and a life and death situation allowed him to learn the ability “compression”, something that multiplied his strength in exchange for reducing his reach.
In other words, the paragon body adapted to fit his requirements and while that could be a minor evolution, it didn’t change the nature of the armor.
The first real change happened after the twins had become star maidens, without Aster really realizing it, he combined his attribute into the golden armor and that was the beginning of the legend of the golden reaper.
A combination which should have not been possible, between a body constitution whose base was vitality, and annihilation the bane of all the existence, was born.
Maybe because of that, the armor was greatly deformed to a skeletal skinnier shape, which to be honest it was less majestic than the normal golden armor, but definitely more imposing.𝒐𝑣𝐞𝗅xt.𝒸𝐎𝑚
As it was the result of two things that normally wouldn’t be able to work together, an impossibility so to speak, the aura radiated by it was enough to make the nearby people, shiver, stimulating the mother of all fears, the fear to the unknown.
“Oi, what the hell is that!”, demanded Joseph at Vivian, with the exception of the battles in the outer space, who were too far and too busy in their respective enemies, all the others momentarily stopped to look at the dark golden armored giant who of about one hundred meters of height.
Unlike the normal paragon body, it was slimmer and the armor’s design was different, looking as if it was corroded and savage, it also didn’t help that it was headless, probably because Aster hasn’t unlocked the helmet yet, also the ground… no the world itself at its surroundings became grey lifeless.
This was the result of Aster releasing the golden armor to its maximum current output and injecting annihilation into it.
Despite that, the amount of annihilation imbued in the armor was pretty small, because even with all his reserves Aster wouldn’t be able to coat one on the arms completely, and that was even truer now that he had only recovered a bit since using it for the previous battle inside the secret realm.
So, he distributed it into small spots all over the armor, including a sphere in the center of the giant where he was “piloting” it.
Kana who was standing next to Aster, was beyond excited right now, her eyes were sparkling, she really liked the golden armor and she liked even more a giant version of it.
“Why didn’t you show this to me before big brother?”, she asked with a little pouting expression.
Aster often plays with her using the paragon body, when they bath or in general, because he knows she likes to see it.
Aster bitterly smiled in response, as he poked Kana’s nose.
“Only recently I became able to use the armor to this extent, and is hard to maintain because is incomplete”.
‘Not to mention deadly for anyone who isn’t a star maiden if I’m not careful enough, due to annihilation’, he mentally added.
Seeing Kana nod, Aster patted her head, while ignoring Iris’s maid who was sitting next to them, with a more than surprised face.
There was one more person in the ride though, the Emerald Whirlwind who was resting and gathering spirit energy inside of Kana, was also in awe right now.
‘And here I thought you were a dragon, turns out you are… oops I nearly called a tribulation due to being used to my secret realm having laxer restrictions than mortal realms’.
Aster raised an eyebrow, though his dragon lineage was inactive due to what happened when Lilia was giving birth, he recovered it not too long after getting the Paragon body constitution, so they both had been developing hand by hand.
‘Now that I think about it, I was able to use annihilation prior to any of that, and Rya said she has never seen anyone whose body was capable of storing annihilation directly inside of him, even she had to use a little trick despite being linked to Hyperion’, thought Aster.
Anyway, this wasn’t the moment to be thinking about such things, the battles soon continued, starting with Vivian whose answer nearly made Joseph vomit blood due to anger.
“He is my friend”, she said as a blue pattern slowly appeared on her shoulders, but this time her mind was in a strong enough state to not lose her mobility, and instead only losing her sight temporarily, but that didn’t affect her since she could still see with her soul cultivation.
Joseph saw that pattern and a hatred expression appeared on his face.
“You bitch, I knew it, back then you did this on purpose!”, he shouted as he pointed at the right side of his body.
But Vivian softly snorted.
“Not really… you were uncle’s son and I respected you like an older brother, why else would I have listened to uncle’s plea to try and lessen the poison that made you desist from your try to do those horrible things to me”.
Vivian and Joseph don’t have that much of an age gap, and when Vivian was brought by Julian, his son was immediately charmed by her.
With time they grew up and once puberty hit, Vivian became a though fragile, beautiful lady, so of course Joseph tried to court her.
Unfortunately for him, Vivian showed no interest in being more than an acquittance to him, she had to suppress her emotions, so for others she looked like beautiful but untouchable “ice sculpture”.
After being rejected, Julian told his son to leave Vivian alone as she had a lot to deal with her body constitution, but he as a father committed a mistake by not completely helping his son overcome his obsession, and instead he accidentally commented that there will be a day where Vivian would regain her freedom, and then if she wanted to, she would approach him.
A year or so later, after not seeing any change and Vivian completely ignoring him, he one die sneaked into the side of the palace where Vivian lived, with the intention of talking with her, but got the door closed on his face, and in an attack of rage, he tried to jump on Vivian.
Needless to say, her body constitution considered him a threat and before he could even touch her, a very specific poison attacked Joseph, practically melting half of his face and burning the right side of his body.
The commotion made Julian who was at the other side of the planet, to return in a hurry just to see his son at the brink of death, and a Vivian who for the first time had an emotion in her pretty face, anger in this case.
Julian begged her to spare his life, as that would be the first only thing she would ask of Vivian in his lifetime, while also promising to kill Joseph with his own hands if he ever tried to harm her again.
He as a father wanted to give his son a second chance, in part because he felt guilty towards his deceased wife, Vivian calmed down and the poison in Joseph’s body lessened, enough for him to be treated, but even after being given the best antidotes Julian could find at the moment, the right side of his face remained burned, which Julian understood as the fact that Vivian would never forgive him, something he understood.
And that’s why he was temporarily exiled, the idea was for Joseph to see the life of mortals and low ranked cultivators with no backers, to learn compassion and the value of life, Julian never stopped looing for a cure for his son, and actually found a couple, he gave Aster the lead to one as a pay for his help, but he still had another one, but then this happened.
“Back then I didn’t know the name of this poison”, mumbled Vivian as a dim blue mist was radiated from her hand.
“Moon Goddess Punishment, a ying poison who is deadly in a really great dose, but in smaller ones it only causes a sever diminish in the yang of men as well as cold burns, a really good fit for a monkey who couldn’t control himself if you ask me and also the strongest poison I have ever created”.
Joseph was in a loss for words for a split of a second, before his eyes got bloodshot.
All this time he thought that the what prevented him from enjoying the pleasures of women even now as someone with a high status in the Demon Tomb sect, was some kind of trauma he developed due to Vivian, but it was her poison all the time.
His yang was so low that he couldn’t get it up no matter what he did, and he never suspected about it because he was “healthy” in every other aspect, his voice, muscles and body shape didn’t seem to have been affected at all, he could cultivate normally too, and he liked women.
How could he know that’s why this specific poison had the word “punishment” on it, his sexual appetite wasn’t affected, but he would fail at the moment of truth… forever.
It was thanks to that incident that Vivian’s body constitution became so aggressive, while originally it didn’t allow others to touch her, they wouldn’t be in a life-threatening situation just by approaching her, until that happened, after that even Julian was poisoned when he approached her.
But now, she has met two people that can be near her without being poisoned, though the situations are different, for Aster even her overprotective body considers him safe to be around, as for Kana even if poison is produced it doesn’t go after her, a bit strange but if it works it works.
Vivian waved the ribbon which then turned white, as a sign that was made using her blood just like clothes, and then she coated it with that blue mist, in other words the same poison she used on Joseph back then, before saying.
“I didn’t ignore you because I had to suppress my emotions, if you want to know it, since we were kids, I could see the darkness in your heart, but you originally didn’t encourage it and fought against it, that’s why I never said anything, you didn’t “wake up” recently… since a long ago you were a piece of trash”.
Joseph was livid, his so called “new self”, was always on display for Vivian, a girl who was blind but could “see” things in a different way than others.
Red spirit energy exploded out of Joseph’s body as he tightened the grip on his Warhammer.
“Go to hell bitch”.
Both of them became a red and a blue flash who then clashed creating a large explosion.
Aster who was looking from the sides now understood why Vivian was so excited, when she met him, and also so comfortable around him, in the eyes of both her and her body constitution he wasn’t a “threat”.
“I’m not in the mood to play around, you all get lost” said Aster with a cold voice, the right arm of the giant armor took some impulse and before the guys from the Demon Tomb sect could react, he punched the area where they were.
“Boooom!”, the impact was so strong that the ground at a one kilometer of diameter, exploded, the impact turned some of the enemies into red mist, while others were sent flying or were turned into minced meat due to the rocks.
There were even a couple of unfortunate bastards who were touched by the patches of the armor that had annihilation on it, and parts of their bodies melted or they were killed on the spot to never reincarnate.
A single move resulted in a large area of destruction, death and pained screams, worthy of the tittle of “Golden Reaper” that the natives of the azure sky planet gave it, years ago.