Chapter 840: The first day of the evaluation trial (part 18)

"Hmm~", form afar, the weird scene of the middle-aged man carrying his fainted teammate, and the spear guy who was staring daggers at the middle-aged man after having his legs stabbed earlier, which basically sealed his fate, all this while Lina happily hummed as she walked behind those three, was what welcomed Aster and the girls when they looked at the direction where the battlefield of the sister in the middle was.

’Sis...’, thought Nina as she sighed, Lina was sometimes too outgoing for Nina to handle, like right now when she approached Aster with a smile on her face to then say.

"Here, I brought some hostages, I’m the first to capture three enemies right, so I want a bigger reward than Nina’s~".

"Sis!", this time the youngest couldn’t help but exclaim but was met with Lina shaking her right index finger at her.

"That’s what you get for leaving your dear sister who even went out of her way to help you earlier, out of the fun", she said with a knowing gaze which made poor Nina swallow her complains.

Naturally, Lina was referring to what they went to do up that hill, which originally was meant for Nina to ask for a head pat as well, seeing Nina’s "bullied" expression, Aster chuckled as he said.

"Looks like that wicked older sister of yours didn’t tell you, but even in this place, I can see really far into the distance, so it wasn’t hard to know what you two were up to when you climbed the hill, or when you were "tying your shoes" earlier".

’Ahhhh!’, Nina felt the urge to find a hole to hide, she was acting so secretive without knowing that Aster noticed what she was up to from the very beginning, it was nothing bad of course, she just caught a glimpse of some interesting "materials" on their way to the platform area and picked them up with the idea of asking for a reward.

The amusing part is that, she just found one but saw Kana and Dahlia find at least three of them, which is why she asked to be allowed to climb the mountain, because she didn’t want to lose to those two, Lina helped by accompanying her and you know the rest.

"Oops, well I should have expected for things to be harder to hide from someone that can outwit sis, that doesn’t reduce my reward though, right?", said Lina as she leaned her head at Aster to ask for a head pat.

"No, it doesn’t, it was fun to see the little one trying to gain advantage in secret after all", jokingly said Aster as he placed his hand on Lina’s head to then gently stroke her red-hair.

"I know right~", added Lina as she teasingly gazed at Nina as if she was saying "Sorry, I stole his attention away from you~".

"Sis!", exclaimed the youngest which made Lina giggle, of course Lina is just carefree and playful, she means no harm to her little sister in the slightest.

"Sorry, sorry, I just really like to see Nina actively getting along with others, can you give her the extra share of attention that I earned, please?", asked the sister in the middle as she stuck her tongue at Aster to then grab Nina’s hand and change places with her.

"S-Sis!", Nina was startled due to the sudden change in the situation, but like previously stated, Lina is really quick on her feet, so by the time Nina reacted, she was already being petted by Aster.

"Sure, unless the one in receiving end doesn’t agree, but that doesn’t seem to be the case", jokingly said Aster as he patted the youngest.

"Mm~", Nina smiled as she enjoyed an extra reward, courtesy of Lina whose good deed didn’t go unnoticed by the way.

"My, what a good girl", said a certain motherly roc girl as she patted Lina’s head, that was of course Sarina who couldn’t let such a nice sisterly love demonstration, go unrewarded.

After all, though Lina is more interested in Aster because her younger sister seems to be developing feelings for him, and because her older sister has never given her "vow of trust" to anyone outside of Iris and Layla, not even to Layla’s mother or the Bladeheart ancestor who is technically the one who shielded them from the influence of the Fireheart and Blazeheart families.

That doesn’t mean Mina doesn’t trust the later two people, she does, but given that they were in the picture when their and also Iris’s mother disappeared, and didn’t pursue the matter with their father, she had her reserves about them.

Aster on the other hand, is quite clear and open, Mina knows that he has no malice for them, he has earned Iris and even Layla’s trust, not to mention that whatever he might be hiding is not harmful to them either, therefore she can trust him with her sister’s lives, like right now as they were left under his care, that’s not something Mina would normally allow.

So, while her interest in Aster originated in their sister’s situations, she has grown curious enough by herself and yet she easily handed her reward time to Nina.

"Mm?", the normally outgoing and outspoken sister in the middle, suddenly went silent when she had her hair caressed by Sarina.

’This feeling is... it’s just like mom’s’, thought Lina as she closed her eyes for a moment, Nina’s memories of their mother are the vaguest among the three sisters, she was too young when she disappeared, Mina was always too smart for her age which is why she managed to be responsible for her sisters, despite being a young girl herself back then as well.

Lina on the other hand, was probably the one who felt the saddest about what happened with their mother, but in her own way she didn’t want to burden either Mina who had a lot to deal with already, nor Nina who back then didn’t picture the reality of their mother’s situation, until way later.

Lina knew that she wasn’t as smart nor responsible like Mina so she couldn’t look out for them like she did, but she still wanted to do something for her sisters, so she decided to shine brighter than anyone so that she could illuminate their lives no matter what waited ahead of them, she took upon herself to always keep a happy and positive vibe at all times.

Don’t get it wrong though, she didn’t think of it as a "responsibility" of sorts, because that was her personality from the very beginning, but she put the effort to project that to her sisters and it worked like a charm, whenever Mina was the most stressed or when Nina felt isolated, it was Lina’s attitude what relaxed and cheered them up, it was always like that.

’I might be the one with the scary eyes, but I think that the sister who thought of a way to make them work for the sake of her little sister’s happiness in such a short period of time, is scarier’, jokingly thought Aster as he petted Nina, Lina on the other hand while enjoying the motherly warmth Sarina radiated couldn’t help but softly smile.

’Just you wait sis, I’ll get back at you for all the "whip of love" I received, after all even you wouldn’t be on guard against such a good person as miss Sarina~’, she thought.

Leaving aside Lina who perhaps was a bit too influenced by Mina during the past years, Aster’s attention was turned to a way less wholesome scenery, well, it wasn’t that serious previously.

"Crack!", but given that as of current the ligress girl had a fierce light shinning in her eyes while her arm pierced through a large shield and she had just grabbed the neck of the one wielding said shield to then snap it as if it was nothing, then you can’t call it not serious anymore.

To understand what led the usually aloof and cool ligress to suddenly go just a bit wild, we have to go back in time to before the fights of others really started, as Mira’s one is the fight that has been ongoing for the largest time, we’ll explain why it was like that despite the ligress girl being one of the top fighters in Aster’s camp.

...

Aster aside, the green-haired female leader whose danger detection senses were incredibly sharp, felt the wariest about Mira despite the rather disinterested expression on her pretty face, even without wanting it, the ligreess girl had this air of intimidation around her.

But that’s just her outer cold façade, which is melted by her worrywart self when it comes to Kana and the other girls of the sect, or when Aster teases the poor ligress earning him a growl or two here and there.

That being said, those that don’t know her will for sure try to avoid her, and that alongside the fact that Mira is the type to look strong and not bothering to hide it, as deception is not really her thing, resulted in no one from the enemy’s side actively trying to target her.

So, the green-haired female leader, knowing that she couldn’t leave such a dangerous opponent freely roam the battlefield, took upon herself the task of facing Mira, alongside that girl with short orange hair, also known as Lauren.

"I have no interest in you two, move, I’m going to kill either that tanned scum or the assassin piece of trash", casually said the ligress girl, referring to Xander and Kyle, she of course felt like killing those two because they both were targeting Kana, one in the open while the other did so in secret.

"Under different circumstances, let alone not interfering I would even cheer on you, but sister Cassandra thinks that you are dangerous, so we’ll be the ones facing you", said the short orange-haired Lauren as she stretched her body.

Given that she is using metal reinforced gauntlets for increased attack power, she is a probably a physically strong close-range fighter, similar to Alice.

As for the green-haired female leader, whose name turned out to be Cassandra, she has a whip with metal thorns on it, which makes her the hard to predict type, given that the reach of her weapon is variable, also she doesn’t look weak in the physique aspect either.

"Remember what I said Lauren, don’t get too heated, we are simply going to keep her in this place, that’s all", reminded the green-haired female leader to the short orange haired girl, who seemed a bit too enthusiastic about the fight, which was probably a racial trait, considering that Mira felt a rather "animalistic" vibe coming from her.

"I know, sister!", exclaimed Lauren as she charged towards the ligress girl to then stop right in front of Mira as she threw a punch at her stomach.

"Humph!", the ligress girl softly snorted as she used her open palm to... smack away the incoming fist which had a metal gauntlet covering it if you have forgotten about it.

"Clang!", despite not really needing them since Mira could clash head on with Alice, the ligress respected Aster’s arrangements since they were for safety’s sake, so Mira properly wore protective gloves like all the girls that were participating in the match, the thin plaques of shock absorbing steel on them, produced a loud metallic sound when they clashed against the metal reinforced knuckles of Lauren’s fist.

"Booom!", also, when Mira tried to use her free hand to punch Lauren in order to knock her out, the ligress’s fist was met with a whip which was tensed and lashed with a perfect time and trajectory to block her attack and buy Lauren the time for her to safely retreat.

It was evident that those two are used to fight and cover for the other when it’s needed, especially because without even needing to look at Lauren’s fist, Cassandra directly asked.

"Is your hand okay?", Lauren is not the type to just throw one punch when she charges, the fact that she didn’t directly continue with her assault, told Cassandra that she had to step in a moment go, which she did.

"I’ll be fine, I didn’t think she was the high defense type, but her hand is damn tough, plus those gloves she is wearing, I don’t know what the hell they used to reinforce them, but it’s way better than the equipment made by our "esteemed" blacksmith, not to mention that her strength is... no joke", said Lauren as she opened and closed her hand a couple of times.

’She made Lauren feel numb just with a slap... as I thought if we leave her freely roam the battlefield, everyone will die’, thought the green-haired female leader.

You see, tigers are considered larger, stronger and fiercer than lions in general, however in terms of defense, lions are superior since they have specialized hide that is supposed to protect them during the frequent clashes for prides and territory.

So, you can see that one outstands in offense and the other in defense, and then you have Mira who descends from both races and thus inherited both traits, as a cultivator, she has tough ice and explosive ice, and while she is unable to access them at mortal level, that doesn’t mean she is left with nothing.

If one were to compare, Mira’s defense is not as high as Alexandra or the little wyrm who quite literally have armor protecting their bodies, but she has tough body that is resistant to both puncturing and high-impact damage, in fact a steel weapon wouldn’t even cut or pierce through a few millimeters of her skin in a single go, in that aspect she surpasses Alice whose defense focuses on her tail as she doesn’t have scales anywhere else, currently at least.

As for offense, the ligress doesn’t lose in terms of physical strength the in the slightest when compared to the dragon princess, with the sole exception of the massive damage Alice can cause with her tail, but that doesn’t mean Mira is weaker, she has her own natural weapon, namely those pretty crystal blue claws of hers, with which she has shredded trees and left deep scars on stones and even steel, before.

’I used more than enough strength to break even a close combat fighter’s hand, given that those gauntlets are not reinforced for defense but for attack and she just got her hand numb, perhaps I shouldn’t have distributed the impact with an open palm but focused it into a fist, also those metal thorns didn’t break after clashing with my claws’, thought Mira.

So far, the only steel that has remained completely intact after clashing with the ligress’s claws was steel which was processed by Aster from beginning to end, the one in which’s process the girls of the sect participated, was always scratched or cracked after a single exchange.

This short interaction between Mira and those two, allowed Kana’s fight to advance and since Xander’s group was charging at the little girl as fast as they could, the fight reached the part where Xander took the first berserker state pill,

"Grrr...", the ligress girl couldn’t help but softly growl at the rotten meat smell that she detected even from this distance from said pill, she also felt an even larger urge to go and shred Xander into pieces.

But it was then when the little conversation between Mylene who also had a similar idea, and Aster occurred, and so the ligreess girl was hit with the same phrase from Aster "Don’t be too overprotective, Kana will be sad if you ruin her fun".

Naturally, this is because Aster was especially saying that not only to Mylene but also to Mira, since both are quite protective when it comes to the little girl, not like Aster isn’t the same though, as Mira’s inner thoughts when she felt the amused gaze of a certain black haired dragon youth on her, suggested.

’Humph, just a moment ago you were about to behead that assassin trash with your sword’, thought Mira, that being said she gave up in going to assist the little girl.

"Clang!", despite the previous, Mira never stopped paying attention to her own fight, so of course when Cassandra lashed her whip at her right leg, the ligress girl slashed her claws its way, resulting in sparks and the sound of metals colliding when they made contact with the steel thorns of the whip.

"Booom!", Mira slightly moved to the side and avoided having her right foot stomped by Lauren’s right foot, it wasn’t noticeable but apparently her shoes were also reinforced, her fighting style quite resembled that of Alice, as in she also used more than just her fists to fight.

"I have never seen someone blocking sister Cassandra’s whip without bleeding before!", said Lauren as she thrusted her right fist at Mira’s side, more accurately at the area where her kidney is positioned, the short orange-haired girl isn’t small, but Mira is quite tall, falling short only by a couple of centimeters shorter when compared to Sarina or Lilia who are the tallest girls in the family, so Lauren actually had to look upwards, which wasn’t up to her liking, but worked in he favor for instances like this, since it was easier for her to align her attacks with their targets this way.

"Clang!", of course that was only if they landed, Mira casually raised her leg and used her shin, which was also protected by metal plaques, courtesy of Aster by the way, to block the enemy’s punch, followed by Mira this time throwing her own punch which was blocked in a hurry by Lauren with her forearms.

"Thud!!!", a loud impact was produced when the ligress’s heavy punch landed on Lauren’s arms, the short orange-haired girl gritted her teeth and forcefully stood her ground to not be sent flying by the impact.

"Ha!", this time Lauren was ready for the backslash of having her punches blocked and expected to receive an attack or two as well, so her charge didn’t stop there, instead she twirled her body to throw a heavy kick aimed at Mira’s thigh, this was accompanied by Cassandra’s whip which was lashed in an opposite direction.

As strange as it might sound, the idea wasn’t to land a hit on the ligress girl but to make her retreat only, because the green-haired female leader noticed how hard it was for Lauren to fight with Mira in "calm" state, she simply wasn’t a match for the ligress girl head on, but it was still manageable with her assistance.

"Clang!", unfortunately, Mira simply extended her hand and directly grabbed the whip, metal thorns and everything, which produced sparks as the metal reinforcement on her gloves clashed against the metal thorns, and then she punched at Lauren’s kick.

The result was that the short orange-haired girl was bounced back due to the impact, Cassandra managed to retrieve her whip, not because Mira was careless enough to lose her grip on it, but because the ligress girl saw from the corner of her eyes, a few objects which were flying her way and felt a certain displeasing sensation coming from them, she jumped to dodge and, in the process, she let go of the whip.

"We came to assist on the lady’s orders", said the blue-haired woman from the same group of Cassandra, who was accompanied by a guy from the blond leader’s side, who was holding onto a large shield.

The objects thrown at Mira were steel needles, that much Cassandra was aware of, those needles "forced" Mira to let go of the whip and Lauren retreated, so far so good right.

However, there was an extra addition to the blue-haired girl’s weapons, which Cassandra hadn’t seen before, and made her danger detection senses ring a bell and Lauren who had a well-developed smelling sense directly shouted.

"Hey Jen, what are you doing!", before the green-haired female leader could interfere, the shield guy charged at Mira aiming to bash her with his shield, on the way his shield which was soaked in a bright yellow substance, left a trail of the same color.

"Why the hell are you trying to fight these brutes with strength, use your damn brains you...", the monologue of the shield guy stopped midway as he saw the death cold light on Mira’s eyes as she glared at him.

"Booom!", what followed was the incredible sight of the ligress girl’s hand directly breaking through a metal reinforced wood shield, all the way to the base of her arm, since she didn’t stop until her hand reached the enemy’s neck.

"How dare you bring out this kind of trash in front of me", said Mira as she softly growled to then lift the enemy as if he was nothing.

"Crack!", this is where Aster started watching the fight, but unlike what one would think, Mira didn’t break that guy’s neck on purpose, well, she was going to do so, but in this case, it happened simply because she didn’t control her strength.