While moving inside the dimensional tunnel towards the planet that Aster has chosen to be the location for the next stop of their date, Aster stole a few gazes at the sleeping dragon girl which he was carrying in his arms.

After eating to the content of her heart, Lilia in dragon mode got sleepy and decided to take a nap while being carried like a princess by Aster, after that Lilia gave him a hint of what they wanted to do next before returning to sleep.

“She sure is having fun even in her dreams”, mumbled Aster as he saw Lilia resting her face on his hand, rubbing her cheeks against it or playfully munching on his fingers in her sleep.

It was actually the same hand with which he fed her the blood pattern ruby and the blood candies earlier and it was also the one in which she used that strange technique.

‘That red glow, I’m sure it wasn’t spirit energy nor soul energy, my eyes couldn’t see through it but it was connected to her wings, so the closest guess I can make is that it was some variation of physical energy, that still doesn’t explain why my Dragon Aura didn’t react, though, that was an invasion through and through’, thought Aster.

Unlike the Paragon Body, which unless there is a life and death situation, can be stopped by Aster from reacting, at will, his Dragon Aura isn’t like that, the thing wasn’t even purposedly awakened by Aster, but awakened by itself due to his dragon lineage feeling insulted by an outer “insignificant” force trying to invade his body.

So, it was deeply linked with his dragon instincts, which Aster might be able reign in most of the times, but that doesn’t mean he can completely suppress them, he is still an infant dragon at most, not to mention his lineage is monstrously strong and pure as he is in the process to become the progenitor of a whole dragon race, similar to Lilia and Alice.

Aster’s golden eyes glowed for a second as he thoroughly inspected his arm, all the way from his skin to the flesh and even the bones, all of it was brimming with “joy” after what happened earlier, it was an interesting sensation to say the least.

‘So that red light was judged to not “defy” me, despite having completely stolen my control over my own arm’, concluded Aster.

Knowing that he was somehow unable to see through what Lilia did with his eyes, and since Rya hadn’t say anything about it either, probably because she made some kind of deal with Lilia, Aster decided to play along, in any case that teasing mother of hers would surely tell him after she has had her fun.

“Wake up, we are bout to arrive to our destination”, Aster gently tapped Lilia’s face a couple of times, as he saw the end of the dimensional tunnel ahead of them.

“Uuuuh~”, Lilia whose eyes slowly opened, cutely yawned showing her currently longer than usual canines, before she looked at her surroundings, just for her bright red eyes to sparkle the moment she saw Aster carrying her like a princess.

“Come on, no matter how sleepy you were, there is no way you don’t remember us leaving the restaurant, so don’t play dumb”, said Aster.

“Grrr~”, Lilia softly growled at him in response before she jumped out of his arms, to then stretch that sexy body of hers, which was brimming with energy after that meal and a nap in her mate’s embrace.

“Ahem, just in case, don’t go on a rampage as soon as we leave the dimensional tunnel, we need to get to the ownerless part of the planet, or things will get bothersome”, said Aster, knowing that Lilia was itching to go.

And just as he expected, he saw Lilia pouting at him, meaning that she was planning to start their “courting rituals” the very moment they left the dimensional tunnel.

“Be a good girl, if we make a ruckus in owned territory, others will come to interrupt our time together, you don’t want that, right?”, he added just to see Lilia shaking her head continuously before she held onto his arm and rubbed her face against Aster’s neck.

‘Heh, she is supposedly mom’s manifested dragon instincts, but she is rather tamer than mom, how cute’, amusingly thought Aster, unaware that Lilia was fuming on the inside, angry at her dragon self for being so easily swayed by Aster, but she didn’t blame her, after all she would have done the same, after a much more violent reaction of course.

And so, with a cutely clingy Lilia, holding onto him, Aster left the dimensional tunnel, appearing on the ground a few seconds later.

Aster observed their surroundings and even softly stomped his foot on the ground, before nodding in a satisfied manner.

“Yup, this planet should be able to keep its scenery relatively intact, as long as a certain someone doesn’t decide to go above the Void Manipulation realm, otherwise even I won’t be able to last long”, said Aster to the needy dragon girl who was stuck to him like bubblegum.

“Grrr!”, Lilia growled at him like saying “Fine”, after all even in their first time “meeting” each other, though Lilia’s instinct driven self, roughed Aster a bit, she didn’t really harm him at all, knowing where to stop so that she wouldn’t actually hurt him.

Aster softly laughed at her in response, the planet which he chose was at the nearest border that the Black and Red Sword factions shared, an interesting fact about such planets is that they don’t really belong to any of the factions or peaks regardless of the territory in which they are included.

Instead of that, those planets are used for a game similar to “capture the flag” between the factions who share the border in question, the planet’s important lands are separated and a blank stationary banner is placed randomly in each one of them, the different teams who participate on the game, fight to capture it and then focus on defending it.

This is one of the permanent events of the sect and it restarts itself each week, the teams which managed to defend their territory for the longest time during the week, get a reward, while others get nothing, also anyone up to the Genesis Manifestation realm can participate… as long as they aren’t Inner Elders or above, in other words, outsiders are allowed as long as their identities are confirmed and their participation is approved by the mission hall at the headquarters of the sect, also if they cause trouble the team that brought them will pay the price.

Why did Aster bring Lilia to such a conflicted place, easy, besides the fact that this is a peak Stellar grade planet, meaning it can withstand battles up to half step Heavenly Realm cultivators without suffering permanent damage, there are territories that had never been claimed, namely the most dangerous but at the same time the most profitable ones.

During the week in which a team has captured a territory, they are allowed to exploit the resources of said territory, but there is a trick, they aren’t allowed to use any advanced tools, meaning they have to literally use their own hands, techniques and powers to obtain the resources they want.

This is training for real-life situations, as they have to not only fend off against other teams, but also deal with spirit beasts and the dangers of the environment of the territory in which they reside.

That being said and while Aster knew the dynamic that took place in these kinds of planets, not to mention he came to one of the most dangerous ones that are open for disciples, he didn’t know anything else about it as he knew that planning would be meaningless for Lilia’s date, since she was going to do as she pleased.

“Grrr!”, Aster saw Lilia suddenly growling at their right and he patted her head to calm her down, earning some giggles and face rubs from her.

“It seems we appeared in one of the territories occupied by the teams of the Black Sword faction, I am not here to fight for this territory so you can come out”, said Aster.

Not even a second later, a group of three girls, accompanied by a Genesis Manifestation female cultivator who seemed to be in her late twenties, came out from behind a large rock in the same direction at which Lilia growled earlier.

Aster didn’t recognize the Genesis Manifestation cultivator, but that was understandable since she was using a guest’s badge, meaning she wasn’t an elder of the sect, but probably someone brought by one of the girls from this team, which he actually recognized, since he had seen them back when Vanesa gave a public lecture.

“Hi senior brother, sorry for the interruption, you came here to spend some time with that… older sister, right?”, said the girl who appeared to be the captain of the team, considering she looked slightly similar to the guest female cultivator that accompanied them and because she had the highest realm among them, being an early-stage Star Tribulation energy cultivator, meaning she is a veteran disciple.

Aster felt amused by the confusion on the eyes of those three, the Lilia they could see looked like a plain young woman, not ugly but not eye catching at all, with a face you’ll easily forget about.

So, they were naturally wondering why was he dating her, when they know the beauties who are openly known as his lovers, in other words Alice and the others, not to mention Agnes, Nerissa and other really high-class beauties are often hanging around with him.

“On the contrary, I apologize for appearing unannounced in your territory, but don’t worry we are leaving right now”, said Aster as he felt Lilia getting a bit restless, she didn’t growl at them earlier because she detected them, with Lilia’s senses she probably had already noticed each and every living being in this planet the very moment they left the dimensional tunnel.

She was jealous because other women were approaching her “mate”, which was rather cute, until you took into the account the fact that if she got angered, a serious flap of her wings would blown away everything in a thousand kilometers radio.

Luckily Lilia felt Aster’s attention never leaving her, so she happily dragged him away in a direction of her choice, which was good for Aster as there were no maps of this planet, available anywhere for the sake of the game previously mentioned.

“Have fun and see you later senior brother~”, said the three girls in unison, the captain of the team then turned to see the Genesis Manifestation woman who was pretty much stiff.

“What do you think aunty, senior Aster is really as handsome as a told you, right?”, she jokingly said.

Before she could answer one of the other two girls, added.

“I have never seen that girl before though, no one believes that senior brother is a superficial person, but I honestly was surprised to see him going out with her…”.

“Mm, that’s not fair, besides sister Nerissa, none of us has gotten the chance to go on a date with senior brother but someone else beat us to it”, mumbled the third girl, just for the Genesis Manifestation cultivator to sigh.

“You three, had we gotten closer earlier we would have ended up horribly beaten up in the best-case scenario and you are still having the time to act like lovesick little girls”, she said, making those three look confused, none of them thought that Aster would attack them and those who accompanied him were all from the Black Sword sect or had a good relationship with them as well.

Even if they fought with Alice and the others, openly showing their desire to get close to Aster, their battles were never with the intention of harming each other, they fought to get the recognition and approbation of Alice and the others, it was a serious spar with no hard feelings, so besides some scratches and light bruises here and there, or having their clothes lewdly cut by the shameless dragon princess, there were no other consequences.

‘These three are still too green in what killing regards, that woman didn’t actually direct her bloodthirst towards us in particular, but I nearly suffocated, it was like being glanced at by an insanely strong spirit beast… that being said, that young man was indeed worth the risk~’, thought the woman.

…

While those four were all having their own imaginary scenarios developing in their minds, Aster was dragged away by Lilia, southeast of their previous location, it was obvious by her slight pouting expression that she was annoyed by Aster not allowing her to destroy the “females” that tried to steal his attention from her.

In case you wonder why she reacted this way while earlier she was tamer when they were surrounded by all those girls, that’s because those were junior disciples, they did like Aster but their feelings inclined more to an idolized crush than romantic, so they weren’t taken seriously by Lilia.

Those three on the other hand were veteran disciples, who had gone out of the sect in missions quite a few times, their intentions when approaching Aster were much more serious and Lilia detected that, not to mention there was an “appealing” woman with them, so she of course gave them a warning but was unfortunately stopped from stablishing her dominance by Aster himself, which she probably considered him taking a liking to those girls.

“Come on, they were just being nice and I am completely yours right now, so cheer up”, said Aster as he gently kissed Lilia’s neck.

“Grrr~”, Lilia wanted to express her discontent, but Aster cunningly rubbed that pretty black scale in the middle of her upper back, forcing a cute sound to come out of Lilia’s mouth, making her forget about the previous situation and instead jump into Aster’s arms while pointing the overall direction in which she wanted to advance.

In other words, she wanted him to carry her like earlier.

‘Dear heavens, what a needy dragon girl’, thought Aster but he complied and just accelerated, on the way he saw many occupied territories and even a few which weren’t.

Now he learned that each them consisted in eight members of the young generation and one assistant at the Genesis Manifestation realm, also each territory had an invisible barrier that separated it from the rest of the planet, the barrier didn’t stop the participants at all though, but it did prevent spirit beasts from moving around between territories, safely creating a plethora of different ecosystems.

Their time flying through the territories occupied by the members of the Black Sword faction was rather pleasant, the girls easily recognized Aster and also saw he had no interest in the game, so they just sweetly smiled and greeted him from afar before focusing on the game again.

But then, following Lilia’s hand which was still pointing towards southeast, they left the area which was safely occupied by the Black Sword faction and deepened into the conflict zone where the supremacy hadn’t been solidified, meaning the one in charge of the territory still changed quite often.

And of course, they had to pass through one of the territories recently occupied by the members of the Red Sword faction.

Surprisingly, besides some hatred and humiliation filled gazes being directed at them, those guys didn’t do anything else, at least until the third or fourth territory occupied by them, where the captain who saw Aster and Lilia passing through her territory, took out a communication talisman to then say.

“Inform senior, there are two hostiles going towards the unconquered zone at southeast”, she limited to say, while communication devices and even spatial rings were allowed, they had low proficiency due to the interference of the barriers isolating the different territories, so the long-distance communication they could use, required short messages and a long charging time between them, this was done on purpose of course, since this was training.

While that girl from the Red Sword faction was actually rather cautious not speaking until Aster had left and checked with the Genesis Manifestation assistant she had brought, to see if there were any signs of spirit sense being used to spy on them before sending her message, never did it cross her mind that Aster could listen to them just using with his hearing sense.

‘If it’s unconquered, then it must be a high danger zone, not to mention that mom looks really eager to get there, so it should be a really high-level territory’, thought Aster, the only thing that confused him is why those guys from the Red Sword faction didn’t attack him at sight.

After all they have a Genesis Manifestation accompanying them and the territories aren’t part of the Black Sword faction’s ground, so the Twin Sword array won’t activate in them if he is attacked by someone with a much higher realm, like normal, also Lilia on the outside seemed like an average Mortal Transcending realm cultivator, nothing outstanding, so there was something else going on, not like Aster really cared about it, he just found it interesting.

‘Perhaps this has something to do with how Iris made the Core Elder of the Red Sword faction, runaway with her tail between her legs back then’, thought Aster before he put the subject at the back of his mind, if those guys didn’t mess with him, then he had no reason to waste his time on them, when he could instead spoil his girls to the content of his heart.

Speaking of spoiled girls, the more they went southeast, the more excited Lilia who was being carried in his arms, became, she continuously rubbed her face against Aster’s chest while smiling at him from time to time.

After a few minutes of flying at high speed, Aster was able to see from afar, why Lilia pointed him in this direction, ahead of them was a… volcanic territory.

“Your true intentions are leaking, you know?”, said Aster as he saw Lilia licking her lips while looking at him from the corner of her eyes, however contrary to what Lilia planned, they weren’t the only ones arriving at this place.

“Grrr!”, Lilia growled while looking downwards, the ground below them split apart and a tsunami of magma emerged, accompanied by a giant shadow that blocked their way, it was a magma golem that activated due to their proximity, explaining why Lilia didn’t discover it earlier.

“I doubt it would aim for the kill, since it was created by those godmothers of mine, but still, to think they left peak Void Manipulation moving threats, to freely roam around in place where Genesis Manifestation realm is the limit, that’s a bit too much”, mumbled Aster as he saw the towering figure in front of them.

Still, for others it was better than fighting a spirit beast of the same level, since this golem had no instincts and just followed orders, meaning they could observe and study its attacking pattern to then develop a strategy to counter it, also the fact that the realms of the one overseeing each team was limited to the Genesis Manifestation, didn’t mean they couldn’t be stronger.

For example, that female cultivator that accompanied the girls from the Black Sword faction, they met earlier, had a battle prowess high enough to face against middle stage Void Manipulation realm enemies, so this golem wasn’t a dead end for the outstanding teams, the problem is that… there wasn’t only one of them.

The ground started rumbling in all directions, as other golems emerged from below, not because of Aster and Lilia, but because of the newcomers that arrived just now, riding on top of a giant flying red boat.

Lilia was already pissed off, since she couldn’t scare away the golems just with her aura, as they aren’t sentient beings, growled at the sight of other people interfering with her fun.

So now imagine what happened when a fire wave which was shot from that red boat, landed on the golem in front of them, making the towering thing fall backwards, splashing molten rock and fire in all directions.

“Booom!”, the golem destroyed quite a large part of the nearby ground on its way down, but Lilia and Aster’s attention wasn’t on it as of current, but on the red-haired female Genesis Manifestation cultivator in her mid-twenties who jumped out of the boat after that attack was shot earlier.

“Lord of the Twin Sword Valley, we need something from that territory, for a change, don’t antagonize us, please”, said the woman as she drew out her sword to then pounce on the nearest golem.

Other faces peeked out of the boat after that, there were girls from an age range of around 15 to 20 years old there, Aster had no memory of them among the Red Sword faction but all of them were wearing its badge, also all of them had red hair.

Taking advantage of Aster who was lost in his thoughts for a second, Lilia flashed away from him, appearing on in front of the boat a fraction of a second later.

Aster reacted immediately and the red-haired girl from earlier who was now fighting two golems at the same time, noticed it too.

Still, they were both one step too late and saw Lilia casually using her black sharp nails to tore away the protection barrier from the boat.

“Crack!”.

“Ahhh!”, the girls in the boat screamed in surprise, they were unable to see what happened, since Lilia was too fast, and while Aster and that red haired girl were also unable to arrive faster than Lilia, they reached her almost at the same time.

‘Hey, mom, they haven’t done anything to us…’, just as Aster was sending a message directly to Lilia, his dragon eyes caught a glimpse of something in the boat and he understood why Lilia acted like that.

However, the red-haired girl thought Lilia was going to attack the girls in the boat, so she slashed her sword against Lilia, just to be blocked by a golden “wall”.

“Clank!”, a deep metal clashing sound, spread all over the area as well as sparks caused by the friction between that sword and the golden wall which was actually the expanded version of the arm guard from the Paragon Body, were the result of the previous.

“They aren’t combatants, leave them alone!”, exclaimed the red-haired girl as she noticed her sword wasn’t getting through that strange “barrier” that materialized out of nowhere, in time to stop Lilia, only for her impetus to deflate like a punctured lifesaver, when she heard Aster saying.

“Take it easy, you guys are with Iris instead of the Red Sword faction itself, right, she is my friend, so why are you here?”.

Those girls who were trembling after witnessing Lilia destroying the barrier of the boat, calmed down upon listening to Aster’s words.

The Genesis Manifestation cultivator seemed to doubt for a couple of seconds, but seeing that Lilia wasn’t attacking those girls, she also lowered her sword.

“If you are Iris’s friend, why did you stop me from blocking that woman’s way…”, she mumbled as she gazed at Lilia, she was still wary of Lilia since she saw her using her bare hands to destroy the barrier of the boat, without any spirit energy or anything, meaning she had a monstrous physical strength.

‘Because if your attack landed, the one to suffer would have been you’, thought Aster, but he instead looked at the small bed on the boat, where a familiar person was lying down, with a feverish and suffering expression, it was one of the three maids that accompanied Iris into Esmeralda’s secret realm, the youngest of the three sisters, Nina.

“What happened to her?”, asked Aster, to which the girl ultimately sighed before saying.

“I don’t know, she was fine until a couple of days ago, the medics we had at our disposition were unable to cure her, but an alchemist managed to tone down the symptoms of whatever it’s affecting her with a soft peak Stellar grade fire and earth attributed elixir”.

“Unfortunately, such resources are always on high demand at the Redheart family and those old bastards refused to give Iris more of them just to save a “mere servant”, this was the closest planet with an environment high ranked enough to produce the needed resources to make more alchemic products with both fire and earth attributes, so we came here to get them and at the same time, just being here should soothe Nina’s suffering”.

Aster nodded, he did recognize what was causing all this trouble, it was one of the first things he saw when he awakened his dragon eyes after all, it was the attribute of that gray orcrary, Merkel from back then.

‘Mm, though strange and well-hidden, there is no way a competent medic couldn’t have noticed it, so I’m sure there is more to this, but for now, I wonder why mom reacted to violently when she felt it’, thought Aster.

“Hey, what are you…”, the woman saw Lilia jumping into the boat to approach the bedridden Nina and tried to ask her what was she doing, but Nina herself stopped her from doing so.

“It’s fine, miss Layla, they are allies…”, she managed to say whole coughing up blood, based on the tons of red tissues on the trash bin next to her bed, she has lost a lot of blood, which was replenished using nutrient elixirs and other similar supplements.

Then to the horror of that woman called Layla as well as the other girls on the boat, Lilia clawed in Nina’s direction, sending a red slash out from her nails in her direction.

“Stop!”, shouted Layla, she tried to unsheathe her sword but Aster stopped her from doing so, by grabbing her hand.

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