despite keller''s eyes literally spewing fire due to anger since he is a yang cultivator, he didn''t dare to act on his thoughts, not only because aster was in the area of influence of the distortions, but because he could feel the gazes of both william and the woman in the palanquin, on him since earlier.

    aster stopped paying attention to the protector from the pleasure palace and instead resumed his task of evening things out, earlier when he was surrounded by those guys, the teams which they were leading became fiercer and started applying pressure on the girls from the sect.

    the previous further intensified when they saw aster killing the first two middle stage star tribulation cultivators with ease, unfortunately for them, not only those guys didn''t last even three minutes against aster who had the intention to kill but also those girls from the sect were tough, so by the time aster had wiped them out, at most they had suffered slight injuries.

    those fierce girls who were barely hanging there against the all-out attacks from groups of around five times their own teams, brightly smiled the moment they saw that familiar golden colored flash heading into the battlefield once again.

    "damn it all, with formations nearly working we can''t kill these bitches in time... aghhh!", the second in command of one of the many teams in charge of attacking the girls from the sect, who was cursing suddenly started screaming as his arms and one leg were separated from his body.

    "that monster actually defeated all the captains!".

    another of the seconds in command, saw that horrifying golden flash appearing out of nowhere here and there and he shouted to inform the others, just to feel despair as he saw all his nearby allies losing their arms and legs.

    "no aghhh!".

    with that guy''s scream, the rain of severed limbs started once again, until all the nearby teams formed by the team members of the guys that aster killed earlier, were dealt with so he moved onto the next area, where he found an interesting scene, a few of the people who were previously besieging the girls from the sect had started to run away.

    "oh?", aster smirked as he recognized some of them, with a loud thunder-like sound, he used lightning step to flash and appear in front of the guy at the front of the ones that were escaping, then without saying anything aster casually cut his head off.

    the wave of runaways stopped in cold upon the sight of aster calmly floating in front of them, with his sword covered in blood.

    "i seem to remember having told you that if anything were to happen to those girls, you''ll be the first ones to die", he said while glaring at some specific people among the ones who were escaping, basically the ones with the highest realm among them, all being star axys realm cultivators.

    the coldness behind aster''s voice, made quite a few of them tremble in fear, those guys to whom aster was talking, were the ones that left the sect to join either the marsh domain, pleasure palace and other families or forces who happened to be present when took vivian on her date back then.

    after beating them, aster made them protect the junior disciples, by telling them that if anything were to happen to them, regardless of whether they were involved or not, he would hold them accountable.

    "spineless cowards, he should be tired after fighting the captains, we just have to swarm him now!".

    one of the many original disciples from the marsh domain who were escaping, lashed out at the recently joined guys, to then charge towards aster, followed by other original disciples, only for their heads to fly out at the same time.

    "w-we held our hands back!", immediately yelled one of the former disciples of the sect, as he saw those arrogant guys who received a better treatment than himself, die without a chance to scream.

    "y-yeah, our attacks lacked any real strength, we were simply putting on a show, you can verify it with those girls later!", added a second one.

    they were terrified, during the entrance exam aster killed half of the participants since they attacked him, then he basically challenged anyone who had a problem with him to the life and death arena.

    ''what a joke, now that we don''t belong to the sect, there is nothing stopping this crazy bastard from killing us'', is what they thought.

    originally, they didn''t put much thought into it, because they believed that with the help of the disciples from the other sects and forces, who unlike them received ample nurturing, they wouldn''t need to fear aster anymore, but it was proven that such wasn''t the case.

    "l-leave them to us, you can go without any worries, we will be sure to watch their backs!", shouted one of the strongest among the group of former disciples, before turning around and actually helping stop one of the guys that were attacking the junior disciples.

    the other former disciples, immediately followed that guy''s example, turning their back towards his new fellow disciples, which of course earned them their anger.

    "hey, what are you bastards doing, are you crazy!", shouted one of the seconds in command as he took a few steps back after being attacked by an "ally".

    those guys didn''t even bother to answer, their lives were more precious than their new affiliations, in any case most of them came from the many star clusters subordinated to galatia, so the others wouldn''t be able to easily touch them as long as they stayed in their families.

    and even without being accepted in any sect ever again, with the support from their families the late transcending realms were attainable, everything was fine as long as they remained alive.

    "we will also stop our cooperation with those guys and will instead protect the ones they target since they didn''t tell us the whole truth, also all the payments we received to attack your sect will be given to you, so please be magnanimous just this one time", said a rogue cultivator as he bowed towards aster who nodded in response.

    unlike others, rogue cultivators never gave their all unless their lives were at the stake, so even without them saying it, he knew they were holding back when surrounding the girls from the sect, not like that excused them for it, but the price they were willing to pay was enough to buy their limbs back.

    aster who could feel the sparkling eyes of those young girls all over him, since he got them bodyguards or more accurately meat shields just through sheer intimidation, cleared his throat to then say.

    with the previous, the green robed elder clearly stated that the disciples which aster easily toyed with in great numbers, aren''t the elites of the supreme elemental sect but the ones they could spare to come to a "secondary" event.

    while at the same time, forcing them to disband to null the "justification" which aster was using to cripple them all.

    "s-senior we have to retaliate, he attacked my hall members...", the silver robed protector tried to persuade the green robed man, just to be glared at by him.

    "you fool, even after seeing all that you haven''t realized it yet... that kid is not someone who can be taken out with just numbers", he said to then look at william before adding.

    "in fact, i''m pretty sure that even if all the members if the young generation that are participating joined hands, they wouldn''t be his match, am i right, young master talis?", which made william smirk at him.

    this time let alone the elders from the marsh domain and pleasure palace, the protectors from second and first tier forces as well as the ones from the supreme elemental sect, all took a breath of cold air.

    "but that would mean that he can be considered "invincible" within the same division", mumbled keller, just for the old protector from the marsh domain to lash out at him.

    "nonsense, to achieve that at the earthly realms is even harder than doing so at the transcending ones!", he exclaimed.

    to be considered "invincible" within the same division, meant that no matter how many enemies someone faced, they would be helpless as long as they were in the same division in which that person is.

    as to why it is considered harder to achieve at the earthly realms, the reason is pretty simple, the quantity and quality of one''s energy, stamina, endurance and the like, greatly differs when one enters the transcending realms.

    but below of that, swam tactics can overwhelm those who are considered geniuses with relative ease, of course there are exceptions to the rule and those are the ones considered "invincible".

    the important part, is that such an achievement at the earthly realms is only seen in the most outstanding direct descendants of first tier forces, and not in all the generations, this is a measured attribute, being able to deal with more than five hundred opponents with a similar realm or above is the minimal requirement.

    it''s the maximum achievement in terms of battle prowess, a quality reserved for the crop of the cre?me and shouldn''t be seen in a middle grade stellar system.

    "this old man, congratulates the purple lightning princess for keeping such a raw diamond hidden from everyone, even if he is having a little "help" from your side, it is still an amazing feat", said the green robed elder to which agnes snorted before saying.

    "the rumors about the lord of the twin sword valley have been around for quite some time, you guys not wanting to believe them is a complete separate matter".

    the two silver clothed representatives of the young generation, along with iris''s cousins, all tried to suggest their elders to let their groups join hands, refusing to believe that aster could have achieved something that they couldn''t, the pride that they felt after having broken through to the transcending realms at a young age, was gone.

    so now imagine their expressions when their elders both refused to do so.

    "no, if that is the case, then we will only be inviting humiliation by directly going against him, without someone at the same level", said the silver clothed protector.

    seeing the two pairs of high ranked core disciples from the supreme elemental sect, gritting their teeth with frustration, the green robed elder secretly spoke to them.

    ''calm down, out of all the ones he defeated there are only a couple dozen of decent members of the sect, right now you can''t participate, but the chance will come for you to get rid of him'', he said to then add to himself.

    ''besides, it''s not like directly dealing with "black horse" is the only option, he isn''t the first to emerge from a lower background nor will be the last after all''.

    seeing the expression on the green robed elder''s face, william thunderously laughed to then say.

    "whatever your scheme might be, i bet you a million high grade spirit jades that it won''t work", to which the green robed elder simply snorted to then proceed with his plan while ignoring william''s mockery.

    ...

    back at the battlefield, the captain of the team formed by the girls of the purple lotus faction, gazed at aster with gratitude shinning in her eyes, in the time when they were being surrounded by those guys from the supreme elemental sect, three of her teammates suffered injuries, the only reason as to why none of them had a heavily wound is because those guys were not taking them seriously.

    because they didn''t believe aster would dare to do what he did to the people from zoldia and tsarai, to them.

    "thanks", she limited to say to then take a 180° turn in her attitude as she charged towards the ones who hurt her teammates.

    aster nodded at her and then flew upwards since he had finally found a distortion that managed to catch his attention, on the way he noticed that quite a few of the members of the supreme elemental sect were moving in familiar directions, but they kept a respectable distance between each other and they remained in just pairs of two.

    ''heh, so that is your plan, what... a shame'', he thought as he stopped paying attention to those guys and instead focused on the distortion, he chose for himself.