naturally the rather "disappointed" tone behind eric''s voice, made those four guys from the iron hall feel humiliated, they were being looked down by a random without reputation nor remarkable achievements, at least the sword wielding monster from earlier has rumors about his feats spreading throughout the four heavenly quadrants, so they could somewhat console themselves after not even daring to look in aster''s overall direction.

    but they would be their sect''s laughing stock if they were to be afraid after purposedly targeting, the enemies that were the least prompt to instill the wrath of the lord of the twin sword valley, if killed.

    that being said, while his three subordinates had a moment of impulsiveness, the captain of their team, prevented them from jumping into the fight without any plan.

    ''these fools, even if you cultivate in the body path that doesn''t mean you have to be simpletons...'', thought the captain of the team to then say.

    "before anything, activate iron skin, not only is that guy mainly an energy path cultivator, but he doesn''t even have a rich elemental aura around him, in other words he is only a show off, we can crush him in a short period of time if we are well coordinated so don''t lose your cool".

    the other three exchanged gazes and then nodded, feeling ashamed that they almost fell to the "provocation" of the enemy, having calmed down they also scanned eric and couldn''t help but snort at the realization that the elemental aura around eric was mediocre.

    "the captain is right, he is nothing compared to the opponents we usually deal with, he probably sped through a couple of realms without building any kind of foundation just to advance faster and start with his secondary path earlier", said the vice-leader.

    "heh, that explains why his secondary path is so high for the range of age he is supposed to be at, that guy is just an inflated empty husk", mockingly added one of the two peak star axys subordinates.

    the previous is not that rare to see in low ranked stellar systems where mortals abound, since good manuals are hard to come by there, then people judge "talent" as having a high realm, in fact this extend to even middle ranked stellar systems though they do take other aspects into account.

    having made his subordinates use their brains, the captain nodded and then the four of them channeled their spirit energy through their bodies, cladding themselves in a layer of metals with different gray tones, the captain being closer to the silver tone attained by core disciples that didn''t advance due to the huge number of resources that were distributed recently, a sign that he had a decent amount of talent.

    "now!", with a simple order, the three subordinates and the captain himself flashed and appeared around eric, surrounding him in ever direction to then attack him at close range taking advantage of they being mainly body path cultivators.

    two heavy punches and two kicks came at eric at the same time, to which he answered by blocking with his own attacks, punches for the punches and kicks for kicks.

    "boom!", a loud shockwave was caused by the attacks colliding, making the captain click his tongue realizing that the equipment used by the enemy was quite decent, which helped him block their attacks.

    ''he''s got a good reaction time, whatever he struggled to block the last attack, so let''s just storm him'', though the captain before shouting.

    "again!", that being said, no matter how good were the defensive formations on the enemy''s clothes and the light armor he was wearing, due to the disruption caused by the spatial distortions, it was not going to properly protect him, so they could just brute force their way through them with continuous attacks.

    the five of them flashed throughout the battlefield, causing continuous thunder-like explosions due to the shockwaves released after their fists and legs exchanged blows and just like the captain expected after a few rounds of punches and kicks being practically completely blocked, some cuts started appearing on the enemy''s unprotected skin.

    it''s worth mentioning that while eric wore pants and boots that completely covered his lower body, his shirt had no sleeves and only his chest, shoulders and shins had armor made out of the hide of a spirit beast with metal protections added, everything else was uncovered giving him a rather "wild" image.

    that being said, such fashion had taken a toll, since the four enemies were covered from head to toe with a layer of metal and with the continuous exchange of attacks at high speed, cuts, light bruises and abrasive wounds started to cover eric''s arms, to the point that blood started to drip down from said wounds painting his skin of a red tone.

    seeing the bloody appearance that the enemy was starting to take, the three subordinates became fiercer, wanting to accelerate the process to join the group of girls from the pleasure palace.

    ''just like the seniors said, male cultivators from the myriad occupation sect are weaklings, only that bastard was an exception, junior sister from the pleasure palace i''ll come for you in a moment'', though the peak star axys cultivator at eric''s right, forgetting the fact that the myriad occupation sect was originally a female-exclusive sect and only recently they started taking in male disciples and most of them joined to pursue those inexperienced young misses from prominent families.

    the peak star axys cultivators at eric''s left, was more focused on the girls from earlier though.

    ''those seniors always bragged about spending some crazy nights with the girls from dual cultivation sects stablished in middle grade stellar systems, so now is my chance to experience it firsthand'', he thought.

    let''s not forget that most of them were either early stage star axys or even peak stellar constellation cultivators, until not too long ago and they aren''t exactly young so they were at the bottom of the barrel at their sect, it was thanks to having ingested a ton of resources that they became somewhat noticeable so they wanted to experience the fun that their seniors always bragged about whenever they returned from "exchanging pointers" with people from lower ranked forces.

    the vice-leader on the other hand, was already a middle star axys previous to this, so while the girl from the pleasure palace that was appealing to him, was indeed tempting, most of his attention was on being rewarded for killing a teammate of the guy who humiliated everyone earlier.

    ''not only the elders of the sect, but even the representatives of the other forces will for sure reward us if we bring them this guy''s corpse, the captain will take the head but i can aim for the arms and exchange them for more specific resources'', thought the vice-leader who was blocking eric''s path of retreat.

    he wanted to boost his speed to the peak of the carnal disaster realm like the captain of the team who used to be more of an equal to him as he was just one minor realm above him, but has been acting quite prideful lately.

    while those three got excited over the sight of eric bleeding and were preparing for the moment the captain gave the order to go for the kill, the captain himself instead frowned to his insides.

    having regained some confidence since the captain was taking the vanguard and he only had to apply pressure from the side alongside the vice-captain, the peak star axys guy nodded.

    both the vice and the remaining subordinate took out their spirit weapons, they were tower shield users, but instead of fully focusing on defense, their shields had thick metal spikes at their front for attack purposes.

    among the iron hall there were those that went all in into defense, those that incorporated other tricks like these, and those who focused on offense, the captain was like them since he also used iron skin instead of blade skin, however he wasn''t a shield user but a warhammer one as the large metal weapon with the same name which he was holding, suggested.

    the three of them exploded in spirit energy which was then injected into their respective weapons as they prepared their spirit techniques, the vice-leader even showed off by adding first level intent to his shield, in the form of ghost shield very much to the envy of the peak star axys guy, since the vice-leader had a tougher defense so the chances of him being targeted next were lower.

    however, he calmed down upon seeing the captain using not only ghost hammer on his weapon but even crushing, in other words he could use both first and second level warhammer intent, which was enough to put him into the "real" list of core disciples unlike the ones that recently advanced.

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    "armored charge!", the vice-leader and the peak star axys guy injected till the last drop of spirit energy they released, to then flash at eric, their shields manifested the ethereal image of a rhinoceros-like metal armored spirit beast made out of spirit energy that covered them whole, apparently that''s what the row of spikes at the front of their shields was for.

    the captain didn''t immediately set off though, since he was faster, he allowed himself to inject spirit energy into his warhammer for a couple of seconds more than those two, to then join the fray.

    "shell breaking impact!", in his case, the image manifested was a combination of a porcupine and an armadillo, with a spiked maze-like tip at the end of its tail which aligned with the head of the captain''s warhammer, that was aiming at the enemy''s chest.

    feeling the pressure coming from his sides and the danger from the front, eric gazed at the ethereal beasts manifested due to their spirit techniques which were based on the body path, also known as martial arts, which were most of the times inspired in how spirit beasts fight, to then shake his head.

    "those martial arts have some serious names to what''s up with these "stuffed dolls", if you have to fight in a beastly way... this is what you have to do!", by the end of eric''s sentence his voice became a thunderous roar.

    what followed was his whole body exploding in that ash burnt blue energy from before, but this time it was all absorbed by his right arm, before a giant reptile-like spirit beast phantasm was projected behind of eric.

    unlike the image manifested by those three, not only the lizard phantasm behind of eric looked way more realistic, but it even showed the reactions expected from a living reptile spirit beast, like blinking and hissing while using its tongue to feel the surroundings.

    but the surprises didn''t end there, eric extended his right arm and a barbarian style double headed battle axe appeared on his hand, now imagine the captain''s surprise when erick turned his back against him as he shouted.

    "tail cleave!", erick swept his barbarian battle axe from left to right, making the lizard phantasm spirit beast lash its tail in the same direction, unleashing a violent energy wave, the vice-leader and the star axys enemy didn''t even have the time to scream before their bodies were cut in half, killing them in the spot very much to the horror of the captain who gritted his teeth.

    "how dare you show your back to an enemy you, cocky bastard!", he didn''t stop his attack since doing so would cause a huge backslash and instead smashed his warhammer against eric''s back.

    "booom!", the explosion that wasn''t caused earlier since eric''s axe and the tail of the lizard spirit beast cleanly cut the bodies of the enemies, could be heard this time as the warhammer hit eric''s back, causing both a thunderous shockwave and an explosion due to the clash of spirit energy.

    for a moment, a cloud of spirit energy reduced the vision to zero in the vicinity, but it was soon dispelled to reveal the result of the previous clash, an eric who was sent flying a few dozens of meters but was... perfectly fine, if anything the skin of his back all the way to the base of his neck had become slightly red but that was it.

    the dull sound caused by the four halves of corpses, result of eric axe''s attack from earlier, returned the captain to the real world.

    "impossible", he mumbled in disbelief, to then add.

    "there is no way for an attack-oriented main energy path cultivator to parry my strongest attack with just his body, i even adjusted it so the death wasn''t instant like you did with my teammate to avoid life-saving talismans!".

    normally life-saving methods aren''t so easy to trick, since they are specialized products tailored for important descendants or those that were treasured by a rich enough elder from a family or force, however within the disruption field caused by the space distortions, it was possible to easily kill even such people.

    but the captain didn''t feel any spirit treasure activating earlier, and even there wasn''t any solid armor covering eric''s back, his clothes weren''t destroyed because a bashing type attack like the one used by his warhammer wasn''t supposed to cut through stuff anyway, so he could accept that his clothes were fine.

    however, his spine should have been shattered and the flesh of his back should have turned into a bloody mess and even if that wasn''t the case, his organs should have ruptured due to the strong solid impact, but none of the previous seemed to have happened.

    "creating one''s strategy based in unfounded suppositions is a grave mistake, even a barbarian knows that", casually said eric, which made the captain lash at him.

    "bullshit, it''s impossible for you whose realm is lower than mine, to have a strong enough offense to instantly kill my teammates and at the same time have a defense tough enough to parry my attack with your body, the ones that commit the stupid act of trying to focus in both offense and defense end up being mediocre in both that''s an iron set rule below the heavenly realms, you must have used some sort of treasure to protect yourself!", he yelled, to which eric laughed out loud before sending a sound transmission directly to the captain.

    ''well, the one who terrified you enough to target me instead of any of my current and future sisters in law, is someone that puts equal focus in offense, defense and even support'', naturally eric was referring to aster, and the captain got the reference.

    which against his wishes made his face turn white as paper, because the image of aster''s terrifyingly high attack power was imprinted in his mind, so if he had defense and support capacities at the same level, then he was much of a monster than what anyone thought him to be!