Chapter 331 The First Mission (Part 6)

Once Aster, Alice and Felicia reached the area above the entrance of the bandit's hideout, Aster looked downwards.

There was a concealment formation carved on the walls of the mountain, he used his spirit sense to scan the nearby area, once he was sure there was no one waiting to ambush then, he took out a golden broadsword from the mind space.

"Mm?", Aster looked backwards just to see Lilia throwing a kiss at him, he was about to ask her to block the space just in case, but she got ahead of him.

With the difference in their cultivation realms, if Lilia didn't want to, she could have made it almost impossible for Aster to notice it, so the fact that he could feel the change in the atmosphere as soon as it happened meant the did it like that on purpose.

'My darling's first mission must be perfectly accomplished, so there won't be fishes escaping from the net~", said Lilia through the mental connection, making Aster chuckle.

"Is there a problem?", Felicia couldn't hear Lilia, but she saw Alice suddenly pouting while Aster had an amused expression, so she wondered if she was missing something.

"Nothing, we'll go through the main door, so be prepared to deal with the traps laid by those guys", said Aster before he descended from the sky.

Alice and Felicia immediately followed him, with a slash of his sword, Aster cut open a specific spot of the mountain, then as soon as the rocks separated a tunnel with lights at its sides revealed itself.

The three of them saw the one guarding the entrance, but there was no time to discern which one was, they all wore similar attires and the only differences were the masks used by them.

Without being asked to, Felicia blocked the entrance behind them with darkness, before she disappeared from her previous position behind Aster, to block the saber of the vice leader with her bare hands.

The sound of metals colliding as well as chirps and sparks flying all over the place followed that clash.

"Oh", Aster curiously inspected Felicia's left hand which was firmly grabbing the blade of the enemy's saber, her whole arm was clad in a thin layer of darkness which was the source of all the sparks as the sabe tried to cut it, but was unable to.

Felicia snorted, she closed her hand and easily broke the weapon of her enemy in half, although the other party was wearing a mask, the surprise in his eyes couldn't be hidden.

"Ughh", blood came out form the underside of the mask, the masked guy looked downwards, just to see some of his blood "floating" around him, it was eye catching, but terrifying at the same time.

Unlike the masked guy, Aster was perfectly able to see what happened, Felicia opened cracks in the space from where some kind of invisible spikes came out, impaling the masked guy to death.

This wasn't the first time Aster saw Felicia using some kind of strange ability, to call something, previously when she was breaking through something similar happened, what did surprise him was to see she also had an incredibly high physical strength, enough to break a Sea of Knowledge realm grade weapon like glass, without any problem.

Felicia snapped her fingers and the masked guy who became a sieve, collapsed on the ground, Aster already explained how the loot will be divided, it was find it keep it, with the only condition that the priority to sell/trade treasures and resources would be kept within the group.

So, Felicia naturally took the spatial ring of the masked guy and kept it in her pocket, before she stretched her arms.

"Kuuh, it's been some time since I had a real life and death exchange~".

'',

Aster raised an eyebrow, finding her a bit strange, on the other hand he was in no position to criticize other people's mothers, so he just focused his attention on the now dead masked guy.

"That was "Bone Edge, four more to go", said Aster as he took the mask revealing the true face of the bandit, a bald guy whose face was easy to forget.

Aster expected that bandits flooded this place after one of the vice leaders was killed, but that wasn't the case, apparently this one didn't have a soul lamp, which was understandable, he was only an early-stage Mortal Transcending realm cultivator, and soul lamps weren't legally available in the market, only the Myriad Occupation sect and the Galatia main family had access to them.

Sure, they might be a couple wandering in the black market, but the price was too high to waste in on an early-stage Mortal Transcended without any backer.

Still when the others didn't receive news from the one guarding the door, hell was going to unleash, so Aster and the girls advanced deeper inside the tunnel.

On the way Aster couldn't help but be surprised by how much time did the bandits used to create this place, and also, he frowned realizing it wasn't worth it, to go through all this trouble just for a disposable den, so this was probably their main base.

After advancing about one kilometer flying to not trigger any trap, Aster stopped Alice and Felicia from advancing, then a man's voice could be heard coming from the other side of a door at the end of the tunnel.

"Damn, how much time are we going to have to hide in this stupid planet, we can't even touch those girls we captured, because boss is too paranoic".

"Shut up, if the boss hears you, he'll cut off your dick, they are hostages just in case".

"Hostages my ass, even the executors from the Myriad Occupation sect wouldn't be able to find this place, before we leave, forget it I'll go "talk" with those cuties, since they won't be able to do it later kekeke…".

Two dull sounds came from the other side of the door, as the black sword soul weapon returned to Aster's side.

"There are three paths ahead, the guards ahead were Star Tribulation cultivators, so it was easy to get rid of them, let's go".

The air around Aster's sword blurred as he used the second level of sword intent "sharpening", to slash the lock of the door, cleanly cutting it without making any sound, despite it being reinforced.

The door opened and they were welcomed by the sight of two men in their 30's dead on the floor, one of them was smiling while the other seemed to be exasperated, their deaths happened so fast that they even didn't have time to react.

"Was that some kind of soul technique?", asked Felicia, although her soul cultivation was barely at the peak stage of the Spirit Opening realm, a whole division below her Carnal Disaster realm in the body path, which made her unable to see Aster's soul weapon, she could still somewhat feel the small specs of soul energy lingering in the room.

Aster nodded in response, he took the rings from the dead bandits and then pointed at the three paths which didn't have doors, apparently this was the last checking point before entering the common areas of the bandit's den.

"We'll take separate ways, chose one".

Alice and Felicia stared at each other, before they each took the right and the middle tunnels, leaving Aster the left one.

"If you are in danger, just use the things I gave you", said Aster before he walked into the tunnel.

,m Alice took out her sword and then her body shone in golden light before she rushed into the right tunnel, Felicia on the other hand was covered in darkness before she disappeared, in this low illuminated space she was like a fish in the water.

…

'.',

Inside of the left tunnel, Aster flew at a constant speed, while he maneuvered in this close space.

"These bandits are quite afraid of death", mumbled Aster as he dodged sidewards avoiding an incredibly thin metal thread, which could have triggered a trap or some kind of mechanical alarm, a measure specially developed to alarm and stall intruders without the necessity of formations, which usage of spirit energy might draw the attention of underground spirit beasts.

He was getting more suspicious about this place with each minute, why should a medium ranked bandit group like this, have so much security measures, when their most renowned crime was just stealing some resources from an alchemy peak outpost, it wasn't even enough for the sect to put a reward decent enough to draw the attention of veteran normal core disciples, not to mention the winged ones.

After nearly ten minutes of flying while avoiding traps and other mechanical alarms, Aster reached the exit of the tunnel, his pupils contracted a bit at the sight that received him.

There were cage after cage of full of women, in a rough calculation he counted about two thousand of them, of different ages but the oldest ones shouldn't be past their early thirties.

The women saw Aster entering the room and they stopped doing whatever they were, making the room fell into an awkward silence.

Aster walked towards one of the cages at the right side of the room where he saw some inner disciples from the Alchemy peak, who were wearing green blazers.

"Are you all the ones who were kidnapped?", he asked to them, but got no answer, those girls simply stared at him with wary eyes.

'Of course, they don't believe I came to save them, damn I didn't bother to get the uniform of the black sword peak, but in any case, I doubt they would just answer me because of that', he thought, before an idea struck him like a bold out of the blue.

Under the surprised eyes of the alchemy peak disciples, Aster took out small bottle with a rainbow-colored pill inside, which he showed to them as well as his wing sword emblem ring.

"You all recognize this right, it was given to me by law enforcer Amelia, my name is Aster the first male core disciple and I was tasked to save you all, now I will ask once again, are you the only captives here?".

… The room remained silent for a split of a second, before some of the inner disciple girls, pointed at the bottle.

"T-That is a rainbow grace pill, there are only three people in the sect that can create them, and all are related to the green lotus faction of the Alchemy peak… but how is it possible for a Stellar Constellation to be a core disciple, not to mention you are a guy".

One of the girls, looked at the wing sword ring before she calmed down the others.

"I believe you, we are the only ones left, the assistants and male disciples were killed by the bandits, before we were taken hostages… I don't know how you got this far, but you should hurry up and leave, get reinforces from the sect, because there is a…".

Before the inner disciple could finish speaking, the whole room trembled, before a loud exploding sound echoed through the place.

"It's a bit late for that", mumbled Aster, he heard footsteps coming from the tunnel at a high speed, as well as two different men's voices.

"Young master, call senior Julius, we can go get the women after he returns, the Myriad Occupation sect is probably attacking us!".

"Shut up dry bone, do you think I'm scared of a sect from a mere middle ranked stellar system, this young master came here looking for decent quality cultivation vessels, besides you already were rewarded, so you have no right to speak".

Aster felt his blood boiling all of a sudden, the aura that came from the tunnel belonged to a Sea of Knowledge cultivator, which lit up his battle desire, his eyes glowed in a golden light as he changed the sword, he was using to one of the Dragon Buster series, a nearly two-meter-long broad golden sword, which made the floor crack just due to its weight.

He waved his hand and golden light covered the cages for a split of a second before it disappeared, in preparation for the battle that was about to come.

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