Yasenia continued her hunt, killing all beasts in the Sixth Realm she encountered. For the mortal ones, she didn't even look at them because, after killing one, she noticed that they didn't give her any cultivation progress. Or, the progress in cultivation they added was so faint that she couldn't feel it.
She weaved between the trees, advancing quickly with Draheart in hand, but as she continued onward, a faint frown appeared on her face. Her golden slit eyes moved to the right and saw a darkened area of the forest.
With two quick jumps, she climbed to the canopy of one of the trees and landed on a large branch. She then focused her gaze and saw that the darkened forest was not due to a lack of light. It was because the surface was covered with a mass of tiny insects. The creatures ate everything in their path, multiplying at a ridiculous pace.
"Wow… those little ones are not worse than Kali's."
Rubbing her smooth chin, Yasenia pondered her next move. 'Should I go and face them, or change directions?'
While she was thinking, she noticed a presence approaching her quickly. Looking to the right, she saw what appeared to be a human woman. The woman had black hair and eyes, with skin as pale as moonlight.
Yet, her beauty was hard for the average individual to appreciate because her body was covered by a dress that… moved.
Yasenia was quick to notice that the dress was "alive" as innumerable creatures tightly surrounded her figure, some even moving around her white skin. The black movements of her dress and the white of her skin contrasted in a terrifying look that even Yasenia found hard to stomach.
She was not one to judge, but clearly this woman's eyes were not those of a sane cultivator. The woman spoke, her voice strangely pleasant in her monotonousness. "You are that dragon… the one that looked delicious as a nesting bed."
For the first time since she could remember, Yasenia was quite eager just to turn around and not fight. She could bear all the little bugs of her adorable fox because the fox treated them as, well, what they were: parasites.
However, this woman had seemingly crossed a line that, if described, would most likely make many feel unnerved. "Ahem. Hello, Senior Sister Zi Hua. I do not know what a… nesting bed… is, but, um, I don't really have any intention of becoming one. So, if you would not mind, could we each go our own ways and act as if we hadn't seen each other?"
Zi Hua blinked her eyes and tilted her head. Then, she pointed to the side and spoke again, her voice without a single up and down in tone. "That's a nesting bed."
Looking over, Yasenia felt regret. 'Why did I even look?'
Two women and three unconscious men lay in different black "beds", half buried in them. Their minds had probably shut down or left the illusion already, but their half-living bodies were current nourishment for the woman's parasites to multiply at a terrifying pace.
"Ah… Right, how could I have not thought of that?" Yasenia's lips arched stiffly. "I am so silly. Haha…"
Zi Hua blinked and, to Yasenia's stupefaction, she nodded. "Silly. Who doesn't know what a nesting bed is? It's common sense."
An urge to slap the woman burned fiercely within Yasenia's heart, but she held it back. Looking around, she noticed that at some point, everything but the tree she was standing on had been covered in the woman's parasites. 'Sigh… I can't escape now. This woman is also looking at my body with such a strange gaze that it's clear she won't leave me alone.'
Shaking her head, Yasenia stopped joking around, and her face regained its usual charming yet calm expression. "Senior Sister Zi Hua, if you don't want to be disqualified, I recommend that you let me leave. Believe me, your parasites will have indigestion if they try to eat me."
Zi Hua's expression didn't change much, but her eyes seemed to be reading Yasenia's information. "One hundred… and twenty-eight years old?"
Puzzlement flashed in her emotionless black eyes. "So young? How?"
Yasenia sent back a confused expression as well. "Didn't you know the tournament registration conditions?"
"Huh?"
"Huh?"
Both looked at each other strangely, and Zi Hua broke the awkward silence. "I just came here because the master said so. She even dragged me out of my [Endless Torment Parasite Castle]... "
'...Why does she sound so sad to leave such a terrifyingly named place!?'
But looking at the wriggling "dress" around her body, her surprise vanished.
Outside, everyone was having far worse reactions than Yasenia, though. Being the "main" target for the audience to follow, everyone in the world got to know the new… peculiar girl, Zi Hua.
Were it not for Yasenia's beauty cleansing their eyes from the horrors of the woman, most would've already stopped looking.
Zi Hua looked at Yasenia and spoke curiously. "You smell good. Can I be your friend?"
The girl's sudden curveball almost made Yasenia slip off the branch. "W-What?"
Zi Hua pointed at Yasenia. "[Parasite Surge]."
The world around Yasenia darkened, waves of black creatures throwing themselves at her to devour her. Yasenia's face crumpled. "Woman! Can you follow a single train of thought for more than two seconds!?"
As the dark wave enveloped the entire area, the audience gasped or cried in horror, worried about Yasenia. Yasenia looked around, her golden eyes without any ripples. Her energy condensed around her and soon transformed to form the usual [Celestial Sunder]. However, instead of releasing it from her sword, she gathered it between her two hands.
"Begone."
BOOM!
Zi Hua's eyes flashed as she quickly jumped back. Right after, an explosion of celestial energies swallowed more than five kilometers around Yasenia's figure.
Every single tree in the surroundings was vaporized, leaving the dragoness floating in the middle of a clearing. Her face was relaxed, a seductive yet natural smirk etched at the corners of her mouth. Stretching her hand, she took Draheart and pointed it at Zi Hua. "I don't know about being friends, but since you dare attack me, you will become my first victim. Prepare yourself, Senior Sister Zi Hua."
Zi Hua looked around with a faint frown. 'Her destructive power is… high.'
As she pondered, she noticed a flash of white light. All her danger senses flared up, her body and parasites acting before she had a chance to process things.
"[Pegasus Gallop], [Celestial Sunder]."
Yasenia appeared right before Zi Hua, her speed stupefying. The giant sword was encased in destructive celestial fire, following a perfect horizontal arc toward Zi Hua's chest.
The dress moved, forming a quick barrier in front of Zi Hua.
BOOM!!
Yasenia's overwhelming strength impacted the woman's chest, sending her flying backward at a ridiculous speed. Zi Hua felt her internal organs shake as she coughed up a mouthful of blood. Her usual monotone expression had cracked, showing bewilderment at the red color flying out of her mouth.
This was probably the first time she was made to bleed across her entire life. After all, thanks to her bloodline and constitution, she had been nurtured by the sect since she was a child.
During all her one thousand years of existence, cultivation and parasite rearing had been everything in her world. Moreover, all the fights she took part in were nothing that she had to put any effort into. With her ridiculous talent and strength, her opponents all became her parasites' food or fled in terror, depending on how much they offended the girl.
As Zi Hua crashed through a few dozen trees, her black eyes looked down to see half her chest bleeding and exposed. 'H-Huh? What happened? I couldn't see?'
Her senses flared up with danger again, her parasites moving her from where she stood. Right after she moved, a white meteor descended from the skies, carrying world-destroying momentum.
BOOOM!!!
Hundreds of kilometers around the impact were obliterated, with Zi Hua being blasted back by the shockwave of the explosion. That attack snapped her out of her daze, and her monotonous face tightened, a slight sense of fear blooming within her. "S-Strong."
Yasenia looked at Zi Hua's fleeing form from a distance. Time around her slowed down to a crawl as she pondered her next move. 'I managed to hit her, but she survived. Any other cultivator would've exploded or been bisected by the strength of my blow. Yet, she only received internal injuries. Her strength is far higher than I am imagining.'
She would not underestimate anyone. She knew that she was fighting monstrous geniuses almost ten times her age. Even when Zi Hua's battle experience was probably not as extensive as her own, that didn't mean that she was weak in any shape or form.
'If I pursue, I run into the risk of awakening her latent potential while battling me. Moreover, someone as single-minded as that woman probably has a high-level Intent Domain… Still…'
Yasenia felt her battle will flare up as a wild grin spread on her lips. "It has been a while since I found a challenge in someone so close in age to me."
She stomped the air, compressing it and creating a platform beneath her foot that bent under the ridiculous force of her body. Then, the figure of the starlit Pegasus manifested, merging into her body. "[Heavenly Constellation Steps, First Sky: Pegasus Gallop]."
BANG!
The air exploded as Yasenia covered the distance of several kilometers separating them in an instant. Zi Hua, having been exposed to Yasenia's threat more than once, finally reacted. "[Torment Living Wall]!"
A massive black wriggling wall manifested before her, and Yasenia collided into it like a blue-white meteor.
"[Grand Cosmos Martial Art, Third Form: Comet Descent]!"
Her figure was like a giant rock violently slamming against the surface of a placid lake.
The wall bent inward, a ripple spreading out and violently tearing through it, before she broke through and appeared on the other side. The thunderous sound of her collision followed her figure, giving her a tyrannical presence.
Zi Hua waved her hand, thousands of nigh-invisible needles flying toward Yasenia. Knowing the enemy's cultivation path, the dragoness didn't dare to collide with these needles. She took a deep breath and then roared. "[Celestial Dragon Breath]!"
ROAR!
Blue light washed away the darkness, tearing through everything in front of it and arriving in front of Zi Hua in an instant. The woman's face showed bewilderment, but she managed to react barely in time. "[Parasitic World Intent Domain Level Four]!"
Before the blue beam of world-destroying energies collided with her, blackness manifested in front of her like a giant maw.
The maw seemed insatiable, absorbing the dragon's breath and digesting it. Most of the beings that formed part of the gargantuan maw died, but some evolved and multiplied. Before Yasenia made another move, Zi Hua was swallowed into her own dark mass of beings, with everything expanding to cover hundreds of kilometers.
Yasenia looked around, a touch of seriousness flashing in her eyes. It was as if she had entered a forsaken space. Everything was black, but the sound of constant movement and crunching was endless.
In the spectator stance, a woman with black robes, more luxurious but similar to Zi Hua's, spoke with a smile. "Devour that dragon, little Zi Hua."