As Alaric kept hitting her, except for a few vibrations on her internal organs, there were not many injuries. The flame armor was doing a great job and with her body being strong, she was able to endure most of the hits. Most of the aura was stopped by the flame armor so everything Kumari had endured was just from the impact.
If aura had infiltrated her body, then eliminating it would be troublesome. But since there were no martial arts involved, the aura from the punch was scattered rather easily. While she was enduring the punches, she saw a flicker of emotion behind the maniac eyes of Alaric. It was mixed with regret and torment and she saw a pleading look for a fleeting moment. She knew Alaric was in a lot of pain but the situation between them was in a stalemate.
Even if she used her flame to destroy his body, it would recover in a few moments and she wasn’t sure she would be able to evade his instincts to land her attacks every time. She was confident she would outlast him but it would come at a cost for her too. So in between getting hit, she circulated her qi for a claw attack. This attack was not strong or rare, just a plain mortal-grade flame claw attack but along with the flames, she used a lot of crimson hue.
However, it was getting harder to control the crimson hue on her hands and after a certain point, it was starting to erode her hands. While Alaric was hitting her, she inched closer to him and with her left hand blocked his punch and grabbed his functioning arm. She pulled him closer and with a swift motion plunged her hand through his chest all the way to the back gripping his heart with it. The hand holding the beating heart was covered in a concentrated crimson hue which was starting to erode the hand.
The heart was still beating and Kumari’s whole hand had passed through Alaric’s chest. The moment his heart had detached from his body, Alaric seemed to have regained his sanity and when he looked at Kumari, his eyes held no resentment but were filled with a little bit of remorse and a lot of gratitude. Being berserk was not just about the deviation of qi, one had to offer far more than their life force. The gratitude-filled eyes began to dim and life began fading away along with the beating of his heart.
The flaring red aura vanished, but the jade-white sheen seemed to have clung to his skin, itching into it permanently. “Goodbye, old friend,” Kumari whispered in his ear. Alaric was only a decade older than her, and although they didn’t interact much, there were few people of her generation remaining in the Lunaris city she could tolerate. The people of the Visigoth clan were simple-minded and honest, so it was easy to deal with them.
There was not really enmity between the Visigoth clan and the Rijal clan but it felt like the Visigoth clan had paid a heavy price this time. The only winner seemed to be the Thapa clan. The lifeless body slowly fell towards the ground and Kumari kept looking at it for a while. With a sigh, she looked at the place where Punya was battling the elders from the Thapa clan.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
When the Visigoth and Ming clans had started battling with Kumari, the six elders of the Thapa clan were ganging upon Punya. After battling with Punya for a few rounds they realized that Punya had reached the ninth stage of the foundation building realm. He was a battle cultivator which meant that he was able to go toe-to-toe with a few cultivators of the same realm.
The intel they received was that Punya was only at the eighth stage of the foundation building realm and he was injured. But seeing Punya keeping six of them at bay at once, they realized that he was not injured. When the cultivators from the Thapa clan started taking Punya seriously they realized he couldn’t be defeated in a short time if they didn’t use their trump cards. Since they held the elder position in the golden core family, it was obvious that they had their trump cards but since the competition was harsh, if they used their trump cards for the clan then it meant they had one less trump card than their peers.
Every person was inherently selfish, even the so-called saints so it was easy to guess that they wouldn’t be using their trump cards anytime soon. If they could defeat Punya by ganging up on him then it would be better but if they had to use their trump card, then they would have to bear loss far more than the gain they would make.
The clan would probably not pay for their loss. The one from the Ming clan most proficient in the soul attack had already fallen right before them. Since the other three of the Lunaris city were confronting Kumari, the six of them ganging up on Punya, they were confident in killing him even if he was a battle cultivator. Being a battle cultivator just meant better battle awareness and was a pain in the ass if the battle dragged on but for the tiny clan in a third-tier city, even a battle cultivator was limited to subpar cultivation techniques and martial arts.
If the techniques were not better than with just good battle sense, Punya wouldn’t be able to hold on for long time against the six of them. The six of them were century old and had been battling for better part of their lives. Their cultivation techniques as well as the martial arts were better than Punya from every angle.
Even the weapons they held were at the very least equal to the quality of the sword Punya held. It was enough to see the deep foundation the golden core formation family held. They started to edge on Punya by unleashing their martial arts upon him at the same time. From the six cultivators came six slashes of the sword when they used the black swan returns martial technique, the signature sword technique of the Thapa clan.
The first move was just a slash of a sword that was greyish in color. Although the slash seemed simple, the qi it carried contained a heavy feeling as if the slash was carrying the force of a mountain behind it. Both the cultivation technique, the Yellow Earth technique which had earth and metal attributes and the martial technique the black swan returns which had metal attributes complemented each other which made the moves from the Thapa clan cultivators even more lethal. Among the sword techniques, the ones attributed to the metal element were the most lethal. Paired with the same attribute cultivation technique just made it more dangerous.