Chapter 835: The first day of the evaluation trial (part 13)

In case you have forgotten about it, even before meeting Aster, the pink-haired girl didn’t take part in her family’s activities, namely scheming against basically everyone but especially between relatives, from the very beginning, unlike everyone else from the Karel family.

Mylene was a cheerful and carefree child, a princess at that, and she remained unaware of the nature of her family until she was six years old, then she suffered her first assassination attempt the very day of her birthday celebration, a single year after she became able to cultivate.

That was also the sole time she met Eris before they treated each other as enemies, and it was in part thanks to that that the heavenly rose princess vouched for Mylene to not be killed, because the difference between the kind and bubbly pink-haired princess-like girl she met that day and the ruthless enemy that relied in all kinds of schemes she had to deal with after meeting again years later, was too large.

As to what was Eris’s family doing in a celebration of their mortal enemies who are also supposed to be evil, that’s simple, the Karel family worked behind the scenes, used proxies and untraceable methods so that others couldn’t officially accuse them of anything, therefore as per the rules of the righteous factions there was no "justification" to attack them in the open, also they only targeted Eris’s family and their allies, so its not like they were at odds with everyone, others also didn’t care so long as their interests weren’t at stake, the typical "balance" that can be usually seen among righteous factions, so in public as members of the righteous faction they had to give face to the other.

Also, don’t get it wrong, after what Mylene went through the first years since that birthday where she survived basically because she was lucky, it would have been completely justified for her to become ruthless, she learned the bad way that she had no one in which she could trust, the problem is that she didn’t limit to answer her family’s attempts to get rid of her and user her one way or another, but also started looking for trouble with Eris, which is what the latter didn’t understand.

There were other incongruences in Mylene’s attitude, like how she completely forgot about her supposed enmity with the heavenly rose princess when she occupied her time for alchemy, most of the times in the company of her teacher, those two even crossed paths in events where alchemists met rune masters and not even once got into conflict in those instances, they didn’t exactly interact either but simply ignored each other in said cases though.

But let’s leave the deeper aspects of Mylene’s situation for later, the important part currently is that the pink-haired girl had dealt with the "All brawl no brain" scheme used against her from both ends, in other words she was betrayed by seemingly honest and simple people she thought were her friends back when she still harbored the hope of finding trustable allies, and later had to deal with enemies that looked like brutes but were actually rather cunning instead, both before she was Kana’s age, so that tall guy’s scheme was mere child’s play in her eyes.

"Humph!", Mylene saw those two guys being easily tricked into believing that it was do or die and she softly snorted, though to be honest that was probably the case, because while Aster now could consider sparing an enemy’s life as a viable option, the conditions weren’t easy to meet in the slightest, and since those two were so fearful of their end after being captured, chances are that they had done some nasty stuff that should be punished with death.

"Clang!", that being said, the pink-haired girl casually rolled her spear and blocked the slashes of those two’s swords, then while "focusing" on them, Mylene leapt frontwards and mounted her spear on her back, to then extend her arms in opposite ways as she grabbed the heads of those two.

"What, aghhh!", before the enemies could react, they felt as if their bodies had lost all their weight as Mylene easily lifted them up on the spot.

"Thud!", with a loud dull sound, Mylene smacked their heads against each other, resulting in their eyes rolling backwards, as both enemies blacked out on the spot.

’And now’, thought the pink-haired girl, just in time for a large blurred gray colored figure to become visible from the corner of her eyes.

"Swooosh!", the large great "sword" of the tall guy produced a loud whistling sound as it hit nothing, because Mylene casually bent her body backwards while also dragging those two passed out fools downwards just enough so that they didn’t have their heads cracked by that sword, an action that was followed by Mylene’s legs tensing a bit as she jumped right in that position.

Now, for a normal person whose body is bent more than a third backwards, jumping would lead to falling on their back a couple of meters from their previous position, if you add the around 180 kilograms of passed out fools alongside their equipment which Mylene was holding onto with her hands, the result would be simply falling backwards a meter or so away, if the one executing such a movement was normal, that is.

"What!", the tall guy was taken aback when he saw Mylene not only jumping almost four meters into the air while holding onto those two, but also elegantly doing a backward flip to then land six or so meters away from her previous position, this after having perfectly dodged the attack of his great "sword" which was supposed to split her skull alongside the ones of his own teammates.

"Why the surprise, I was dealing with ambushes way less predictable than the usual piece of trash using their teammates as bait, before I turned ten years old", said the pink-haired girl as she casually tossed the still passed out enemies into the distance.

"Thud!", those two landed thirty meters away, right at the feet of a certain black-haired youth who was watching the fight with an amused expression on his face, that was naturally Aster.

’Casually throwing two adult men thirty meters away from her current position with a single hand each, her body might not be as monstrously tough as Alice’s, but her explosive strength doesn’t lose to that sister of mine’, thought Aster.

Alice, Mira and Espi have the highest physical strength in the group not only because of their monstrous constitutions, but also because their bodies have the toughness to exert it from whichever spot they wish, meaning that their punches, kicks and even tackles would produce similar strong impacts, past that to declare a winner between those three, it would depend on technique.

Felicia is a bit behind those three, not because she is lacking but because her main talent lies in the energy aspect, well, hers is a soul constitution but it affects energy, she developed her body to make up for her short-comings, she can exert slightly lower strength but thanks to her trained body she can do so from whichever spot she wants to, as well.

Then you have people like Kana, whose explosive strength is quite high but can’t exert it for long periods of time and Mylene is currently classified in this category, why is it like that when she had the body path as her secondary one similar to Felicia you ask, well, that’s because she basically lost her secondary path cultivation, meaning that all the tempering she had gone through was reset.

That being said, unlike the little girl, Mylene was indeed a body path cultivator, and so her grip strength is more than three times that of Kana who in case you have forgotten can shot that monstrous composite bow that requires around 300 kilograms to be fully drawn, so the pink-haired girl unlike Felicia can equal the top three in terms of strength, but at the same time she can only do so for short periods of time and only with her legs and arms currently, as that’s in what she had focused to recover first.

You can’t really say that Felicia or Mylene are "stronger" than the other, they have different focuses and each have their advantages, it all boils down to their respective fighting styles.

Felicia uses her fists directly, while in Mylene’s case though she has not really showcased it before, as she put it at the end of her priority list, since learning about alchemy at heavenly quadrant level was much more important in her mind, the pink-haired girl is an expert with the halberd.

There had also not been a need for Mylene to use a weapon honestly, she directly crushed her enemies with her genesis core and directly told Aster to not worry in making her a customized halberd and focus in equipment for the other girls of the family who could use having personalized equipment earlier for self-protection, like Kana for example.

’Damn it, not only did she dodge my attack but she also managed to pass those two fools to that guy!’, inwardly cursed the tall man, similar to the short bulky man, this guy uses his seemingly simple-minded appearance as a weapon, basically he holds until there is a chance to end the fight and then changes from all brawl no brain to show his cunningness.

It’s not a bad strategy, the problem is that like Aster has previously stated, the vast majority of people that believe themselves to be cunning are fools who think they are way smarter than others.

And this guy falls in that category because his whole strategy mostly relied in the enemy being careless and lowering their guard based in outer appearances and external aspects such as weapons, and here he was met with a certain pink-haired girl who never judged an enemy by said aspects, so, from the very beginning his plan to ambush Mylene was flawed.

"Tsk, what a pain, fine, let’s do it the good old way!", said the tall guy as he heavily stepped to then charge at Mylene, this time he changed from swinging that large great sword of his with one hand like he has been doing since the fight started to do it with both hands.

But he only did it midway through his swing, which was a strange wielding method that resulted in the great sword’s slash accelerating and increasing its strength seemingly out of nowhere.

"Sigh...", to which the pink-haired girl simply sighed as she casually trusted her spear to the side.

"Clang!", a loud metallic sound echoed through the battlefield as Mylene, using the tip of her spear stopped the great sword in cold, the staff slightly trembled due to the collision but that was it, despite it being a wood staff it didn’t even bent or anything, what’s more the thin spear tip not only stopped that heavy and thick sword but it actually sank a centimeter into it.

"What is up with this half-assed fighting style, plans that rely in a single simple layer of deception and then throwing yourself at the enemy without realizing that your strength is clearly outmatched, little Kana was right, you guys are boring", said the pink-haired girl as she slightly pushed her spear with just one of her hands.

"Crack!", the tip of Mylene’s spear which had already been driven into the middle of the enemy’s blade, easily broke its way through the thickest area of the sword and came out of the other side, which resulted in the blade snapping in half.

"What...aghhh!", the tall guy who was bewildered by the previous, took a kick to his side before he could react, which sent him flying a dozen of meters due to the impact, to then disgracefully land on the ground alongside his broken sword.

"I guess I was at fault for expecting more, but to think you couldn’t even notice the difference in strength after seeing me toss your two "friends" like that, in all the time you spent in this place, you actually didn’t test the limits of your own strength, no, let me correct that, you had no need to use your full strength on an enemy and didn’t want to show what you were fully capable of, in front of your supposed teammates, right", said the pink-haired girl as she walked towards the tall guy, who honestly wasn’t listening to her right now.

’She stopped my all out slash and broke my heavy sword with that thin stick, what the hell is going on!’, he screamed to his insides as he got up despite how dizzy he was feeling.

Mylene was right, the tall guy hadn’t wielded his sword with both hands not even once since they arrived at this place, why you ask, simple, as a "cunning" person he wouldn’t show all his cards in front of anyone unless there was a need for it.

It’s fine until that point, however when in a situation you had never faced before, it’s way more important to know where one stands than to keep secrets, if the tall guy had tested his limits, he would have known that throwing two adult men with a single hand each more than twenty meters of distance as Mylene did, requires way more strength than for him to swing that great sword skillfully.

Now, the tall guy wasn’t fully to blame here, there is another reason as to why he committed this mistake, just as he couldn’t be the squad captain in which the blond leader trusted the most, if those tricks and the strength he has shown so far was everything he had.

"Huh, look at you getting all cocky because you broke that toy", said the tall guy as he let go of the now broken sword to then step on it.

"Crack!", that was both the sound of the remains of the sword breaking under the foot of the tall guy, as well as the sound of him ripping apart his shirt and throwing away his shoes.

The enemy was only a few centimeters taller than Sarina originally, around two meters, but now that difference in height doubled, which is still not that much, however, the increase in size is not what mattered the most, he had gotten quite heavier and his body now radiated a somewhat oppressive sensation, like that of a beast.

’I can’t say it was unexpected, human cultivators are usually not that tall by innate, so I expected for him to have a lineage or a constitution related to the body which he could manifest at its mortal version in this place’, thought Aster as he saw the change which the enemy went through.

It might sound weird but by innate, human cultivators are actually shorter than mortals, yeah, you probably would see taller people in basketball teams than in the cultivation world, before cultivators take the body path of course, after that then it’s usual for them to grow in height and weight as they temper their bodies.

That happens, because the aesthetics of the cultivation world are slim, balanced or athlete-like body shapes at most, therefore they look for partners with those characteristics and have offspring that inherits said characteristics, so humans born from cultivator parents will rarely be tall and bulky by innate, in most cases when that happens is due to a special aspect like a constitution or a lineage, like with Eric for example, they can change later depending on the paths they follow.

Sarina is a rare exception, she was unusually tall before awakening her roc lineage and don’t forget that cultivating a secondary path wasn’t a thing in her native planet either, so she was a single energy path cultivator, not to mention she grows even more when stimulating her lineage, and the same applies to Lilia, but let’s not get sidetracked here, the point is that the enemy side also had people that could manifest special traits at mortal levels.

’What a shame, if he had used that earlier, perhaps he could have entertained our dear medic a bit’, thought Aster as he glared at those two guys who had just woken up and had the stupid idea of thinking to try and take Kana hostage.

The only reason as to why they were still alive is because they actually only wanted to ask for their lives to be spared, the idea of harming the little girl who was happily standing next to Aster, didn’t even cross their minds, perhaps because they saw her destroying Xander earlier.

"Wait for your turn, Mylene will be over in a second", said Aster to then proceed to ignore those two whose backs were drenched in cold sweat after feeling as if countless cold swords were pressed against their bodies.

Back to the fight, Mylene indeed raised an eyebrow at the taller and stronger state in which the enemy was, but she casually rolled her spear as she said.

"Yeah, even like that, you are still not at a level where not learning where your limits are, will be understandable", which made the now even taller guy grit his teeth.

"Enough of that, try to scheme your way back from turning into a mess of broken flesh you...".

"Boooom!", the tall guy’s voice stopped midway through his sentence as a loud clashing sound replaced it, what happened is that after rolling her spear Mylene used her right hand to throw it at the enemy, the spear like a lightning hit that guy on the chest and sent him straight to the ground.

"Blegh!", what followed was the gurgling sound of someone drowning in his own blood, that’s because Mylene’s spear had sank into the enemy’s chest all the way onto the "wings" of the tip, which prevented it from being hard to retrieve as like you might remember, Aster used the winged spear also called boar spear as the model for the girls to use.

What’s more, the impact was so strong that the "wings" which were literally non sharpened pieces of metal that extended sidewards actually incrusted themselves into the ribcage of the enemy which was a bloody mess right now.

"You see, your organs ruptured with only a third of my strength and a basic method from my manual, Lexie could have stopped my heart piercing halberd strike with her neck, Kana would have casually read its trajectory, heck Mira would have smacked it away with one hand, and yet unlike you, they all made sure to know what their limits were the very first day we arrived at this place", said Mylene as she jokingly added.

"So yeah, you didn’t have the luxury to skip such an important test~", the pink-haired girl casually "unearthed" the spear from that guy’s chest to then pierce his head killing him on the spot.

And in case you think that was a bit too much, Mylene is not someone that enjoys torturing enemies, so Aster knows that there must be a proper reason for her to send that guy on his way in such an "inefficient" manner.

And he is right, if we listen to what that pink-haired girl was thinking right now.

’So, I was right, this guy was from the muscle giant family, judging by his poor transformation which was barely half as strong as what I predicted it would be like while restricted to mortal level, he was a direct descendant but not an heir, I still didn’t expect to meet with someone relevant from a force of another firmament that is allied with my family, they are going to appear sooner or later...’, thought Mylene.

Yup, that’s right, while Mylene had no idea of who that guy was, she recognized his lineage and already had her suspicions since before, but only confirmed them after seeing his transformation, call it a coincidence, fate or simply damn bad luck, but the "all brawl no brain" schemes used against her when she was recently introduced into the reality of the Karel family, were done in cooperation with people from that guy’s family, they were from other branches, but they had a similar aura, so Mylene recognized that.

Don’t get it wrong, that’s not why she killed him after humiliating him in such a way, she did so to see if anyone on the enemy’s side showed a particular reaction, in order to confirm something.

’Good, there is no way that blond guy and the other "captains" on the enemy side didn’t know this one’s background but they clearly don’t know about me, which means that my family shouldn’t be looking for me anymore’.

Pink hair is a trait known to the direct descendants of the Karel family’s main branch, if that guy or his teammates ever thought of her to be related to them, they would mention it or shown some reaction after seeing her toying ang killing the tall guy in such a way, but that wasn’t the case,

Mylene had zero doubts that all of her family’s close allies would have been tasked with finding her after she disappeared, not out of filial love but because she was last seen fighting with Eris who had the cube necklace on her at the time and the Karel family has been trying to get their hands on that for dozens of generations, so they wanted to see if her corpse had said necklace on it.

The fact that those guys didn’t even make the slightest association between such a strong pink-haired girl and the "disappeared" princess of the Karel family, means that she has been declared dead and the efforts to find her have been suspended already, therefore she is in the shadows and her enemy is in the open, the best possible situation in which she could be.

’With this, I won’t be putting those girls in danger, directly at least...’, thought Mylene as she let out a sigh of relief.