Silvyr chuckled to herself, 'It seems brother has given me quite the interesting task. And here I thought he would be having all the fun…'
To Silvyr, her universe didn't have an innate aurora expert. Alidor's existence was assumed to have been wiped out with the destruction of the Gautama family. So, to her, this was the first time she was going to witness the prowess of an innate aurora wielder first hand.
The Uidah family had an inborn disdain for those like Alidor and Dyon – mostly due to their history with the Gautama family. As such, Silvyr was very much looking forward to this. What she didn't know was that Dyon wasn't here…
"This can be quite fun if we do this right…" Silvyr looked off into the distance of the arranging Lotus Alliance. It seemed that they had come out of their maze and were set to fight.
Her attention wondered through the forming lining, trying to see where this mysterious innate aurora user was. But, nothing stood out to her immediately, leaving her a bit disappointed.
However, when her eyes landed on the demon generals, they couldn't help but narrow. 'They're dangerous…'
Among the opposing army, only those hundred left a pressure Silvyr couldn't ignore. Suddenly, a seemingly simple mission had multiplied in difficulty twice… First by the knowledge of this innate aurora wielder, and secondly by this odd squad of white haired devils…
'Wait.' Silvyr's eyes picked up on something else. Somehow, this core of devils she was worried about were submitting to a woman? 'Blue-silver hair… Relatively petite… Common level sword?... Elvin? Who?'
"Who is that?" Silvyr asked.
Bas and Liska, who were still kneeling, followed the direction of Silvyr's gaze to land on Ri.
"We believe that that is the woman of the innate aurora wielder you seek, second daughter." Bas replied respectfully.
"Then where is the innate aurora wielder?"
"He should be dead."
Silvyr's brow raised. "Dead? When did he die?"
Bas and Liska looked at each other oddly, did that matter? But, they still answered. "He should have died the very first day of our attack. He fell into a death qi trap along with half of our army."
Silvyr giggled at this information. "He's not dead."
Not bothering to explain any further, Silvyr turned back to her army, a devious plan forming in her mind slowly.
Despite how much she disdained her elder brother for maintaining a position higher than hers, she still had to maintain the loftiness of the Uidah family. So, letting Bas and Liska know that the only reason she was sure Dyon was alive was because he elder brother had failed to kill him… Didn't exactly work in her favor.
What Silvyr didn't know was that the run in her brother had had with 'Dyon', was actually Alidor. However, how could she ever make such a guess? To her, there was no reason for anyone to have a need to disguise themselves as Dyon. Alidor had only done so as a safety measure. It allowed him to use his innate aurora freely, while also protecting his identity.
But, in order to deduce something like that, Silvyr would have to know that a) there was a surviving member of the Gautama family and that b) they also had an innate aurora. That's would be the best explanation for why someone would impersonate a Dyon in particular.
"Vice Commanders, on me!" Silvyr's ample chest jiggled as ten golden haired commanders stepped forward with stifling auras.
Looking over her commanders, she smiled a smile that wasn't a smile. Silvyr couldn't remember the last time she had genuinely been happy about something, but, destroying enemies on the battle field was about as close as she'd get.
"There are a little over hundred enemies of any real note," Silvyr began. "That being said, they're only of the lower level of the essence gathering. You as my vice commanders have been handpicked. I won't accept any losses to an inferior universe."
"AI!" The Vice Commanders slammed both of their fists to their chest in an odd salute. But, the sound that caused reverberated through the battle field, sending rings of ethereal permeation crashing through the air and causing even the meridian formation basilisks to cough up blood.
Ri's eyes narrowed at this display. Even she was forced to circulate her celestial qi to remain unaffected. But, the rest of the army wasn't doing so well… Even the outer layers of the maze were threatening to collapse. 'They're trying to destroy our morale…'
This showing had proven one thing: The Uidah army vice commanders weren't simply lower essence gathering experts… It was likely that they surpassed such a level, entering into the mid essence gathering stages. However, that wasn't the only problem…
After the meridian formation stage, strength was no longer only denoted by your cultivation stage. Because of the nature of energy cultivation, essence gathering experts of the same level could be of drastically different power levels.
Why? Because not everyone had the same foundation. In the foundation stage, quality was separated by how thoroughly your technique could spread essence energy throughout yourself. However, in the meridian formation stage, quality was determined by how many meridians you managed to open before stepping into the essence gathering stage…
The minimum requirement for forcing entry into the essence gathering stage was establishing yourself at the peak of the 6th stage, or 54 opened meridians. However, experts who did that were known as 7th grade essence gathering experts… and they were the lowest of the low. If you managed to reach the peak of the 7th stage, or opened 63 meridians, you would be known as a 6th grade essence gathering expert. And so on until the 1st grade, or 108 opened meridians
But, therein lied a problem. Ri had no idea what grade of essence gathering experts the demon generals were… But, she did know that many of the elves were only of the 5th grade… Only the peak geniuses of the major families would be of the 4th grade and even that was a massive leap in power. Every grade was like a completely new level. A 4th grade essence gathering expert of the 1st stage could toy with a 5th grade essence gathering expert even if they were separated by two or even three stages!
And yet… From the power displayed by the Uidah Vice Commanders… There was no doubt that they weren't of the 4th grade… No.
The Uidah Vice Commanders were without a doubt lower 3rd grade essence gathering experts!
