Michael and Tiara moved through the battlefield with nimble and deadly movements.
Most of the hunting Lords and their subordinates were half-frozen by now. Their strength deteriorated quickly, and it grew increasingly more difficult to move around.
Meanwhile, Michael's movements grew smoother. He was having less difficulty controlling the Glacicle Soultrait, and it became increasingly easier to endure the headache creeping up his mind.
At this point, Michael could only experiment with his Soultraits. Other than Taming, Soul Grimoire, and Mind Reader, he could use all of his Soultraits for combat. The Soultraits could be combined wildly, creating a wide variety of uses. This was also why Michael felt extremely great even though his head felt like splitting apart.
Noe even draining the lifeforce and origin energy of the half-frozen bodies lying around him could relieve him of his headache completely. It was only possible to reduce the pain and make it easier to bear while continuing to use his Soultraits wildly.
He was not sure how much time had passed, but Michael and Tiara ended up defeating the last hunting Lord at one point. The hunters had become the hunted and ended up as miserable corpses spread all over the battlefield.
After ensuring their opponents were dead, Tiara appeared next to him, her cheeks flushed red in excitement. The silver fur all over her body was slowly retracted, allowing her to regain her original appearance. Nonetheless, the flush on her cheeks and her excitedly wagging tail were clear indicators of her bloodlust.
She was not yet satisfied.
'How can someone like her become a maid in the Origin Expanse? She is not even a Native. What happened to her to become subordinate to the Will of the Origin Expanse?' Michael asked himself once again.
It had been quite a while since he thought about it, but he was still curious about Tiara's origin, and her race. The Silverfang Tigerfolk must have been quite powerful if they had people like Tiara amidst them. Even if Michael were not a professional instructor, he could tell that she used unique combat techniques that had been adjusted to fit her Soultrait's unique abilities.
It was just that Tiara was hiding her unique combat techniques most of the time. She only unleashed them in the midst of the battlefield after she triggered her transformation, transforming partially into a ferocious tiger.
'Maybe, I should ask her again once all of this is over. I hope the Will of the Origin Expanse didn't restrict her from talking about her race and past.' Michael murmured to himself while looking at the excited expression Tiara was sporting.
She looked straight in his eye and couldn't help but ask, "How long do you think Masked Saber will take before he arrives, Master?"
The corner of Michael's lip curled upward at her question. He took a look toward the northern area and activated Eagle Eyes for a moment.
Then he lifted his hand and pointed slightly east in the northern direction, "At most five minutes. Let's clean up this mess and wait until he arrives with his gifts."
Upon hearing that, Tiara rushed across the battlefield to collect all corpses. Meanwhile, Michael focused on replenishing his used-up origin energy.
He spread Extraction's golden streams outward and filled his origin energy rapidly. Then he fixed the battlefield a little bit to make it seem less like the graveyard of more than ten Lords and their subordinates.
Once they were successful in hiding the evidence, Michael and Tiara jumped on a high tree branch near the borderline between the small plain and the densely grown forest.
Not long after they started to hide, Masked Saber arrived with five Lords and their subordinates pursuing him.
"Only five? That's quite boring," Tiara clicked her tongue while jumping down the tree branch.
The bloodlust she felt earlier made her want to hunt more enemies. She wanted to slaughter them, tear them apart, and see their blood gushing in all directions. Unfortunately, five Lords and their subordinates were not enough for her and the others to quench their thirst.
Michael wanted to say something, but he held back. He noticed that Tiara was still hiding in the bushes on the ground rather than charging at the Lords hunting Masked Saber.
Michael expected a few more Lords to have grouped up by now, but it looked like Masked Saber couldn't find larger groups than five Lords. But that was fine.
He used Enhancement three times on the Symbol of Glacicle before he manifested a total of 125 Glacicles in the next minute. The Glacicles were clearly visible if one paid a keen eye to the cloudless sky, but they were well-hidden as long as one didn't pay too much attention to the sky.
That was also why he gave Tiara the command to charge ahead. He allowed her to go all-out and satiate her bloodlust. Tiara was happy and didn't hesitate to trigger her transformation. The next moment she charged out of the bush and turned into a flash. Her movements were rapid, and her sudden appearance was unexpected.
Yet, the Lords and their subordinates were able to react within seconds. They triggered their Soultraits and the enchantments of their Artifacts to face the ferocious beast-like Tiara, whose glaring gaze caused chills all over their bodies.
Masked Saber turned around upon seeing a blurred figure charge past him. He hadn't seen Tiara like this before, and was a little stupefied.
However, seeing the Glacicles forming in the sky above them at a ridiculously fast speed, Masked Saber chose to change his tactic and charge at the Lords next to Tiara.
Masked Saber and Tiara were less than ten meters away from colliding with the Lords and their subordinates when a hail of Glacicles poured down onto the battlefield. Simultaneously, energy condensed arrows whizzed through the air with great precision, piercing into the enemies' vital points right after the Glacicles impacted and shattered.
The freezing chill stored inside the Glacicles was unleashed, spreading across the bodies and Artifacts of the Lords and their subordinates mere moments before Masked Saber and Tiara arrived, their weapons thirsting for blood.
Masked Saber ducked underneath an incoming sword slash and moved to the side. He twisted his body and released a small silver energy blade before he slit his saber across his opponent's neck. Afterward, he pushed his opponent's body backward, issuing a rapid thrust straight past his head. The dying man turned into Masked Saber's meat shield and as a barrier from the saber thrust that pierced deep into the chest of the next closest enemy.
Masked Saber didn't end his attack right there. He released a burst of silver energy from the tip of the saber when the saber blade dug deep into his opponent's chest. The Destors screamed out in pain, only to collapse lifelessly on the ground the next moment.
While Masked Saber fought strategically, using his enemies to play around before getting bored and killing them quickly and painlessly, Tiara turned into a killing machine. The strength behind her unpredictable attacks increased considerably, while her movement patterns became even more difficult to see through. It was near-impossible to accurately predict her next move. Even Michael would have issues with that no matter how exceptional Eagle Eyes was.
Fortunately, Michael could continue releasing Glacicles and energy condensed arrows. He supported Masked Saber and Tiara from the back, ensuring that no enemy could flee and that they wouldn't be able to use a gap in his subordinates' defense to counterattack and injure them.
Michael used Zark, Glacicle, Enhancement, and Eagle Eyes efficiently, and without giving himself another intense headache.
The battle against the five Lords and their subordinates ended quickly. But that was expected. None of the Lords were as powerful as Tac Lec and Taros. After all, neither of the two had been forced to obey the Zentika Empire Council's rules and conditions. They obtained their Lord Rift Entrance Tickets through their hard work, contrary to those weaker Lords, who had been chosen to enter the Lord Rift because they were easy to manipulate.
Looking at the overall situation, Michael could tell that only the Zantur with the Glacicle Soultrait had been actually powerful. The Artifacts Michael had extracted from the Zantur Lord had been 4-Star Tier-2, which were the highest-ranked Artifacts Michael had been able to harvest until now.
The Zantur Lord and his subordinates had been the strongest and best equipped. Meanwhile, everyone else was either worse equipped in terms of Artifacts, or their Artifacts were on par with Michael's but their Soultraits were much weaker. After all, only the Zantur Lord seemed to have had a 5-Star Soultrait until now.
Other than the Zantur Lord's Glacicle, no Soultrait seemed powerful, or intriguing enough for Michael to desire to fuse it to his War Rune.
That was actually quite disappointing. However, it made sense as well.
Only a few powerful Lords would accept the conditions of the Zentika Empire's council to obtain a Lord Entrance ticket from them. In fact, Michael was certain that many powerful Lords rejected the Zentika Empire's offer to enter the Lord Rift. The restrictions the Zentika Empire put on their Lords were not worth it for some to risk their lives.
'I wonder how many Lords were able to procure their own Lord Rift Entrance tickets. Until now, I've only seen Taros, and Tac Lec moving around alone…but they don't even have subordinates by their side. Maybe their Lord Entrance tickets are different from mine.'
The battle against the five Lords ended without any issues. After a quick survey around, Michael jumped down the tree and walked over to the corpses. He released Extraction to drain the corpses' origin energy all while plundering them as well.
He extracted SoulStar Fragments, Soultrait Symbols, Artifacts, blueprints, Memory Orbs, and the loot they'd collected in the Lord Rift.
Afterward, he asked Tiara to retrieve the corpses of the Lords and Adventurers he and Tiara had killed before. Michael used Extraction on them as well, quickly plundering everything before he paid more attention to the extraction and dissection of the monster corpses they had generously collected for him.
"I think our territory will benefit greatly from the Lord Rift. Everything went by smoothly!" Tiara exclaimed, her cheeks still flushed from excitement.
Her bloodlust slowly subsided, but her excitement only increased seeing the corpses and huge piles of loot all around them.
Michael stored everything inside his War Rune's storage space, and his spatial pouch before asking Tiara to help him in storing a few more things.
Then his attention moved to the pile of SoulStar Fragments and Soultrait Symbols. They had obtained a total of 8 Soultrait Symbols from the last two battles.
Michael was not interested in them, but he looked over to Tiara, thinking that it might be better to start focusing his attention on Tiara's growth.
However, Tiara just shook her head seeing his expression.
"These Soultraits don't suit me, and I don't think you have enough SoulStar Fragments to upgrade my Silvarean Tiger, and Inner Force Soultraits either, Master," Tiara explained calmly, still smiling vibrantly.
But Michael was a little stupefied.
"You have two Soultraits? That transformation is not a Unique Racial Ability?" He asked in surprise, only for Tiara to smile mischievously.
"My race's Unique Racial ability is not that easy to awaken. If I was to try awakening my Unique Racial Ability as a Tier-2 Awakened I would die," Tiara said lightly, before adding, "Maybe I can show it to you in the future!"
'So she has two Soultraits, and she believes that I don't have enough SoulStar Fragments to upgrade one of them?' Michael could only think, realizing once again that he didn't know anything about Tiara.
Tiara was his loyal Battle Maid, yet Michael didn't know a lot about her.
This further added to his confusion, making him feel flustered.
"Show me in the future, please. There is a lot we have to talk about once the Lord Rift closes," Michael mumbled slightly absent-minded.
'She has two 5-Star Soultraits, doesn't she? Doesn't that mean she is most likely from a powerful family of the Silverfang Tigerfolk?'
Michael thought that his assumptions made sense. Tiara's combat prowess, her unique combat technique, and her overall demeanor were clear indicators of proper education and training.
Yet, she ended up as a personal maid in the Origin Expanse. How could that happen?
