Astoria's next target was the Roc Lord from the Earthly Roc Clan.
The travel speed of rocs was incredibly fast, and though Astoria reached the Roc Lord's territory as rapidly as possible, she was just barely later than the information from the clan's spies.
As such, the Roc Lord was far more prepared for her than the Lightning Lord.
He met Astoria in the sky, his eyes solemn.
"Why must you target my clan?" He asked coldly, taking a fighting stance.
Astoria smirked. She almost laughed out loud at the audacity.
"Why must I target your clan? As someone openly poaching my clan's land, you still have the gall to say something like that?"
Astoria had picked up many things from Damien over the few years they spent together, and of them was his disgust for hypocrites.
If it was up to her, she would have directly killed the Roc Lord in that instant, but unfortunately, she wasn't quite strong enough to end this as quickly as she did the last.
Nevertheless, she wasn't in the mood for conversation anymore.
Whoosh!
Astoria's body turned into a blur as she rushed up to the Roc Lord, sending a heavy punch at his stomach.
Swoosh! Swoosh!
An aerial beast to begin with, the Roc Lord's mobility far outstripped his Kraken companion. He dodged to the left and right, swinging through the air like a chaotic pendulum.
"Girl, don't be rash!" The Roc Lord shouted as he cut his hand through the air, summoning a blade of wind that slashed at Astoria.
"Hmph!"
Astoria snorted and lifted her arms across her chest, taking the attack directly. Her golden aura flared out and swallowed it before expanding and covering her fists as she sent an immediate counter forward.
'Dimensional Cage.'
The Roc Lord easily dodged Astoria's first punch by twisting his body to the side, but he wasn't able to escape the rapid compression of space that trapped him and Astoria in an isolated cage together.
'Try to run now, birdie.' Astoria snorted inwardly as she charged him once more.
She let loose a flurry of punches with no particular technique, using pure physical strength to force the Roc Lord into a corner.
With the Dimensional Cage around him, he could no longer dodge with the same efficiency or freedom, and when it came to attack power, he was the worst of the four lords.
After all, he specialized in speed and trapping.
But in this trapped space, how could he set up a trap?
Astoria didn't leave him any room to act, entirely her purpose when she set up the Dimensional Cage.
Originally, she only wanted to trap the Roc Lord and take advantage of his most glaring weakness from the start, but as it turned out, the reason this weakness was so obvious was because it was the result of many weaknesses combined!
When Astoria cut the Roc Lord off from the world, the "Earthly" trait of his race was directly impeded, and while Astoria didn't intend this, she wasn't going to let it go now that she'd realized it.
'Fate Lines!'
Astoria flicked her hand out into space, letting five golden strings extend from her fingernails and whip around the Dimensional Cage.
'Vector Control.'
Immediately, she locked onto several points of space at once and activated Vector Control.
The wantonly flying golden strings immediately straightened out and changed their flight trajectories, instantly surrounding the unsuspecting Roc Lord!
"Dammit!" He roared in frustration as he spun his body, summoning several thousand feathers that shot into the golden fate lines and attempted to interfere with them, but at that moment, the Roc Lord found out just what made the Golden Dragon Clan so terrifying.
Xiu! Xiu! Xiu!
The Fate Lines pressed forward, moving through the feathers like incorporeal illusions.
When it came to Fate, even if it was just a representation created through mana, it wasn't so easy to simply interfere with it as could be done with other elements.
After all, fate was far more esoteric and far more intrinsically connected to the universe's existence.
Unless one had a fate that could match the user's, they would have to be extremely creative to block the impact of an attack like Fate Lines.
As for the Roc Lord, this individual who was already about to be killed by Astoria, how could he have a fate that matched hers?
Shik! Shik! Shik!
The Fate Lines stuck into the Roc Lord's body, causing him to jerk. His head snapped back, his eyes turning fully white.
'Severing Ties.'
Shing!
The sound of a sword rang out, but no sword was pulled.
The sound came from within the Roc Lord's body, where something ethereal had been slashed apart.
The Roc Lord crumpled in the air, still living but unmoving and corpse-like.
"Hm? What did you do?" Damien suddenly appeared next to Astoria and asked.
Astoria quirked her head as she responded, "This is one of the core techniques of our clan. It can sever people's karmic ties to the world, which essentially cuts them off from the path of Law entirely."
Damien's eyes slightly widened in surprise. It was quite the cruel move, essentially crippling the enemy at a level that simply couldn't be reversed by anything other than a miracle.
But, who was Damien to judge?
"Hm, well I was just curious. Carry on with what you were doing," he said, exiting with a smile and returning to his observer's position.
The Roc Lord was basically already dead, so regardless of what Astoria did with him, Damien didn't need to care.
Instead, he directed his gaze to the sky.
'It's about time to start now.'
In fact, while Astoria was the key to saving the world, she couldn't quite do it without a little urging from him.
But, she didn't need to know that, right?
With a small smile illuminating his face, Damien flew up into the atmosphere and closed his eyes, spreading his arms to his sides.
'Gather.'
The Breath of All Things leaked from his body and spread like a net over Beast Emperor Star's atmosphere.
And using this impossible ability of the Void to control all existence, Damien called forth the fate of the world, the fate that was being spurred on by Astoria's existence.
Slowly but surely, wisps of golden smoke gathered around Damien's immediate vicinity.
Eventually, these would form new Fate Clouds to replace the old.
But that wasn't for Damien to control.
He was merely acting as a conduit, allowing the world to channel its force through him and gather these clouds with far more efficiency than it'd ever see naturally.
As long as Astoria kept fighting for the world, the golden core would continue to be stimulated into action, and as long as Elena and Hedrick continued their activities, the citizens would eventually see the light.
In fact, while Hedrick saw himself as a hindrance, he was anything but.
His speech earlier offended many people, but more than that, it forced people to face their shame.
The common people who irrationally looked for someone to blame looked at the world around them. They looked at how their homes burned and how their soldiers desperately worked to stop the spreading destruction.
And then, they looked down at themselves, wondering just what gave them the courage to be so ignorant.
Damien could feel it all around him.
The congregation of fate that was filling the atmosphere and floating up to the skies to join him…
Was only getting larger and larger with every passing second.
