Distracting the Elder

"Sect Master…"

A melodious and cold tone called out for her Sect Master.

The voice that replied was husky and sexy, a low tone for a woman but one that suited her immensely.

"Just call me Reina, Eira."

"Please forgive me but we are in a public setting. The correct titles must be used and customs must be upheld."

"But Eira, you were rude to me just a moment ago. Saying such hurtful things… What was it again?"

The woman scratched her scarlet hair while pretending to ponder.

"Wasn't it something along the lines of 'your face is a hindrance'?"

Fairy Empress Reina scanned the plate of grapes to pick her next target. She was scrutinizing every piece to find the largest and juiciest grape, the one which she would pick to eat next.

She would repeat this process again and again without even looking at the participants who were pouring out their heart and soul to pass the difficult trial.

"I have no recollection of that, Sect Master," lied Eira Blanche.

Elder Blanche stood behind the sofa that the Fairy Empress was sitting on.

She looked neither at her Sect Master who was more interested in the grapes rather than the disciple trials she had come to watch nor the participants.

She looked straight ahead as if disinterested in everything and it was impossible to tell what she was thinking at this moment.

"Eira…"

The Fairy Empress's tone lowered even further as called out for her friend. But coupled with her natural gravitas, her voice sounded intimidating and threatening to the point that it would send shivers down the listener's spine.

"…I have no such recollection, Sect Master. I am worried that Sect Master may be suffering from hallucinations," she replied while shaking her head sadly, completely unfazed by her Sect Master calling her bluff.

"On behalf of the Venerable Yin Fairy Palace, perhaps a meeting with a physician would be more suitable rather than watching this… show they have put on."

Elder Blanche's tone turned a hint harsher as she thought of a suitable word to describe the spectacle that Elder Marvin had thought up of on the fly.

The Fairy Empress sighed deeply, her huge chest heaving under her robes.

She couldn't reply since she was of a similar opinion to Elder Blanche concerning the disciple trials.

"Sect Master, why are we here?"

"Disciple trials," she answered in between her chewing.

"Please forgive my transgression, but it does not seem to me as if you are watching the disciple trials."

"I'm using my divine sense to watch them."

Elder Blanche's right eyebrow twitched on hearing the Fairy Empress's reply.

The fact that she, one of the most powerful Elders in the Venerable Yin Fairy Palace, had not noticed Sect Master Reina spreading out her divine sense to scan the surroundings was proof of her power.

"That is incredibly rude and a breach of etiquette between cultivators. There are other Elders present from Central, we must apologize since we are in the wrong."

"As if those weaklings would notice my divine sense, it's fine."

"… Sect Master, why are we really here."

"Well, you're here since you wanted to follow me."

"I am here because it is my duty to do so, and please answer my question. If you had wanted to reaffirm our relationship with the Divine Sword Sect, sending an Inner Disciple would have sufficed."

"As if I could let my precious girls waste their time on something like this," she scoffed.

"And that's enough of that," Sect Master Reina mumbled while putting the screen back up for their room to hide themselves from view.

"I reckon everyone and anything with a recording orb would have captured us by now."

"Is that why you kept the screen down? So that everyone knows you are here? Did you run all the way to the opposite side of the continent just because of the Crimson Ascending Starfall Palace sending a –"

"Kakaka!"

The unique and charming laughter of the Fairy Empress interrupted Elder Blanche.

"Shhhh, Eira. Something interesting is finally about to happen."

"I doubt it'll be anything worth watching," replied a miffed Elder Blanche.

She was annoyed that she was cut off, but she believed that her deduction was correct. There was no other reason for the Fairy Empress to come all the way here to the outskirts apart from using it as an excuse to not meet with whoever the Crimson Ascending Starfall Palace had sent.

Elder Blanche followed the Fairy Empress's line of sight to notice a hooded individual around a dozen paces from Elder Marvin.

"A mere peak level Bone Cleansing cultivator?"

"That's the one. Just watch, I reckon that bastard of a man will flip out as well. I hope he gets humiliated, kaka!"

Her laughter caused her weighty bosom to bounce as just imagining the scene of the incensed Elder brought her great joy.

"…"

It was clear to see that Elder Marvin had earnt the ire of the Fairy Empress.

'I guess I should consider it lucky that she didn't kill him, the aftermath would have been disastrous…'

Elder Blanche watched the hooded individual and wished that whoever it was would live up to the Fairy Empress's expectation.

For the sake of the Elder as well as for her own mental wellbeing.

***

Yeon caught Mia and Emily out of the corner of his eye.

They were kneeling with their hands out in front of them like a sprinter's set-up.

When their eyes met, they nodded, signaling that this was as far as they were going to get with normal means.

"They've got just over 15 paces left, that distance isn't bad… Right, let's not waste any more time."

Yeon closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm himself.

"Alright… Let's do this."

He put one half of the Mountain Annihilation Blade back into his spatial ring.

The Elder was watching as everyone else either crawled or stumbled towards him like a group of dying men.

It was the ultimate ego trip that was an open exhibition for both Elders and disciples from other sects to see.

The way Elder Marvin was openly looking down on everyone was immature, and Yeon was sure that he was compensating for the fact that he had been toyed with like an unruly child by the Fairy Empress.

'What a pathetic man.'

Yeon lifted the remaining half of the Mountain Annihilation Blade and put it behind his back as if he were sheathing it.

The Elder was too busy overlooking the other participants and enjoying their suffering that he didn't notice Yeon.

He waited for a gap to form between the participants and the Elder before –

"Now!"

Using all his strength, Yeon threw his sword using the opening he found while focusing all his killing intent towards the Elder.

The half-blade whistled through the air as it flew towards the Elder's neck and it acted as a vector for Yeon's desire to kill.

The Elder felt a shiver run down his spine as he felt the suffocating feeling of impending death for the second time today.

But the killing intent was different to what he was used to. It was both sinister and unsettling as if some unhallowed monster, some formless mass of sin, were hunting for his life.

This emotion of being hunted was expertly directed only towards the Elder, its greedy hands ripping into his mind with a creepy lust for his life.

Unlike when Yeon had held back and matched the killing intent of the rude guard at the Golden Hammer, he unleashed his full intent.

He trusted that the Elder would block or evade the oncoming blade otherwise the Elder would die and Yeon's ticket into the Sapling Sword Sect would be doomed.

"Hrck!"

The Elder bit his tongue to suppress the scream that threatened to erupt from his lungs and immediately identified the direction of the oncoming threat.

Although the Elder was of questionable character, he was an Elder nonetheless. Once he calmed down from the initial fright, his instincts as a martial artist kicked in.

The sword was thrown with all Yeon's might, it was fast but for a Nascent Soul realm cultivator, it wasn't fast enough to be very threatening.

It was only that Elder Marvin had been unsettled by the unique and weirdly powerful killing intent of Yeon that he reacted so heavily to the attack. There was a mismatch between the level of killing intent and the actual level of the threat.

The Elder raised his hands to stop the blade, his entire attention drawn to it.

But what the Elder hadn't realized was that during the short moment where he was caught off-guard by Yeon's killing intent, he had instinctively directed all his killing intent towards the threat.

In this short moment, the participants didn't have to struggle under the killing intent and without fear clouding their minds, they had complete control over their bodies.

Their legs stopped trembling and their minds felt clear.

Using this to their advantage was the crux of the plan and Mia and Emily propelled themselves towards the Elder.

Their powerful legs that had been coiled up in the sprinter set-up fully unleashed their might and they practically flew towards him.

The blade and the pair of girls flew towards the Elder. It was for this reason that they had approached him from opposite directions, so that the Elder wouldn't catch on too quickly.

By the time the Elder had stopped the blade, Mia and Emily were already in the safe zone.

"It worked! Mia, it worked!" Emily said excitedly while shaking Mia by her shoulders.

"Yay! Yay! Yay!" Mia responded in her own unique way of repeatedly shouting yay.

She reciprocated the energy that Emily was giving off and the both of them had huge grins. Emily usually wasn't this excitable, and Mia loved seeing this side of her friend too.

They had just passed the first trial where it was questionable whether they would have succeeded, and the relief of knowing that the plan had worked was immense.

Mia pulled Emily into a hug and Emily returned it by squeezing harder.

"What just happened?" muttered one of the spectators.

"Didn't that one just assault the Elder?"

"Is that allowed?"

A wave of confusion spread out among the spectators while the participants watched Emily and Mia dumbly.

There were a large number of participants who had managed to make use of this short lapse of killing intent, but Mia and Emily had covered the most distance out of everyone.

There was now a large group of 'successful' participants crowding around the Elder.

Realising that he had been duped, the furious Elder threw the sword he had caught away to the side.

"You… You! How dare you a mere Bone Cleansing child assault an Elder!"