50 Preemptive Attack

A green haired young woman stood before the sealed entrance of a cave. She wore a simple azure tunic, covering all her body from her neck to her toes. There was something that made people look at her twice in that elegant simplicity that she embodied.

Differently from the other important women in the Outpost, all hailing from the Leaf family. She didn't wear any makeup and the only piece of jewelry that she wore was a small and old looking iron ring.

This woman was obviously Star Leaf, and she stood there under the cruel sun that always tormented the Yellow Lake Region, waiting for a response from the interior of the cave. It took a couple of minutes, that made the woman begin to sweat a little but she didn't try to take cover from the sun or even try to call out a second time. The time she had to wait actually served to calm her, making her previously rough breath and preoccupied expression disappear from her face.

Suddenly her gaze moved towards the door as she sensed a tide of a very familiar energy emerging from inside the bowels of the Earth. "You can come in" said a voice, brought to her by the ghoulish wave of energy.

Star Leaf waved her hand, as a silver-colored energy emerged from her body and moved the huge boulder sealing the cave. The sun immediately extended its reach towards the deepest corners of the dark room dug into the mountain, illuminating a small part of it.

In the dark part, the sound of water in motion and a low hissing sound was resounding all over the cavern. The green haired lady moved rapidly inside the cave, moving her hands to close the stone door behind her.

When the boulder returned to its place with a loud bang, the light completely went away, sending the whole stone room under a sea of darkness. The woman didn't seem preoccupied with the lack of light. She summoned a whisp of energy from her cultivation base and simply used it to form an energy probe. With the latter she could sense the world around her, moving directly towards her companion immersed into a huge container full with a foul yellowish liquid.

The yellow water was a mixture of various venoms and herbs, that needed to be used as cultivation place for the technique that the serpent was trying to improve in.

"What is it?" asked the voice again, as the silver energy from before emerged a second time and started to spiral around Star Leaf.

"You look tired, you should take more breaks" she started the girl with a smile on her face. She could tell from the vibration on his energy that he had definitely just completed a very strenuous session of cultivation.

The green haired woman couldn't even imagine that the snake had just come out form a secret meeting where his energy reserves had been completely annihilated.

He remained in silence, but the woman was quite used to his seemingly cold attitude. In fact, it was one of the things that she liked most of him. He didn't lose himself in worthless boastfull manners, like that looser of Shiwang Leaf and didn't express the lustfull implacable desire of Sun Leaf.

Compared to her two clansmen that were supposed to become her masters before she met the serpent, the latter was more of her liking. Not feeble minded and not stupidy cruel, well not anymore at least.

The woman walked calmly towards the huge wooden container, avoiding masterfully every obstacle and rock in the way even if it was completely pitch black.

"How many times I told you to not disturb my cultivation sessions, woman?" said the serpent with a cold yet void of any hostility.

"There is a problem" she said leaning over the giant bucket of poisonous liquid. Her eyes shined in the dark, looking at the image of a snake lightly shaking in the middle of the waters.

The snake opened his eyes and gave her a long look, shaking his head slowly. When she talked about a problem it was always something to do with the Outpost. Star Leaf was way more interested than him into maintaining control of the place. He had been too much concentrated on working on his Runes to find a way to contact Spike.

"I'm busy, go deal with it yourself." he immediately responded, rolling his eyes, then moving away from the border of the container and into the other side. The yellow water bubbled when he moved inside it, trying to consume his flesh and emitting a thin fog.

However, while he was moving, before he could go too much far from her, the woman moved her hand fast as lighting, blocking his black rectangular head of the into her embrace. The serpent froze, his eyes revealing an annoyed look.

"I am cultivating woman, go find some human to satisfy you" he said, looking her straight in her shiny silver-green eyes. Star Leaf smiled, not offended at all. Normally she would answer with some joke of her own, but today she wanted to keep the conversation focused on the major problem in her mind.

"D, the Fire Earth people have been too brazen... they attacked the Black Elks! This means that they will have more territory to our left side. We need to do something!" she puffed, with a dangerous glint shining inside her eyes.

"Come on, let's go and show them who is the boss here in the Yellow Lake region!" she whispered in the serpent's ear.

Darkscale's eyes didn't move at all, remaining placid the whole time. He knew too well the green-haired woman. She wouldn't disturb him for such futile reasons. If she wanted to get some fun with the Fire Earth humans she would have already done it without asking for anybody's opinion or approval.

"I see, well, you have my blessing: may your strength terrorize your enemies. Go get them" he stated with a righteous tone as his cultivation base started to call out energy from his body to push the human towards the entrance of the cave.

The girl was pushed far from him, but she didn't resist the force and instead sighed dissatisfaction. "I need you to come with me" she asked, permitting to the wave of energy to bring her right near the entrance.

She waited for a bit then answered towards the silence that responded to her last words.

"There are two cultivators between the Fire Earth people... I don't know if I can take them on both at the same time. I don't even know if we can take them on both. together" she finally said, her cultivation base revealing her might and finally stopping the wave that pushed her.

"Why didn't you start with that?" asked the serpent his cultivation base exploding with silver light, lighting all the caver like a white fire.

The snake darted outside of the giant wooden barrel and appeared next to the woman that was exhibiting a strange smile on her face.

"Let's go"

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