"Listen all, attack her together. We must get away from here at any cost!" – Armani shouted, and started to move forward.
An initial phase of tribulation stage's monster energy pressure started to weight down upon Anna. In addition to that, one upper phase and 3 middle phases of manifestation stage's monster energy came weighting down on her an instant later.
Anna was not reacting to the pressure at all, she even closed her eyes, when suddenly she opened them, but the strange thing was that her one eye has turned white and the other black. Monster energy of peak upper phase of manifestation stage started to radiate from her body. Only this energy was way more aggressive and sharp than the others. Her energy quantity was losing to the tribulation stage's energy, but the quality of the energy was beyond comparison.
The huge force that was trying to crash her down was resisted back and Anna got a hold of a sword hand on her waist, she stood into an attacking stance and coldly said.
"Reversal cut!"
"Dodge it!" - Armani shouted urgently. Only he could see how Anna's hand moved just now making a vertical sword waving motion and putting the sword back into it's sheath.
A half circle ray rushed out from the place where Anna waved her sword just now. The ray was both in white and black colour and had a height of more than twenty meters. Cultivators of the initial manifestation stage and above were able to timely dodge the ray since even though they couldn't see Anna's hand move, they could still sense the danger it held through their spirit senses.
However, some of them didn't have the time to order their inborn spirit Monsters to dodge as well, so the ray cut in half one of the butler's inborn spirit monster at the initial phase of manifestation stage. When the monster's body was splitting in two, the ray that went trough the monster chaged it's directon to the opposite but this time, the ray became a horisontal one, an additional horisontal cut was made on the body of the inborn spirit monster as four big chanks of the body fell down almost at the same time.
"AAGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGG" – the butler started to cry in agony, his soul has fused with the monster's soul long ago, and its death was a permanent damage to his very soul.
"Kill her!" – Armani shouted in unison with Claus.
A huge black fire ball that Armani send forth together with other 8 energy blasts went forward aimed to take the woman's life. Anna wasn't panicking in the face of such a terrifying combined force. She changed the stance and coldly said.
"Domain Technique: absolute slaughter" – after Anna said the words, her hand which was holding onto the sword strangely disappeared.
The enemy's attacks were just a few meters away from her when a white and black sphere with Anna in the middle stood in the way of the attack. The attacks started to disintegrate as soon as they made a contact with the sphere. However, when the black fire ball encountered the sphere, it wasn't affected, and soon enough the sphere became transparent, inside the sphere Anna was beautifully swinging her sword at an extremely fast speed to support her domain technique. Almost at the same time, the inborn spirit monsters closed in on the blond woman and Armani's trading monster was actually able to break through her sphere.
Anna didn't have a choice but to defend herself, she held her sword before herself and took a defence stance. Parrying the monster's huge sharp claw with the sword she jumped back, at the same instance when the trading monster didn't have the time to put down it's claw, Anna's Snow Eagle attacked the monster. The Snow Eagle was a monster of fighting nature compared to Armani's inborn monster's equal exchange nature.
The Snow Eagle went for the eyes of the trading monster. The Snow Eagle was 2 times smaller than the Trading Monster and hence was more agile. But since the eagle's special trait was not activated as compared to Trading Monster, and it was of the lower stage, it couldn't deal serious damage to it. The trading monster clawed at the eagle and squashed it at the ground creating a loud booming sound.
The other inborn spirit monsters didn't plan to wait for the eagle to recover and 2 more monsters went after the eagle to finish it forever.
Anna on her side was not having an easy time as well, since there were 4 people and one inborn spirit monster all simultaneously attacking her. She tried to create distance but couldn't since Armani's and Claus's servants were all well trained fighters.
Anna knew, she lost advantage, therefore tried to join back with her snow eagle to activate its special trait Berserker. Anna would lose the ability to control herself whereas the eagle in turn would receive the strength of an initial phase of Tribulation Stage Monster.
However, she couldn't do it, because they blocked her path, and Armani using his higher cultivation was having an upper hand. Anna could have defeated him if the fight was one versus one, but it was one versus 5 including the inborn spirit monster.
Armani's hand covered with monster energy was almost reaching Anna's stomach to take her live, when a heaven deafening dragon's roar shock everything around. An oppressive might that even Armani has never experienced in his live was weighting down. Some of the cultivators of the lesser stages immediately fainted, the cultivators on the Manifestation stage were on the verge of throwing up. Anna created some distance for herself using the chance and joined back with her Snow Eagle.
The Inborn Spirit Monsters were shacking due to the fear they were feeling as if the stood in front of their natural predator. They put down heads and didn't dare to look up. It felt like the monsters were afraid to even lay down a look upon the Inborn Spirit Monster that was coming down from the sky.
"E…E…Emperor!?" – Armani for the first time looked really scared. He couldn't believe that the Emperor himself would come after him. He long ago concluded that this was an ambush, but since the Emperor himself came to the place, it looked like he knew about his plans long ago.
Before Armani or Claus could say anything to their servants, they heard the Emperor who was coming down from the sky on a golden dragon of eastern style that was more than 50 meters long, say.
"Do not let a single one escape!" – Emperor's comanded, his voice was filled with natural authority, that aroused the people's wish to follow his words.
Immediately after the Emperor's words, 3 more people appeared encircling Armani and Claus with their servants. Inclusind Anna with her eagle all four sides to where the people could run to were blocked.
There were 9 cultivators and 8 inborn spirit monsters left. However, not even all of them together would have been able to defeat the Emperor with his inborn Golden Dragon since both of them were in the upper phase of the Tribulation Stage.
"Resistance is futile, give up." – said the Emperor with absolute disregard for what the other party felt about it, while looking at Armani with a hint of anger.
"Your Majesty, I have served the empire for so many years, why would you try to hunt me down and betray my loyal service!?" – Armani said with a sorrow look on his face, trying to look as hurt as possible.
"Is it really so!? Then tell me, what is this!?" – the Emperor took out a piece of paper and threw it at Armani.
"W…Where did you…!?" – Armani took a deep breath, it really turned out that the Emperor was long aware of his plan, but he couldn't understand why did he wait for so long, was it because he was waiting his clients to show up!? – "For how long did you know!?" - Armani was surprised when he saw the content of the letter and clarity of the information. There was a complete description of the scamming scheme he came up with an exception that the object he was after was not mentioned. He thought that the information was missing because it was to dangerous to disclose.
"What do you think!?" – Emperor said that and started to laugh. After a few seconds he stopped laughing and said in an angered tone.
"Armani Empo, did we not grace you with mercy when allowed the creation of trading guild, this Emperor didn't mind that you were born to a middle class noble family and even ignored the fact that you are just a lowly being destined to forever be stuck at the initial phase of tribulation stage, we even increased your status to upper echelons of power in the Empire, tell this Emperor why don't you feel thankfulness and instead have ambition to desire things which you should not desire." – Emperor was standing on his Dragon floating in the mid-air. His voice had a strange power to communicate to the very soul of the listener.
Armani had flashbacks at the same time as Emperor was speaking. He remembered his happy times with Rodney, when they have just started the path of merchants. How they together dreamed to establish the trading guild to make the necessary products available for everyone in every city, how Emperor supported their idea.
Armani asked himself a question – "Where did it go wrong!? Was it when he first killed somebody just for personal gain, or was it when he started to take over other people's property earned through hard work using his position and authority" - he then remembered the person who talked to him about this apportunity, how the person promised to give him the entire Empire if he were to give them the tablet in third prince's possession.
He thought, if he would make the same choices was there to be a second chance. Armani started to smile, he was sure, were he to be given ten more chances, he would still make the same choices.
Armani for the first time in his life looked raised his head and looked straight into Emperor's Eyes.
"Ambition is the only thing for which I live, and for which I would die without regret. You called me a lowly being, allow this lowly being to teach you the ruler of an Empire, that even lowly beings can bear their fangs at the Emperors when pushed to…A…CORNER!!!" – Armani started to speak in calm voice but the more he spoke, the angrier and louder his voice became.