Yasenia sighed and said, "The woman is in trouble."
Sarah asked, "Aren't their numbers still similar? I don't see it being very bad."
Yasenia shook her head and said, "Watch the demon's next move."
The demon looked with boredom at that woman and said. "And here I thought I could ambush you when you relaxed, making everything more fun… Anyway, let's go with the boring route. How many of you want to desert to our side now?"
The spectators saw with wide eyes as almost 20 people from the woman's side changed sides instantly. Although their faces were full of guilt, their actions spoke louder than that. The woman looked with cold eyes as those people left her side.
Yasenia smirked disdainfully, "See? My mother has taught me a lot about human nature, and this is something that occurs quite often. Worse, it doesn't end here."
Losing twenty people meant that the numbers were fifty against 120, but they could still retreat safely with these numbers. However, to the woman's dismay, some people in the back of her group turned and fled, using their movement techniques and reducing the number of fifty to barely thirty.
It was like a chain reaction and the fifty extra demons appearing was the trigger. One thing led to the other, and soon, even those extremely loyal to that woman began getting more and more nervous. With the demon side gaining the advantage by the second, the people saw that they didn't have a chance, and fear of death invaded their bodies.
Yasenia looked emotionlessly at that situation. "What is honor before certain death? What is righteousness before a threat to your life? How much is a person willing to sacrifice for a noble cause? How many would sacrifice their lives for a something that doesn't have a reward and a high risk of killing you?"
Tatyana had always taught Yasenia one thing. Yasenia said, "Before death, the true nature of someone rears its head. It is not a bad thing. It is just a thing that doesn't help when trying to push your nobles ideals. It is the will to survive. The will to remain alive."
Yasenia patted Angel and said, "Many people rather become someone's puppet than die standing on their two feet. Humans are courageous until the risk of real death appears before them clearly. If the option where submitting is not horrible, most people will choose it over the risky and better path."
Yasenia said, "Prepare yourselves; when the combat starts, we will use it as a distraction and approach the gates. I will go through the Heaven gate. All of you choose wisely before entering."
Sarah asked timidly, "A-Aren't we doing the same? Using the woman as bait for us to enter the town safely?"
Yasenia looked at Sarah and said, her tone even. "Yes, we are doing the same. I'm not a hero or anything like that, Sarah. I will take the path that involves the least danger for the three of you."
Sarah didn't say anything more.
Angel didn't mind all that, so she said, "I will also go through the Heaven gate! Although they are doorless, I can't see through them. What if we appear in different places? I don't want to separate from you, Yasenia."
Kali nodded and said, "I think the same. Separating from you just after reuniting. I wouldn't like something like that to happen."
Sarah didn't want to be left behind, so she also said, "I will also go through it."
Yasenia smiled and said. "Then, prepare yourselves. I can guess that there must be a challenge of some sort to go through that door." Her golden eyes looked into theirs as she said the next sentence seriously. "If you take it lightly, you will die. So don't hold back."
What the demon did next was out of their expectations. Yasenia and the people silently watching the show heard the demon say to the woman, "Now that the advantage is so clear, we can enter the doors first, right?"
The woman, who had prepared herself to fight to the death, was confused, "What do you mean? Isn't it obvious?" Then, she steeled herself and said, "However, even if you can kill us. Know that I will take with me as many of you as I can!"
The demon smiled and nodded, ignoring the woman's last declaration. "Good, I'm glad we reached a deal."
Then, he turned toward the others and ordered, "Let's go. It doesn't make sense to fight here. We have clear superiority, and entering the town should be our priority. I don't want the worms hiding to benefit from it while we fight."
The demons obeyed him instantly and moved toward the town with calm steps. All the non-demons were shocked at his declaration for a moment, freezing everyone on the spot. The demon's movements woke the non-demons up from their stupor, and they followed them toward the town with strange faces. They thought they would have to fight with their previous friends, but it was all avoided just like that, as if it was an illusion or something.
Yasenia clicked her tongue, "He is smarter than I thought…."
Angel frowned and asked, "What do we do, Yasenia? They will take your treasures!"
Yasenia's face became strange for a moment, 'My treasures? Since when were they mine?'
However, seeing her panicking baby, she smiled gently and hugged her into her embrace, "Don't worry, baby. Since they don't want to fight… What better thing other than forcing them to fight?"
Angel looked up at the gentle golden eyes and smiled sweetly, "En!"
Yasenia looked up and saw the Sun approaching the Noon position. Her mind spun for a moment, and then a sensual smirk appeared on her lips. 'Perfect~. I can use this to create an attack that can change the tides~.'
Although she had previously said she didn't want danger to come to them, she really wanted to gain priority when entering this town because it could hold many treasures for her dears. So she decided to fight against the demons so that they would be able to enter fast. 'If I let them fight from the backlines, they will be able to support me with minimum risk.'
Another detail pushed Yasenia to make that decision. Tatyana's bloody face was still clear in her mind, and the dragoness wanted to coat her sword with Demon blood. She wanted a life of a demon for each drop of her mother's spilled blood.
Therefore, Yasenia began using a skill she developed these months. It was a skill that covered one of the weaknesses of her skill set. That weakness our dragoness realized was that her major skills needed time to gather energy and reach their maximum potential. After looking for ways to remedy this, Yasenia thought of a simple, efficient, but somewhat difficult way. "Why don't I create a skill that lets me gather that energy without needing my normal skills?" And although creating skills was very, very difficult, that is what our dragoness exactly did.
She studied in depth how her skills absorbed the Sun, Moon, and Star energy and tried to replicate that effect without needing to use [Sunrise], [Crescent Moon], or other skills. It wasn't easy because she had to analyze these complex skills that even changed depending on the Sun's and Moon's position in the sky. Nonetheless, after just one month of hard work, Yasenia developed three skills, surprising Madeleine and Tatyana once again.
Yasenia named them: [Sun Assimilation], [Moon Assimilation], and [Star Assimilation].
These skills absorbed the respective energies, converting them into a form that was usable to consume with her strong skills like [Noon], [Full Moon], [Starfall], [Midnight], and others. Better, she could use these skills in combat passively, increasing her normal energy absorption. However, there were two limitations to these skills.
First, she couldn't use them for cultivating normally, only for combat.
Second, she needed to be extremely careful with them because if she gathered too much of one element, it might backlash and damage her heavily.
Furthermore, the dragoness had created these three skills two months ago, so she didn't have much time to practice them to perfection. But she learned to use them in most situations because her comprehension abilities were absurdly high.
Of course, this wasn't the only thing she had learned during these months. During her research of [Sunrise] and the others, she managed to create three more offensive skills, named [Sun Dragon claw], [Moon Dragon Claw], and [Star Dragon Claw]. Yasenia didn't know if they could grow in the future, but they were useful for her current strength.
Yasenia used [Sun Assimilation], and the Sun energy began converging toward her in a whirlpool. Of course, Yasenia didn't do this on purpose. It happened because of her lack of expertise with these new skills, making her unable to use these skills stealthily. The dragoness's objective was to be able to use these three skills as naturally as breathing, allowing her to charge energy even in hiding, but she still wasn't skilled enough. In short, when she used this skill, it made their hiding spot quite obvious to all parties.
Yasenia knew it and walked out of that spot, [Draconic Heart] in hand. The seductive dragoness's sashaying steps and the giant sword as big as herself were things that some people recognized. Even then, whether people knew her or not, Yasenia's presence made all the cultivators pause to look at her and instilled many different feelings in them, leading to all the creatures around looking at her with excitement, fear, lust, confusion, or other emotions.
Among all the creatures present, those that recognized her the most were the demons and beasts in human form. The leading demon was surprised at first but then smiled savagely. "Well, Well, Well. Isn't this one of our main targets? Hahaha, to show yourself with just three people before almost eighty demons so confidently… I don't know if to applaud you for your bravery or call you insane."
Yasenia smiled seductively and said, "Three? Who said we are only three people?"
Yasenia looked at the cultivators behind the demon and said, "How about forgetting about those demons and coming to my side? I think I'm better to look at that him~."
The demon looked at the cultivators and said menacingly, "If you dare to move, I will kill you with my own hands!"
Yasenia looked at the woman that had been confronting the demon and said, "See that? You should have done that when the demon began tempting your people. You were lucky he didn't want to attack you and was more interested in the town. Else, you would already be dead." Yasenia's words trailed, "Or worse. Who knows? He was looking at you with a lot of greed. Anyway, do you want to join hands?"
The woman looked at Yasenia and said calmly, "We are still just over thirty people against 120. How could we win this? Aren't you a little stupid appearing here to side with me?"
Yasenia nodded understandingly, "Well, it is normal to think like that. All of you around, it should be time to show and show these demons that they are not in charge of things here, right?"
At this point, Yasenia didn't know if there was someone that would step forward to fight with her. If there were, she would be glad and gain allies. If not, she would start her second plan, which was inciting those inside the demon ranks. Of course, she had her methods to do this since she understood that rule by fear collapses only in one condition. It is a simple but sometimes difficult to accomplish condition.
Moreover, worst case scenario, she could still use a life-saving treasure and teleport herself and her dears away. There were honestly almost zero risks in her tackling this so brazenly.
However, Yasenia didn't expect her words to move more people than she thought.