With the enormous dragon that looked like a hill looking at them, the remaining cultivators tensed, prepared to attack with everything they had.
Of course, this was not a unified feeling. With their leader in such a sorry state, many knew that this was a hopeless battle.
The impact of seeing the usual arrogant, cunning, and ruthless leader dismembered and being held by her hair made many weak in their legs.
The dragoness said. "Before you, two options… Well, three options remain."
"The first option is to continue fighting a desperate battle and try to bring as many of us as you can to the grave with you. You couldn't kill a single one when you were seven thousand. Now that you have no leaders and cultivators capable of fighting are halved, it is even more impossible. In short, that's a stupid decision to make. Not to mention, I can see many of you who have already lost the will to fight. So, the numbers are much less than three thousand."
Her words squashed the rebellious thoughts of those who were the most loyal. Their rage-filled heads looked around and saw that many of their companions were shivering, with a few taking steps back while trying to be sneaky.
Their stomachs dropped, feeling the defeat slapping them in the face.
Yasenia continued. "The second option is you make an oath swearing never to do anything that can hurt my Astral Sky Sect directly or indirectly. If you choose this option, you can do as you please, and I'll let you go. After all, killing you doesn't make sense if you surrender with a heavenly oath. Oaths might not be foolproof, but the Five Shadow Fang doesn't come to me as a sect that cares for its people. Especially when it is tied to the Nine Silent Fangs Sect, an assassin sect with strict rankings and unfeeling rules."
Her words rang true in most of them, so many leaned on this option. No one spoke as there seemed to be a third option.
Yasenia then smirked and spoke. "The final option is to join my sect. The oath you will have to do is much stricter. However, as long as you are loyal to me and the sect and never have any thoughts of damaging us, it will be the same as if the oath didn't exist. Of course, like everybody else, you'll have first to overcome our tests. Still, I think this is your best shot since the Nine Silent Fang Sect is probably not very gentle with "defeated" people."
A man's weak laugh accompanied with coughs was heard.
Yasenia turned her head and saw Jian Li slowly walking out of the crater he had created with a bloody body. "Do you think you have the strength to fight a Nine Sect? Cough. Delusional! Once the news of our destruction reaches the leader's ears, your Astral Sky Clan people won't be safe! Hahaha-cough! Cough! You will all be hunted down until you can't even walk out of your sect's defended lands."
Yasenia looked at him coldly and allowed him to speak.
With a crazed scream, he stated. "Even if you hide in your sect, you will be assassinated by the top assassins! Nobody in this continent is safe from them!"
Leila floated upwards beside her ear and whispered something, making her smile. "Jian Li, you really know how to talk."
The dragoness began walking toward him. The giant dragoness got closer with each stride, leaving a claw-shaped footprint on the ground.
After arriving before him, she lifted one of her legs and stomped him down, leaving only his head to be seen between her giant claw fingers.
Jian Li grunted as the massive weight of the two-hundred-meter-long dragon fell on his body.
Yasenia spoke coldly. "I've said it once, I've said it twice, and I don't mind saying it ten more times."
The enormous dragon lowered her head and tilted it so that her giant golden dragon eye reflected his figure.
With the massive slit eye taking all his sight and seeing his bloody state reflected on the black vertical pupil, Jian Li felt as if that gaze had weight, making each passing second grueling.
"Listen, Jian Li. I don't care about them. I don't care about any power of this World. I will respect them until I don't need to, and I will play by their rules until I'm strong enough to stomp those rules and make mine. And believe me, I will become strong enough for that."
Jian Li felt as if his soul was being squeezed by her words, making him gasp for air while involuntary trembling spread through his body.
"You can scream, cry, plead, or go insane for all I care. Your words have no effect on me. You are nothing but a stepping stone, a small person who will die under my claws, like many thousand more will in the future. Your hundreds or thousands of years of life have culminated into this, a small obstacle for me."
Jian Li felt cold all over, wanting to speak but unable to because of the passive coercion Yasenia inflicted on him.
Yasenia's maw arched, making her eye also bend. "Now, I shall show you how little I care. Leila, carry them here with the others."
All the maids disappeared, and soon, many explosions sounded around.
Yasenia lifted her head, and Jian Li took a big gulp of air as if he was about to drown in dry land.
A few seconds later, all the maids returned unscathed. In the hands of five maids, there were five people, all of them wearing black robes and covered from head to toe.
There was a strange symbol on their chest, showing a blade and nine fangs of a beast.
Jian Li's eyes widened. "T-Those are…"
Yasenia smirked and moved her enormous body toward them. "That's right, the top-level assassins had arrived during the middle of the battle and watched everything silently. They used the Five Shadow Fang Sect as a sacrifice to measure my strength. Of course, they have yet to send any news because we blocked spatial communication."
She took a deep breath and roared in their face. "ROAR!"
The thunderous and impactful deep dragon roar startled those five assassins awake, and they instantly showed their professionalism by entering a combat stance and attacking everything they could around them.
However, when they tried using their strength, their eyes widened as a sharp pain that made them grunt spread in their stomachs.
Each of their Dantians was broken.
Yasenia smiled when she smelled the panic and fear in them. "Even top-level assassins of your sect still have feelings. Interesting. Hello, Nine Fangs Assassins. I'm Yasenia Dravory, a [Empyrean Cosmos Dragon]. The first of them, to be exact. Sadly for you, you've fallen into my claws. Sigh, what a blunder, right?"
One of them spoke with a gruff and somewhat distorted voice and a threatening tone. "You won't be safe if you kill us."
Yasenia laughed. "Oh, you poor man. From now on, you'll be my information library about your sect, and you are still saying things like that."
One of them tried using poison to kill themselves, and Yasenia watched with amusement.
That assassin spoke with a clear female voice. "What?"
Yasenia sighed and said softly. "Did you think that we wouldn't extract all the poison and give you an antidote pill, just in case? Silly, you are going to be tortured for a long time. How could I lose you before you experience it?"
Their spines felt cold as their eyes looked on with hatred toward the dragon. One of them spat. "Our sect will kill all your loved ones before you! You are not going to have a peaceful death!"
Yasenia's expression fell, and suddenly, a massive slaughter aura flowed out of her, washing everyone in a cold sensation while the scent of blood and war permeated their noses, and the ones with weaker hearts gagged and trembled.
It felt as if a hurricane of blood had surrounded the enormous dragon.
"Tatyana, I'll leave them to you. I wanted to give the maids and my dears a chance to practice breaking an assassin's will, but they seem to be in a quick mood to suffer."
Tatyana's lips arched as her red eyes shone with an ominous light. "Sure~. Give me one week to extract all the knowledge you need. Then, I'll play with them until they break completely~."
Angel and the rest felt pity for them. 'You had to touch her bottom line. She even called Tatyana by her name out of anger. Now, you have fallen into the hands of the worst possible person. Sigh, so pitiful.'
Yasenia ignored them, not in the mood to speak with them anymore. She turned her head and looked at the masses of people with a cold face. "Now, choose. Those who want to fight us still charge now. Those who want to go their way with an oath, step to the left; the rest step to the right."
About three hundred people left the group and attacked Yasenia, intending to kill her. Yasenia looked on with a bored expression, and the maids flashed, slaughtering all of them in a few seconds.
Without giving them a second glance, she spoke. "Collect the rings that have survived the battle and give them to me. If somebody takes a spatial ring for themselves, I'll kill you. There will be truth formations, so be obedient. If you've already taken one, don't worry, you can return it. And if you've used a single-use treasure like an alchemy pill, it doesn't matter; do not report it. Finally, Luscia, Aviana, Finnegan, and Drasha enter the sect and loot the treasury. Angel, go with them to crack any formations stopping them. Let Drasha try, though. She is a powerful formation master."
Yasenia then wrote the oaths, and the people who followed her to the Astral Sky Clan were about fifteen thousand. The Five Shadow Fang Sect had around seventy thousand people, so fifteen thousand willing to follow her with the restrictive oaths was a respectable number.
Then, the people who passed the sect test were three and a half thousand, with eight hundred being the high-level people who fought in the battle.
She left those who didn't overcome the test in the Astral Sky City.
Between those three thousand, there were two Astral Elders and eleven Sky Elders. Their oaths were harshly restricting, so Yasenia actually felt more trust in them than in a few of her original Sky and Astral Elders.
The rest was a mix of inner and core disciples and elders. Because the Five Shadow Fang's admission level was relatively low, no outer sect cultivators passed the Star Test.
Their treasury also increased by fifteen percent, with a new library of assassin-like cultivation skills and manuals. There were many other cultivation books, but Yasenia didn't spot anything interesting for her or her dears. "Sigh, are my standards too high?"
The dragoness played with Kaleina in her office, with Angel on her lap and Andrea standing behind her massaging her shoulders.
Mirrory was floating about and commented. "Don't worry. If it were this easy to find a suitable cultivation technique, everybody would have one. In truth, less than one percent of cultivators have a perfectly suitable cultivation technique for them."
Yasenia smiled. "Thanks, Mirrory."
Mirrory nodded.
Angel looked at one document and laughed. "The reactions of everyone are quite fun~."
Andrea smirked. "They should be stunned that somebody dared to attack a branch of a Nine Sect."
Yasenia smiled. "Well, after the Five Shadow Fang, we destroyed two more second-rate and five third-rate powers. So it's normal to be agitated even when we say that we won't attack anymore for now. Look."
Angel and Andrea saw a stack of letters about her height and blinked. Angel asked. "What's this?"
Yasenia snorted. "People are asking for an explanation. I've sent a general message saying that I'll speak at the power summit a few years from now. Remember, the one we were invited to?"
Angel honestly shook her head. "I don't remember."
Andrea chuckled while Yasenia laughed and kissed her lips a few times to express how much she loved her baby. "Don't worry about complicated things, Baby. How did Drasha do with the treasury formations?"
Angel smiled widely. "She is super strong and talented! She is better than me in a few areas, and now that she has Sky Continent knowledge, she is getting even stronger!"
Yasenia nodded. "Well, a few-hundred-year-old senior is not to be underestimated."
Kaleina spoke. "Mommy, I made a friend in the obstacle park!"
Yasenia used her tail to pick up her little baby and laughed softly. "Really? Tell Mommy more about it."
The dragoness was calm as she played with her daughter while her wives kept her company. However, the world around them was becoming increasingly unstable, with tensions rising everywhere.
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pa tre on.com/posts/sierra-progress-91277168 Sierra illustration progress.