Blinded by her momentary rage, Sarah answered with an angered tone. "What am I implying? I'm asking you what did you do! I have a way to know these things, so don't act innocent."
Yasenia's lips arched, but there was no amusement in her expression. Her smile was bone-chilling. "Hahaha, you are really saying that… Impressive. I've given you so many chances. I've been patient with you too. Yet, this is what you think of me. This is the result? Good, good, good. Now I understand."
Sarah was quickly rushing in Lea's general direction with the help of her system when she heard Yasenia's low and cold voice. "Do you see a light pillar? Come and take this woman back."
Sarah looked around and quickly spotted it. However, she was still insistent when she asked. "What did you do to her? Yasenia, I'm not playing around."
"Y-Yasenia, what are you doing?"
Hearing Lea's voice, Sarah became agitated. "Yasenia! Don't try to hide it. Clearly, something happened if you suddenly want to return her to me. What did you do to her? I have a deep connection with her, and I can feel that she is upset! Did you seduce her!?"
Yasenia's voice sounded much closer through the device as if it was now in her possession. "Who do you think I am? I asked you to get her instead of letting her alone without informing you, and this is your answer. That I seduced her? I'm not talking anymore. Come here in person to talk to me."
Then, Yasenia cut the communication off. While rushing toward the pillar of light, Sarah continuously tried to communicate, but no one would take it.
Then, a few messages of Lea's affection lowering but being cushioned by her skill reached her, making Sarah's blood boil further.
Lillian spoke. "I told you she was not someone you should approach, Sarah."
Sarah's face darkened, and Lillian was delighted to see it.
Meanwhile, Bai Ling, the white-haired human, spoke. "What if it is a misunderstanding?"
Lillian naturally wouldn't let the chance to drive a wedge between Yasenia and Sarah go, so she continued. "What misunderstanding? That woman is extremely selfish and arrogant. Didn't she say in the past that she liked cute girls the most? Lea is probably right up her alley, and she has started to seduce her. With that slutty appearance, almost everybody would fall below her skirt with just a few smiles."
Lana, the brown-scaled dragon woman, spoke timidly. "I-I don't think Yasenia is a person who would do that."
Lillian snorted and looked closely at Sarah's dropping expression. When she saw Sarah beginning to ponder, she quickly interrupted Sarah's thoughts. "That's what you think, but a person's true self is always difficult to see. Moreover, Sarah should have an obvious way to know what's happening for her to be sure, right? I trust Sarah's intuition and wisdom!"
Lana couldn't refute that, and her naturally timid and quiet personality did not help the argument.
Meanwhile, Sarah was more and more sure of her thoughts, making her feel angry.
On the other side, Lea was held by Yasenia's tail while her communication device was in the dragoness's hands. "What are you doing, Yasenia!? Give me back my device!"
The dragoness looked coldly at her. "Are you even listening? Don't struggle. I'll return the device when Sarah arrives. I don't want you to leave my side for now."
Du Xian looked at the light pillar and asked. "What if other cultivators approach us, Yasenia?"
The dragoness spat mercilessly. "Kill them."
Du Xian's eyes widened, and right then, a group of three appeared, two women and one man, and Yasenia turned to look.
Du Xian quickly warned. "Y-You three, go away! This signal is obviously not for you. Why have you come!?"
One of the women sneered. "Are you trying to hide the treasures that created that pillar? I won't be..."
SLASH!
Her hair separated from her neck height and below, being blown by the wind, and then her head and body dropped in different directions.
Yasenia's tail returned to her original position after launching a [Draconic Crescent Moon], and she spoke coldly. "Scram before I also kill you two."
With a choked scream, both of them scrambled and fled.
Tatyana beckoned the spatial ring and stored it to give it to Yasenia later.
While Yasenia was indifferently waiting, Cecile's message arrived in her head through their connection. 'My love, do you want me to come?'
'No need. Continue your exploration with peace of mind.'
Cecile blinked, thinking it was rare for Yasenia not to call her "Sweetheart."
'She must be quite angered.'
Cecile pondered. 'Who is angering her? Well, if she needs my help, she won't hesitate to call me, so I'll hover around the area while informing the other girls.'
"Kali, Evelyn, Andrea, listen…"
A few minutes passed, and Yasenia felt Sarah approaching. She turned to look at Lea and said coldly. "Don't speak until I tell you so."
Lea felt Yasenia's aura surrounding her, making even breathing laborious, so she could only nod with a nervous face.
Being accused of stealing a lover was already bad enough for Yasenia, but being seen as one by someone who had known her for a long time told her in what way that person looked at her.
Therefore, even if this was a misunderstanding, it was a misunderstanding born from distrust.
Tatyana, at the side, shook her head. 'Even after my warning, Sarah is still as arrogant. Does she think she can do as she pleases because she has a system?'
Mirrory floated to Tatyana's side and smirked. 'Who do you think will win if they fight, Yasenia or that woman?'
Tatyana shrugged. 'Although I want to support Little Treasure unconditionally, Otherworlders have so many unreasonable abilities and tricks that I don't know who will win. It will be an interesting battle, in any case. That's for sure.'
Mirror was curious. 'Are you prepared to deal with the System?'
Tatyana pondered. 'Honestly, it is the best time to injure it because systems grow with their host. If Sarah enters the Transcendence Realm, even the Dantian Spiritualization Realm, tampering with it might be very complicated, not to mention destroying it.'
Mirrory blinked. 'Will you intervene?'
Tatyana shrugged with a smile. 'Who knows?
After a while, Sarah finally arrived and saw Yasenia waiting with her arms crossed and a cold expression on her face.
Her eyes moved to the side, and she saw Lea looking nervous while Yasenia's tail coiled around her arm.
Though Lea looked okay, the conversation with Angel was still in her mind, making her thoughts sluggish and strange.
Even with [Lover's Second Chance], Lea's thoughts had not completely excused Sarah. What this ability did for as long as it lasted was make Sarah's lover find excuses in their hearts to forgive their misdeeds, allowing Sarah to salvage an otherwise bleak situation relationship-wise.
Yasenia looked at the ten women who appeared. Most of them wore hostile expressions at her, which made our dragoness even more furious. 'After all I've done for them, they still have the gall to look at me like that!?'
Yasenia sneered. "Is this the way you look at your Sect Master? Honestly, I've been feeding my resources to all of you in vain. I feel like feeding them to mortal pigs might have been better. At least, the pigs would be loyal after I fed them."
Lillian's eyes flashed as she felt that this was a chance to separate them and make Sarah finally give up on Yasenia for good. "Don't act stupid, Yasenia! Sarah has a way of knowing if something happened to us, and she has felt that you've seduced Lea! Admit it quickly, and stop trying to act like you are the one being wronged here!"
Yasenia's face became colder, and she pinned her with her penetrating eyes. "I wasn't talking with you, so keep your mouth shut. No, you know what? Come here."
The force of Monarch Intent and her other coercive auras slammed onto Lillian without holding back anything.
Lillian's face changed to one of horror as her knees bent, and she slammed face-first against the volcanic rock floor. The tyrannical presence of the dragon was too much for a human at her level.
Moreover, unlike other times when she dealt with people she knew, Yasenia was not treating them as her sect disciples but as random cultivators that angered her.
Then, Yasenia made a grabbing motion, and a massive phantom dragon claw swept Lillian toward her. The woman tumbled forward before anybody could really react, and her neck was forced into Yasenia's grip.
After Yasenia grabbed Lillian's neck, she used her auras to suppress her. Even if she wanted to resist, Lillian was too weak.
Sarah's eyes widened, and she shouted angrily. "Yasenia, stop!"
Sarah saw the tall and alluring dragoness looking at her and felt pressured. However, her anger was still there, so she ignored the signals of danger her body was giving her.
"Are you sure you want to go down this path, Sarah?"
Sarah frowned. 'It was you who started it!'
"What do you mean, this path? This is all your fault! Why did you do that to her? I trusted you! Return Lea to me and let Lillian go!"
Although Sarah was hesitant for a second because even her system was damaged in the past by the black-haired, red-eyed woman, this time, she had taken precautions and was not afraid. 'I've used a few hundred thousand points in strengthening my soul defenses and general strength. I don't believe she can overwhelm me as before.'
Sarah saw Yasenia smiling coldly, and her tail slowly coiled around Lea's body tighter, making her grunt, which made Sarah even more nervous and aggressive.
"Return her to you? Sarah, you are misunderstanding something."
With confused eyes, she continued glaring at Yasenia. "What are you talking about?"
The dragoness mocked her. "You really don't know the reason I called you here." She shook her head. "Honestly, I'm tired of you. I always feel a need to walk around you like the floor is filled with eggshells that I should not break. Your existence feels so strangely out of place and dangerous that I really wanted to become close friends and allies."
The otherworlder saw the dragoness look at her profoundly as she spoke. "At first, you were ignorant, so I didn't mind becoming close to you. I honestly liked you, even if it was not in a romantic sense. However, even while I slowly gave you my trust, you never really did so, right? I answered your doubts, discussed the cultivation world, accompanied you until you could fend for yourself…"
Sarah wanted to speak up, but she remained silent, listening to her words but not feeling much for them. Sarah thought with a sneer. 'So, what if I was ignorant? Unlike you, I wasn't born here. Moreover, how can I trust someone I just met?
"But even then, you hid whatever treasure you had even when I pointed at unambiguous evidence of its existence. Even when I asked you why you chose some treasures or methods, you never told me a thing."
The dragoness looked back and muttered. "That thing inside you that's of unknown origins... It really scared me, you know? One of the first things I really feared, so I didn't dare make you my enemy back then."
Sarah frowned. 'As if I can reveal the existence of my system! To do that, I need to explain that I'm an otherworlder. Who knows if people will try to capture me or something.'
The dragoness continued, ignoring the struggling Lillian grasped in her vice-like grasp. "Of course, having secrets is not something inherently wrong. I respected it. Even when I wouldn't say I liked a "question mark" like yourself around me, I tried for a while. However, our relationship never blossomed and was always going downhill. It is like a snowball rolling down a slope. Even when I tried to stop it, the moment I stopped trying, it kept going downhill."
"Therefore, I didn't want to continue interacting with you because of the strangeness of your existence. I forgot about you and shunned you right after my trial because you felt… How to say it…"
Sarah saw Yasenia focusing on her body; those two golden eyes felt like they could pierce into her soul, giving her chills.
"… Out of place? Yes, it's out of place. That's how it feels. It is as if you don't belong here. It's really, really strange. And yet, when we reunited, I saw your growth and a hint of maturity in you. I thought that you would've matured after five years in a place as cruel as Distancia. Therefore, I decided to give you another chance, allowing you to keep your secrets as long as you didn't step on the line and contribute to the sect."
Sarah finally brought herself to speak, interrupting her following words. "What chance are you talking about? Everything I have is because I gained it with my own strength! No matter what you've given me, I've gained it because of my own hard work!"
With her words, the dragoness stopped speaking, looking at her incredulously. "Hard… work?"
Sarah checked on Lea's and Lillian's safety one last time, and then her eyes returned to the cold-faced Yasenia. 'If I fight here today, the chance of us reconciling will be cut. Also, returning to the Sect would be impossible. However, with my system, the advantage of a sect is minimal. While it is true that I can take advantage of many things and places, it is also very restrictive.'
Her confidence increased, even though she missed many essential points, like what Yasenia would do after they fell out. Her perspective looked at things very unilaterally, and her thoughts were not deep because of the stress and need to think quickly about the situation.
'First, I need to save Lea and Lillian. My strength has grown a lot in the last year since I have focused all my points on strengthening myself, allowing me to reach the half-step of the Unification Realm. Two levels above Yasenia. Moreover, the jump in strength from ninth to half-step is very large.'
'Then, I have bought a few life-saving treasures and strengthening items. Furthermore, I have a little more than 100,000 Points left in case of an emergency. No matter how talented Yasenia is, I have a cheat-like system, so I should be stronger than her.'
Yasenia spoke coldly. "Whatever, have you finished sorting your thoughts? Good, then Lea-."
But, before she could ask Lea to explain what happened, Sarah interrupted while pointing at her. "Yasenia, don't take me having a good impression of you as me being weak and easy to bully. Even if you are the Sect Master, this doesn't mean you can toy with me as you please! Moreover, I'm now strong enough to face you. No matter what benefits you gave me in the past, the moment you touch my harem, there will be consequences! Let go of Lea and Lillian before I attack you for real!"
Angel and Laurina's eyes widened in stupefaction. Their thoughts were similar. 'She just challenged Yasenia?'
Lea's eyes flashed with complicated feelings, feeling both touched and uncomfortable. She had seen Yasenia fighting, and even while her confidence in Sarah was high, her heart was doubtful. She couldn't picture that majestic dragon being beaten down.
'Is she really willing to go that far for me? Or is this just an act?'
A notification entered Sarah's vision.
[Ding! Lea's favorability increased by +8, reaching 88 points (Love?)]
[Ding! Du Xian's favorability decreased by -40, reaching -50 points (Disdain)]
[Ding! Dorian's …
….
Besides these two, other notifications with small numbers that she didn't really care about also appeared.
Tatyana's and Mirrory's eyes flashed. Mirrory commented. 'You were right. She has become confrontational.'
Tatyana smirked. 'Do you want to continue guessing?'
Mirrory shook her head. 'If your daughter swallows this, no matter the excuse, you would have to reeducate her. She has challenged her integrity, persona, values, and strength. A dragon that swallows this kind of insult isn't a dragon anymore.'
Tatyana nodded. 'I agree but…' A massive flood of energy submerged the surroundings in a terrifying presence, making her smirk. '…There is no need to worry.'
After Sarah's statement, Yasenia's eyes widened for a second, and then her aura burst out with thick, killing intent.