[Ding! Bloodline Concealing Formation has been disrupted for one minute.]
With that seemingly innocent yet impactful message, Sarah's aura changed together with the presence of the other six, becoming distinctively human.
Sarah's eyes widened with the second consecutive blow, the first being Lillian being impaled by Yasenia.
And yet, while her stomach twisted and her entire body felt unwell, her vision got filled with many messages that made her mood plummet further as they came.
[Ding! Dorian's affection dropped by 150 points. Affection reduced to -58 points (Heartbroken).]
[
[Ding! Lana's affection dropped by 165 points. Affection reduced to -80 points (Loathing).]
[
[Ding! Harmony's affection dropped by 200 points. Affection reduced to -100 points (Mortal Enemy).]
[
[Ding! Paledora's affection dropped by 120 points. Affection reduced to -30 points (Disappointed).]
[
Sarah became stiff and hastily looked at them. "I can explain-."
But, before she could speak up, her spiritual sense caught a hand reaching for her neck, and she hastily protected herself with an energy wall.
BANG!
"Guh!"
The impact of the palm pushed her back several steps, and her eyes caught the face of the one who attacked her, making her heart feel as if someone was stabbing her. "H-Harmony, please listen."
The white-winged woman snarled with tears in her eyes, her aura exploding in a hurricane of gales. "Don't call me by my name, Human! How dare you deceive and rape me!? You disgusting creature should die and disappear from the face of this Continent!"
Then, Harmony rushed forward again, summoning a slim white sword and using her entire cultivation base to attack.
The attack carried intent to kill, making Sarah feel so unwell that she reacted a step slower, and the attack grazed her shoulder, drawing blood.
Harmony didn't stop; naturally, Sarah wouldn't stay still and be constantly attacked, so she summoned her own sword to parry her attacks.
CLANG!
Harmony's tear-stained face twisted further. "YOU DARE DEFEND YOURSELF!?"
Sarah's and Harmony's swords clashed continuously, and Sarah tried to speak in between. "Harmony, please listen to me! I had a good reason to hide this!"
"SHUT UP!"
Sarah wanted to speak up again, but her back exploded in chills, and she hastily looked back.
Behind her, the usual innocently smiling and voluptuous brown-scaled dragon woman had her face twisted with hatred as she punched her back.
BOOM!
Sarah's entire body shook because of the brute strength of the dragon-woman's punch, and she flew tens of meters, smashing through a few tall rocks.
Lana's voice was cold like winter, accompanied by a dragon growl. "How dare you deceive me. How dare you betray my trust and steal my purity! With the name of my family at stake, I promise I'll hunt you down until the day you die!"
[Ding! Lana's affection dropped by 10 points. Affection reduced to -90 points (Wrath).]
The other five human girls were stunned for a few seconds at the intense reactions of the people they considered close just a few minutes ago. Still, after reacting, they rushed forward and began clashing with the rampaging Harmony and Lana.
Astarea, a tall, blonde, righteous woman, stepped forward and blocked Lana's frontal attack with her shield. "Lana, what are you doing!"
Lana's pupils thinned to lines as she snarled. "Shut up! Was it fun to have us in your little human group? Did you laugh at us for being stupid and not realizing!?"
Su Lin Shi was with Harmony. Her beautiful face and slim body danced between the storm of attacks released by the enraged winged woman. "Harmony, will you really throw this many years of relationships because of a simple thing?"
Harmony cackled, her laugh sounding hoarse. "A simple thing? A simple thing!? Hahahaha! Die with her! [Gale Sublimation]!"
Meanwhile, Yasenia kept looking, her face emotionless. The second Yasenia heard that Sarah didn't speak about her human nature to them, and deeply understanding how deep-seated hatred toward humans was in Distancia, she had expected this kind of outcome.
Her eyes moved toward the struggling Lillian and the trembling Lea. While her tail had pierced Lillian's chest, she was not dead yet.
Suddenly, she heard a woman talk. "Yasenia, think closely about what you want to do."
The dragoness looked over, and her eyes fell onto the white-haired human woman. "Bai Ling. Aren't you Sarah's lover? Why aren't you helping her?"
Bai Ling was tranquil, looking at Yasenia deeply with her blue eyes. "No one has died yet, so things can still-."
Yasenia's tail burst with Sun and Star energies, exploding Lillian's insides into a pulp while her meridians and even dantian exploded.
Lillian's eyes bulged, and her body expanded because of the internal pressure, and then her body fell limp.
The dragoness smiled at Bai Ling as she flicked her tail and threw her corpse to the side. "What now? There is one dead."
"YASENIA! HOW DARE YOU!?"
The dragoness turned to look and saw Sarah looking at her with a warped expression full of hatred. However, Dorian, the frog woman, attacked her, forcing Sarah to defend herself again.
Bai Ling frowned, her blue eyes flashing coldly. "Why didn't you listen to me? Now, she won't stop until she gets her revenge."
Yasenia looked at her with a sneer. "Hey, you are a Fate cultivator, right? Did you think that your words could control me? That your skills can work on me?"
Yasenia smiled mockingly. "You can't. So, if you tell me not to do something, I feel like not listening and going completely against your words."
Bai Ling spat. "Childish. Instead of listening to reason, you are just moving with emotions."
Yasenia's lips arched downward. "Who do you think you are, Bai Ling? What do you know about me? Do you think I fear her? You are a little brat who has her ego inflated because of her mastery of her Fate attribute. Honestly, what does it matter what Sarah thinks when she will die here today?"
Bai Ling, feeling her pride hurt, answered with a cold voice. "You can't kill her."
Yasenia lifted an eyebrow as she leisurely stole Lillian's spatial ring and poured all the contents into her ring. "I can't kill her? What makes you so confident, Bai Ling? Also, what tells you that you are not one of my targets to kill here today?"
Bai Ling's mind spun, and then she confidently said. "You won't because there is no reason to kill me."
Yasenia gave her a bored look and ignored her. Bai Ling was utterly inconsequential to her actions. Her being here or not changed nothing in Yasenia's thoughts.
While looking at the ongoing battle, the dragoness suddenly felt Lea trying to flee from her side. Her tail latched to her ankle before she could escape, and she pulled her toward herself.
"Where are you going, Lea? I still haven't thanked you for lying about your identity, right?"
Lea felt her body cooling down as the thinned golden eyes of the dragoness locked on her. "Y-Yasenia, please. I never wanted to hurt you. I just wanted you to join Sarah's harem because I also liked you! Please, please, don't continue with this madness!"
Yasenia lifted Lea upside down by her leg and looked at her coldly. "Lea, your first mistake was to approach me with those intentions. Your second mistake was vocalizing those intentions. Your third mistake was angering one of my lovers with your attempts. Your fourth mistake has been lying when I told you to tell the truth. And now, your final mistake was trying to flee toward Sarah's side when you knew that she and I would shortly fight."
Lea shook her head desperately. "I-I won't fight, I won't fight! I just wanted to help her! I never wanted to fight against you!"
Yasenia looked at Lea closely, and she felt something amiss. The emotions inside Lea were very convoluted, but not in a normal way. 'It's like something is forcefully changing her emotions. Very strange…'
Yasenia pondered many situations, and her eyes finally landed on Sarah. 'Is it her? But, if she could do something like that, why hasn't she influenced the beast human girls?'
No matter how sharp our dragoness was, she couldn't imagine something so otherworldly as the existence of "Skills" and "cooldowns."
So, she didn't really know what was happening to Lea. 'Hm… I'll suppress her in a formation and see what happens later. After that… Angel can do whatever she wants with her. After all, the one Lea angered was my baby, not me.'
She swung Lea and threw her toward Angel's location.
Lea screamed for a few seconds and then fell in the middle of a strange circle that appeared as she flew. 'What's this? A formation?'
"[Glass Prison Formation]."
A dome about three meters tall surrounded Lea, trapping her inside.
Lea looked up and saw Angel looking at her with narrowed eyes. "Stay still. If you move, the formation will make you lose half your weight."
Lea gulped and stayed still.
Yasenia looked at Sarah and waited for how the conflict would evolve. She had no haste in dealing with her, as there were still many hours until the two-day-long event finished.
Sarah continued exchanging blows, but she was holding back because she didn't want to hurt them. She was constantly trying to speak and convince them, but she had been unsuccessful.
'Why don't they listen to me!?'
Sarah felt her heart breaking when the eyes of the girls who loved her now shone with raging hatred.
After a few seconds of exchanging moves, the four beast human women stopped and faced the group of humans made of Sarah, Astarea, Su Lin Shi, Soraia, and Bai Ling.
Harmony, still filled with loathing, asked with a hoarse tone. "You five knew it all along, right?"
Although her face was enraged, one could see that there was pain below that enraged gaze. Harmony had loved Sarah dearly and took care of the others often, so this betrayal felt like someone had dug her heart out.
Paledora, the usual brightly smiling dog kin woman, asked coldly. "Were you going to keep this a secret forever?"
Sarah instantly defended herself, crying because of all the powerful feelings running rampant in her. After all, Lillian was dead, and her lovers were attacking her. "Of course not! I-I was waiting for the right moment! I had decided to reveal it slowly to you after the secret realm!"
But her words didn't sound believable. Even when she was telling the truth, the four beast human women didn't trust her.
Sarah saw their faces, and she felt that it was unfair. If no one interfered, she would've been able to live happily with them. 'That's right, it's not my fault.'
Her bloodshot honey-colored eyes moved and locked on the blurry figure of the dragon woman. Her tears fogged her vision, but after a few blinks, she could clearly distinguish the indifferent Yasenia coldly looking at her. 'It's all her fault! If Yasenia didn't exist, if the people of Distancia were more normal, nothing like this would've happened.'
Sarah turned toward the girls and bit her lip. 'How can you hate a single race so much!? Aren't we very similar? Weren't they unaware of my nature until it was revealed? They are all brainwashed to be racist!"
When all her thoughts culminated, she said emotionally. "If I told you since the beginning that I was a human, you'll never have even looked at me because I know that beast humans here are brainwashed by their seniors! So, I wanted to make you understand that I was not that different before telling you!"
However, those words were one of the worst she could've chosen for her situation.
[Ding! Dorian's affection dropped by 15 points. Affection reduced to -73 points.]
[Ding! Lana's affection dropped by 5 points. Affection reduced to -95 points.]
[Ding! Harmony's affection dropped by 30 points. Affection can't go lower, and it was maintained at the minimum of -100 points.]
[Ding! Paledora's affection dropped by 15 points. Affection reduced to -45 points.]
Lana laughed, but her laughter sounded incredulous. "Brainwashed? You have the gall to say that we have been brainwashed!? Rubbish! Everything that exits your mouth is complete and utter garbage!"
Sarah didn't know what to say, so hastily asked the system. 'Make a speech option appear! Quick!'
[Host. Speech Options are triggered by themselves. I can't create one at will. Please manage this situation by yourself.]
'Useless!'
Sarah tried to explain herself. "Y-Your culture revolves around an irrational hatred toward humans! It doesn't make any sense! Aren't we very similar? You didn't even notice until now, even when we had sex!"
[Ding! Dorian's affection dropped by 17 points. Affection reduced to -90 points.]
[Ding! Lana's affection dropped by 5 points. Affection reduced to -100 points.]
[Ding! Harmony's affection dropped by 50 points. Affection can't go lower, and it was maintained at the minimum of -100 points.]
[Ding! Paledora's affection dropped by 25 points. Affection reduced to -70 points.]
Harmony screeched. "WHY ARE YOU REMINDING ME OF THAT!? YOU DISGUSTING HUMAN, I WANT TO RIP YOUR FLESH APART AND EAT IT!"
While Sarah's words were somewhat rational and relatively correct, they weren't something that these four wanted to hear.
The dragon princess laughed. "You have no clue what humans did to us in the past! The situation they are in today is deserved!"
Sarah bit her lips and also became agitated, shouting. "What kind of stupid behavior is that!? Humans in the past are not the same as humans in the present! Moreover, we are not that different. Not to mention that the actions of beast humans today are equal to or worse than anything humans might have done in the past! You are all a bunch of hypocrites, and because of you, Lillian died!"
[Ding! Dorian's affection dropped by 10 points. Affection reduced to -100 points.]
[Ding! Lana's affection dropped by 2 points. Affection can't go lower, and it was maintained at the minimum of -100 points.]
[Ding! Harmony's affection dropped by 5 points. Affection can't go lower, and it was maintained at the minimum of -100 points.]
[Ding! Paledora's affection dropped by 30 points. Affection reduced to -100 points.]
The bird woman laughed with mockery. "So what? We are just returning the favor. Look at you; you violated us while disguising your identity! Humans have changed? Hahaha! You are the living proof that they haven't!"
Paledora spoke coldly. "Sarah, I misjudged you. I didn't really hate you and somewhat understood your situation. But blaming Lillian's death on us is too much."
Sarah was so anxious that her heart hurt. She understood that logic would not enter their heads now. 'I need to pacify them in a more relaxed situation. I need to… get rid of the one orchestrating this!'
Then, Sarah turned to look at Yasenia, and her body exploded with auras. "Yasenia, it's all your fault!"