Pov Elena:
After a long walk through the Ice Phoenix sect, I finally came face to face with the sect's holy daughter.
"Welcome, Imperial Princess, Elena. I apologize for my tardiness in greeting you, but I had some business to handle," Aveline Mei said as she greeted me.
"My name is Aveline Mei, and as you may know, I am the holy daughter of this sect for this generation," she continued to introduce herself.
Her appearance was outstanding, aside from the obvious such as her jade skin and elegant bearing, she also had beautiful black hair with some dark blue parts. Although this detail may seem trivial, it is quite important if you know the reason behind this occurrence.
"No problem, holy daughter, would you prefer me to call you by your name?", I asked first, as in this kind of environment you should not be bold and call her whatever you please, but ask first how she feels comfortable about how you address her.
"I would like you to call me by my name, if you don't mind, your highness," she replied in a slightly more humble tone.
"Well, Aveline. I have no discomfort with your procedure, in fact, I was very pleased with the tour that woman gave me," I said and then shared with her my impressions of how I viewed the sect.
You know, it is crucial to sweeten your opponent's ear so that he has a disposition inclined in your favor. That way, he will think twice before rejecting any proposal from you.
As we were talking about how awesome his sect was, a commotion was heard outside.
"My apologies, Princess Elena. Immediately, I will fix this nonsense," Aveline said with an apologetic expression and immediately prepared to leave the place.
"Would you mind if I accompany you, Aveline?", I asked, as I didn't want to stay alone in this room, which was fucking big and lonely, to receive the guests.
"...If the princess doesn't mind seeing an embarrassing appearance from the sect, I'd be happy to have your company," she replied dubiously.
"You seem to know what's going on, but you don't want to tell me," I surmised, but I simply put on a soft smile and nodded my head at Aveline's proposal.
As we left the hall, I watched as many female disciples gathered at one point, which was the main courtyard of the sect, and their facial expressions were a sight to behold, as they varied between fear, fierceness and some even showed tinges of hatred in their gaze.
As I approached the place with Aveline, the female disciples who saw me stepped aside and put on surprised expressions.
"Let's see who I meet this time," I thought and continued with Aveline towards the origin of this disaster.
In the center of the courtyard, two men in different outfits were arguing with the woman who had given us the "grand tour" of the sect.
"Tell Aveline I came to see her, so get out immediately," the first man replied in an arrogant but calm tone.
This man wore white robes with a pattern of gold lightning bolts stamped around them.
But that was not his most distinguishing feature, for this guy, who presumed he was a disciple of some rival sect, was ugly and bald.
Yes, ugly and bald. You should know that cultivators seek perfection in both their body and soul, so inevitably your appearance will change for the better, as you are perfecting yourself.
Even if you were ugly before you started cultivating, your appearance will change to resemble the average cultivator, whose appearance is not outstanding but does not cause repulsion when you look at him.
As for why a cultivator may look physically ugly, this could be due to multiple factors, but the most common is probably because this individual has consumed spiritual pills like candy, as some of these pills have the side effect of degenerating appearance if too many are consumed.
"Young master, unfortunately the holy daughter is in a meeting with an important guest, so she probably won't be able to attend to you today," the woman said putting on an apologetic expression, but to me her expression looked very fake.
"Who is more relevant than this young master? Call Aveline quickly and make the other one wait," the bald man replied in a much more arrogant manner than last time.
It was the moment we arrived that Aveline decided to intervene.
"Jin Hao, I don't know how many times I have to tell you that I'm not going to accept your stupid proposal. If you had used normal methods to woo me, maybe I would think about it, but I'm never going to accept you with such vulgar and disgusting methods you've been using. Even if it costs me my life," Aveline replied.
This rejection sounded very concise and direct. Even if I were a man, I would stop insisting and look for a new approach to get his attention, but this man did not share my thoughts.
"Aveline, you know your poor sect is about to disappear. Instead of being foolish about your marriage, we could get married and I promise you that your sect will live for many thousands of years as a subordinate of our sect, Thunder Colossus. I'm even willing to give you support in case your defenseless sect is attacked."
"Besides, who is important enough for you not to attend to me right away? Who is the bastard?" he continued, but this time he mentioned me in an unusual way.
Not caring about the way he referred to me, I took a few steps forward to make my presence known to the visitors.
"FOR GOD'S SAKE! WHAT IDIOCY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? IMMEDIATELY DISCUSS WITH THE PRINCESS," Aveline shouted, her face red with annoyance.
But apparently my beauty got to them too, as they didn't respond and just looked at me with idiotic faces. Still, I didn't care, and simply took advantage of
the situation to examine my surroundings and found things that surprised me.
It turns out that three people had actually come, but the last one was camouflaged. The reason I was able to discover their existence was due to the exceptional senses of my star demon body.
But what surprised me the most was the person accompanying the arrogant guy: a young man with a slightly better than average appearance, with red hair and eyes and a red robe with magnificent engravings of a Phoenix denoting his origin. What was peculiar about this person was not his appearance, when I saw him, I felt a connection to him and immediately knew who he was.
He was my younger half-brother.
Apparently, my mother wasted no time, as this guy looked to be only a year younger than Illios and I, which meant he was around 15 years old.
When he came out of his idiotic state, he seemed to either recognize me or the guy who was hiding around tipped him off to my identity, as he let out a triumphant laugh that really made me raise an eyebrow.
"Don't worry bro, I know this little princess, since she's actually my useless sister, so maybe a marriage between the two of you would further strengthen our alliance, between the Fire Phoenixes and the Thunder Colossi," my supposed younger half-brother said to the bald guy.
Are you really going to offer your sister like that without having seen her before? This guy is either really stupid or has some problem in his head. Don't say the Fire Phoenix sect. Even my father, the emperor, can't interfere in my marriage, you stupid fucking ape.
Even though in my mind I was wishing my half-brother a not-so-happy ending, I looked somewhat serene, not hiding my annoyance, expressing it by raising my eyebrows uncomfortably.
And just as I was about to respond respectfully as expected of a princess, the bald guy responded.
"Not a bad idea, Brother Yan Hong, but the problem of the main wife should be solved in a fight between Aveline and her," the bald guy replied.
When I heard that, I unconsciously turned my head to meet the same incredulous look from Aveline, so I had to respond quickly to eliminate his fantasies.
"I will not marry anyone. This gentleman is not worthy," I replied in the most respectful way possible so as not to lose my royal majesty in front of so many people, but I forgot that to an idiot you should not answer softly.
"It's not important your opinion, woman. When I go to the capital, I will personally ask the emperor for your hand, so go obediently prepare yourself for our engagement," he said in a bold and very annoying way underestimating me.
At this point, I was already seething with anger and, regardless of my image, I responded in a very strong tone.
"You don't seem to be understanding me, you stupid ape, so I'll put it to you in a way that maybe your little brain with a neuron can understand: I'm not marrying an ugly, bald bastard." When I said that, the crowd went silent and everyone looked at me in surprise.
Not unusual, since my behavior since I came here was totally refined.
It seems my stupid half-brother didn't understand, as he responded in a very insulting way. "Shut up, you useless thing. You should be grateful to this brother for allowing you to marry someone of his lineage. You are a stupid ungrateful bitch with no phoenix blood," the arrogant bastard said.
When he answered me that, I was about to take out my glacial sword to cut this damned bastard in two, but I remembered that he was my half-brother and that I can't make enemies with the Fire Phoenix sect for good.
So I remembered when we were in the forest and I reduced all those creatures to ashes, and an idea came to my mind. What if I just humiliate him by melting his clothes a bit? This seemed totally feasible, so I immediately took action by raising my hand.
When both idiots saw me raise my hand, they flashed a victorious smile, thinking I had given up, but I had another plan in mind.
When I aimed directly at my stupid half-brother, I also flashed a pleasant smile and threw a Phoenix flame in the shape of a ball powerful enough to melt his clothes.