Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance

With Maria as the new leader and Celaine taking up the rear, there has been a significant increase in speed. Part of the reason for that is they have both gotten used to Mira and another reason is they are much stronger than Aaron's group.

Rank 4 beasts won't willingly approach them and Rank 5 beasts get cut down without the ability to retaliate.

Like right now, a massive Late-Rank 5 Crystal Tortoise, a tortoise that has a giant Light Crystal on its back, is currently charging up a beam attack in its mouth. Before it could even try sniping them from a distance, Maria was already in front of it holding its decapitated head while Celaine dismantles it.

The two of them are so perfectly in sync that it makes Aaron's group look like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off.

It doesn't matter what type of beast tries to attack them, they always end up dead in a single hit. Most of the time Aaron and the others don't even realize something was about to attack them until they notice Maria or Celaine holding the head of a beast off in the distance.

"Gulp… I'm starting to feel bad for the beasts now. What did these poor beasts do to deserve such treatment? At least show a little respect and let them show off their abilities!" Flint muttered to the rest of his team with a depressed look on his face.

"All I can say is I'm glad we didn't end up fighting those two or else we might've been in the same position as them." Vivian, the lightning user, said.

The rest of them felt a shiver run down their spine and vigorously nodded their heads.

"But there is one thing that confuses me. Where the hell are we going?" Aaron wondered, but nobody could answer him.

That's because none of them knew what was going through Maria's mind, not even Celaine.

Maria has been leading the group for a little while now, but she's constantly switching directions or just straight up walking without even paying attention to where she's going.

For the most part, it seemed like she was going towards wherever she sensed anything light-related. Be that either Light Crystals, beasts with crystals attached to them, Light affinity beasts, or anything similar.

They just had no idea how Maria was able to know where these things were, but remembering what Celaine said it could be blind luck, instinct, or a mixture of both. Either way, they are also profiting from Maria's choices since whenever they find something that wouldn't be helpful to Maria, Celaine, or Mira they give it to Aaron's group… for a small price of course. That price being a few Spirit Stones.

Another thing that nobody noticed was that Maria was intentionally going towards areas that contain numerous beasts. This wasn't just to dismantle them, but to also try to strengthen her Light Dao and gain more insight into it.

Unfortunately, they haven't come across any Rank 6 beasts to kill so she can take their Beast Cores, but that doesn't matter to Maria as she's just going to keep hunting, adventuring, and looting until she's satisfied.

***

A few days have passed since Maria, Celaine, and Mira split up and Mira finally returned to Elenei, the Frost-Fire Phoenix.

She was soaked in blood and combined with her icy silver hair and wine-red eyes made her look more monstrous than any monster.

Elenei immediately noticed that the aura surrounding her, although bloody, was less murderous than it was before she went on a rampage.

Her eyes were much clearer and she seemed a bit more relaxed. Mira would describe this as a phenomenon similar to post-nut clarity that men might experience after ejaculating.

"Welcome back, Mira. You seem much more relaxed now than you were a few days ago." Elenei greeted.

Mira nodded while taking out a few buckets of water to wash with.

"How's Maria doing?" Maria asked, not caring too much about Celaine.

"She's been exceptionally happy ever since she and Celaine stumbled across another group of humans. It seems they have formed a group and are now adventuring together. It seems this group is somewhat trustworthy not to mention that Maria and Celaine are many times stronger than this other group of humans combined." Elenei gave a report on Maria's situation which caused Mira to frown.

"Oh? I hope they don't do anything stupid…" Mira's eyes flashed and the temperature around her significantly dropped for a split second.

"Ahaha. I don't think they'll do anything. I've been watching for a while now and they seem to be pretty reasonable and upright people. I think they made some sort of agreement, but that seems to just be a pretext so Maria can have other people to talk to besides you and Celaine." Elenei said awkwardly.

Mira didn't reply since it's hard for her to relate to what Maria is feeling. She's spent most of her life alone and has been betrayed or backstabbed an incalculable number of times. To Mira, there is no point in wanting to interact with other people since to her, humans are the most vicious, two-faced, and greedy race in existence.

"If you see anything suspicious happen, Elenei, don't do anything until the last second. I want Maria to understand the dark side of humanity first-hand. Just stop them if she is about to die or if she's about to be raped." Mira commanded in a cold heartless tone.

Elenei was surprised by Mira's words and almost wondered if the two of them are even friends seeing how Mira wants the worst-case scenario handled. Well, at least she had the heart to tell her not to let Maria die, but then again… what about Celaine?

"Are you sure? Don't you think that's going a bit too far to prove a point?" Elenei asked carefully.

"It's fine and this is not going too far. That girl never listens to me when I tell her how shitty humans are. I don't know if this group she found will try to backstab her, but I'm sure if they are put in a situation where they have the opportunity to kill Maria and Celaine they will certainly think about doing it. It won't take much for an ounce of greed or lust to consume them once the thought arises. And if they don't do anything… they will get to live a little longer." Mira said with certainty.

She's experienced this scene many times before and sometimes the people that ended up backstabbing her while she was down were friends or family, not random strangers.

"Alright! Enough of that! Bring out your Frost-Fire and let's get to tempering!" Mira commanded while taking numerous fire-elemental resources to help boost her Yin-Fire comprehension.