Epagogia was having a break and cultivating in the middle of the forest. She had made sure to eliminate all the threats in a ten kilometers range from her. She had gone so up North that she had even killed an Early Stage Oriole Realm Demonic Bloody Wolf.

She had waited to consolidate her cultivation base before going forward. In her past life, she had had a talent at the 9th level. Now, with a 10th level talent, she could have already crossed the threshold to the next realm. However, she needed time to re-evaluate her current path, to make sure everything was going in the direction she wanted.

That stupid human Jacob had sent with her to Ochre did not understand the importance of waiting for the right moment, to feel the right insight fall in place before advancing. That Helena, the harlot who had captured Jacob’s heart in their past life, was as dull as they make them for cultivation. She was rushing at the threshold, uncaring of what kind of insights she would be bringing with her once she reached the Oriole realm.

The first four realms were relatively easy. A breeze once you got among experts. But from the fifth upward, that was the real start of a cultivator’s journey. And if you got there prepared enough, you would get an incredible edge on all other cultivators in your generation.

Epagogia strongly suspected that Karma was messing with them and that they would sooner or later face wars as they had never seen them before, not even in their past life. And she couldn’t just coast, hoping that her previous life achievements would be enough.

She had been strong, maybe even counted among the strongest creatures in existence, but she had not been the strongest. And she wasn’t referring just to that insane lizard, but to some humans, including Jacob, who had climbed up the ladder while leaving a trail of corpses as big as the entire Devil Empire.

So, even before rejoining with her kins, she needed power, true power. And her past life self didn’t make the cut in her mind. Now that she had time to correct her past mistakes, she would not just get strong, but also a foundation so solid that she would be pushing for the Tenth realm in this life, something no one had managed but the Black Dragon, who had most likely been there all along.

Therefore, Epagogia started pondering once again on her Cultivation Technique. She had a wealth of insights from her past life, but this reincarnation served as a good re-evaluation of what she had done so far.

She used the Purple Star Cultivation Technique, one that was paired with her personal and homonymous Purple Star Martial Style. She was a hand-to-hand fighter, using her own claws as her weapon of choice.

Epagogia could coat herself with Purple Qi, the main source of her strength in battle. She could use it to smash everything to bits or make her claws bigger and much more lethal.

But, even though she had gotten so close to the top, she still felt lacking. There was something more that she had been missing, something subtler, that would make her stronger and stronger in time. She could feel it. It was close, but at the same time, too ethereal to grasp. And that’s why she chose not to advance. She wanted the strongest foundation, and she was still strong enough to exterminate even Early and Intermediate Oriole realm threats.

And if worse came to worse, she could maybe even handle a being an entire realm above her. She was the Queen of Devils, at the end, not a pushover.

“Epagogia?” she heard someone call her name.

“Yes, dear?” it was Lucius, a man who loved to keep his calm attitude at all times. And that made it so funny for Epagogia to mess with him.

“Juliet told me to look for you. Apparently, they spotted quite a few wolves coming for the Formation. There are several hundreds of them, and they are slowly approaching Ochre,” Lucius said, mildly uncomfortable under the scrutinous glare of the Devil, now in her truly beautiful and dangerous form.

“Oh, that’s interesting. There shouldn’t be a gathering of such proportions since I killed off most of those here. They probably swarmed in from another place, not up North, maybe North-West instead.”

Epagogia wasn’t that interested in the answer. She was going to kill the puppies and get back to cultivating with fervor.

“Let’s go, then. Did you come here all alone?” she asked the man with a predatory gaze.

“Marcus is roaming in a circle all around,” Lucius pointed in a direction at his shoulders and then shouted. “Marcus! Get here!”

The man emerged in a sprint a few seconds after from some trees.

“AH! Found her! See, I told you it was going to be safe around here if she had been killing wolves!”

“Well, boys, let’s go kill some puppies, shall we?” she smiled devilishly to the men, who became suddenly very self-conscious.