Helial stared at his sister in bafflement. Lumia was but a innocent-looking little girl, and yet her sharp words just caused a diplomatic disaster. The conciliatory talking Helial had in mind had just turned into a war declaration.

“Repeat, please?” Medusa said as she furrowed her eyebrows. Her face was red with anger. “I’m not quite sure I have this right.” A tangible killing intent began to gather about her.

Helial realized things weren’t looking good. He gently pulled her sister to hint that she must now step back. Why was he surrounded by irrational people?

Lumia slightly rouse her chin as she completely ignored Helial’s silent imploring. Her eyes giving off utter disdain, she went on: “You’re not even worth occupying my sight, let alone that of my brother. I’m just in the First Phase Intermediate stage, but who of you could put a finger on me? And you wanna spit over my brother’s honor? You pass through me first.”

Medea was about to pass out. She gazed at her sister; she was frothing at the mouth. “How dare you!”

“What? Aren’t you the greatest geniuses in your generation?” asked Lumia as she fluttered her eyelashes innocently.

Medea and Medusa bit their lip in grudge. They couldn’t answer that question. Because obviously, the answer was no. Medusa was in the same generation as Pseudonym and Circe, while Medea belonged to that of Helial. However, Medea only formed around sixty steps in her entrance test, while Helial accomplished the same feat as Pseudonym - something no one else had accomplished throughout the past centuries. Even Frankenstein reached higher than Medea. How could she claim the title of first best in her generation? Even the wicked care about the likeliness of their words!

“Yeah, I thought so. Two dumb whores looking for trouble. And with no title at all…”

“You damned brat, don’t you dare talk to me like this! You don’t know who I am!” Medea screamed at the top of her lungs. She was on the edge on mental breakdown.

While Lumia went on responding in kind, Helial began to analyze the situation from a new standpoint. Battle was unavoidable at this point. He was still hoping that some senior member of the Royal Academy would magically appear out of nothing. But he wasn’t really getting his hopes up.

Skill Activated:

Perception

Helial carefully inspected Medusa’s body. Before his eyes was a pile of grey corrosive Mana that seemed to infect the air all around them. Then, as he knitted his brow, he examined Medea. She wouldn’t appear to be as peculiar as her sister.

Apparently, her Mana is altered by some poisonous property just like that of her cousin Comodus. And yet she doesn’t seem as strong as him. She must have reached the Third Phase as fast as Circe and Pseudonym thanks to that Mana. She probably used some outer venom to upgrade her Skills and level up fleetly, but…

Helial knew perfectly well that a power not gained through one’s skills would turn out to be quite difficult to assimilate. He himself had to overcome a bottleneck to master Metamorphosis. Against the Queen of Spiders, he needed as well to prove himself he was strong enough. Otherwise, he would have jeopardized his Dao of Mana and would not be able to tackle new tougher bottlenecks.

After the hard training he had gone through, Perception reached an outstanding precision. This allowed Helial to scan deeper Mana properties. Medusa’s Mana looked foaming and unstable. It was completely different from Pseudonym’s Mana, which Helial had managed to sneakily examine. His Mana looked like an insurmountable mountain of leaping flames.

Their foundations lay on completely different levels. Even though Medusa’s name was frequently compared to that of Pseudonym and Circe, it had taken nothing for Helial to tell that the gap between them was unbridgeable. Medusa was a snake under the effect of her own venom. Those upgrades did help her improve, but the effect of the poison would decrease sooner or later. At that point, Medusa wouldn’t be able to advance any farther. Her choosing the easy way would lead her to be collapse at her first hurdle.

The climb to the top is a slow one. Every challenge faced along the way is often times a bliss. The more the dangers - the thinner the thread life was hanged on - the more firmly life would develop. A small bush help up by a stick grows sickly and won’t give any fruits.

Helial gazed at Lumia once again as he pondered. His sister did step over every boundary, but at least she was right. Helial, Snowflake and Lumia had already reached a level that most people in Orma could only dream of. Helial didn’t quite know what had happened to Lumia during her training with the Devil. Though, the girl became terribly strong and her Dao twisted into a peculiar turn, that of Defence. Helial knew that it was all thanks to Iblis. However, he saw it fitting not to say anything about this. After all, this wasn’t what interested him the most. All that mattered to him was that he would never leave Lumia. And Lumia’s last sharp words proved that she thought just the same.

Lumia wanted to fight by Helial’s side. She would be a protagonist, not a sidekick without a hint of character.

As he realized this, Helial crossed both arms over his breast and resisted the urge to clutch Curse of the Demon.

He would let Lumia make it by herself.

All of a sudden though, Perception sensed the faint fluctuation of extremely peculiar Auras. One behind him, one on his right. They belonged to two people who were probably trying to hide away from Helial. Unfortunately, they had no idea the boy was cultivating an unusual underrated Skill like Perception.

Helial recognized both the Auras. A cold shiver ran down his spine. “What are they doing here?”

Medusa furiously glared at Lumia and nodded to her servants.

“Let’s see who has the last laugh here,” hissed Medusa. A delirious expression hung on her face.

BOOM!