"So you are fine?" Samuel asked again, his worries knowing no bounds.

"For the umpteenth time master! I am fine!" Elizabeth cried, her master was being naggy and any lingering emotion she had was suppressed as it was smothered by her annoyance at Samuel’s insistence.

Meanwhile.

The second round of matches had started and this time it was a match between two hot women, very hot women.

Everybody knew of cultivator beauty but these two were a step. Their looks, their walk, their talk, everything seemed to be custom-made to stoke a man's lust.

So it was no wonder the stands were full as every warm-blooded male in the vicinity had come down to watch the cultivator version of a catfight.

If they knew that both of them were currently holding back and hiding their true selves. Their true appearances were quite a few notches higher than their current visage. There would be riots for even a glance.

But their original forms were inhuman and even if they were inhumanly beautiful, the sect would have them eliminated immediately.

Both of the challengers knew this and even knew that the opposite side was hiding their true forms under powerful illusions. But they would not follow the route of mutually assured destruction, because beings like them were slaughtered with extreme prejudice and they knew the sect had ways to give them their true death.

So while they would try to eviscerate each other, they would make sure their little game was not open to the public.

"Why disciple Eishath? How does it feel to have to kneel lower than before?"

But being catty was allowed and being the sexual beings that they were it was their primary method of talking to each other. Eishath would one day turn both her master and her sister disciple into walking sexual innuendoes.

"But being on my knees is this little maiden's favorite pass-time. Why she has been down so long that her knees ache for rest but she is given none? Does sister Namaah not have that luxury?" Eishath fired back at her previous colleague Naamah as they both slowly circled each other.

The fight had already started but neither wanted to make the first move so they fell back to what they were best at, a battle of tongues.

And it was affecting the crowd. The arena was enchanted so that the sound traveled to the viewers without any loss due to distance and the crowd felt like an overtly sultry voice was whispering sweet nothings right into their ears.

Many did not even care that neither had yet to land a blow, most were too busy trying to hide the tent in pants. There were dissenters but they were too few to have any effect on the masses.

"A single night of great amorous congress outstrips poor repeated shaking of the sheets." Namaah fired back.

"Maybe if the refreshments were subpar that would have been true. But sister Namaah the elixir is to die for..." It took an effort for Eishath to not start drooling, but she kept her composure as she fired back her response.

Her slip had not gone unnoticed as Namaah quickly followed.

"Why sister? Has the new sausage gone straight to your brain?"

"Yes." came the swift and sultry reply, Eishath's eyes glazed over as she said this.

Sometimes a play on words was not necessary to garner a big reaction. Sometimes a single word was enough.

Especially there was so much lascivious hunger infused into those words that it made one's spine tingle.

It had such an impact that several of the more excited younger generation soiled their lower wear from the sheer power in that voice. Not even women were exempt.

Unwittingly Namaah gulped.

Namaah had been around the block for a while and she had the taste of quite a range of essences.

But this was the first time she saw one of her kind so enamored by it that a single-word description was powerful enough to make people wet themselves.

A part of her wanted, really wanted to have a taste. Her inner monster was always ravenous for better essence, and the description made her very very curious.

But, she had to be realistic, changing masters was an extreme risk. So much so that everyone had thought Eishath to be crazy when she upped and left Belial so quickly with so little planning.

Seeing her now, made that betrayal make more sense. But not enough that Namaah would change her allegiance, she and her other colleagues were in too deep with their current master. While he was a fool in letting them so much freedom, he also showered their wealth and power, enough that it bought their loyalty.

Every thought she had seemed to make her more curious about Samuel as Eishath also received all of those benefits.

Dropping that dangerous line of thought, She instead realized that she had an opening.

Her opponent was lost in thought and left herself open for the first blow.

Namaah and her colleagues were always low on essence as much of it went to survival. So the more she could save the better, as such the first to expend it tended to be the loser.

But when the opponent was so wide open that attack was free, one had to take it.

Without preamble, she shot forward, with enough speed to make the air quake. This startled Eishath, bringing her out of her mind and she started to react but that was too late. Both were at the essence condensation/third rank with a similar level of strength which meant their power was close to equal and a slip-up was not so easy to rectify.

At the last moment just before impact she jut out her knee and hardened it with essence to push all that momentum into that single toughened area.

It connected.

Instead of the satisfying *thwack* she had expected to hear, there was a deafening boom as she felt like she impacted super strong metal instead of soft skin and flesh.

For a moment Namaah was stuck in the air as she transferred all that energy onto Eishath.

Their eyes locked and Namaah got a malicious grin.