250 Prelude To War

"Ugh…" Moxie groaned as she felt more lethargic than she ever had in her life. As she came to her senses, she felt weaker than an infant mortal; with hardly enough strength to pull herself up from the bed she had woken up in.

Elizabeth came off as amused as she said, "How convenient."

She continued, "Now to deal with you…"

She paused, flicking her wrist and collecting all the Grandmist Controller Needles that had previously been occupying Moxie's body before saying, "I've already come up with a suitable punishment." Greed and malicious intent were evident in her schadenfreudian expression.

Before Elizabeth could convey anything else, Moxie paled as she had already come to conclusions on what would befall her after losing. She had long since resolved to never become the servant or slave of another Cultivator and had already tried to self-detonate, however, Elizabeth's Talent Sealing Blood Seal had prevented her.

Any attempts to galvanize her Lower Dantian for a traditional self-detonation would just supply the Talent Stealing Blood Seal with the energy to further suppress her. While any chance Moxie had to self-detonate her Nascent Soul was met with a direct backlash as the Talent Sealing Soul Seal variant within the main Blood Sealing Array absorbed her charging Soul Force and rebounded a portion to deal pain.

"Already disobeying me, are you?" Elizabeth mused to herself. "Well, whatever. I don't care what you do from now on so long as you fulfill your new role as Earth's Hidden Guardian. That is all," Elizabeth shook her head as she stood up and instantly collected the piles of Armaments and Artifacts she had been making over the past couple of the weeks.

"What?" Moxie didn't even know where to begin asking to clear her confusion.

"You," Elizabeth pointed at Moxie, "protect this planet," she pointed at the ground, "when I can't," she finished by pointing at herself.

"That's it?" Moxie's right eyebrow twitches. "Wh-Why?"

"Because you were previously a Chosen of the Cataclysm," Elizabeth said. Moving right to the point, she continued, "Don't misunderstand. Had you been anyone else, I definitely would have killed you immediately just for the collateral damage of our fight, nevermind your assasination attempt on my life. However, now that you've fallen into my hands, your strength and potential will be appreciated here."

"So, what? I just live here now and pretend everything is all well and good?"

"It's not like you had anywhere you could call home before," Elizabeth heartlessly retorted. "You can continue cultivating and living as you see fit here. Just eliminate any threats to the general population and we won't have a problem."

'This…' she hesitated as she checked over her body and equipment. 'Though she probably went through my Spatial Ring and other storage equipment, she didn't take anything and, instead, even repaired the armor that was damaged in our fight. She even healed me back to near the peak of my previous strength.'

Addressing the situation within her body, Moxie thought, 'The heptagram seal in my Lower and Upper Dantian is more than I can deal with right now. However…' She paused, unsure of whether or not she was being led into a trap as she thought, 'With the disparity in our rate of cultivation, I should be able to outpace her to the Immortal Realm.'

Solemnly, she thought, 'If I really am free to cultivate, making it to the Immortal Realm before her could spell my freedom.'

…

"…Thank you once again Madam Ultimatia," the Hallmaster of Sharktop Island's Hall of Treasures bowed well beyond ninety degrees. He had just conducted what was probably the biggest trade in his entire life as Elizabeth had directly exchanged all the Armaments and Artifacts she had been creating for the past half-month.

All of the Hallmaster's connections across the new world's factions had to be utilized in order to meet the ridiculous price Elizabeth put forth for trading her forged treasures. Nearly 95% of the Spirit and Demonic Beast Cores of Spirit Grade that had been collected since the Dimensional Upgrade had to be traded.

In reality, Elizabeth was the one losing out as there had yet to appear Nascent level Cores or the means for Earth's Cultivators to acquire them. In either Corin or Endrin, Elizabeth might have been able to barter for upwards of a hundred Nascent level Cores for all the top-tier Core Grade armaments she had forged, whereas on Earth, the most she got were Cores from Core Refinement Stage Spirit or Demonic Beasts at best.

Still, the sheer volume of the Cores nearly made a miniature mountain in her newly upgraded Spatial Ring as she not only traded for Core Refinement Stage Beast Cores, but also Core Formation, Foundation Collapse, and even Transcendent Foundation level Cores.

Unlike humans, Spirit and Demonic Beasts had a relatively simple cultivation system that naturally saw their growth dependent on their bloodline's quality; thus, as time passed and stronger Beasts reproduced, the number of Cores of all levels grew on Earth.

From this one transaction alone, Elizabeth almost secured enough Cores to raise her Cultivation Base by another Level. Though it was uncertain how many more she needed, her next course of action all but guaranteed that she would meet the quota.

"Don't mention it," Elizabeth said as she began walking out of the Hall of Treasures.

She didn't trade with the Hall of Treasure's Hallmaster for any other reason than the fact that she knew he would certainly have the connections to meet her demands. She had set things up this way to make the distribution of her Armaments as easy as possible since after the Hallmaster had to contact so many of the factions across the world, he would need to pay them back.

As she exited the building, her Core Sense immediately spread out to it's limits. Not half a second later, Elizabeth's full party assembled before her, with the addition of one Xiang Moxie.

"Ah, Tristan," Elizabeth's eyes lit up as she tossed him a Storage-Enchanted Talisman. "Good to finally see you again," she said.

"Master?" Tristan asked in confusion. While the new set of clothes and sword were expected, the jade slip wasn't.

"Just an update to your Cultivation Method," Elizabeth dismissively waved her hands.

"Oh, I see," After Tristan's equipment was instantly changed, he looked cautiously at Xiang Moxie and asked, "Is she…"

"She," Elizabeth emphasized, "is our new companion. Thanks to her input, we're here, ready and able to deal with the Opal Devils once and for all."

Elizabeth was giving Xiang Moxie more credit than she necessarily deserved as it was actually the Divine Transmission on both the Opal Devils and Xiang Moxie that allowed them to skip having to wait weeks for the portals to stabilize. Though, in the end, it was Moxie's Goldfinger that would allow them their expedition.

"Hmm," Tristan grunted, still eyeing Moxie warily.

"Anyway," Elizabeth continued, "since we're all ready," she turned to Moxie, "if you would please do the honors."

A couple of seconds later, after an unstable portal from the Opal Devil Subdimension opened within Moxie's range of perception, the entire group was teleported before it while Moxie used her Nascent Qi and Understanding of Sound to temporarily stabilize it completely.

The highest achievement of her Understanding formed a Universal Insight of Resonance. With it, the possibility of temporarily stabilizing dimensional portals was possible, not just subdimensional portals; it was, after all, the way Moxie even managed to cross from her dimension to Elizabeth's in the first place.

"See you later," Elizabeth said to Moxie as she entered the portal first. Her apparent lack of caution sounded off red flags in everyone's minds, with Xiang Moxie being the most affected.

'She… didn't have me go first? Now that we're separated by a dimensional boundary, her seals are completely disabled,' Moxie thought before she was astonished by the rest of the party quickly passing through the portal, one by one.

'This… This is beyond reckless,' she thought to herself. 'Could they be that confident in their abilities that they don't even care if I tag along with them? This is Cataclysmic Calamity! A threat against their world!'

Indignantly, she recalled, 'Even I couldn't singlehandedly resolve the first Cataclysmic Calamity that threatened Corin. I had nearly the entire planet's factions assisting me and even then we lost over a fifth of our total factions…'

Xiang Moxie had already achieved a Nascent Cultivation Stage Cultivation Base by the time the Second Stage of the Cataclysm came down on Corin, yet, while Elizabeth was still a full three Stages below her, she still recklessly charged in to meet her Cataclysmic Calamity head-on.

'She may be stronger than me,' Xiang Moxie thought begrudgingly, 'but, she'll be in for a rude awakening if she thinks it will be that easy to progress in the Cataclysm.'

Hesitatingly, she passed through the portal with a heavy heart as she knew her actions guaranteed prolonging the time she spent as Elizabeth's servant; knowing her involvement would significantly increase Elizabeth's chances of completing her Cataclysmic Calamity. However, the urging of her soul was too much for her to ignore.

Being a Cultivator focused on the Soul, she knew better than to go against her soul's precognitive calls. But more importantly, she wanted to know where her new Master got her unshakable confidence.

Even from behind the portal boundary, given the quality of Elizabeth's Core Sense, she should have been able to tell of the horrifying entities waiting within. Thus, for her to not just nonchalantly launch her crusade against it, but also bring her seemingly lackluster party of Core Formation and Core Refinement Stage Cultivators… Xiang Moxie would kill to know where she got the confidence to meet such odds without a frown in sight.

Taking a single step through the portal, Xiang Moxie grimaced, as her question was answered in the most affrontive way.

'This bitch…' she cursed against her usual temperament as her brows twitched. 'She and her friends are all wolves in sheep's clothing,' she thought.

Looking at the colorful display of abilities Elizabeth was conducting, prompted Moxie to shake her head in despair as she thought, 'Was she even trying when we fought?'