Inside Lucia's sea of consciousness her golden core began to crack, the fractures split down it like daggers, mercilessly attacking it until only shards remained. Each one was a jagged piece imbued with her energy, if any were lost she would surely lose more than just a bit of strength.
This was a result of her carelessness, thinking that if she put off her advancement nothing bad would happen.
When she made this choice she was much more arrogant than now, acting as if she was untouchable just because of the missions that Olivia and her had completed.
The fragment of the Skybound Sovereign was wrapped around each one, trying to pull them all together. In the midst of it all was all of the true essence that she had compiled, creating even more golden shards.
The pain was unbearable and like nothing she had ever known, seeming to hit every nerve in her body, even though she didn't even have one in this place.
Knowing that she had to do something to make sure that she was actually able to form another core, she strained her mind and pulled the shards into a ball with the Skybound sovereign speeding up the process.
When all of the pieces had been compressed into a golden orb like before she finally took some air to breathe.
Finally coming back to the situation she realised that there was still shards floating around.
'Hmm it must be the new core right?'
With that in mind she reached around with her senses once more and used sheer willpower to smush all of them together roughly, not caring about if it would be damaged as she was honestly so done with this entire experience.
Figuratively panting, she glanced back to the white light and saw it nodding before she got sent back to the real world.
.
.
.
When Kristen first decided to join Olivia and Lucia she had thought that it would be smooth-sailing, late night campfires, talking about gossip, you know, the usual things you do with a group of friends.
And although they had told her that they were essentially criminals who raided towns for a living she had stupidly ignored that and just followed along.
Which led her to her current situation; in the middle of an evolving Lucia and a bunch of cultivators.
The carriage was almost completely destroyed from the repeated damage that they had done to it, so the humans were standing outside a broken down side wall, looking at the scene in front of them with disbelief in their eyes.
She tried to raise her wings to look scarier and intimidate them away but only managed to seem comical. Seeing that her silly strategy wasn't working she decided to get straight to the point and launched at them, taking off into the air and coming face to face with the humans.
'DAYAMN! WHHY DID IT HAVE TO BE SUPER HOT GUYS?? THEY LOOK LIKE FREAKING MODELS'
There were five guys in front of her and even though she wasn't even a human anymore she still wanted them BAD. They looked even better than the guys from earth, which was weird because this world was a lot less advanced.
Drool dripped from her mouth as she dashed toward the men.
But this wasn't like the beginner cultivators that she had faced before, no, these people were a lot stronger.
If 1 beast core was equal to the foundational stage in cultivation well then she was a whole stage behind, because four out of five of the humans that were in front of her were already in the golden core stage.
Uttering an apology to her heart she tried to attack the weakest one among them but was instantly blown back into the wall.
"Wind shattering blast!"
'BITCH! UH UH-DOESN'T MATTER IF YOUR HOT YOU ARE GOING DOWN!!!'
Picking herself up with an annoyed grunt she looked around for Olivia and found that she was still standing shocked next to Lucia.
'Oh my god pull yourself TOGETHER GIRL!'
Dodging another attack she went back to the broken down carriage and gazed at Olivia with a look of exasperation.
Lucia's body hovered a few inches above the ruined floorboards, feathers half-illuminated gold and white, qi spiraling around her in unstable currents. The air bent slightly inward toward her like she was the center of a forming storm.
The five men standing beyond the torn carriage wall weren't panicking, just figuring out what the next best move was.
Each wore dark imperial robes trimmed gold; they looked clean and unruffled.
Golden Cores.
Well, four of them at least.
The fifth stood slightly ahead and his presence was quieter for some reason. Kristen slammed her wing on the ground. "WHY," she hissed, feathers frazzled, "are they ALL so strong and ALSO unfairly attractive?!"
Olivia didn't blink, eyes rapidly searching for any changes in Lucia body.
Then suddenly Lucia fell from the air and landed unceremoniously onto the ground with a loud thud.
Helping her up, Kristen saw that there was a new white sheen in her eyes. It seemed that rather becoming bigger she just got stronger, the white sheen spreading all of her feathers as well.
'Oh..my..god.'
Whipping her head up with her heart beating fast, Lucia looked around a made eye contact with what seemed like the leader of the group.
"Still conscious?", he remarked. "Impressive."
Kristens eye twitched.
"So the divinations were right." Another joined in. "She IS forming a second core. A beast forming a second core here is pretty rare here, I wonder if we could sell her off for some gold!"
Lucia moved to the front of the three of them and covered them with her wings, gazing threateningly to each of the humans before saying to slowly back away telepathically.
"Getting away? Hahaha, I don't think so."
Stepping towards them, the leader menacingly reached into his robes and pulled a ominous contraption.
"Okay time go go GO!" Kristen jumped back and smashed through one of the windows, the other birds following close behind. Bits of glass brushed passed her wings as she flew into the night sky, going as fast as possible to get away from the handsome, dreamy-NO! They are awful men!
The wind rushed by them as they shot through the air, disappearing from view within seconds. Finally getting a chance to breathe she sent out a message to Lucia and Olivia to check if they were alright but found no response.
Turning her head back she searched for them but found nothing, no traces whatsoever.
'Huh? Where are they?'