A Demon's Journey

In Training Ground 4, Laura was stationed in a hot desert.

She was running at her top speed while dodging the fireballs from the Lava Plumes.

These Lava Plumes were here nemesis along with the surroundings.

Because of the extreme heat in this desert, her wood element was severely weakened. And any lava plume flame assault would quickly destroy the wood that had been produced.

Her movements were slowed by the scorching sand underneath her feet.

Fortunately, her gravity array training had trained her to walk with more energy, so she didn't have a hard time adapting to sprinting in the sand.

Laura manipulated her wood element to dodge the lava plumes attacks. She had managed to dodge plenty of attacks successfully but had little to no idea of how she should counter-attack.

She was scared of those flames hurting her.

But from what she understood about the array, if she didn't work hard, she won't benefit from it.

She remembered how hard it was for her to catch up to others in the gravity array training regimen. If she got left behind here, there would be no more opportunity to catch up.

Once that thought appeared in her mind, Laura halted her movements. She began to gather the Ardor using the Royal Elven Cultivation Technique.

'Although they have a really scary attack, their bodies look weak. As long as I can land a solid blow, they should be destroyed.'

She immediately moved towards her right to dodge an incoming flame arrow.

'If I attack them with my wood element, they will intercept it with their flame element. In these surroundings, the flame element heavily dominates. Wait…'

She had a brilliant idea and was eager to put it to the test.

Laura began to move towards the Lava Plumes but she was careful of their long-ranged attacks. She dodged all the incoming attacks and smiled in delight.

After a few seconds, under the ground underneath the Lava Plumes, the vines were expanding in such a manner that they covered all of them at the same time.

Laura concentrated a little and activated them all at the same time.

Before the Lava Plumes senses could alert them, they were all stabbed by those wood vines.

After stabbing the lava plumes, the vines began to burn. However, Laura noticed that the lava plumes were also disappearing.

She was ecstatic when she realized that her method had worked.

'I won't remain behind this time!'

The lava plumes soon began to regenerate.

With a determined look, Laura walked closer to the Lava Plumes. If she was closer, she could control the vines more efficiently.

However, in her excitement, she had wrongly estimated her own reaction speed and was struck by a couple of fireballs.

Before she could stand and understand her situation, 3 Lava Plumes immediately charged at her body with their bodies flaring with flames.

Just as Laura stood up, those three lava plumes crashed into her body. Fortunately, she had already reinforced her entire body with Ardor or she would have some nasty burns.

Laura understood that this time, it wouldn't be as easy as last time. For some reason, these Lava Plumes remained at their positions and attacked her from a distance. But this time, they were taking the initiative for the close-ranged combat as well.

But she wasn't as scared as earlier.

She thought that if she could deal with them one time then it was definitely possible to do so again.

She promptly lifted her palm and released wooden branches from her hand as she saw the three lava plumes ahead of her.

The three lava plumes spouted out flames from their mouth and tried to burn the branches before they could strike them.

Laura was prepared for their counter-attack. She controlled the branches in such a way that they would dodge those flames and strike the Lava Plumes.

Even the Lava Plumes probably hadn't expected it as their flames struck Laura while their bodies were pierced by those branches.

Laura was more or less unfazed even when the flames struck her body. She had used plenty of Ardor in her defense.

There were no injuries on her body because she was proficient in healing as well.

She glanced at the remaining Lava Plumes in the distance.

Laura realized after her most recent bout that she had a chance to win even if she fought them all.

Vines began to release from her body as they approached the Lava Plumes from two directions.

One set of vines was going through the air while the other set was going through the ground.

The lava plumes were aiming toward the vines in the air, but their bodies were quickly penetrated by the vines that covered the space through the ground.

Laura almost jumped excitedly as she destroyed another batch of the Lava Plumes without many injuries. The only problem was her loss of Ardor but she was recovering it quickly by using her cultivation technique.

"This is fun!"

Perhaps she was the only one until now who thought of this training as fun.

~~

In Training Ground 5, once the Array had activated for Yrellea, she found that she was slowly flying in the sky.

Soon enough, she was so high in the sky that she could see everything in her surrounding. Even the other training grounds…

She saw the training ground next to hers were both deserts. These were of Laura and Tiana.

Meanwhile, when she looked in Training Grounds 1-3 direction, she saw two of them were thick forests while one was an Icy Plane.

Yrellea found it difficult to understand just what sort of Array Azaroth had constructed.

How could he construct such diverse arrays in just 2 weeks? These were arrays she hadn't even heard of when she lived together with her clan.

Slowly, she tried to move around and found that she could fly quite easily. It was as if she had to strongly will herself to move in a specific direction and her body would respond automatically.

Her opponents were yet to materialize, maybe because she was the only one whose training was in the air. She was instead given some time to learn how to fly.

After a couple of minutes, Yrellea found her opponents in the air.

She noticed ten Golden Lightning Snakes in the air, flying just some distance away from her. These Golden Lightning Snakes had a horn on their head and their entire bodies seemed to be made of Lightning Element.

'Isn't this a Python? Why would master call it a snake?'

Yrellea didn't understand this. According to what she remembered, a snake with a small horn was called a Python. Its' face and length also matched that of a Python.

In reality, Azaroth considered python, flood dragons, and other lesser dragon species as snakes. So for simplicity, when he talked of any of them, he would call them snakes.

If any of the Flood Dragons or the Pythons knew of Azaroth's thoughts, they would strongly wish to tear him apart.

There was a massive difference between a Python and a Snake.

A python possessed a trace of Dragonic Bloodline while the same wasn't true for a Snake.

Anyway, it didn't matter much to Yrellea right now.

Her opponents didn't give her too much time to contemplate her method of attack.

The Lightning Pythons thundered lightning at Yrellea and intended to kill her.

Yrellea hadn't even moved before a bolt of lightning struck her body. She clenched her teeth and endured the pain.

Before the second set of Bolt of Lightning could strike her, Yrellea had already strongly willed to move away.

This time, she was a split second faster and managed to dodge the lightning attack.

Once she dodged the lightning attacks, she saw that the Lightning Snakes were seemingly charging up for another attack.

'Water Stream.'

Yrellea launched a high pressured water attack at the Lightning Snakes.

It struck three of the Lightning Snakes and pierced their bodies.

But Yrellea had no time to get happy as the other Lightning Snakes attacked that water stream and passed their electricity through water.

Yrellea was electrified as a result of their attack, and she felt paralyzed. Her thoughts were racing, but her body remained still.

This was not a good idea against these Lightning Snakes.

One of the Lightning Snakes approached her while she was paralyzed and struck her gut with its tail.

Yrellea felt as though she had been hit by a substantial brick, even though the Lightning Snakes' bodies were formed of lightning.

However, she found out that she could the paralysis effect had vanished and she could move her body.

While she faced the Lightning Snakes, Yrellea spent the majority of her time dodging their attacks.

She was quick in attacking them when an opportunity presented itself and would immediately stop using her water element once the enemy had been defeated.

This way, the Lightning Snakes wouldn't be able to use the earlier method to be able to strike her body in the same manner.

Azaroth had given her Heavenly Poison Scripture. Even though it was mainly a technique to refine poisons and infuse them with her body and increase her cultivation base, she could also use this technique to absorb the energy from the surrounding. Just that she was somewhat slower than others with the cultivation art of the same level.

However, Yrellea didn't mind it in the slightest. This cultivation art was still countless times better than the cultivation technique she saw in her clan.

Using this technique, she began to absorb the energy from the surrounding. But because she now had to concentrate on cultivating and flying at the same time, she couldn't dodge the attacks as effectively.

Her body showed signs of burns as the lightning continued to strike her body.