Chapter 119

Asuna didn’t wait for another one of Gamesh’s tricks. She raised her claymore overhead with both hands and shouted, “Crimson Blade!”

A bloody energy engulfed the claymore and went several yards past the tip of the blade, extending the range of the weapon to absurd length. And, unceremoniously, Asuna swung the claymore right at Gamesh.

The princess wasn’t anywhere close to the captain but the range of the crimson energy eached so far that it sliced one of the damaged outer walls of the fortress they were fighting beneath, causing another minor collapse.

“Ha!” Asuna laughed, sweating and visibly exhausted, when she saw no remains of her opponent.

“Commander!!” the palace guards screamed when they saw Gamesh behind the princess.

“Agh!” Asuna narrowly escaped with her head intact but had to use up another charge in her Bloodoath to heal a fresh wound across her shoulder, chest, and arm when she failed to fully evade Gamesh’s strange flashing attack.

“I will not hold back from killing you,” Gamesh said. “But I will allow you to live if you surrender right now and command the others to do the same.”

“Fuck you!” Asuna gasped, struggling for air.

“Suit yourself-eh?” Gamesh noticed several dark energies form at the surface of the rubble behind him.

-33 HP
-30 HP
-31 HP
-32 HP
-30 HP
-29 HP

“Argh! Fuck!!” Beatrice cursed after another barrage of nails scored several annoying wounds in her flesh.

Though at first the minor wounds were nothing that Beatrice couldn’t heal through with her absurd +1.84 Health Point per second regeneration, this quickly grew to be a problem.

“What’s the matter!?” Annie laughed. Rather, Annie’s laughed. Several of them. From behind the rippled effects of concealment magic.

With no way of telling which Annie was real, or if any of them was real, Beatrice had an increasingly difficult time dealing with Annie’s attacks while Annie showed no sign of stopping. The number of her nails just kept increasing with every attack. And that was between the wild hammaxe swings that looked like they’d break every bone in a human body in one hit.

Fuck this! Beatrice thought and ran toward the thickest group of palace guards, behind which Melody was hiding.

“Hammer Fall!!” Annie crashed right in front of Beatrice’s path and followed it up with another, “Nail Barrage!!”

“Tch!” Beatrice dodged the delayed nail barrage and counterattacked the princess who finally appeared to be the real one. But this time her attack was thwarted by several palace guards.

“Pests!” Beatrice broke their spears, only to be forced to dodge several more as they ganged up on the succubus in larger numbers.

“Don’t worry princess, victory is as good as ours,” one of the palace guards told princess Melody just before the sweat from his forehead all poured into his eyes. “Ahck!”

“What—?” Melody turned around and suddenly choked. Her vision went blurry and her nose filled with water.

While everyone focused on Beatrice Lieutenant Mimi sneaked up on Melody and conjured a water bubble over the princess’s head while her men cut down the sweat-disoriented guards.

“Surrender, right now!” Mimi shouted to Annie and the other palace guards. “Or she drowns!”

“Then I just have to kill you—” Annie’s words were cut short when she got pierced by two extended claws from behind. “Khuh-you—”

“You heard her,” Beatrice said as she viciously tore through Annie’s back, letting blood pour freely.

“ARGH!” Annie growled and dropped her hammaxe. She was forced to lean with her entire weight against its long handle while blood stained her fresh white robes.

“Huh!? Aren’t they losing?” the onlookers in the increasingly large crowd chattered.

“No! Princess Melody!!”

“Let the princess go, you demon prostitutes!!”

“You heard them,” Beatrice heard a young woman’s voice.

Just then two dark skeletal warriors from the rubble behind Mimi and raised their giant dadao swords over their head.

“Eh!?” Mimi only had the time to turn around and see the threat when both blades came down on her head.

“Fuck off!” Beatrice said after slashing the blades to pieces with her claws before beheading the ghostly skeletons.

“T-Thank you,” Mimi gasped and was able to maintain the water bubble around Melody’s head. Melody fell on her knees, drowning on solid ground, clawing at the water bubble with no effect.

“No problem,” Beatrice said, happy to finally strike down some enemies, even if they appeared to be summoned ones. Beatrice watched the two skeletons disintegrate into mist. Destroying the soldiers was the easy part, but it cost Beatrice the four-minute cooldown on her [Blink (+1)] Skill to get there in time.

“Oh?” a pale goth girl with a giant feathered top hat on her head and bright crimson eyes noted Beatrice’s performance as she walked onto the improvised arena. She was escorted onto the battlefield by an increasing number of dark skeletal warriors that kept rising up from dark pools on the surface of the rubble one after another, snarling and hissing like animals.

“Down, fire kitty!” Ember commanded and with a move of her finger rained a molten shower on top of Dhisana’s head.

But just before the blazing hot coals reached Dhisana’s hair ears, an ice roof formed above her head, giving Dhisana enough time to move out of the way before the rain melted holes in the ice.

“I guess I’ll just have to melt you first, pocket boy!” Ember said and aimed her finger at Zaki who stood with his hands in his pockets surrounded by his various ice structures while massaging his balls.

Just then a plain ol’ water rain splashed Ember in the face. Not far from the bodyguard, Neri conjured the rain that fell near parallel with the ground and at an increasing intensity. Zaki then enfused his magic into Neri’s rain and made a chilling ice blizzard that froze the droplets right on Ember’s skin.

“Hey, captain useless, do something!!” Ember demanded.

“Chill out!” Flavna said to no amusement from Ember and tore through Zaki’s ice defenses. Zaki was forced to flee while creating more obstacles between him and the captain, which distracted him from the ice blizzard.

But just when Flavna nearly cornered Zaki, Dhisana got in the way with her fire fists, forcing Flavna back.

“We’re getting nowhere!” Neri complained after Ember turned her rain to steam.

“You’re the one who got us into this, figure it out!” Zaki told her.

“It would’ve been long over if not for this fire bitch!” Neri grumbled while Zaki protected her from Ember’s fire.

“We have a fire bitch of our own,” Zaki reminded.

“Except Dhina’s fire is useless against her for some reason!”

“Shit,” Ember stopped using her magic when she finally noticed a new threat on the battlefield.

“She’s finally tired out!” Neri called out right when Flavna’s and Dhisana’s brawl went past them. “Take her down!”

“Simple minded—” Ember didn’t get to finish her insult as a giant explosion suddenly erupted right in the middle of all five of them all.

Out of the dust a larger-than-life beastkin stood up. Thick blue and white fur covered every inch of his body that was not protected by black plate armor or the galea helmet on his head. On his back he carried a sword the size of a grown man.

“R-Rivaldo?” Flavna couldn’t believe her eyes.

The beastkin did not respond. He showed no emotion, and his eyes were dim and lifeless.

“Nobody move a muscle!” Samira ordered as she walked onto the center of the proverbial stage.

“What is this new devilry?” Beatrice asked Mimi.

“Samira Sinatus, the third daughter of the King,” Mimi said.

“So, I’m a demon for saving this stupid city from a tentacle demon rapist, but a princess summons an undead army in the middle of the city and everybody’s fine with that?” Beatrice asked.

“Nobody really likes her,” Mimi said, and Beatrice noticed that the little Purple Cape might be right.

Unlike when Asuna or Melody appeared, there were no cheers for this princess. A thick aura of silent tension washed over the entire area with everybody’s attention on the pale princess in the black gothic dress.

Gamesh and Asuna both looked at Samira while keeping each other in the corner of their eyes. A dozen skeletal warriors stood between them, armed with giant blades and waiting for the command to strike.

“Release her right now!” Samira demanded from Mimi.

Mimi looked at the drowning youngest princess at her feet who thrashed on the ground in agony and futilely clawed at the water bubble around her head with bulging panicked eyes.

“She’s our hostage!” Mimi declared. “If you want to negotiate—”

“I’ll have that giant furball rip all your limbs off before you give Melody brain damage,” Samira threatened.

Rivaldo turned in Mimi’s direction and started walking right past Flavna, Dhisana and the others.

“Eep!” Mimi instinctively took a few steps back as she watched the approach of a beastkin that could squash her like a bug.

“Rivaldo!! Stop!!” Flavna shouted in vain.

Captain Gamesh barely moved his arm when the dozen skeletons all raised their blades and pointed them at his face.

“It’s over,” Asuna told Gamesh, regaining her graceful posture after the chance to recuperate.

“Mimi, let her go,” Flavna told Mimi.

“A-As you say!” Mimi happily obeyed and hurriedly undid her water trap on Melody’s head.

“Uaaah-khuah-cough-cough” Melody painfully gasped for air and coughed up water that had filled her airways.

“Step away from her,” Samira told Beatrice and Mimi, and had a dozen skeletal warriors surround the gasping young princess.

Mimi gladly increased her distance from the undead, and Beatrice also saw no benefit in sticking too close to their many blades.

“You took your sweet time,” Asuna said to Samira.

“Can’t be helped that nearly all of my sisters are such disappointments,” Samira said. “And you still wonder why you’re never entrusted with anything that requires either brawn or thought.”

“Weren’t you the one entrusted with finding and bringing back Mary?” Asuna asked.

“She’s found and brought back,” Samira said. “More importantly, I can’t believe mother let you take Melody out of the palace.”

“She didn’t!” Annie said for all to hear. “I came here to bring her back.”

“And nearly get her and yourself killed,” Samira looked at Annie like at an insect. “Honestly, I wanted to wait for to kick it, but Melody would have died before you. From now on I suggest you stick to prayers. Two losses in two days ... What else needs be said?”

“I haven’t lost!!” Annie screamed and a dark aura momentarily flashed out from beneath her robes.

“Only because Melody babysat you the entire time,” Samira said. “Enough. The fight is over. Everyone put your weapons away. Purple Capes and their allies will come quietly with us. No one else dies. No one else gets harmed. I’ll spend some personal quality time with them before brining anyone before our father or mother.”

While Samira talked, Dhisana already went back to drinking from her last pouch.

“And what about us?” Zaki asked while playing pool.

“The representatives from the Guild can go back to copulating with each other,” Samira said.

“Haah!? We help you clean up this mess and I don’t even get a blowjob for—mfffmph!?” Neri grabbed Zaki from behind and covered his mouth.

“Don’t mind him, he’s just cranky from missing his morning ass-licking,” Neri laughed nervously.

Samira stared at them without a reply.

“Like hell we’re going with you!” Flavna shouted.

“Was it not your intention to go to the palace anyway?” Samira asked while additional soldiers rose up around Flavna and Ember. Rivaldo turned his back on Beatrice and Mimi and slowly walked back to Flavna.

“Not as prisoners to your unholy entourage!” Flavna said.

“The only thing unholy here is your taste palette,” Samira replied. “You will not win. I would very much like to bring you all alive. As would our kind and merciful mother.”