Royal Princess of Blood

I squirmed in the ravager’s grasp. I tried shifting my dagger to stab him anywhere, but I couldn’t move enough at all. My movement seemed to have annoyed the giant, and suddenly, it clenched slightly. However, with its strength, a slight effort from it was direct damage to me. It crushed my limbs, my body, and excruciating pain spread ‌all over me. I spat out blood, landing on its hand, and it sizzled a little.

“Oops, I overestimated your squishiness. I certainly hope you won’t die from that.”

I wheezed, I felt my strength leave me in an instant. But I couldn’t let this guy defeat me. Never! I gathered an intense amount of mana around my body. The surroundings began to vibrate, and I could feel my insides being torn apart by the amount of mana I was channeling.

“Oi, what do you think you’re doing? Don’t make me hurt you more.”

I took a deep breath, and light started shining from inside the demon’s hand. Then, an explosion of raw magic erupted, blasting away its hand and blowing the demon itself away from me. The explosion was so powerful that the shockwave scattered dirt and dust and blew away the surrounding trees. Now being free from its grasp, I fell to the ground. It was a rough landing.

“Agh… Fuck…” I looked down at my legs, I couldn’t move them properly. I even struggled to move my arms to crawl. The muscles, my flesh, were crushed. Thankfully, it felt like my bones were fine. I panted and lay down on the ground. I let go of my daggers and started casting healing magic on my legs.

Motherfucker almost crippled me, that fucking piece of shit!

Couldn’t run, couldn’t move my arms to fight, couldn’t do shit. I coughed out blood, bearing the intense pain of crushed flesh and internal damage caused by using so much magic. I wheezed as I took breaths. I heard loud thuds coming my way, and I saw the giant looking at its smoking hand. But I inflicted no visible damage.

What kind of monster even is that?!

It was gonna take some time to heal my legs, at the bare minimum.

“Such incredible power. But enough playing games, little one.”

I held out my hand and fired a large bolt of ice at it. It encased it upon impact, but the thing just walked through it, shattering the ice as if it were nothing. I kept firing, but it was all the same result. I truly needed to hit it with holy element, but I couldn’t even move to fight.

It was then that Taneva arrived and swung his spear down at the giant. The giant’s fist was engulfed in flame and blocked the spear that was glowing with holy magic. The flames dispersed as they made contact with the spear, but the spear didn’t reach the skin. Then the giant punched Taneva with its other fist; blood burst out as Taneva was blown away.

However, Taneva remained standing as his body began to regenerate. “You must be one of them dread lords. How troublesome indeed.”

“Regeneration? What sort of creature are you?”

“It’s rare to face a dread lord, you guys just stuck around your little island. And it would seem you’re strong enough to repel holy magic.”

The giant, which I assumed to be named Ongrus as I heard from the imp earlier, chuckled in a deep, growly voice. “It would be pitiful if we leaders of our kind get killed so easily by golden light.”

Taneva glanced at me and frowned. “And you almost killed her, are you insane?”

It was really close. If that thing were a little stupider, I would have been crushed to death. I certainly didn’t want to find out if I’d get a third chance after death. And I had a feeling this one here was the last.

“She’s alive, isn’t she? Now, get out of the way, human.”

Taneva took a step towards me, but the giant dashed and instantly reached Taneva. It thrust its fist at him, and the latter blocked it with his holy spear — flames burst as it conflicted with the holy element. Taneva shifted to the side and dodged the incoming attacks. I was flabbergasted by the speed this giant was swinging its fists around. The sheer strength alone needed to achieve that was insane.

Then, the giant slammed its fist to the ground, and a pillar of inferno burst out of the ground, engulfing Taneva. However, Taneva came out of the flames and engaged the demon. The giant blocked his attacks, but eventually, Taneva parried the monster’s fist and quickly flipped his spear and slammed it into the monster’s belly. The extremely powerful bludgeoning force blew the demon far away. He couldn’t have used the sharp end of his weapon lest the demon had a small window to readjust itself and block his next attack. He opted for a quick and sudden change in his attack pattern.

Taneva quickly went up to me. “Holy crap, can you move?”

“I can't.”

Left with no choice, he carried me up and put me over his shoulder. He grabbed my pair of daggers and put them in his inventory. “I might need you to hold him off as much as you can.”

“Got it—” The giant was back immediately.

“Put her down now.”

Taneva immediately ran away with incredible speed. The giant was hot on our tail. I held out my hand and spawned a giant wall of ice. It got through after a second. I held out my hands together and gathered mana into a single ball of magic. After condensing it, I shot it at the giant, and it crashed against it, setting off a large explosion about twenty meters in radius. It blasted away the giant as it was engulfed in the explosion.

With that, we lost it for the moment.

A moment later, we met up with the others. However, they were in dire states, the normal humans specifically. Velar was wounded all over, bleeding all over, but he kept standing as he was surrounded by imps. Hartwin was crawling on the ground, holding his glowing rapier, Nira trying to guard him, keeping the demons away. Heneis and Galik were facing that particular powerful imp.

The powerful imp glanced at me in surprise. “You escaped Ongrus.” Before he could move, Heneis and Galik held him off, grabbing onto him. “Fucking beasts!”

I took a deep breath, I had an idea, which I had been hesitating to use. “Taneva, eliminate the imps surrounding the guys, regroup. And then, as we flee with all our might, you all prepare barriers.”

“What do you plan to do?”

“I’m nuking this forest.”

“Nu— what?”

“I’ll obliterate this forest! Vaporize everyone here to smithereens! Now go!”

“That won’t kill all of them.”

“It will stop them from following us for some time, now do it!”

There was no other choice. Using that amount of magic power was going to fuck me up hard, but better that than being taken by these demons.

While having me on his shoulder, Taneva quickly got rid of the imps surrounding Velar.

“Carry Hartwin,” Taneva said to him.

Taneva quickly got rid of the imps surrounding Nira and Hartwin, whose leg was injured, and a wound on his waist. Velar carried him up.

“Now let’s run! Get as far as you can from here.” Then I saw the giant demon, Ongrus, glaring at me. “Regroup! Regroup!” I shouted at the Cursed Children, and they quickly moved towards me, turning into fogs. Instantly, I gathered an intense amount of ice magic and shot it towards the demons.

A colossal glacier appeared in the middle of the forest, encasing and restraining those trapped inside it. But that was only going to buy us a few seconds.

I took a deep breath as I held out my hands together. This was going to be the first time I’m going to spend so, so much mana. I focused and concentrated mana between my palms. A small ball of white light appeared, and it gradually began to grow in size. The air began to vibrate as intense pressure radiated around it.

More, more, and more mana, condense and compress. The ball grew slightly bigger between my palms. I moaned in pain as I could feel my veins crack. I felt warm fluid flowing down my nose, the same case with my eyes. I could feel blood building up in my throat, and it tasted nasty. But I needed to put more.

The glacier began to crack. I gritted my teeth and glared at the glacier. I shifted my hand, and the small ball of light ascended. “D-Deploy barriers.”

At that, Taneva stopped running and deployed a wide barrier to protect everyone. The others in the crew cast out shields of their own just in case.

Demons broke out of the glacier. But it was too late.

With a light wave of my hand, the white ball of light streaked through the air like lightning towards its destination. In a moment, there was silence. And then, what followed was a blinding white light that covered all sight, reaching even towards the sky. All sounds that could be heard were rumblings like thunder. The earth shook like an intense earthquake, the wind moved as if amidst a storm. The ground parted. All kinds of matter within were reduced to smithereens. The magic power it radiated outside tore apart the standing trees, while the shockwave bent the trees positioned further outward. All kinds of debris flung in all directions.

I could feel Taneva struggle to stand his ground as an intense shockwave and magic power reached all the way to us. His shield began to crack. But it should be fine, the explosion… should be over in a few seconds, we were on the edge of the explosion. None dared to stare directly at it, for all would be blinded. The white explosion was so high and massive that I imagined everyone within a few kilometers might have seen it.

Then, a moment later, the light had begun to fade. My eyelids felt heavy, but I glanced at the giant crater it left. A large area of the forest just disappeared in a moment. And all that remained was silence.

“Gah!” I coughed out blood.

Taneva quickly put me down to check on me. “You look like you’re dying.”

I could hardly breathe. The pain all over me… I couldn’t even begin to describe it. I was only forcing myself awake through sheer willpower. “Continue… through the mountains before… they recover.”

Taneva sighed. “I’ll heal you on the way.”

… Haah… It felt like I was dying again.

“Don’t die now, we’re still a long way away.”

Dammit…

***

A dead angel reached the end of the land, the shores. His body was almost restored. However, he had lost the trail. And thus he stood here at the edge of the land like a statue. Waiting for anything. It was then that he felt a great burst of divine power.

“Haaaah…” He let out a ghastly breath and slowly turned towards the direction of the source. It was a power so great that it caused a ripple that only the angel could sense. “Goddess…”

He had found her trail again. And thus the hunt continues. He expanded its skeletal-like wings. Then, darkness filled the gaps, restoring his wings. The angel had gradually recovered a little of his senses. His purpose and mission became just a little clearer.

Now that he had found his direction, he flapped his dark wings, and a burst of wind followed, scattering dust and stones. And then, he ascended into the air and flew towards the source of that vague divine magical power.