Royal Princess of Blood

The fireball in the sky, it was so gigantic, heat so intense but being magically contained by its caster — its heat could potentially reach the surface. It was almost like looking at the sun. It was around three hundred meters in diameter. Those looking from a distance could potentially mistake it as such. The caster, Estelia, poured a tremendous amount of power into it. And her hand was shaking. She was almost at her limit.

The lines of cracks on her body grew in countless branches. Like a glass bottle, where one smack could shatter it into pieces, spilling out all of its contents.

With a wave of her hand, Estelia brought down the blazing sphere, coming down like a falling sun, a fearsome sight to behold. The angel swung its wings forward, unleashing a gigantic wave of dark energy, constantly flowing to try to overcome the mini-sun. However, the goddess’s power was more intense, and the angel was pushed back all the way ‌to the ground.

The intense ball of fire devastated all the landscape it touched, ripped them to pieces, melting them into molten lava. Anything or anyone that would step even a bit close to this ball of fire would be scorched to smithereens. Even the air you breathe could burn your lungs. Estelia maintained her position in the sky, to be spared from the damage her own magic caused.

It was then that she noticed a figure breaking through the sphere of fire. Estelia frowned in utter displeasure and annoyance.

How is that thing still moving?

There must be something not right about that thing. Upon taking a closer look, it looked severely damaged. Several pieces of its body parts were gone and scorched. The bones of its wings were tattered.

It almost feels like fighting something that’s supposed to be dead already… like a zombie or some shit.

Perhaps she needed to rip it into pieces some more. She was becoming weak, her eyes were becoming hazy. Her entire body was in pain. She had to finish this immediately. She dispelled the sphere of fire, and it disappeared in an instant. Then, she propelled herself down to meet the ascending angel.

She cast down a barrage of spells. The angel swung its spear and sent several arcs of light, which deflected some of her magical spells. Estelia suddenly flew over the angel and pulled out her remaining daggers between her fingers and threw them towards the roots of the angel’s wings. They all exploded into an intense storm of magical slashes that shredded its wings and body. The angel staggered forward.

But Estelia wasn’t done — she moved up close and clenched on its wing and pointed her finger onto one wing’s root and fired subsequent shots of magic onto it. The angel roared and violently shoved her off, but not before she caused severe damage to the wing, and it went limp. It lost its balance in flight, but it swung its spear at Estelia. The latter used her shielded arms as cover, and after a brief golden explosion, she was sent upward.

“Ugh.” She felt dizzy upon impact, but she immediately shook it off. Restoring her cracked shields, she looked down at the angel who was struggling to keep itself in the air, gradually falling down. She raised a hand and conjured a pillar of ice — fifty meters tall and twenty meters wide.

She swiftly swung down her hand, and the ice pillar shot downward, precisely hitting the angel and driving it deep into the ground. The ice pillar then shattered into pieces. Estelia landed on the ground and glared at the angel. She imagined that the angel would move to evade it, but it didn't.

It got slow.

She managed to weaken it, but at a high cost. But it was still something incredibly dangerous. If it landed a direct hit on her, it could certainly kill her in an instant. Estelia pulled out her special dagger from behind her waist and pricked her finger, enchanting it with her blood. Her last dagger.

The angel’s spear briefly glowed and swung it towards her, unleashing a wide arc of light. Estelia used a burst of wind to charge forward while jumping over the arc. Estelia propelled herself faster and thrust her blade towards the enemy’s face. But the angel blocked it with its spear. Estelia drew back her weapon, and the enemy swung its spear at her.

Their weapons clanged loudly as they fought — when Estelia parried the spear, she abruptly pointed her vacant left hand and fired a lightning bolt. But the angel managed to dodge it. The angel did a wide swing and sent an arc of light at close range, which Estelia’s body shield took. Her shield cracked.

The angel took a step forward and swung it diagonally, which was evaded, then followed by a horizontal swing. Estelia jumped over it and used a burst of wind to stop her momentum and change her direction, going over to the angel’s back. Instantly, she let loose and swung her stringed dagger to slash at the root of the other wing, and it easily slashed through. But it didn’t cause enough damage to put it out of commission.

Even though it couldn’t fully move its first damaged wing, it was still connected to its body, so both wings burst out the usual dark energy, blasting Estelia away. Perhaps feeling more desperate, the angel had started acting even more aggressively, lashing out. It lunged towards Estelia and started aggressively slamming its spear down at her. Estelia kept blocking the attacks, but she was being pushed back.

It was not only the angel that had become weaker in the duration of this fight. Even Estelia was slowing down in both her response time and movement.

When Estelia stepped back to put some distance between them, the angel suddenly threw the spear at her, hitting her armor on the chest, causing cracks on her armor. The spear bounced off her shield, and the angel instantly stepped in and caught the spear in the air, and swung it down, shooting an arc of light. It hit Estelia, cracking the shields on her limbs, but shattering the one around her torso.

The angel pounced and thrust the spear toward her. Estelia used her shielded arms to protect herself. But the angel kept pushing. Estelia groaned, trying to resist, the crack on her shields became worse.

It was then that someone familiar suddenly stepped in and swung down his sword on the angel’s back, followed by a burst of magic. The angel staggered, and Estelia took the chance to shoot a blast of magic into the angel’s chest, stunning it. Then, she restored her armor while moving in low and slashed the angel’s right knee deeply. Afterward, she leaped over the angel’s expanded wing and reached the root of it. She threw her dagger into the same wing root she had hit previously, the blade digging in deeper. As she landed, she pulled out the blade by the string and fired a lightning strike at the angel.

Then the other person, Taneva, attacked the angel from the front. Slashing it across the torso. Estelia then moved in and slashed the angel’s left knee, followed by heavily swinging down her blade through its left arm, severing it.

“Agh! This can’t be!” The angel attempted to swing at her in its frustration, but Taneva stabbed his blade through its right forearm, holding it in place.

Estelia then followed by severing that same arm.

The moment the spear fell to the ground, Taneva retrieved it with a grimacing expression. “This is mine.” He then proceeded to kick the angel in the chest, blowing it away.

The angel ricocheted on the ground until it stopped. It looked around and started crawling with its legs.

Estelia, panting heavily, walked up to the angel. “Finally.” Her body was basically glowing now, the cracks had increased and spread out further. But she was determined to finish the job.

She pushed down the dark angel with her foot, pressing it to the ground, then grabbed its right wing. Clenching it tightly, she started pulling hard.

“NO!”

The angel writhed, trying to break free, but it was a pointless struggle. Estelia plucked the wing from its back, breaking apart the bone, and the dark energy emanating from it faded away. Afterward, she went for the other one.

“I… I cannot fail!”

“You already have.” Then she pulled out the last wing, casually throwing it away to the side. She stepped back, and the angel tried to slowly crawl away by shifting its body. “You just won’t die, huh?” She held out her hand and started casting bolts upon bolts of magic — plain magic, fire, lightning.

She fired and fired, and fired, and fired, and fired until the angel’s remaining limbs were all destroyed from its body and reduced to pieces. Its body itself was mostly torn. Its head shifted and turned to look at her, a fierce look on its face.

“I may have failed, but there will be more. More will come and hunt you.”

Estelia kneeled next to it and leaned a little closer to its face. “Meaningless words from a fallen angel,” she whispered. “You know, I was called an angel myself.” She then pointed her special dagger at its head, pressing it on its forehead. She gripped its head tightly, keeping it in place. “The Angel of Death they called me. And look at me now, killing an actual angel.” A small smile played on her lips. “How exhilarating.”

She then slowly pushed the blade into its forehead, the blade digging in smoothly — it was not similar to the sensation of pushing a blade through a human’s head. Estelia savored the sensation as the blade moved, it didn’t have the hardness of hitting the skull, nor the roughness when reaching the brain. Was it because of the blood enchantment and because this wasn't like any creature? It certainly was a fresh experience — it was like digging a blade through soft sand. It was satisfying. And the angel still had its eyes open, glaring at her. Then, the dagger’s hilt had hit the forehead.

And at last, Estelia swung the dagger downward, cleaving the angel in half, reaching all the way to the chest. The angel was not moving anymore. Estelia slowly stood back up, flicked the blade to remove the grimes, and sheathed it back to its sheath. But to make sure, she set a blazing ball on the angel’s corpse. And it burned for some time until the body basically turned to ashes.

Once it was over, Estelia let out a tired sigh and glanced at Taneva, who wasn’t wearing a shirt of any kind after being vaporized on the upper body. “Took you long enough.”

He pulled out a coat from his inventory and wore it. “Took some time to regenerate. And you were flying all over the place, destroying everything around you. So I had to take the others to safety, and I couldn’t just easily jump in and join the fight without getting obliterated myself.”

He wouldn't be of much help if he kept being hit in the collateral, constantly waiting to be restored.

Estelia slowly nodded. “Right.” She lowered her gaze, her eyes drooping. “I don’t feel so good.” And she suddenly fell, but Taneva quickly caught her.

“Dammit, Estelia… We need to get you there now.”

***

There were those who saw the battle from afar. That battle was hard to miss. Therefore, they quickly made their way to check it out, but they remained in a far and safe distance. But now, it was silent, no more chaos. The battle must be over.

“Trigel, what do you think?” asked the giant red demon, Ongrus.

“She must be there somewhere. That battle could only be her.” He turned around to face his army of demons. “Find her! Chase her down! Do not let her escape this time! Go!”

And the demons moved out.