Chapter 120: The Princess
Let’s rewind time—an hour before Nero’s cataclysmic clash.
Over a hundred kilometers away, another battlefield was soaked in chaos and pressure—a duel where pride, instinct, and survival danced in deadly harmony.
Elreth faced an abomination like the other two: a demonized human scarab, his figure hunched beneath layers of pulsating earthen carapace, the armor jagged and grotesque like a nightmare birthed from the deepest crevices of the abyss. The exoskeletal shell shimmered like volcanic obsidian, shifting and reshaping as if alive, grinding with every motion like tectonic plates colliding. His very presence made the ground groan.
Crimson-red cracks pulsed along his back as he raised his massive stone saber, the air around it warping from the sheer density of earth-elemental prana. This was no mere brute. He wielded the Law of Earth—and worse, he’d merged it with the domain of gravity. The battlefield bowed beneath his will.
"Struggle for me," he sneered, voice hollow and gravelly, like stones grinding under pressure. "Let me see your lovely face contorted in despair... Princess."
Elreth didn’t flinch.
The usual cold arrogance that clung to her like a royal mantle was gone, replaced by a sharp, focused glint. She knew this wasn’t an opponent she could toy with. He was stronger. His aura was suffocating. But that’s what made this fight exhilarating.
She smiled.
That simple act alone stung the demonized knight’s pride.
’How dare she smile...!’
Her crimson hair fluttered as she let out a breath. The tips of her bangs shimmered with energy. Her amber-orange eyes ignited, blooming into a radiant red with vertical reptilian slits—a sign of the Red Knight awakening. She had advanced... not fully, but enough to stand here and fight.
Her spear trembled as it absorbed her power. Flames surged forth, thick and liquid-like, wrapping the weapon in a hellish crimson blaze. The temperature around her rose instantly, leaves caught fire, and cracks spread across the earth.