Orman felt the Holy Sword sit strangely in his grip.
Without any special circumstances, this fellow should have been dead by now. The current situation suggested that someone had used some method to reverse her fate of death on a conceptual level.
He spoke to Nina, who knelt amid ice and blood, slumped against the shattered throne in utter disarray. Her hair was a tangled mess, and she seemed only half-conscious, leaving it unclear whether she could even hear Orman’s flat tone.
“I’ve heard that you elves possess a skill that attaches one’s power and life force to another person.”
“It seems someone has already died in your place.”
Nina froze.
Her gaze remained fixed on the floor, her mind overwhelmed with turmoil that left her incapable of any action.
Orman couldn’t make out her expression. Perhaps out of sympathy, he refrained from striking her down immediately and instead observed the girl, who had nearly lost all will to fight.
But soon enough, he found himself grateful for his earlier inaction.
Grateful that, at last, an enemy worthy of his full attention had appeared.
Ice crystals continued to condense around Nina, coalescing into a storm of frigid winds. Then, she opened her azure-blue eyes—eyes that held not a trace of emotion.
“Indeed. Despair is part of growth,” Orman said softly.
His wrist had gone numb from the cold and refused to move without effort, while his feet were now buried beneath the snow. The howling gale sliced through his cloak like razor-sharp blades.
But in that instant, from far beneath the ground, a surging darkness erupted through the frozen mire of ice and snow.
Seizing the moment before Orman could even notice, the Dragon Girl unfurled her wings…
~~~
The fierce battle raging outside the Winter King’s Palace showed no signs of abating.
“Your luck isn’t great, is it, pitiful Miss Dark Filth?”
Maryvega eyed Laer, who was gasping for breath. The latter lurked in the shadows, but she couldn’t withstand the divine radiance emanating from the Light Envoy’s battle garb. Every time Laer unleashed her magic, beams of unavoidable light would sweep across the entire Ice Plains.
If not for Orman’s single sword strike, Maryvega might have stood a chance in a fight.
But now, her backup Magic Stones were depleted. All shadow magic would fail completely the moment it ran dry. If she took Maryvega’s next blow, Laer wasn’t sure she would survive.
This woman was stronger than she’d imagined.
Superhuman stamina, a one-in-a-million combat instinct, and terrifying battle acuity—it was all on blatant display. The enemy before her couldn’t even compare to a single Scale from Lady Leia, yet her true power couldn’t be summed up merely as Super Tier Layer 1.
Laer cloaked herself in darkness, staking everything on one final gamble: Xuefei’s reinforcements.
If Xuefei arrived, an opponent of this caliber would be no trouble at all.
Even if she couldn’t hold out, Laer had prepared a fallback—teleporting herself back to the Palace. The only catch was avoiding detection by that human monster, Orman.
“Hiding like a rat.”
In Maryvega’s field of vision, Laer was as conspicuous as a torch in a dark forest. If the enemy’s power hadn’t been so vastly inferior to her own mechanically enhanced body, victory might have slipped away.
But now, Maryvega was growing accustomed to the elusive strikes. Though the divine light had been blocked by various means, Laer’s foundation simply couldn’t withstand the Construct Holy Relic.
Mimicking a technique from her memories, she positioned her longsword at her side and rear, then spun her body. The blade refracted several beams of divine light, which lashed out like crashing ocean waves against the sea of shadows—striking in every direction.
Under the indiscriminate barrage, Laer fell into a disadvantage once more.
In her current state, bereft of any means to counterattack, the very notion of retaliation was impossible.
Yet Laer had already accounted for this “possibility.”
“Sorry, Xuefei.”
“It’s too soon for them to clash. The matters of the Elf Kingdom aren’t for us to meddle in.”
Just as she closed her eyes, preparing to activate the teleportation array in a desperate bid for safety, a girl’s voice cut through the clash of golden light and shadow—a voice that clashed utterly with the scene.
“Laer, I’m here! Don’t die!”
“You…”
The ever-diligent, ever-thrifty maid finally recognized the voice’s owner, and Laer was left utterly speechless.
A Snake Demon had transformed its lower body into a long, serpentine tail and slithered into the shadows along her power’s trail. It had found Laer and promptly flung itself into her arms.
Laer had no idea what expression to make in the face of this absurdity.
“Celi, you…”
To make the teleportation Magic Stone as compact and swift as possible, Laer had minimized its capacity to the extreme. It could only target a single person.
In other words, if Laer escaped, Celi would be left behind to die alone.
“Are you an idiot?” Laer gritted her teeth.
She had escaped purely by luck. Even reinforcements from the other gods had been within her calculations. Even if Orman killed the Winter Queen, Laer had ways to make it back to the Palace. But the one thing she had never anticipated was Celi charging in out of nowhere and ruining everything!
Worse, this girl didn’t even seem to realize how much of a fool she was!
“I… how could I abandon you alone, Laer? If you died…”
“Don’t you have a sister?” Laer shot her a disdainful look, glaring at the thick-headed idiot.
She could swear that in her past life or this one, she’d never met a girl this stupid—especially one wrapped in such a perfect, beautiful shell. Mitrice had been a little slow on the uptake too, but after marriage, her wits had shot up exponentially.
If Laer survived this and managed to drag her back home, she was definitely going to give this sweet little fool a thorough education.
“You’re right. I… I’m sorry,” Celi said, lowering her head.
“Next time, apologize to your sister instead of me. Got it?”
“But… doesn’t Laer have the Dragon King and Lady Xuefei who care about you? Dying so easily like this…”
“You’re such an idiot. Forget it…” Laer fumed, but with the battle still raging around them, she said, “You take the teleportation stone and go. It’s my last one—I never thought I’d burn through them all.”
“Huh?”
Only then did Celi finally grasp just how badly timed her arrival had been.
But she shook her head vigorously and placed her hand on Laer’s arm. “I… there’s no way I’d use it! Don’t forget, Laer—we can definitely beat her together! Absolutely!”
“Well, that’s true…”
Celi’s strength was no joke.
After succumbing to the Dark Filth, her power was roughly equal to that elf named Muir from earlier. But unlike that one, she wouldn’t end up on the defensive in a fight.
“Snake Scales.”
It was one of the strongest defenses short of Dragon Scale—and in the hands of a genius like Princess Celi, her defensive prowess could rival certain Super Tier existences. Offensively, though, she was no match for Muir, who could even stand toe-to-toe with Maryvega’s Construct Holy Relic.
Still, maybe that defense alone would be enough.
Laer clasped Celi’s hand. “I won’t leave you either. Don’t worry.”
“Sorry…”
“Save your apologies for when I’m bullying you. It’ll be more fun that way. Besides, I don’t think Orman will let us slip away every time.”
“Mm-hmm!”
In the cramped space shrouded in darkness, Laer felt the warmth of Celi’s body. After drawing some magic power from her through a kiss, she finally had enough to keep fighting.
At that moment, Maryvega shattered the shadows with a burst of divine light. She gazed down at the embracing girls, her smile growing ever more terrifying.
“Another Dark Filth to add to the tally. Now I can give that guy Abel his due.”
