Chapter 316: Can I... Be Blessed Too?
Lupina launched herself forward with her steel claws blurring into a lethal three-strike claw combination aimed directly at Fenna’s throat and chest.
SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!
Fenna didn’t even draw a blade.
She simply leaned her upper body backward, her incredible archer reflexes allowing her to dodge all three claw thrusts by millimeters.
"STOP MOVING AROUND SO MUCH...!" Lupina rushed forward with her claw extended however just before she could slash Fenna’s throat open...
[ACTIVE SKILL ACTIVATED: WIND-WALK GLIDE]
THWIP!
Fenna executed a weightless backflip with her boots landing lightly on the branch of a nearby scorched tree ten feet above the ground.
"WOLF’S FURY!" Lupina shrieked, unleashing her core Hero mana skill.
HUMMMMMMM!
A fiery silver-and-white wolf aura exploded from Lupina’s body.
Her movement speed doubled instantly, her eyes glowing with wild feral light as she kicked off the tree trunk, shattering the wood into splinters.
BOOM!
Lupina plummeted down toward Fenna like a silver meteor with her steel claws tearing through the air.
"AAAAGH!"
A thirty-foot crescent wave of compressed, razor-sharp wind magic shot out from Lupina’s claws, slicing through the ground and demolishing three massive stone boulders in its path.
The impact blasted a twenty-foot crater into the earth, sending shattered bedrock flying into the sky.
’She’s actually quite stronger than I originally gave her credit for...’
BOOM!
Dust and rock filled the air as Lupina landed in the center of the crater, her claws dripping with silver mana and her wolf ears twitching as she looked around for Fenna’s corpse.
’She couldn’t have survived all of tha—’
"Over here," a cool voice called out from behind her.
Lupina snapped her head around.
Fenna was standing on a floating chunk of rock five feet behind her with her composite longbow fully drawn and a single arrow notched against the string.
Fenna didn’t notch a lethal arrow. Inscribed onto the tip was a [Knockout Rune].
THWIP!
Fenna released the string.
The arrow shot forward at point-blank range, moving faster than Lupina’s eyes could track.
CLANG!
Lupina frantically brought her steel claw gauntlets together in a desperation cross-block.
BOOOOOOM!
The knockout rune detonated upon contact with Lupina’s claws as a massive pressurized wave of blunt force and sleeping gas exploded flat against Lupina’s face.
’We made it to calm Brida down but who thought we would need it so soon...?’
The physical force shattered Lupina’s steel claws into pieces, shutting down her nervous system instantly.
"GAHHH...!"
Lupina’s eyes rolled back into her head.
Her silver wolf ears flattened with her body flying backward through the smoke before crashing softly onto the grass, completely out cold.
Fenna lowered her composite bow, landing lightly beside the unconscious wolf-girl, and let out a long, quiet breath as the dust settled over the clearing.
"Haah~ I really don’t want to fight useless battles."
...
Tasmin stood amidst the lingering wisps of pitch-black void smoke with her dark coat fluttering against the cold mountain air of the Umbral Basin.
Her sharp eyes swept across the immediate radius of the clearing, watching thick, shadowy tendrils retract smoothly back into her spine.
Around her boots lay half a dozen disarmed heavy guards from The Unmovable Wall, all groaning in disoriented exhaustion with their defensive shields dented and fractured from the impact of her shadow strikes.
’I’m still in the middle of experimentation though...’
With a silent, fluid motion, Tasmin turned her gaze to the left.
Fenna was stepping out from the settling dust cloud of the crater, carrying the unconscious body of Lupina over her shoulder.
The silver-haired wolf-girl’s steel gauntlets were completely shattered with her wolf ears twitching flat against her silver hair as she slept off the effects of Fenna’s knockout rune.
Tasmin looked at the limp form of the beast-kin Hero, her dark eyes narrowing into a cold, evaluating stare.
’That one...’ Tasmin thought internally, her shadow tendrils coiling lazily around her waist. ’The moment this war concludes and she officially steps foot inside our border... I am going to have to personally break her down in the training yards. Running blindly into a kill-zone without reading the battlefield.. At her strength? She’s going to end up as nothing more than a punching bag if she doesn’t learn how to use her ears.’
Tasmin could understand if it was Brida after all, Brida was as dumb as rocks but then again, the average Demi Human was smarter than her.
Before Tasmin could take a step toward Fenna, a sudden spike of elemental mana flared violently from the eastern flank of the clearing.
WHOOOOOOSH!
The air temperature shot from sub-zero frost to scorching inferno in a single microsecond.
Tasmin snapped her head to the right.
Two massive waves of roaring elemental energy... one of superheated crimson fire and the other of crystalline sub-zero ice were sweeping across the dirt, instantly incinerating grass on one side while flash-freezing the mud into jagged blue glaciers on the other.
Tasmin didn’t flinch.
She planted her boots into the cracked bedrock and shot off the ground, ascending twenty feet into the air via a condensed foothold of shadow mana.
WHOOSH!
Hovering mid-air, her crimson eyes locked onto the two Hero figures advancing side-by-side through the dual-elemental storm.
It was Ignis... the Flame Hero of Lord Sky and Frost... the Glacial Hero of Lord Sky.
They were the dual elemental Wardens Sky had held in reserve, and the raw pressure radiating from their combined mana cores was forcing back whole clusters of women and men alike.
A dark sharp grin touched Tasmin’s lips as her twin shortswords slipped seamlessly into her palms.
"Finally..." Tasmin whispered, her voice laced with anticipation. "I’ve been waiting for you two to step off that deck. I sensed your core signatures the moment the barriers dropped... but as of right now..."
"I’ll handle this!" Tasmin called out mid-air, preparing to dive straight into the dual storm—
THWACK!
KABAAAAAM!
Before Tasmin could plunge downward, a colossal five-foot-tall tower shield forged of solid adamantine soared through the air, embedding itself with massive force directly into the bedrock right in front of Tasmin’s descending path.
’No matter... I’ll just spread my domain and—’
However...
The broad face of a shield absorbed the incoming torrent of roaring flames and jagged ice spears, sending a massive shockwave of steam and shattered frost boiling up into the sky.
SWISH!
Brida landed with a heavy earth-shaking thud directly beside the embedded tower shield.
Her muscular frame was clad in massive silver plate armor, her hair caught the harsh light of the burning clearings as her hand clamped onto the grip of her shield.
Brida glanced up at Tasmin, her broad face breaking into a wide confident smirk.
"Hold your horses, Tas..." Brida boomed out, her voice reverberating over the roaring sounds of clashing steel. "You aren’t the only heavy hitter on this battle line. You’ve had your fun tearing through their infantry lines... leave the wall duty to the wall."
Tasmin landed lightly on the top rim of Brida’s shield with her dark coat settling around her boots.
She looked down at the muscular Shieldmaiden, her cold expression softening into a reluctant sigh as she sheathed her weapons.
"Fine," Tasmin murmured with her crimson eyes tracking Ignis and Frost below. "Don’t let them burn the outer tree line."
...
Far across the central clearing, separated from the roaring frontline clashes, a suffocating silence hung around the solitary figure of Morrighan.
The tall horned demoness stood frozen in the damp mud, her fingers trembling slightly within her heavy spiked mythril demonic gauntlets.
Her molten-gold eyes were fixed entirely on the distant figure of Lord Vespera, who stood calmly with her single steel longsword resting flat at her side with her hood casting a deep shadow over her glowing purple eyes.
Morrighan bit her dark lower lip so hard a tiny drop of dark crimson blood almost surfaced.
Inside her mind, a single sentence was echoing over and over again like a divine melody echoing through a dark abyss.
’It doesn’t matter where you were born, what mana flows through your veins, or what horns sit upon your head. The very rules of my domain dictate one absolute truth: as long as you step foot inside the Blessed Land... you are blessed.’
Morrighan couldn’t remember the last time anyone had ever promised her such a thing.
In fact, no one ever had.
She was a demonic being... a creature born of abyssal brimstone and dark mana.
Her very physical existence was marked by the two polished, obsidian-black horns curving majestically from her temples, and the long, spade-tipped tail that currently hung still behind her boots.
Her origin was a tragedy of bloody prejudice.
She was the product of a forbidden union between a high ranking demon and a human nun who had belonged to the Holy Church.
The moment her birth was discovered, the Church had executed both her parents without trial.
Morrighan herself was supposed to have been put to the sword as an infant monster, but she had managed to survive in the dark monster-infested ruins of the world until she was summoned into the Sovereign Realm by her original Lord before meeting Lord Sky.
Yet, even under Sky’s banner, the human infantrymen had feared her.
They whispered behind her back... They refused to share barracks with her and they treated her like a ticking curse waiting to detonate.
Morrighan looked down at the mud beneath her boots, her heart hammering violently against her ribs.
’Look at her...’ Morrighan thought, her eyes misting with an overwhelming mix of shyness, hope, and reverence as she stared at Vespera. ’This is the very first time... the first time since I stepped into this ruthless world... that I have ever wanted to belong to a Lord so badly.’
Taking a slow, trembling breath, Morrighan began walking across the clearing toward Vespera.
She didn’t run and she didn’t draw a blade.
She simply walked with her mythril boots making quiet thudding sounds against the damp grass.
Vespera turned her head as the tall demoness approached.
Beneath her hood, Vespera’s luminous purple eyes softened, and a warm genuine smile curved her lips.
Morrighan stopped ten feet away.
Her lips trembled, her spade tail swishing nervously behind her skirt as she looked at the single-armed Lord.
She wanted a place.
A real home... A home where these obsidian horns curving from her skull meant nothing... Where her dark blood wasn’t treated as an abomination.
Lupina didn’t care about her horns, but that was simply because the silver-haired beast-kin girl was far too airheaded and dense to understand complex social prejudice... to Lupina, anyone who could run fast was fine.
But Morrighan understood.
She knew how cold the world was to demons.
"Lord Vespera..." Morrighan spoke.
"Yes, Morrighan?" Vespera replied warmly, her posture completely relaxed.
Morrighan swallowed hard, her molten-gold eyes searching Vespera’s face for even a single shred of deceit or hesitation.
"Is it... is it truly real?" Morrighan asked, her voice dropping to a whisper. "What you promised me back at the trade clearing... will I truly be accepted here? Despite... despite these horns? Despite the abyssal brimstone that flows in my veins?"
Vespera’s purple eyes shone with unshakeable conviction. She didn’t hesitate for even a fraction of a second.
She offered Morrighan an assuring, gentle smile that seemed to wash away years of built-up trauma in a single pulse of light.
"Every single word of it is true, Morrighan," Vespera promised softly. She tilted her head slightly toward the right, gesturing toward the formidable figure standing beside her. "You don’t even have to take my word for it alone. You can ask Morwenna right here."
Morwenna stood atop her Alpha Wolf, Titan, resting her hand lazily on the hilt of her curved naval saber.
Hearing her name, Morwenna cast a cool, dismissive glance down at the horned demoness.
Her grey eyes were completely devoid of disgust or fear.
"Tch," Morwenna scoffed, her tone as dry as sea salt. "Don’t ask foolish questions, demon girl. In this territory, nobody gives a damn whether you were born from a demon, an abyssal void, or a fish in the sea. As long as you respect our Lord and carry your weight alongside the rest of us, you are welcome here."
Morwenna paused, a slight, amused smirk touching her lips as she added under her breath:
"...Besides, the weed over at the central manor would probably like you anyway. She’s obsessed with anything that grows out of the dark."
Morrighan’s breath hitched in her throat. Her pale cheeks flushed a dark burning violet as tears gathered in the corners of her gold eyes.
She bit her lip, her heart overflowing with an overwhelming sense of gratitude and relief.
But she was a Hero of The Unmovable Wall, and she knew that true acceptance in the Sovereign Realm had to be earned with strength.
"Thank you..." Morrighan whispered.
HUMMMMMMM!
The second those words left her mouth, an intense suffocating aura of pure abyssal mana erupted from Morrighan’s body.
Dozens of complex, pitch-black Demonic Cursed Magic Circles materialized in the air around her, spinning rapidly across a fifty-yard radius.
The grass beneath her boots turned to black ash as dark brimstone smoke billowed into the sky.
"I cannot simply walk into your territory as a charity case, Lord Vespera!" Morrighan declared, her echoing voice ringing across the clearing with fierce resolve. "I must prove my worth to you! I am coming at you with my full power!"