Royal Princess of Blood

Rytus took in a sharp breath as the myriad number of spells shot forward, bombarding his location. His wings were still healing, and he had no choice but to dodge while backing away. However, the princess was shifting her spells to aim for him.

Magic exploded beside him, and he was thrown off sideways.

“Agh!”

A firebolt hit his back, and he stumbled forward. Even the flames to which his body was supposed to be invulnerable to now had a small effect on him, in addition to the force of the impact. The holy element was weakening his disposition, and that was what all imps feared. Imps being stripped of their restoration capability was horrifying. Like any other imp, once they feel the fear of death, it has a crippling effect on their very soul. For they typically laugh at the face of death.

He saw a few more spells coming at him, and he quickly slid away to evade them.

Damn this princess! I will not die here!

His emotions flared. He didn’t want to fatally hurt her, but now it was different. The situation had already gotten worse. He gritted his teeth in frustration.

“Don’t underestimate me!” 

Magic gathered around his hands and he pressed his palm into the ice floor. A wall of infernal fire sprang upward like a geyser, burning off the rest of the incoming magic spells. As the wall was erupting, he shifted his arm backward and vigorously thrust it forward. A powerful wave of inferno shot out, heading and crashing into the princess’s pillar of ice from which she stood in her grandeur.

She gracefully landed on the ground as the pillar collapsed behind her. She seemed to have had a sense of confidence.

The two of them glared at each other for a moment before Rytus’s wings burst in flames. He flew upwards and flames gathered in his hand. With a wide swing, he unleashed a wide blazing arc towards the princess. She waited for the arc to get closer before skillfully jumping over it. It was then followed by a boom from her feet. She immediately arrived right in front of the demon. And with the momentum, she swung her dagger at him. The demon blocked with his claws.

He retracted his hand and attempted to send multiple swift swings at her. And the princess intercepted all of them. But then, Rytus noticed an opening, and thus he did a wide swing of his claws. However, a burst of wind suddenly shifted and flipped his target. Turns out, it was a feint. The princess went over his shoulder, and as she spun, she had her blades held forward, coming at his neck.

Rytus shifted his neck away, but her blade reached his skin, making a decent cut to his flesh. He could feel the burn and hear the sizzling.

No!

Infernal fire suddenly erupted from his wings and hands, releasing an outward shockwave, pushing the princess away. The flames raged all around him. But shields protected the princess, so she was unharmed by the deadly flames. The princess threw and swung her daggers at the demon with her weapons’ threads.

Rytus used his claws to fend them off and flew after the princess. As he got closer, small crimson barriers assembled right beside him and clasped around his hand. It held him off, and he roared in annoyance. Burst of flames around his hand broke the barrier into pieces.

But the moment that happened, the princess had already gathered frost magic in her hand, and shot it towards him. He took the entire magic spell, and his body instantly cooled down. The intense melting heat that engulfed his arms and wings, which served to protect his body overall from close attacks, was doused by the intense cold frost. In a panic, he quickly gathered magic in his hands and held them out towards the princess.

A powerful wave of magic crashed against her barrier, pushing her away into the distance.

The two of them were reaching higher and higher in the air, and it was tiring them both. However, none of them wavered and slowed down. The princess conjured a gigantic pillar of ice and threw it horizontally towards the demon. Before it got away, she attached herself to the pillar of ice with her dagger, and she was pulled along with it. She stepped on the ice pillar, using her dagger as an anchor, gripping its thread.

The pillar of ice soared fiercely, piercing through the air. Rytus waited and swiftly dodged at its point, landing and running on the ice pillar towards the princess. As he sprinted towards her, he swung his claws in the air, sending multiple infernal arcs towards the princess. They cleaved through the frozen surface like cutting through butter.

The princess erected a wide barrier, completely blocking the infernal slashes. But they heavily cracked her defenses. At that moment, Rytus arrived and slammed down his sharp hands into the shield, completely shattering it.

With the force of the impact, she was detached from the ice, and she flung into the air. The demon chased after her, and she cast several giant ice boulders at him. Rytus gritted his teeth in annoyance and destroyed them with his flames, the debris scattering all over.

After reaching a higher height, the princess spread out her hands, conjuring a wide box of ice below her. It measured a hundred meters in width and half the thickness. It descended on the demon, crashing into him. As his claws dug into the ice, he poured a vast amount of mana into his hands and unleashed a powerful wave of fire, breaking the ice in half.

While he was still falling attached to the ice, he saw the princess hovering close. She was about to cast another spell. Rytus launched himself towards her, reaching her almost in an instant. He swung hands at her, and yet she evaded.

She swung her blade, and Rytus shifted to the side of her extended hand and rose a little bit above her. He closed his hand and slammed his fist into her. His fist impacted against her shield, and she was violently pushed downwards. With slowing momentum, she safely landed on the surface of a falling ice box.

Before she got to move, Rytus had reached her and slammed down his claws. She successfully dodged it. But Rytus quickly followed up with another attack. The both of them exchanged several strikes. And every time Rytus met the princess’s blades with his claws, it nicked them.

Rytus, at some point, thrust his hand forward with tremendous strength at her face. And the princess quickly moved back her barrier-covered hand, intercepting the blazing claws.

Feeling annoyed, his hand burst into flames. The princess leaped back unscathed and instantly threw her daggers at him. Rytus parried them off, but the princess swiftly spun and swung the daggers through their strings. The speed of their sweeping motion was so great that the blades left red arcs in their movement. They managed to slash the side of his body and his arm.

As his wound steamed and sizzled, Rytus dodged the continuous attacks of the princess. And then, he ducked his head, dodging one dagger, and he subsequently grabbed a string, forcefully pulling it, bringing the princess with it.

The princess frowned and dispelled the thread on that particular dagger. But it was too late, for she was already within the demon’s reach. He swung down his claws at her.

The princess instantly pulled out the dagger strapped on her thigh and barely blocked the claws in time. Rytus was in disbelief to see she was able to respond that quickly. He also swung down his other hand at her, and the princess intercepted it with her other dagger held in a reversed grip.

Suddenly, that third dagger, unenchanted by blood, burst out small slashes. They pushed away his claws, and the princess quickly stepped forward, stabbing the blade into the demon’s belly. Lightning blew up inside his body.

Rytus screamed in pain and quickly jumped away from the blades. He groaned. His wound was healing, but even more slowly. Furthermore, normal attacks had become effective because of his weakening body. That said, his body shouldn’t be that soft just yet. It was just that the princess had tremendous strength to push through his skin with a blade with no holy enchantment. He would need time to recover from the holy element’s effects. But, there was no time at all. And with every scratch he took from the blood enchanted blade, the more his body weakened.

The princess was not hoping to land the finishing blow. That would still be pretty risky. She was gradually weakening him, chipping away his strength. And when the holy element had completely stripped him of the power to be restored, only then will she truly try to kill him.

The princess was about to attack again. But before she could reach him, Rytus gathered magic into his hand and slammed it into the floor. A powerful blast of flames erupted, shattering the gigantic ice platform into pieces. The two of them lost their footing, and they started falling through the air.

They initiated their flight capabilities, but the princess got to attack first, throwing her blood enchanted blade and striking his hand. Before he got to grab it, the princess pulled it back. He glanced up at her. Truth be told, he was starting to feel a bit dizzy.

The princess conjured a giant boulder of ice above him. And she kicked it down with an audible boom sound. It crashed against Rytus, and he crashed to the frozen floor. He roared and destroyed the boulder pinning him down with a pillar of flames.

The princess cast several lightning bolts down at him. Rytus quickly moved away to evade them, but one struck his back, damaging his wings. The magical bombardment stopped, and the princess landed behind him. He turned around and swung his hand. The princess intercepted it with her blooded dagger and she thrust the other magically coated one and unleashed a piercing magical attack. It hit the demon in the shoulder.

Rytus swept his arm, shooting out a wide wave of infernal flames. The princess had to leap far away. Rytus fired wave upon wave of fire at the princess. The latter ran around while jumping over each burning attack. She used her wind to float and dodge one fiery slash as she got close.

At that moment, she straightened her legs, the bottom of her foot facing Rytus. The demon held out his arms and received the brunt of the attack. He could feel his arms break. But it didn’t end there, for the attack was followed by an intensely powerful burst of wind, blowing Rytus away.

He couldn’t bring himself to regain his footing but only be carried along by the momentum as he was sent hurling and crashing back to the ice. He ricocheted a few times before he dug his claws into the ice to stop his movement.

But the princess had arrived, and she kicked him in the face. He was thrown away again. And the moment he touched the ground, the princess grabbed his right hand and used her blood coated dagger to cut it off. Flesh sizzled and steamed as his claw-filled hand was dropped to the floor.

“AAAAH!” He swung down his other hand, but the princess evaded. “STAY AWAY FROM ME!”

He caught a glance of the princess’s gaze. And when he did, he finally felt the genuine fear of dying. Something that imps were mostly unfamiliar to.

The princess grabbed his other arm and cut off his hand. Afterward, she kept a firm grip on his arm and began flailing him like a stick, slamming him multiple times to the floor. Blood splattered all over the ice.

She then threw him high in the air. Rytus could feel the cold sensation of the wind as he helplessly flew. And as it happened, the princess arrived above him and used her heel to drop kick him to the ground, releasing a booming sound as she hit him.

When he crashed to the hard, frozen ground, Rytus tried to crawl away. He wasn’t healing anymore. He was beaten up all over, from his face to his body. The princess landed in front of him. He looked up, seeing the princess sheathing her daggers.

She walked up behind him and stepped down on his back.

“W-What a-are y-you d-doing?!”

She grabbed the root of his right wing and began pulling it out. Rytus felt intense pain and agony as his wing was slowly being ripped away.

“S-Stop!” He rattled around, but he couldn’t budge the princess.

And a moment later, there was a ripping sound as his flesh was torn apart — his wing was removed. But the princess was not yet done, and she began pulling out his left wing. Rytus had never been subjected to such a horrendous and painful thing. She was defiling his form. But she didn’t care. For there seemed to be a feeling of rage in her actions, despite the straight and stoic face she was wearing now.

The moment the last wing was completely pulled out and removed from his body, the princess casually threw the wing aside as she did to the other.

Rytus breathed heavily. He could feel his life fading away. His eyes felt heavy, body too weak to move.

And then the princess stepped even more firmly on his back. She sandwiched his head between her hands. Rytus was confused about what she was doing.

The princess began pulling up his head. Rytus’s eyes widened.

“S-STOP!”

It was so agonizing as she ripped his head off his body. His skin being stretched and slowly torn. His spine slowly cracked and broke apart. He lost his voice and the ability to breathe the air. There was nothing he could do to survive this. He was about to die in this brutal method.

He was just doing his job. He just wanted to return the hope of all demonkind. The demons were miserable without their god. No direction to take. He just wanted to free their god that was sealed so the demons could finally fulfill their purpose.

He didn’t want to die.

But the princess had completely ripped out his head from his body. The body dropped to the frozen floor while the princess held his head. Blood dripped from his neck, there was also a piece of his spine that came along with it.

The princess turned his head to face her. Rytus could still see and hear.

“Still alive? But not for long, I guess. Just to be sure…”

She grasped the head from above as she pulled out her blood coated dagger. Without a moment’s hesitation, she plunged the blade into his head. The demon stopped moving entirely, despite the open eyes. 

The imp was dead at last.

Princess Estelia casually dropped his head and sheathed her blade. She was breathing heavily and began walking back to the ship. It wasn’t far from where she was. But her vision became blurry, her legs weakened, and her body trembled. Her chest felt so tight.

She fell on both knees, and she began coughing terribly. Blood splattered on the ice. Her skin had turned paler, almost like one would see in the dead. She tried keeping her eyes open. However, she pushed herself too far. Therefore, despite her endurance, despite how much she forced herself to remain awake, it was impossible. Her eyes closed, and she lost consciousness.