"Huh... How can he know you when you are meeting each other for the first time?" Maria asked, her voice tight with confusion as she glanced back and forth between Zane and the clock tower’s edge.
"Well, maybe we met each other before, but I don’t remember," Zane replied with a smooth, nonchalant smile, resting his arms casually against the stone railing.
"You don’t remember your own brother?!" Maria pressed her palm against her forehead, letting out an exasperated sigh.
Down in the shattered streets below, the air grew heavy with a foul, oppressive stench. A dense wave of demon soldiers began advancing through the dust, their red eyes gleaming hungrily as they converged toward the square where Prince Arthur stood alone.
Arthur rested his golden blade across his shoulder, his brilliant blue eyes tracking the host of monstrosities gathering atop the surrounding rooftops.
"It seems you guys have arrived faster than I expected," Arthur remarked coolly, his voice carrying easily across the ruin.
’So, do you need my help now?’ Zane’s voice echoed directly inside Arthur’s mind, utilizing high-level aura transmission.
Arthur’s eyebrow twitched slightly. Without turning his head, he muttered under his breath, "Don’t underestimate me."
At the front of the demon horde stood a tall, heavily armored figure with jagged dark horns sweeping backward from his head. He stepped forward onto the stone cross atop a nearby chapel tower, looking down at the prince with absolute contempt.
"Why don’t we stop this fight and you surrender?" Number One said, his voice deep and vibrating with dark magic.
"Are all demons this talkative?" Arthur sighed, shaking his head in mild boredom. "It’s always the same speech with you demons ."
Number One narrowed his crimson eyes, letting out a mocking chuckle. "You really don’t understand this situation, do you? We have a hundred strong demons here, every single one empowered by the pure blood of our leader. Do you understand now, little prince?"
As Number One’s declaration echoed across the district, the surrounding demons erupted into cruel, mocking laughter.
"Why don’t you just give up and become part of our team?" Number 50 chimed in from a neighboring roof, resting a jagged greatsword casually across his massive shoulder. "With your strength, our Madam might even make you a general!"
Arthur stretched his arms above his head, rolling his shoulders until his joints popped.
"You guys are boring," Arthur said, his tone turning utterly frigid as his golden aura began to flicker like sunlight on water. "Are you coming or not? If you are coming, just come and stop wasting my time... or else."
"Or else what?" Number 70 interrupted, leaping forward with a malicious roar, his clawed hands extended to tear Arthur’s throat out.
FWOOOSH!
In a fraction of a second, Arthur vanished from sight.
SLASH!
Before the airborne demon could even register the movement, a streak of blinding gold passed clean through his neck.
Number 70’s body crashed onto the cobblestones, followed a moment later by his severed head rolling to a stop.
Arthur landed lightly on his toes, flicking a single drop of black blood off the tip of his blade as he turned his sharp gaze back up toward Number One.
"Or else I will cut all your heads off," Arthur said flatly.
Up on the clock tower, Maria suddenly gasped, her eyes widening as she pointed toward the wreckage of the mansion where Arthur had previously defeated Kate.
"Hey, Zane, look at what Kate’s body is doing," Maria said, a rare note of genuine horror creeping into her assassin persona.
"What?" Zane turned his head, his sharp eyes narrowing as he focused on the corpse below. "What the hell is that kind of magic?"
Gloria turned her head to see what they were looking at, but the moment her eyes landed on the scene, her breath hitched in her throat. A thick, pitch-black liquid, resembling living ink, was bubbling up from the earth beneath Kate’s body. The substance swirled around her remains like a nest of squirming vipers, rapidly dissolving her flesh, clothes, and ARMOR leaving not even a single drop of red blood behind before sinking back deep beneath the ground.
"Does... does this type of magic really exist?" Gloria whispered, her knees giving out as she sank to the cold stone floor of the tower, trembling under the sheer malice radiating from the liquid.
While the girls watched the dark magic dissolve the corpse, down on the battlefield, Arthur had transformed into a whirlwind of slaughter.
BOOM! SLASH! PWOOOSH!
He darted from rooftop to street level in flickering bursts of speed. Every swing of his golden blade parted heads from shoulders and cleaved torso from armor. The hundred "empowered" demon soldiers were being cut down like ripe wheat. Within minutes, ninety-nine demons lay motionless in pools of dark blood.
Number One stood alone atop the chapel cross, his breath catching in his throat as cold sweat began to pour down his dark face. His hands shook uncontrollably as Arthur stepped over a mountain of corpses, walking toward him with casual, deliberate steps.
"It seems you’re trembling," Arthur said, pointing his bloodless, golden blade directly at Number One’s chest. "Where did all that grand confidence go?"
"Ha... Ha ha... HAA HAA HAA HAA!" Number One burst into hysterical, frantic laughter, his eyes bulging as rage consumed his fear. "Trembling?! Trembling for WHO?! To WHAT?! AND WHY WOULD I TREMBLE ?!"
FWOOOOOOSH!
A tremendous eruption of violent, pitch-black demon energy exploded outward from Number One’s body. The sky above him darkened as gale-force winds began swirling in a massive hurricane centered directly around his form.
"THE WINDS GATHER AS YOUR MASTER OF DESTRUCTION CALLS! WIND OF CHAOS, ARISE!"
FWOOOSH!
Number One floated slowly into the air, lifted by the spiraling dark tornadoes that tore up the surrounding stone streets and shattered every glass window within three blocks.
Up on the clock tower, Zane watched the spiraling tempest with genuine entertainment.
"Wow, that’s a cool skill," Zane remarked with an easy smile, looking down at Gloria. "Gloria, you should learn something like that too."
"Zane! This is not the time to be giving lessons!" Maria yelled over the roaring wind.
Down below, Arthur looked up at the towering vortex with a wild grin spreading across his face. "WOW... now that’s more like it!"
FWOOOSH!
Without a second thought, Arthur launched himself straight up into the heart of the violent storm!
"HEAR ME, OH GOD, AS I DESTROY THIS DEMON!" Arthur’s voice boomed over the hurricane, glowing with blinding radiant light. "SWORD GOD INCARNATE: WIND SHATTER!"
SLASH!
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
A massive arc of golden light sliced horizontally through the sky. Number One and his massive whirlwind of chaos were cleanly severed in half!
The compressed air within the tornado violently destabilized, expanding outward in a destructive shockwave that threatened to flatten the entire northern district of Valeria!
Seeing the catastrophic wave rushing toward the clock tower and the civilian quarters behind it, Zane raised a single hand.
VRRRRR!
A towering, translucent golden barrier materialized instantly across the skyline, catching the blast of compressed air and forcing the destructive shockwave to disperse harmlessly into the upper clouds, saving half the city from complete annihilation.
"What a crazy attack," Zane commented lightly, lowering his hand as the wind died down. "For him to cut the demon and his magic at the same time..."
Deep underground, within the shadowy bone-adorned throne room, the Madam paced back and forth in a rage, her dark robes trailing behind her.
"Damn it! These pathetic humans!" she snarled, slamming her fist against a stone pillar. "They can’t even defeat one man! A hundred blood-infused soldiers, completely wiped out!"
"Master... send ME," a weak, raspy voice called out from the darkness.
The Madam turned her head to see the shape-shifting girl kneeling on the cold floor. Her entire body was drenched in dark blood, her muscles twisting and twitching violently as the demon heart she had ingested rapidly forced her body through a painful, unnatural evolution.
"Ah, I almost forgot about you," the Madam said, her eyes gleaming with dark intrigue. "If you can kill him, you’ll become my absolute right-hand commander."
A wide, terrifying smile split across the girl’s blood-soaked face. "YES, MASTER!"
Back on the surface, Arthur stood in the middle of the ruined street, looking down at the halved, lifeless corpse of Number One as it fell out of the sky and hit the ground with a heavy thud.
"That was disappointing," Arthur muttered, shaking his head. "I thought you were actually strong after setting up that crazy wind."
Up on the tower, Gloria stared down in awe, her cheeks slightly flushed. "Wow... the Prince is so strong..."
Arthur turned his back on the corpses and began walking leisurely toward the clock tower to meet Zane. But right as he took his third step...
"Blood MANIPULATION : BLOOD ARROW !"
FWOOOOOOSH!
From high above in the clouds, hundreds of razor-sharp arrows constructed entirely of hardened, crimson blood rained down at terrifying speeds!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The ground erupted into chaos. Arthur reacted instantaneously, twisting his body to dodge the volley, but the sheer speed and density of the barrage caught him off guard.
THWACK!
A single blood arrow grazed his shoulder, while another drove clean through his left forearm!
"Shit! I let my guard down!" Arthur hissed, skidding back across the cobblestones while clutching his bleeding arm.
Before the blood could even drip to the ground, a soft green light encompassed his arm. The pierced flesh, severed muscle, and torn skin stitched themselves back together in a matter of seconds
.
"Thanks to this self-regeneration shit," Arthur muttered with a smirk, flexing his healed fingers as he stood back up to his full height.
He raised his head, staring straight up into the morning sky. "You’re that girl who has been drinking people’s blood around the city, aren’t you?"
Floating softly amidst the clouds was a young girl. She wore an ornate dress made of pure, liquid red blood that rippled in the wind. Atop her dark hair sat a crown-like crest flanked by two small, crimson horns, and her eyes burned with an ominous, pure red glow.
"So you have been observing me?" she asked, her voice echoing softly as she hovered above the shattered district.
"Well, I can’t say I was watching you specifically," Arthur replied lazily. "I just didn’t see you as a threat back then. That’s why I didn’t hunt you down. But now..."
"Now what?" she interrupted, her crimson eyes narrowing.
’Need help, Big Bro?’ Zane’s telepathic voice snickered inside Arthur’s head once again.
Arthur snapped, yelling out loud at the sky, "SHUT UP, WILL YOU?!"
From the top of the distant clock tower, Zane leaned over the edge and shouted back cheerfully, "WELL, IF YOU SAY SO!"
"Mmm..." The floating girl shifted her gaze over to the clock tower. She looked at Zane, expecting to see terror or awe, but found him completely unfazed by her overwhelming dark pressure. In fact, he was chuckling and talking to the girls beside him.
’Interesting...’ she whispered in her mind, marking Zane in her memory.
She turned her sharp focus back down to Arthur. "So, are you going to keep standing down there, or are you going to fight me?"
"What if floating up there is what I want? What will you do then?" she taunted, her face turning dead serious as heavy blood magic saturated the air around her.
"Well..." Arthur smirked, lightly bouncing on the balls of his feet.
FWOOOSH!
In a flash of light magic, Arthur launched himself into the air at sound-breaking speed!
"Mmm..." The girl didn’t panic. She calmly tracked his trajectory, her crimson eyes following his golden aura.
"You are so predictable, do you know that?" she said.
The moment Arthur appeared behind her, she turned around with blinding precision, a massive blade of concentrated blood materializing in her hands!
"Blood Sword: MOUNTAIN SLASH!"
SLASH!
BOOOOOOM!
A wave of dense, violent blood magic sliced straight through Arthur’s form or so it seemed!
SNAP!
SWITCH!
Right before the blade made contact, Arthur swapped places with a loose stone sitting on the street below! The girl’s massive mountain-cleaving strike missed Arthur and blasted directly into Zane’s golden barrier overhead!
CRACK!
Spiderweb fractures rippled across Zane’s barrier from the sheer force of the impact.
Up on the clock tower, Zane looked at the fractured barrier with wide, admiring eyes. "What a crazy attack!"