RD 5 Ch 32

Luckily for all of us, Winnie got her warm sheath for her icy scythe not long after. Otherwise, I’m sure she’d become insufferable.

The four of us dove into the rear of Princess Almeria’s forces together like meteors descending on the battlefield.

It was immediately apparent the princess was with the rest of her troops. A group of mages was clustered around an armored figure as if she were the very heartbeat of the battle. Princess Almeria looked much the same as when I’d last seen her outside the Trial. She wore ornate blue-and-gold armor including a pair of horns on her helmet that were mirrored by a pair that actually rested on her brow.

I activated Soul Gaze to confirm her identity.

But any chance I’d had to confront her directly evaporated when Winnie buried her scythe into the nearest opponent and spun like a madwoman, whipping a frosty gale that sliced through heat and armor alike.

After that, Almeria’s soldiers broke from their fights with Circe’s camp to hold us back.

A Bloodiron Blade slid out of my wrist. The first soldier to engage me was cut neatly in half as I tested myself with my strength mostly back, and swished Sanguine Slashes toward the princess before activating Charge and bowling down several of her men.

Her fighters reacted instantaneously. Nearly a dozen pulled from their fight with Circe’s troops, drawing spears and tridents to hem me in and keep me from advancing. Even through the thin slit of their visors the anger at the fact that we had dared to go against their princess was plain on their faces. She had done a great job keeping them motivated.

I activated Blood Boil. My veins bulged and burned as power flooded me; my strength spiked and the slightest nick from their spears caused spurts of blood that caked armor and weapons.

Satisfaction grinned across my face. Having a good chunk of my strength and all my skills back felt glorious. Sanguine Locking blossomed from the dozen guards, thorny red vines strengthened by my overwhelming spirit stat, held them in place long enough for Winnie to spin through and cleave heads off with the same glee a child shows while filling a Halloween bucket.

I realized then that Winnie was a little crazier than I might have fully internalized. She was just damned good at putting on that icy exterior.

With the field cleared, I managed to shift my gaze back to the princess.

She hadn’t moved an inch, standing with her arms crossed and a sword resting lightly in her hand as if daring me to approach and forfeit my life. I accepted the dare, rushing forward only to feel myself bolstered several times as Simone returned to my side, buffing me along the way.

My increased stats and assistance didn’t seem to intimidate the princess’s personal guards. The two large fighters wielded impossibly heavy mauls yet moved with the alacrity of dancers as they tried to flank me from both sides. A gust of wind slammed into one while an icy gale struck the other to clear my path.

I let out a small sigh of relief that, despite the very real battle happening around us, the others had not forgotten the ultimate goal. Technically, saving Circe’s people was important, but if we could catch the princess, we could be out of the Trial now.

And I was ready to leave this thing and get back to stopping the first demon war.

Despite the princess’ guards trying to intervene and rush me, I didn’t falter a single step. My footing stayed sure and true all the way up to crossing blades with the princess.

She didn’t move until the very last second, flickering forward and fighting like a fencer, one arm tucked behind her back, her thin sword piercing for my gut.

I nearly laughed, then held it in, letting her blade slide between a pair of ribs as the full weight of my charge slammed into her and I swept her off her feet. Though I doubted she found it particularly romantic when I bodily slammed her into the ground.

A moment later, my blade pressed against her chest as she blinked in surprise, staring up at me through her visor. “You didn’t dodge that?” she gasped, struggling to keep my blade from gnawing at her armor. She had dropped her sword with one hand on mine and the other with a strong bracer, pushing against my blade.

“Oh, I’m sorry, were we playing first-blood fencing rules?” I said, pressing her harder, using my weight to wiggle the blade just a little closer.

She fought with everything she had, which was a considerable amount of strength. Her body glowed blue as her power increased and a small pool of water began to seep from her armor and gather beneath her.

The way she glared and fought harder told me I’d hit a nerve. Perhaps she’d been trained for duels where scoring a point ended the fight. 

Clearly I had the advantage when it came to no holds barred fighting.

I had seen this before, although it had been a long while. A duelist who only knew practice duels because their parents and men had fought to the last breath in some long-ago war. No matter how humanity got sliced, diced, and regurgitated, we always fell back to feudal habits: collect power, hoard status, and call it honor.

I pressed my early advantage. My blade started to prick through her armor, the Bloodiron Blade’s razor edge parting the cuirass like butter, and the princess shouted.

Her strength spiked again, and the puddle beneath her blasted upward, carrying us both into the sky.

I took the chance to drag my blade across her chest, cutting deep in the armor and drawing thick red blood.

She twisted and kicked, and by the peak of our flight, we separated before landing a dozen feet apart. “You won’t get so lucky next time,” she spat, another aristocrat in training. She was flawless on technique but short on the messy truths of combat.

I rushed forward again even as I saw an ability, long, coiling like a dragon, wrap around her arm as she built up for a large attack.

Just as I was about to reach her, she thrust her arm forward. The dragon on her arm uncoiled with a deafening roar, growing larger than a tiger in the span between us as it peeled off her arm and slammed into me, mouth open, teeth pressing into my chest.

I could only grin. Pulling the drop sword from my spatial ring, I activated it to slam myself hard against the ground and shift the backward momentum. Then I pushed off the earth explosively and rushed her, only to stop the moment I reached her and use Crimson Barrier to deflect her blade as she brought it up to parry.

The shock on her face was a sweet delight, but it lasted less than a second before she twisted and scaled magic rippled over her form, magical armor coming to life.

That did little to stop my swing from striking her hard in the side, though it didn’t penetrate like it had before.

Princess Almeria roared in fury. I couldn’t help but notice the bloody gash in her chest was already gone even as her body swelled. The draconic scale armor melded to her and she grew more and more draconic. Her stats began to cycle up.

“How’s trapping her going? She doesn’t look very, ” Circe paused in a fight nearby with one of Almeria’s guards. “Trappable.”

I scowled at her. “If you’d like to help, then help. If not, keep your mouth shut.”

The new draconic Almeria had a long, winding serpentine body with far more powerful legs than would be expected from a Chinese Shenlong. It looked like it could run on land as fast as it could swim, and it proved that a second later, flashing forward with claws that slammed into me and drove me back.

My legs tore furrows in the ground up to my shins.

Simone’s healing washed over me, erasing the aches and bruises from taking the dragon’s attack head-on. Thankfully, the fighting around me supplied plenty of blood to activate Blood Rage Ascension, streamers of blood gathered from the field even as the draconic princess lifted a claw to see if she’d squashed me.

She found a growing surprise instead. My muscles swelled, my skin tore, and my Bloodiron Blade grew three times its size. Big enough to be a dragon-slaying sword, or at least, that was the plan.