"Why are you really here? If I recall correctly, you never wished to get involved in the mundane affairs of mortals?" The black haired beauty spoke in a slightly annoyed voice, though, her tone also conveyed her curiosity. The red haired lady didn't stop, nor move her head to respond, she simply kept walking while she replied.
"I could ask the same of you, Belledonna. You actually came out of your little hole in the ground to visit the Glistening City, so I'm just as curious as to why you are here. Then again, you've always had a strange curiosity when it came to mortals, which begs the question, just who was able to pique your curiosity?" She looked at Belledonna using the corners of her eyes. The height difference was easily noticeable, causing her eyes to have to look downwards onto Belle, which caused her to grit her teeth angrily.
"I don't see how that's any of your business, you overgrown lizard. I have important business with that city and I won't divulge that to someone like you, Vera. I will say, that if you plan on causing trouble within that city, then I will use all of my power to stop you." Belle looked back into Vera's eyes with the corners of her eyes. Vera smiled as she saw how serious Belle was being, especially when she saw black fog begin to radiate from under her cloak. The grass on the side of the road began to wither, despite being a good distance away from the fog. Vera then noticed that Belle had been carrying something that was wrapped in black cloth, though it was beginning to deteriorate because of Belle's fog, revealing a black grip.
Vera then thought to herself, "I'd better explain myself before this place becomes another Valley of Sorrows." She then let out a small sigh, "No need to rile up your magic Belle, if I intended to cause trouble, do you think I would come in this form? Also, just so you don't doubt what I said." Vera held out her left hand, a small flame erupting from the palm. She then grabbed a small object from it before placing it on her left ring finger. Belle then turned her head and grew surprised at the ring on her finger. The ring was silver, with a sapphire and ruby placed in the middle of a design of fire and water. The ruby was obviously from Vera's home, noticeable by the inside of the ruby containing a small flame within it. What caught her eye was the sapphire, as it had the crest of Camelot engraved on it, but this one was a sapphire used by the royalty of Camelot, distinguishable because of the crest's lake seemingly flowing like real water. "It's been a long time since I've actually wore this." The corners of her mouth then began to curl upwards, forming a small smile.
The black fog receded as Belle tried to make sense out of what she was seeing. "I can't believe what I'm seeing right now, it's almost impossible to believe. I can't even claim that it's a fake because of the gems. How did that even come to pass and how long ago was that?" The two stopped in the middle of the road after Belle's feet stopped. Vera looked at her and back towards the ring.
"Well, seeing this has put me in a good mood, also, you're an old friend, so I suppose it wouldn't hurt to tell you." Vera continued looking down at her ring, her eyes glittering brightly at the sight of it. "Well, it was a very long time ago, and I'm sure that I don't have to tell you that the man was exceptionally strong." A big smile formed on her face, Belle noted that it was a smile unlike any she had ever seen her make before. "My domain was being invaded at the time, by an alliance of armies intent on plundering my treasures. I had no intention of allowing them to have it, but there were many strong warriors participating. I had been injured and it seemed like the army was never-ending, that's when that man appeared with his comrades. I'll always remember the feeling I had when I saw him. I knew that I had a chance to fend off the alliance, but I remember feeling as though he would end up being the death of me, but then again, I guess that's still the case even today."
Belle looked at Vera with a perplexed look in her eyes. There hadn't been an alliance of armies since the age of conquerors, after the union of continents. Still, she had no idea of who she was speaking. Just as she was about to ask, Vera continued. "He had many names during that time, I called him husband but the other names included The Unparalleled, The Right Hand of the Gods, King of Camelot, and the last two he gained after we met, The White Wolf, and Dragonheart. Of course, he never really cared about those flashy titles, he simply preferred being called by his name, Leon Pendragon."
Far to the North, beyond the fairy forest, deep in the mountains that separate myth from reality, a battle raged that shook the earth. Scorching flames could be seen erupting from multiple places on those snow covered mountains. Snow, arrows, spears, magic, and even flying cavalry could be seen dancing through the air. The smell of blood was faint, but noticeable, as was the smell of smoke. The sound of whizzing projectiles, the war cries, the screams of pain and death, the wailing of the wind, and the roar of a dragon were easily heard in those mountains. Because of these noises, no one noticed the sound of the twelve running horses that were approaching. The Horses stopped before a camp of soldiers that had occupied the road. Two guards approached the twelve armored warriors. "Stop, we cannot allow you to go any farther. These mountains are currently being occupied by the alliance, turn back at once." The guard then looked at the rider who was leading them, taking note of the white fur cloak on his shoulders. That was when he noticed, through the visor of his helmet, two glowing blue eyes. The man moved and that was when the guard noticed the crest upon his surcoat.
"My king, allow me to dispatch of them. These people will only hinder us more if we try to move diplomatically." The rider that was directly next to the king spoke with a cold voice.
"Very well Victoria, however, do not take too much time. By the sounds of the mountains, we appear to be late to the party." Victoria hopped off of her horse, and removed the hood of her cloak. The hood covered a helmet that had two forward facing horns that resembled a crown. Her armor was dyed black, unlike the other's in the group. The guards moved into a defensive position as she approached, though they noticed that she had no weapon. She removed the glove from her right hand, before bringing it to her mouth and biting the tip. A sword then formed in her hand. The next thing the guard saw was his own body. With one movement, Victoria dispatched one of the guards, while the other attempted to thrust his spear as soon as she moved. She easily dodged the spear and it's consecutive attacks. The man knew that he was outmatched, so he did the only thing he knew of that could help. He yelled out for reinforcements. He then heard the final words he would ever hear, "It's about time." His body fell to the ground immediately afterwards, without its head.
Victoria then began to walk into the camp as the sounds of soldiers moving could be heard. As she walked, the bodies of the two guards shriveled up like prunes. Their blood being completely drained from their bodies. The blood began to form behind her in the shape of a large sphere. More soldiers began to appear, however, it was easily noticeable that they had no idea what enemy they faced. Each person only added to the ball of blood behind Victoria, until she finally killed her twentieth person. The soldiers were finally able to form up inside of the camp, yet, looked dumbfounded that only one person was the cause of the commotion. The captain of this unit underestimated Victoria, which greatly infuriated her. "You there, drop your weapon or we will be forced to kill you where you stand." Archers and sorcerers prepared to fire upon Victoria. Victoria let out a sigh, before throwing her sword behind her, allowing it to enter the sphere. She then removed her helmet, revealing her blood red hair and scarlet eyes.
"I am Victoria Lancelot Du lac, though I told my king that we should just kill all of you, I didn't realize that you all would be so pathetic. So, I will offer you all a choice, lay down your weapons and surrender, or you can all paint this camp red with your blood. I'd really appreciate it if you just surrendered. I'd hate for my king to have to walk through another of my messes." The soldiers were taken aback at Victoria's words. Even the way that she spoke. When she introduced herself, it was exactly like a chivalrous knight, however, the more she spoke, the more nonchalant her tone became. The captain grew frustrated at the insults to his men, as well as the tone of her words.
"We will not surrender, especially to single knight. You are only one woman against a camp of soldiers, and as much as I hate to kill a lady, you have already killed twenty of my men and proceeded to insult us. Men, fire on my signal." The captain raised his hand and quickly motioned to the archers and sorcerers to fire. The magic spells and arrows all converged onto Victoria's location. The sphere behind Victoria shot forward and formed a wall in front of Victoria, absorbing the arrows and magic.
"Well, that is disappointing, but I will at least respect your will to fight to your deaths." She let out a heavy sigh. "Well, if any of you manage to survive this, I apologize for the mess." She lifted up her hand towards the soldiers. The sphere shot forward, splitting and going in-between the soldiers and forming in the middle of their formation. Some soldiers decided to run, some charged towards Victoria, other's couldn't move at all, the captain being one of them. She then opened up her hand, showing a small sphere in her hand. "Bloom, my flower." In her hand, the small sphere opened up, transforming into a rose. "How uncivilized."
Outside, King Leon began to move forward with his remaining ten warriors. As soon as they entered, they noticed that all of the tents were now red, rather than the normal canvas color. On the snow covered ground, rather than it being a red pool they were walking on, instead, they saw thousands of small red rose blossoms littering the ground. "Oh, well would you look at that, she actually cleaned up after herself this time." One of the riders, whose fur lining was much more noticeable than the others, spoke out in joking voice. "Though, it is still a bit creepy knowing what these are."
"This was the princess's idea, if you don't like it, then why don't you say that to her face, Mordred. Oh, I'm sorry, I meant Alex." Victoria was then seen sitting atop a pile of corpses. She jumped from the top of the pile, landing close to Alex's location.
"You did that on purpose you harpy! Don't think that just because we're surrounded by your little flowers, that I won't teach you a lesson right here." He raised the visor of his helmet, looking Victoria in her eyes.
"Alright, that's enough you two, if you want to compete with each other, then Alex will handle the next camp." Both Alex and Victoria turned towards Leon and nodded their heads, trying to hide the smiles on their faces. "Of course, I'm sure there are others here that may want to join in." Leon looked behind himself at the other riders, knowing that he just started a competition. "Well, we should get on with it. Roland, burn the bodies." Roland held out his hand, muttered a few words, and swiftly ignited the pile of bodies. Such was the power of Roland Kay. After the bodies were sent alight, Roland decided that after the next camp, he would speak up to go next.
Resting atop a mountain, was the red dragon queen, Vera. Her scales were managing to deflect most of the attacks and were saving her life, but that didn't mean the magic attacks weren't getting through. Though she managed to find a mountain top that she could rest on, she knew that she couldn't rest for too long, otherwise, the army would make more progress. She then felt a strange magic presence approaching. She used her magic eyes to peer into the direction of the feeling and was surprised at what she saw. A large bloomed red rose was inside of the outermost camp along with a pile of corpses. The rest of the camp was covered in red, save for one small spot. That was when she noticed the crimson haired lady sitting atop the pile of bodies with a red rose in her hand. The area then slowly began to turn more white as red flowers seemingly bloomed on the ground after the larger rose descended, melting into the ground.
That was when she noticed eleven others approaching. They all gathered together, seemingly speaking to each other. She noticed that each of the members were so strong that they could probably clear out all of the camps along the way using only one member each, at least until they reached the innermost camps. They may have been strong, but Vera still believed that she would be able to defeat them if they were here to kill her or take her treasures. "I mean, it's not like any of them have the ability to kill a god killer like myself." Vera laughed to herself, but she still felt an uneasy feeling from one of them. "Hmm, that one seems strong, he seems to be their leader. Though, it seems he has no mana, or should I say magical energy? Either way, it's a shame, I thought I would find someone str...." Before she could finish talking to herself, the leader took off his helmet, and turned his head.
Vera felt a shiver run down her spine, as she was almost certain, that this man was looking directly at her. His piercing blue eyes were seemingly looking directly into her soul. "No way, no way, there is no way he could be looking at me from so far away. It has to be a coincidence." Vera began shaking her head, assuring herself that this man, couldn't possibly be able to see her. If the feeling she got from that coincidental look was anything to go by, then he was incredibly dangerous. The man hopped off of his horse and said something to the crimson haired woman. The flowers that surrounded them began to converge at his feet, before forming itself into a spear. Vera let out a sigh, thinking that some fool was still alive inside the camp, however, when she looked around, she couldn't see nor sense anyone. She then looked back at the leader, who spun the spear around in his hand before taking a few steps and launching the spear. It didn't register in Vera's mind until she noticed that the man was once again looking directly at her.
The spear flew through the air with great speed. Vera noticed that the spear wasn't aimed directly at her, no it would undoubtedly miss and land low. Just as she thought, the spear firmly lodged itself into the ground near where she was. To her surprise, the spear once again melted into the ground, but this time they spelled out a sentence. "You have wonderful eyes. Hope you enjoy our show with them." Vera now knew the truth behind what she had been trying to deny, he was looking at her. Not only that, but he was confident enough to say such a thing to her, the dragon queen. She gritted her large teeth as she saw him smirk. He returned to his horse and the riders then began to make their way forwards.
She watched as each member of his warriors, singlehandedly, cleared camp after camp in their own way. It seemed each member specialized in a certain area of expertise. The only one who didn't partake in these massacres, was the leader. It seemed as if he was waiting for something. That was when she finally noticed, that the army that was progressing earlier, was now making their way towards the camps. It seemed word had finally reached them, that these warriors were tearing apart their route of escape. Unknown to Vera, Leon knew that this was the case. He effectively had them trapped between a dragon and them. Vera watched intently from the mountaintop, until she finally saw what she wanted to see. Rather than in a camp, it was on the road leading to one. She saw twelve of the armies strongest warriors lined up in the middle of the road. It seemed that they wanted to match them number for number, rather than attack all at once.
Instead of the fair fight that they thought would happen, Leon stepped off of his horse. He grabbed his beautifully crafted spear and walked forward. Vera watched as the twelve warriors stepped from their horses, approaching Leon. Though she believed Leon to be strong, the twelve before him were all capable of wounding her, though, that was if they could touch her. She believed that he was underestimating his opponents, that was until she saw him take his stance. The twelve dashed forward in different directions, however, one of them was instantly pierced the moment he began to dash towards Leon. Without even looking around, Leon swung his body and spear around while ducking, dodging a gust of flames, then jumping up while spinning his body sideways, once again dodging another magic attack, this time it was blades of air aimed at his feet. While in the air, he slammed his spear downwards. When he landed, his spear had managed to slice off the arm of an archer who was taking aim to fire at him. He once again spun his body around, this time spinning the spear around his neck, cutting the archers throat as he did so.
Another blast of fire began to make it's way towards him, but he only responded by throwing his spear into the middle of the flames. It flew through the flames, embedding itself in the heart of the magician of fire. A warrior with two magic daggers appeared behind Leon, however, Leon quickly dropped as the daggers attempted to slice off his head. Leon swept his leg around, sweeping him off his feet. Leon quickly grabbed ahold of him as he fell, before using him to take the full force of the fire. After the fire disappeared, the wind magician attempted to look around for Leon until a dagger flew directly into his eye, killing him. Leon quickly retrieved his spear, but two swordsmen were waiting and attacked as soon as he grabbed ahold of it. However, Leon wielded Excalibur before it was separated into pieces. The spear instantly changed from a spear into its traditional longword form, easily dislodging itself from the body doing so. As both swords were coming from two different directions and were aimed at his chest and legs, he simply ducked the top sword, while moving to use his own sword to block the bottom one.
Leon kicked the blade of his sword up, knocking one of the swordsmen back, while continuing the motion into an overhead slash onto the swordsman behind him. The man attempted to block the attack, however, Excalibur broke the sword and embedded itself in the shoulder of the man. The broken piece was quickly grabbed by Leon, who through it into an exposed part of the remaining swordsman's leg. The delay allowed Leon, to dislodge his sword and stab the man's heart. The five remaining men quickly attacked Leon, who they believed had lost sight of them. One warrior attempted to stab him with a spear, however, Leon was able to dash forward, narrowly dodging the spear, while slicing the man's throat. He grabbed the spear and quickly threw it at the farthest person away from himself, impaling him.
The final three swordsmen surrounded Leon. When they attempted to attack him all at once, Leon intercepted the attacker in front of him, knocking his sword away while grabbing his wrist and switching positions, causing that man to be hit by the two other swordsmen. As one was shocked by what happened, Leon took that moment to quickly stab the man in the chest. The remaining swordsmen attempted to stab Ulrich while sacrificing his comrade. Leon let go of Excalibur and managed to deflect the attack with his gauntlets. Rather than attempt to grab a weapon, he simply continued deflecting the attacks before finally seeing an opening, after which, he charged forward, tackling him to the ground. Leon began to throw punches into the man's helmet, each with such a great amount of force, that after five strikes, his helmet was caved into his skull. Leon stood up, grabbed Excalibur, and delivered the killing blow. Vera was in shock at what she had just witnessed. Not even a minute had passed since they made their moves, yet all twelve lay dead on the ground with not a scratch on Leon.
It was almost like he knew what each person was about to do before they even decided to do it. Yet, it also felt like he was intentionally leaving gaps in his defense. Whatever happened, it wasn't something an ordinary human could accomplish. She looked deeply at Leon. Analyzing his body and the way he moved. He looked like an ordinary human and he had no real trace of mana. It was clear that he was unlike any other human she had ever met. The number one thought on her mind, was whether or not they were enemies. As she thought about it, she noticed Leon once again looking at her. This time, he was much closer, so her body was easily noticeable on the peak that she was resting on. Leon smirked as Excalibur changed back into a spear.
As Leon looked atop the mountain at the dragon queen, Victoria rode up to him. "My king, what are your orders?" Victoria spoke in her normal formal manner, however, it was obvious to Leon that she was getting restless after his fight. "These twelve claimed that they were the strongest warriors in the area, so I believe there is no longer a need to draw attention to ourselves." Victoria looked at the warriors on the ground and whispered, "How disappointing." Leon smiled to himself as he listened to her. He let out a sigh, knowing that this next part of their journey would be very volatile.
"I hope you all don't kill each other." He muttered to himself. He turned and looked at everyone. "No more drawing out warriors and trying to show off. Now, I want to end this as soon as possible. So, my order for the remainder of the army. No holding back, go forward, and wipe them from the face of the Earth."