"Absolute Zero."
In order to fend off Luciela's attacks, I froze everything around us and had the temperature plummet to -273 degrees Celsius. At such extremes, even Luciela's regenerative abilities were inhibited and her cellular activities were brought to a close.
With a single swing of Nocturne, I shattered one of her frozen tails. Luciela hissed and backed away. Blood spurted from several wounds on my cheek and arms, but I continued to press my advantage now that I had her frozen cold. Luciela retaliated with her other tail, which I obliterated with Blood Angel this time, the ice stopping all cellular regeneration and the formations of those hideous mouths.
"You…!"
Snarling, Luciela slashed at me with her claws. I skidded to a stop and hopped back, but not fast enough to prevent the tips of her deadly claws from grazing the front of my chest and ripping the skin open. Even though blood splattered out, I focused on closing the wound and healing. Not exactly possible under these circumstances.
Absolute Zero was proving to be a double-edged sword. Since it was able to inhibit my opponent's cellular activity, of course it would hinder my own healing abilities as well.
Huffing, I had a new barrage of immense icicles erupt from the ground, impaling Luciela from below. She continued to attack, screeching furiously as she hacked and slashed away. We traded a few blows, but despite sustaining more injuries, I was able to leave more pieces of her lying on the ground.
Good. If this turned into a battle of attrition, I was going to have the advantage. The Possessed might certainly have more stamina, but vampires had more mana, after all.
Apparently Luciela was aware of that. I sensed her attacks getting weaker, and when I launched another huge spell in the form of a gigantic iceberg to pulverize her weakening form, I noticed that something was amiss.
As the mist cleared and the titanic iceberg crumbled into fragments, I found myself surveying an empty wasteland. All that remained of Luciela were pieces of her body, in particular her tail, the mouths still chewing air and groaning before they were slowly frozen over by Absolute Zero and disintegrated at the atomic level.
But I knew intuitively that Luciela wasn't dead. Far from it. She had escaped.
"Damn it," I cursed, wincing as blood dripped from a gash on my cheek. "I was so close!"
Then I turned to check on the rest of the battle. My vampire allies were still struggling against the Possessed Beings, and not without reason. They were extremely powerful. Hell, that battle against Luciela had drained me of strength and I no longer had the stamina to pursue her. I had barely enough mana for a single spell.
But before I ran my tank empty, I decided to do my comrades a favor. Like I told Luciela, I didn't see them as pawns. I would prefer all of them return home alive. Perhaps I was naïve, but I was going to do my best to achieve my ideals, and screw those idiots who whine about my so-called lack of ruthlessness. I didn't need ruthlessness.
With a swing of Nocturne, I froze the remaining Possessed. They immediately stopped, finding the ice trapping their bodies. No matter how much they struggled, they were unable to break free from their solid prisons of ice. Only their heads were left unfrozen, all so I could talk to them.
"Your leader has abandoned you," I told them. "She escaped on her own and left you for dead. Is that the commander you wish to follow?"
The myriad forms of Possessed all stared at me. There were those with multiple eyes, those with predatory eyes, and those with disturbingly human eyes set deeply within monstrous features. They maintained their surly silence, glaring defiantly at me.
"She'll come back for us," one of the Possessed declared. I sighed and shook my head.
"Are you really that stupid? No, she won't. She knows you'll all die here, and she couldn't care less."
"That's not true!" another of the Possessed yelled. "She'll definitely save us!"
"How?" Eleanor asked coldly, folding her arms. "How exactly will she save you when you'll all be dead within the next few minutes?"
An uneasy silence filled the air as the Possessed exchanged glances.
"You wouldn't dare!" One of them cried. "If you kill us, then Luciela will avenge our deaths!"
"Small comfort to you, who will be long dead by then," Larson muttered.
"You see, that's what I'm talking about," Eleanor said, glancing at me and nodding. "Even my liege has already figured this out. Luciela knows that you'll be killed immediately…because we have no use for hostages. She has nothing worth bargaining for. She knows she won't be able to save you before we kill you. Yet, rather than surrender, she chose to escape. Even when she ran away, she didn't tell any of you or issue an order of retreat. From the very beginning, she planned to use you all as disposable pawns, to stall us for time so that she can escape on her own. Frankly, she never regarded your lives as precious."
"Then we'll be happy to die for her sake," the first Possessed declared firmly. "Kill us then."
"You heard them," I told my vampire knights. "Honor their courage. Take their heads."
I would like to have done it myself, but I was too exhausted. Stella hurried over to support me before I could fall over. Larson and his knights proceeded with the grisly work, beheading the frozen Possessed before my Absolute Zero spell expired. Within minutes, not a single one of them was left alive. To ensure that they were dead for good, even after the headless corpses were thawed out, Larson and his knights dismembered and hacked apart the bodies before burying them.
The Possessed were really resilient, and it was better not to leave any loose ends.
"Well, that was…a waste." Stella shook her head bitterly. "Why did they have to resist all the way until the end?"
"Not entirely," Eleanor told her, studying the burial mounds. "At the very least, we eliminated a huge threat that might have attacked us from behind while we engage the hunters. Luciela's power base has been broken and our lord has proven his superiority. If anything, his victory over Luciela consolidates his authority further. The other Possessed – particularly the remaining Abyssal Ones – will have to sit up and take note."
"They can't afford to carelessly provoke his majesty," Larson agreed. "Not unless they wish to end up like Luciela."
"Exactly."
Eleanor nodded, but her gaze was faraway. She was looking in the direction where Luciela had fled toward. Most likely she was reflecting on her choices and thinking to herself how she would have shared Luciela's fate had she made the opposite decision that day, when she and Mallory showed up at Claude's castle. One of them had sworn her fealty to me, and the other had chosen to challenge me for the throne.
Now the latter was forced to flee in ignominious defeat, humiliated and disgraced. Her personal army annihilated at the hands of the person she thought was an upstart brat unworthy of a throne she thought her own.
I glanced up at the darkening sky, noting that the sun had set and the moon was rising. Even though we vampires were supposed to be nocturnal, we were in human territory and thus it made no sense for us to move around at night. Not if we wanted to maintain our disguise. So I made a decision.
"We'll rest here for the night and move out tomorrow morning." I took a deep breath and clenched my fists. "We'll begin heading toward Gallagher Town."
"Roger that," Stella said.
"Understood, sire," Larson affirmed. Then he began organizing his knights into groups and began setting up camp for the night.
*
"Damn it!"
Luciela continued hurtling past the trees, cursing under her breath. She left a trail of blood, her wounds refusing to heal despite her incredible Possessed regenerative abilities. Clearly she had expended too much demonic mana in the last fight and didn't have enough to properly heal her grievous wounds.
Bashing through the thick foliage and trampling several trees, she continued to swear in rage.
"Damn that bastard! Next time, I'll get him…for sure! I'll come back stronger, and I'll rip off his damned head!"
She then staggered, feeling agony shoot through her form. Throwing out a huge claw, she tried to steady herself against a tree.
"Ugh!"
Her body contracted and shrank. The claws she placed on the tree trunk transformed into a hand.
A human hand.
Naked, Luciela fell on all fours, coughing and groaning. She continued to crawl desperately, eventually falling into a creek and sending up several splashes of water.
"I can't even maintain my Possessed form now," she muttered, feeling a bead of perspiration run down her face. Still crouching on all fours in the middle of the stream, she berated herself. "Seems like I used up too much power. This is bad. If he catches up, I'm dead."
Then she tensed. Even though there was nothing but silence all around her, she could somehow sense the presence of somebody behind her. Sitting up and clasping her hands to her chest, she slowly turned around.
A single female knight clad in pristine silver armor stood behind her, holding a claymore with both hands.
Blinking, Luciela stared at the female knight's face in disbelief, and tears ran down her cheeks when recognition dawned on her. Despite the difference in hairstyles – the female knight had cut her hair short – there was a clear physical resemblance between them.
"Rafaela…"
At her name, the knight tightened her grip on her sword. She remained silent, staring at her sister's crying features.
"Rafaela!" Luciela stretched out both hands, her voice laced with joy. "It's been so long! I've always wanted to see you. I thought you were dead! I heard that you perished in the battle against Tiamattra, but clearly you survived…where have you been this entire time?���
"Sister…" Rafaela hesitated for a moment. Then she dropped her claymore into the brook. Unable to control her emotions, she dove forward and wrapped her sister in a tight embrace.
"I'm sorry, sister. I left you alone for so long. If only I had been stronger."
"It's all right, Rafaela." Luciela was weeping. "It's all right. It's not your fault."
"I've always wanted to see you too. And I wanted to apologize. That's why I joined the Hero's party. But we were never able to find you."
"I…I heard about that," Luciela admitted. "But you know how the holy Heroes and their type of magic is antithesis to demons like us. More so to us Possessed, in particular. I could never approach you while you are in a Hero's party."
"Perhaps I made a mistake…I'm sorry, Sister."
"Not at all. It's not your fault. I just thought…I thought you were dead. They told me you died in the battle against Tiamattra."
"I nearly did. But…I couldn't die before I meet you, Sister. So I did my best to survive. It took me a long while, but I recovered and was able to resume searching for you."
"And now you've found me." Sobbing joyfully, Luciela tightened her hug. "Now we can fight together again."
At that, Rafaela paused. Not noticing the tension in her sister, Luciela continued.
"Please, Rafaela, lend me your strength. I was attacked by a very vicious enemy. But he's definitely weakened, after such a fierce fight. If you allow yourself to be possessed now, with the two of us working together, we'll definitely be able to defeat him."
Her tone grew increasingly excited.
"That's right! If we work together, like we did in the past, I'm sure nothing can beat us! We'll be able to not just take the southern provinces…we'll be able to return to the Demonic Empire and claim the throne!"
For a moment, Rafaela said nothing. Then she let go of her sister and rose to her feet. Returning to the claymore she had dropped, she retrieved it.
"That's right!" Luciela said, delighted. "It'll be like the old days! We're the unbeatable sisters! We'll rule the continent together!"
"That certainly sounds tempting," Rafaela said softly as she turned around, heaving her claymore up. "But I'm sorry to say, Sister…I don't harbor such ambitions."
"Don't worry about that, Rafaela!" Luciela began laughing. "You should learn to start dreaming big! With powers like these, becoming empress is no longer a pipe dream! We'll evolve, grow stronger, and gain more minions, and…"
"I'm sorry, Sister."
Rafaela didn't wait for Luciela to finish talking. She swung her claymore and cleaved the stunned Abysmal Ruler apart.
"…eh?"
For a moment, Luciela didn't understand what had just happened. She stared dumbly at the claymore that was jutting out of chest, having sliced through her shoulder and all the way to her hip.
"Rafaela…why?"
Her younger sister said nothing. She simply yanked the claymore out of her sister's chest and got ready for another swing. Luciela began sobbing and trembling, fear evident on her face. Right now, she was far too weak and frail, too grievously injured and unable to defend herself.
"Please…Rafaela! Listen to what I have to say! I'll give you half of the territories I conquer, okay?"
"Weren't you listening, Sister?" Rafaela regarded Luciela sadly. "I said that I don't harbor such ambitions, didn't I?"
"No…no! Listen, Rafaela! You should give it a chance! This power, it's beyond anything you can imagine! And the Demonic Empire, it's bigger than the Havan Kingdom! It's…!"
"That's the problem, Sister. You always tell me to listen to you, but you've never once listened to me."
Rafaela shook her head sadly before she swung her claymore.
"If you want more, I'll give you more! So…please…!"
The only reply she received was a claymore to her head, the massive weapon splitting her skull apart and obliterating the gray matter within.
As her sister slumped into the creek, spilling blood and staining the once clear waters red, Rafaela fell to her knees and stared helplessly at her sister's corpse.
"I'm so sorry, Sister," she whispered. "I love you so much. If only I had been stronger back then, you would never have been driven to become a Possessed."
Burying her face in her hands, she began to weep.