"Hello there!"
While cursing, Cilia sprang away, as she was surprised by the sudden voice, which had appeared behind her.
" 'Brute' Hugo..."
"Ice Witch."
Cilia knew something had gone wrong, just the fact that Hugo knew who she was, meant that here was either a spy or he had predicted, that it would be her who would be sent. Though to know that, he also needed a spy, just with less clearance.
"I am honored to meet you, 'Ice Witch'. I even got so far as to be your next target. How about we have some fun first before we fight, I have always wanted to try such a beautiful lady, such as you."
Disgust flashed in Cilias eyes, as she retreated to a more comfortable position.
"How disappointing, but don't worry I have already send all those people, whom have been spying on me to the afterlife. One of them was quite persistent and he had that typical butler name, but I can't recall what it was. It was fun, but he killed himself after a few hours. He probably noticed, that he had no chance of leaving alive." Hugo was still standing there, completely uncaring about Cilia standing in front of him.
Cilia was confused, she had suddenly started crying and felt sadness overwhelm her. She was confused, but was quickly able to adjust her mentality and pounced towards Hugo suppressing her emotions.
However Hugo unexpectedly turned around as he started dashing into a neighboring alley and disappeared.
"Darkness element, higher mastery then mine. I won't be able to use it myself or he will use it against me." Cilia quickly analysed her situation and jumped up onto the roofs to get a better view over the surroundings.
"From behind," Cilia was able to dodge to the right and shoot an arrow. Although Hugo's darkness element was better than hers, tracking him slightly was still possible.
Hugo emerged out of the shadows and redirected the arrow to the left. "Alright, fun time is over" Having realised that Cilia was stronger than he expected, Hugo fused into the darkness of the night, disappearing completely.
"Where is he?" Cilia wasn't able to sense Hugo anymore. At that moment, rapid attacks started to appear out of nowhere. "I can't do anything expect block it, I think I have to use it." Cilia made up her mind. Hugo, who was still hiding was shocked. "How could she just disappear, only darkness users can do that, but her mastery was incomparable to mine!"
The floor began to burn, the sky started to be filled with shards of ice. Cilia had started to go all out. Hugo had to run for his life and get out of the danger zone, making him put down his guard to a major degree, as he had to save his life first.
"Got you," Cilia had been hurt while teleporting out of Hugo's attack previously, was however still able to continue her attack, as multiple arrows started flying towards him, covering Cilias own close combat attack.
Hugo however noticed Cilia to late, as a dagger pierced his right shoulder, crippling it.
"Not bad, little one. I am impressed, however you have to do better than this to kill me"
Turing around, Hugo elbowed Cilia, sacrificing his right arm and ran away as fast as he could.
Cilia quickly recovered, before glancing at the running Hugo. She didn't want to admit it, but Hugo had already run out of the range, which she was confident in hitting her arrows.
However her memories of her punishment, after failing a mission were still deep in her mind as she quickly summoned her little private space.
Hugo had already run far away, as he moved closer to a nearby alley. If he could make it, her mission would be over, as she wouldn't have the chance to kill him again soon.
Grabbing the object, which was previously carefully placed in there, Cilia laid down onto the ground and stabilized her breathing.
Carefully she adjusted her aim, as she pulled the trigger, hitting Hugos legs.
Two shots, two hits. Hugo lied motionless on the ground, unable to comprehend what had happened.
He only felt a sudden pain in his legs, making him unable to stand up and due to his previous injury, Hugo could only lay on the ground and bleed to death.
Cilia didn't want to use her gun, as is wasn't finished yet and had only a 25% chance to function properly. Previously she had to shoot 3 times for her to hit two shots. She slowly made her way over to Hugo, who had already given up struggling.
Hearing Cilia get close, Hugo who had already lost the ability to move, could only curse his bad luck. "Although I will die, your life will be even worse than death. I will love to be watching you fall into the darkness, I once fell. Even from hell."
Cilia stared at the now dead Hugo, contemplating about his words but ultimately leaving. However only a few second after leaving, Cilia suddenly felt weak as her conscious slowly slipped away.
---
A few days later in the disposal ground of the slums:
Cilia woke up as she was confused as to where she was. While she slowly opened her eyes, a horrible stench entered her Nose.
Blärg, Cilia had to throw up, slowly getting used to the horrible stench, which was penetrating her nose.
After an hour, Cilia was finally able to stop her body from throwing up, as she slowly crawled out from the dark cave she was in.
"This…," She was shocked, the only thing she was able to see were hundreds of mountains build by corpses. Luckily she was only burried under a few.
Cilia was shocked, someone had thought of her as dead and disposed her unconscious self into this mountain of dead bodies. She didn't know how long it had been since she was here.
After searching for ten hours, Cilia was able to find an exit and started to walk towards the Inn she had previously booked a room, as she didn't know any place else, where she could wash up. As she didn't want to arouse suspicion, Cilia decided to enter back through the window again.
After continuously washing herself for two hours, Cilias skin had already turned red after she was finally able to get rid of the smell of rotten corpses.
After tending her wounds and burning her clothes, Cilia was finally able to sleep.
---
Cilia knew Jamie wouldn't die so easily, as he was more talented than herself but she still felt a bit sad, at least until she suddenly found Jamie sitting at her desk after waking up.
"Master, why are you here?" Cilia quickly hopped out of her bed and bowed down after seeing him, not rising her head until Jamie told her to.
"Nothing Important, but recently there have been a few spies trying to find out more about you. As such you will be following me for the next week and be my bodyguard. But you still have to be careful, as we cant afford to get you captured, you know to much."
After Cilias confirmation, Jamie ordered her to pack up.
----
"Boss, although we have gotten some information we were found out."
"Alright, continue sending people to investigate, I want to know what happened to her. ...You can leave."
The person left, as only a lone figure was left in the room, contemplating about numerous issues, which had crept up in recent times.
She was restless, as she continued playing with a ring on her hand. It was a present from Cilia, which she had bought her after they went out together.
However now it reminded Nisha only of Cilias eyes, which had only shown traces of them being strangers. She had waited more than a year, as the previously arranged plans were taking form. But now, Cilia couldn't even remember her anymore.
After contemplating, Nisha decided to contact someone, which Cilia had previously told her about. It was Markus, as he was in the council and was most likely to have vital information about Cilias condition.
---
It had been a week since Nisha had contacted Markus. They had arranged a meeting between both of them. Both would only bring a few other people and stay undercover, while talking.
Although Cilia trusted Markus, she still took her strongest followers with her for safety reasons.
Her subordinates had already scouted out the surrounding and made multiple escape plans as even more people were waiting to cover their retreat.
3 of them slowly made their way towards the location while being as inconspicuous as possible. Markus was already waiting for them, behind him two clocked figures.
"You must be Markus."
"Indeed I am but I don't know you. I am only here because she must have some trust in you to even tell you about me."
"I'm Nisha. I have already given you the code, so now tell me, what happened to Cilia."
"Well, she is currently working for Jamie. Jamie is obsessed with her and took her in because he wanted to own her. Their relationship is currently like a master and servant."
"That can't be possible! Cilia would never allow someone to treat her like a servant!"
"You are right, normally she wouldn't but she has no choice. I can show you what I mean, but you will have to follow me."
"I am sceptical, it's not normal for you to know so much. It is as if you are part of their scheme."
Markus was shocked, he didn't expect her to be so upfront. "Go"
Suddenly one of the clocked shadows behind him moved, as arrows were shot towards them.
"Boss, it's the Miss!"
Although she was prepared, she didn't expect Cilia to be here. She couldn't hurt her but Cilia would go all out against her. It was very problematic.
At that point the second shadow moved, as Jamie appeared before Nisha, brandishing his sword towards her neck.
Parrying the attack, Nisha kicked out behind her, hitting Cilia into the abdomen and dodging to the side, where her subordinates were busy with another group of attackers.
As she only had a bit of time, she quickly got rid of most of the attackers, enabling her team a chance to escape.
However she underestimated Cilias growth in the last year, as she quickly caught up to Nisha, who could only helplessly allow herself to crash into a building.
Quickly recovering from the shock, Nisha motioned her team to retreat as she decided which path for escape to take.
Fortunately she had already made quite a few preparations previously and knew not to run into a dead end.
Unfortunately just before she could run around the corner, where a path out of the city was prepared, a cold knife was pressed against her neck.
She didn't know how, but Cilia had managed to catch up to her. Normally she could easily get rid of her, but the circumstances didn't allow it, as she could only watch her feet being consumed by Ice, which had a strange red hue inside. It seemed as if the pure Ice was slowly corroded by the red hue.
„Do you seriously not remember me at all?" Although her team was able to escape, Nisha had been captured and was currently trying to get out of this situation.
Her Hands had already been bound tight on a pole and her feet were still enclosed in Ice. „Don't try to get my attention away, it won't work."
Nisha sighted as both Markus and Jamie got closer. Her hopes to get Cilia back on her side were dashed.
Although she knew something had happened to Cilia, she didn't expect it to be so bad, that even one of Cilias closest friends betrayed her.
No not betrayed, maybe he wasn't even on her side in the first place.
„That was a bit to easy, wasn't it?"
„Indeed, she is still the Empress. Why would she be so easily captured?"
Markus and Jamie had arrived as they took in the sight before them. One of the strongest humans in this world, bound on a regular pole after falling into a trap.
„Let me guess, you have been pretending to be Cilias friend to get more intel and to make it easier for her to fall into your trap… how predictable."
„You are right, Cilia was truly naive. She had so much trust in me but in the end she fell smoothly into my trap. Unfortunately you have no use for us, so die peacefully!"
Cilia, who had received Markus orders slowly started extend her Ice, as ist slowly climbed up Nishas body, while her knife started to draw blood as is pierced Nishas skin.
Nisha felt helpless, the Ice had the effect of making her lose control of the power in her body and the rope binging her was more stable than she expected.
„I didn't expect you to be the one who kills me… how unfortunate." Nisha leaned forwards, using the last bit of her strengt which she had gained back control over and gave Cilia a quick kiss on the lips.
Due to her movement, the dagger plunged deeper into her throat, it was not yet life threatening but if untreated could pose danger.
Cilia had already frozen stiff duo to the familiar feeling on her lips, as the Ice, which had already reached Nishas chest slowly lost it's blood red color, turning translucent.
No one noticed the changes, because the red was still there. However it had lost a bit of its colour.
Suddenly the Ice started to develope cracks, however they were so inconspicuous, that not even Nisha was able to notice them.
Although Markus had ordered Cilia to kill Nisha, he had already predicted to see some kind of resistance from Cilias body.
However he didn't expect Cilia to only put away her dagger before using her Ice to fully compass Nishas body.
Such a method was even crueler than killing her instantly by slicing her throat as she would experience one of the most painful times of her short life by being frozen and choked to death at the same time.
Although it wasn't as bad as being burned to death, death by freezing was still a rather painful death.
He was satisfied by the approach, as it had proven that Cilia was fully loyal to them and that her relationship with Nisha wasn't as close as they had previously thought.
However before he could rejoice, sudden cracking sounds sounded in the air as the red Ice shattered into pieces.
„Run, I'll give you cover. Tell me what our relationship is next time." Nisha was surprised hearing Cilias voice so close, but immediately gathered her force and dashed towards a nearby alleys, in which a tunnel was hidden.
Markus, Jamie, Cilia and their henchmen were frozen in shock at the sudden change in the situation.
„CATCH HER!" Markus, who was the first to move dashed towards Nisha and drew his sword.
However Nisha was way faster and was quickly able to enter the alley. But before she rejoiced a valley of arrows were shot into her direction.
She was quickly able to find cover as the arrows suddenly exploded, making the surrounding buildings collapse.
Nisha separated by her pursuers due to the debris suddenly recalled Cilias words, which made her smile as she quickly left the city and retreated with her team.
Fortunately she had prepared another team, which had infiltrated Markus's quarters and searched for information while the meeting was set up.