Horace looked at Aldritch who continued to look at him with a calm look on his face. But to wipe that smirk of his face he pushed on with his supposed leverage. "Do you really think that I won't kill her!" Horace yelled but Aldritch replied ,"Well we're all waiting, Horace." As he continued to remain in his relaxed seated pose with a hand arching over Eva drawing her closer to him. Horace seeing that his situation was far from what he thought would turn out decided to go through with it. He was dead either way he assessed it. He was sure that Aldritch's shadow could kill him faster than he could even formulate a plan so dealing with Aldritch was clearly off the table along with Eva and Natalie.
The rest of the knights could serve as more hostages but seeing Aldritch so nonchalant he wouldn't care at the very least. Raising his SS rank dagger he aimed at Moira's smooth and alluring neck capable of ending her life instantly but as he was lowering his arm,his actions suddenly halted against his will. Moira perplexed why she wasn't dead did not hesitate to take this chance and escape his grasp but he didn't move rather he stood in his prior position allowing her to slide away with ease. Horace watched the world around him but with no control of his body gazing at the handsomely devil seated not far from him. He went on his knees dropping his dagger now forcefully looking at Aldritch. Aldritch then commented ,"Next time pick your battles more carefully Horace. Now get to it but now to mix it up you get a debuff with that being your arm."
*Snap*
Aldritch snapped his fingers and Horace forcefully took the dagger from the ground and shockingly started to cut his right hand off. He was drowning in pain considering the effects of the dagger which was made from Ytterbium making it slice through his hand like cutting through butter and laced with venom from a S rank snake making it extremely painful as the venom's effects would slowly make the victim slowly lose consciousness and die from poisoning with their internal organs getting melted guaranting a slow but painful death for it's victim.
*Thud*
His arm fell to the ground with a small thud with his left arm clutching his white dagger with a red lining on it's edge. "Now,off you go Horace." Aldritch said looking at the man who was severely bleeding falling at anytime from the excessive bleeding or the poisoning from within but he didn't care, after all the only thing he hated the most were traitors who faced a gruesome fate with death being the best fate they could encounter. Horace dejectedly stood up before he headed flew towards the peak of the mountain utilising a mana skill. "Your majesty,I don't think a SS ranker will be able to take care of the dragons at the peak of the mountain. And considering his state he won't last long before dying."
Moira states as she looked at Horace who now looked like a black speck compared to the immense snow surrounding him. "I know, that's why I gave him that task." Aldritch said now looking at Eva who had a small frown on her cute face. 'What's wrong my dear?' he telepathically asked her. 'It's about what you said earlier about everyone being replaceable. Does that mean you could replace me?' She asked to which he did not hesitate to answer ,'Eva I didn't think that you thought so low of yourself. Compared to the rest of these people around us you weigh much more. But that doesn't mean that I can't find a replacement for you. Sure I'll have others but you'll always be my top priority below someone else,provided you don't betray my trust that is.'
Eva was shocked and with her curiosity peaking she asked ,'Who's a bigger priority than me?' Aldritch lightly chuckled as he looked at Eva ,'You'll see eventually but for now see yourself higher than the rest and actually a person I'd actually care about.' He said giving her a light kiss. Eva was still stumped but seeing it from another perspective she came to terms with her position. Aldritch was clearly powerful beyond reason so meeting enchanting women would be normal for him considering he could erase this world and move on to the next as he had once said earlier. And the fact that he actually cared about her was more than lucky as she went from a slave to the most powerful queen governing two kingdoms ,a position all would give everything to be in.
'Fine.' She said but she was still not fully having it. 'I made a promise that I wouldn't break and I don't plan on breaking it. If she knew that I was with another girl she would kill you making this whole scenario a little bit risky for you. But to make up for this I'll do anything for you once and once only Eva so do with that as you may. If you are still not satisfied with my terms then feel free to terminate our relationship and make it a servant and master rather than what it is right now.
So what's your choice,Eva?' Aldritch looked at the miss in his embrace. Before she could make her response,a loud deafening roar was heard causing a small avalanche which clearly escalated to big avalanche but one of the knight's quickly got rid of it by casting a high tier defense mana wall deflecting it to the lower parts of the mountain which was already vacated. A small silhouette was seen floating in mid air with blood coming from his arm, naturally this was Horace but it didn't look that he was going to last long as if he could collapse at any moment and fall right of the sky. But he was a SS ranker so he used his mana to form a mana barrier reducing the bleed loss but it would only stall for sometimes before the toll took over.
What emerged from the mountain's crest was simply something they all beared shock to. Covered in icy hard scales, rudimentary hard ice crests shielding the creature from lethal attacks especially it's vital points and cold blue piercing eyes. Every single breathe it took,a cold mist was radiated lowering the temperature around it spreading chills all over the place. Scaling at a monstrous height and wide girth giving the creature a lot of defense but at the expense of movement but it was still fast enough considering that it was a SSS rank beast. Creatures of such rank were absolutely rare and dangerous to find as unlike the lower rank beasts,these creatures could launch well coordinated attacks similar to humans or better given the type of creature and dragons were known to be wise despite of their immense size. Not to mention sightings of mythical creatures such as this one was only left in the realm of rumors as not most had seen such creatures and remained alive to tell about it.
The creature cast a deadly glance at Horace as it emitted it's skyrocketing aura. Horace being a SS ranker was shortly rendered immobile by the beast before he met his gruesome fate of decapitation by an attack from the mystical dragon which compared to Aldritch's was smaller as he could increase it's size to unimaginary lengths unlike this dragon which was consisted of blood and flesh. Horace's body was shrouded by the blood chilling ice eminated from the creature before the creature shot an ice blast using it's mouth launching a huge ice ray at Horace turning his head into bits of chunky flesh and ice.
The dragon rested at the now halfly broken crest of the mountain looking down at the ants below him. Casting a single glance it quickly assessed that the people infront of him were strong if fighting other humans but he was a mythical beast so it would be easy killing them with a single attack. But after a few moments it sensed something was wrong a little surprised with what it was witnessing as it thought in it's mind ,'Humans are rather fond of titles so why is that mana deprived human along with that crew. Also they have a SSS ranker but it seems that she is under servitude of that vampire.
As for the human,there has to be something off with him as they wouldn't serve a human with a nonexistent rank.' From the dragon's perspective,the vampire was the most powerful of the bunch unsure of her actual rank as it seemed to surpass SSS rank which was impossible. 'No creature has ever been able to surpass SSS rank so maybe this vampire is more than meets the eye.' Aldritch briefly looked at the dragon way above them but he shifted his gaze back to Eva ignoring the corpse of Horace that landed not far from them asking ,'So what is it?' Eva was momentarily shocked by the sight of the dragon but Aldritch's question jolting her back she made up her mind and responded ,'Fine, I'll accept to be under someone else as an order of priority but anyone else is below me,okay.', Aldritch replied ,'Naturally and you don't have to get so jealous Eva.' Eva folded her arms in protest ,' I'm not jealous just worried over you.' Aldritch made a small smile looking at Eva wondering what she had said ,'Worried over me,huh.'
"Natalie,can you take care of that dragon for me. You'll be assisted by Horace." Aldritch commanded and Natalie was still fazed by the dragon's appearance understood her task but Horace was already dead so how would he provide assistance.
*Crunch-Crunch snap-snap*
Everyone looked at Horace's body which had been deformed by the fall damage cracking and twisting bones in weird and nauseating angles slowly started to repair itself but not retaining it's former shade rather it looked poorly reformed looking like an undead taking everyone by surprise. The dragon was surprised by this sight as it was well aware of the numerous potions and elixirs the humans had but one that resurrected the dead was something new. It didn't look like a talisman from Horace's new found aura rather he simply looked normal, similar to the human making the dragon realize that it was the human that was the greatest threat possible.
"Aaargghh." Horace shouted with his now broken jaw looking at his body. It was poorly healed and the pain was evident,he tried using healing potions but they all failed yielding no result. "Come on Horace,did you really think that I'd let you off that easy. Even in death you can't escape me. Now,you may carry on with your task." Aldritch taunted as he summoned Horace's dagger infront him and additionally restoring his arm but facing at the wrong angle. Horace couldn't believe his situation,after he was smitten by the dragon and killed,he was sure that even though he would die, he'd rather die than serve this monster but even know it would seem that even death wasn't an option either.
The pain also didn't subside either from before but this time he had Natalie helping her which made him a little bit of comfort to say the least. She was SSS rank so they could pull this off and unlike them the dragon couldn't revive so they would tire the dragon and conquer it eventually.
Natalie on the other hand did not hesitate to brandish the sword Aldritch gave her which appeared rather mundane then standing in a fighting pose ready to take this dragon down for surely it would boost her reputation greatly. "Don't disappoint me, Natalie." Aldritch nonchalantly said to which she responded ,"I'll do my absolute best not to fail you my highness." Horace and Natalie immediately dashed off to the dragon and a heated battle ensued between a SSS rank beast and SSS ranker with Horace barely keeping up. Unlike Natalie who had no problem keeping up,Horace was struggling given that he SS rank and the pain was still there making him lose focus in the fight. The dragon attached him as he was weaker and oftenly killing him but his body would stitch right back up with the pain ever so rising increasing the difficulty of this task. Natalie and the dragon exchanged attacks and after an exchange of a hundred moves, Natalie was slowly gaining the upper hand.