Red walked along the nearby walls of Ellis’s castle. The castle hadn’t existed the last time Red was in the city. Apparently, Ellis had decided that building a castle was more important than repairing the city. The stone was even obnoxiously painted in a strange bright yellow. Even in the dead of night, the castle stood out like a child’s toy. The fact that Ellis had something like this built was ridiculous. It was repulsive to even look at. It stuck out awkwardly, as it was one of the few buildings that were obviously built after all the fighting had ended. It lacked the same wear that everything else in the city seemed to have.

Over her past few days, she had explored the city and had seen the signs of a large battle. Even the edges of town had damage. The few roads that existed in the city were cracked, and there were many craters scattered across the grounds. Large sections of grass had been burned away, and the city almost completely lacked the open beauty it had possessed before. None of that made her hate this place. No, that came from the slaves she had seen.

There weren’t many slaves, though the few she had seen had been treated awfully. She knew most people didn’t support the practice. She had seen more than a handful of beastmen help slaves in their work, or just stand up for them. Only a small number of people owned slaves, and even fewer treated them badly. The problem was that they were the most influential in the city currently. At the very least, they were well fed. The city was not having any trouble with food. That was rarely a concern for people, as many classes could create simple foods.

The slaves mainly worked around the castle. There was a stone laid on the ground around the base of the building, and it was clear that Ellis was trying to build a more traditional city. It was ironic that she was trying to turn Krall into a more human city. She had scoped the castle out over the past few days, using Tilly to learn more about normal operations in the city. Tilly was far more intelligent and capable than Red had initially assumed. She would offer her a longer-term contract. For now, she had sent Tilly away. Told her to get out of the city and wait for a letter. Red didn’t think that she would fail, but she didn’t want to risk Tilly’s life in the gamble.

Red turned to face the yellow wall. In her time scoping the castle, she had found several cracks that led deep into the wall. She could easily enter the crack and tunnel through the remaining stone. That would be loud though, and she had come up with something better. Her body slowly turned into a puddle of blood and scaled the wall following the natural lines that appeared between the bricks. She wished she had Mash’s domain. The skill would let her know if there was someone nearby or watching the walls. From what she knew the castle wasn’t really protected. Ellis had received her position because of her strength, and she didn’t usually have guards.

Although she couldn’t match the king. However, he was probably too busy dealing with the invasion. Being one of the strongest in the kingdom, he would need to be prepared in case something like the demons happened again. So, work like this fell to his subjects. In this case, that meant her family.

It felt strange having her body move like a liquid, and it was doubly odd to feel like she was rubbing herself against the coarse stone. She would need to practice this more, as the sensation was horrible. Her skills functioned in strange ways, and she wondered how it would compare to Mash when he transformed. Did he get strange new senses too? What about pain? She would compare the next time they met. Although, she would probably be a bit distracted learning about everyone’s advancement.

Once she got to the top of the wall, she formed a small portion of blood back into her eye. She couldn’t really see when her body was completely blood and had to rely on her sense of touch to figure out her relative location. Thankfully, traveling up a wall was straightforward. The eye formed, connected to her through a small stream of blood. As expected, no one was patrolling the walls at this time of night. Without reforming completely, Red relied on the single eye to guide her as she headed toward the main castle. There were several bridges that connected the walls to the castle, and it was easy to slip under a door.

As she slipped inside, she reformed her body. Her clothing changed to emulate leather armor. In reality, her whole body was made of the same material as her clothing. It would offer fake weak points and let her predict where the enemy’s attacks were headed. She wasn’t all that worried about fighting Ellis. Ellis was powerful but had grown indulgent since conquering the city. There was a good chance she would be drunk and sleeping with a man. Completely unprepared for an attack, Red planned to take advantage of her complacency.

She hadn’t been able to map out the inside of the castle yet and wanted to see what she could hear. The castle emptiness worked in her favor, and noises echoed through the halls. Even hidden behind doors she could hear some noises. At first, she didn’t recognize what the noises were, but then she remembered what Ellis was doing. She was more disgusted than embarrassed. Ellis was using her position and power to take advantage of people, and she didn’t like it. People who acted like they were taking the high road, only to collapse on their ideals once they received some real power. They were the worst kind of people.

The room she was in seemed to be an unfinished bedroom. There was a bed, but no pillows or sheets. There was space for a dresser and a table, but nobody had gotten around to installing those things. Red hovered to the door, using her magic to let her body float above the ground. She didn’t open it though, instead of turning into blood and sliding underneath it. With how well the sounds echoed, she didn’t want to open any doors. Following the noise should be enough. She reformed her body once she was in the hallway. While fighting in her blood state was probably more effective, it was also a lot harder. She would need a lot more practice to do something like that.

She moved through the air like she did when she flew. Her skill meant that she had full control of her body so long as she was willing to spend some mana. Her movement was completely silent, and she could stop other bodily functions too. The only thing that she could hear was the echoes made by Ellis and her partner. The hallways were unlit, and she could see empty facets where lighting crystals could be embedded. The floors and walls looked new, but she saw that it wasn’t actually being cleaned regularly. A noticeable layer of dust coated the stones. It seemed like Ellis had built the castle as a symbol. There was no practical use for the building, and she didn’t know how to maintain it either.

Eventually, she stopped at a door hearing the noises on the other side. She took a second to center herself. Then she built a sphere of blood in her hand, growing it out. She aimed at the door, pressing her palms into it as the orb of blood exploded. It easily broke through the wooden door and sprayed needles of blood into the room. Red expected it to do some damage and was startled when a gust of wind slammed into her. Caught off guard, she hadn’t braced herself for the attack at all.

Her body had been solid too, and she slammed into the wall behind her. She felt her body get pressed into the wall, and her bones strained for a second. Partially turning her body to blood, the force of the impact vanished. Still shocked by the turn of events, she looked inside to see what had happened. Ellis was holding a man’s naked body up. She had used him to block the needles. Ellis threw the man’s body at Red, and she slashed through it with blood. Her attack grew to lash toward Ellis.

Ellis rolled out of the way, and she launched another burst of wind at Red. She was prepared now, and easily braced for it. Her skin turned into armor as she hardened it. Ellis spoke, rising to her feet. She was naked but didn’t seem to care at all.

“Who sent you?”

Despite not having any of her items, Ellis stood confidently. She sounded like she expected to win this battle. Even bare naked, Ellis radiated an arrogance that only a fool could have. Red didn’t reply to the question and surged towards. Her arms turned into a flowing river of blood as she swung them in front of her. Red just needed one attack to win this fight. Ellis wasn’t a healer, and she had no items on her either. She was completely vulnerable in this moment.

The wind spun around her, turning violently and blocking the blood in its entirety. She seemed too casual as she walked toward Red. She kept talking too.

“Blood magic… Someone from the Venfir family then. The king decided to send his dogs. Wait, I kn-“

She cut off as Red charged headfirst into the shield of wind. She continuously generated blood in front of her, while hardening her body as much as she could. The wind cut her, although an attack like that couldn’t actually harm her. Breaking through the shield, blood sprayed over Ellis. Even if she dodged most of it, Red felt a few drops hit their mark. Before Ellis could brush them off, Red made them dig into her flesh. They only managed small cuts, but it was enough. Now, this fight was on a timer. Red would win just by preventing Ellis from healing.

Black dots started appearing around the wounds. Red’s infection spread from the wound on Ellis’s arm. Unable to contain a grimace, Ellis glanced at her arm. She was obviously in pain, and Red wondered how much her skill hurt. The bandits hadn’t been able to move after getting struck, and she could see that even Ellis was struggling with the pain.

“What… Did… You do to me?”

She took deep breaths between her words and sweat started building on her forehead. It didn’t last long, as Ellis let out a loud scream. Red’s ears felt like they exploded from the noise. It shook the whole castle, and Red stumbled to the ground as her head spun. Red could barely make out what was happening but saw a blade of wind slice through Ellis’s bicep. Her contaminated arm fell to the ground, and she stared at Red wickedly.

Red couldn’t focus, and she could use her skills. Her blood manipulation took a lot of mental focus, and she couldn’t muster that. Even though she couldn’t move properly, she tried rolling out of the way, as Ellis struck. A blade of wind sliced into her back. There was a green aura around the wind, and the blow struck something beyond her body. It felt like the wind had singed her, and she realized that it had hit her soul. Could all beastmen hit a person’s soul?

All of her physical defenses couldn’t do anything, and she felt the burning sensation increase as another lash of wind struck her back. Each lash seemed worse than the last, and before long it felt like her whole body had become numb from the pain. Ellis started speaking, another much deeper lash landing. Red’s soul stung as she tried to regain control of her mind.

“You will pay for that arm with your life. Even if I can’t harm your body, I can do much worse.”

The venom in Ellis’s tone reached Red’s ears. The situation was quickly getting worse, and Red knew that someone would have heard Ellis’s earlier scream. Since silence was already out the window, Red let out a scream herself. Her pain seemed to strengthen the skill as she used it.