*crunch* *crunch*

The thick snow covering the city crunched under Dred’s paws as he neared the castle of Thivalon. Elena’s breath turned into mist in the cold air of the night. A long black cape covered her whole body and since it was an important event, Audrey organised a girls only night and did Elena’s hair. Although Elena could have done it in the blink of an eye by controlling her hair, she didn’t refuse Audrey’s offer.

Her hair was long and wavy, and she wore a thigh-long, black, shoulderless dress under her cape. Although weapons weren’t allowed, she still brought her daggers and Dred’s body was her greatest weapon in and of itself.

“Won’t we be late?” Elena clenched her fists and grabbed a few locks of Dred’s fur.

“No, we are almost there,” Dred replied.

“This is why I didn’t want to do it before coming here.”

“But you are so sexy. And why did you have to wear a short dress like this? You can still change it though…” he remarked, his voice visibly unhappy.

“We have talked this over already. A long dress would restrict my movements, which I’d hate to the core. If I have to wear a dress, then it must be short. Even this is a bit annoying, but any shorter would be showing a bit too much skin.”

“It’s already too much. You know that guys will flock to you.”

“Then I’ll send them to the otherworld.”

“It’s not that simple,” Dred sighed in exasperation. “Whatever, just don’t make a scene.”

“I-I wouldn’t do something like that,” she averted her eyes. “Aren’t you just jealous?” Elena tried to start another banter since she loved fooling around with Dred.

“You are so believable," he said sarcastically. "You do know that I know you more than anyone else, so my reply is a simple no. I don’t feel threatened by any man.”

“Aww, you are no fun, though you are spot on.”

“Haha, if I took your playful words seriously, we would pointlessly argue more often.”

“Mhm. Have we arrived yet?”

“...”

“Haha, don’t look at me like that. You look really intimidating sometimes, even to me.”

“I don’t think that a two-meter tall black panther should look like a cute pet,” Dred remarked as he jumped to the top of a building. A large park separated them from the castle. In the middle of it was a large fountain and smaller groups of people were walking towards the entrance since flying wasn’t allowed in the capital city.

Elena got off of Dred’s back, who transformed into his demon form. Although he had enough control over the Mana particles to change his body structure and look like a human, most people knew him already.

“You are talking about my dress but all you wear is black jeans and a black shirt…” Elena crossed her arms in front of her chest.

“Yeah? But that’s customary.”

“Then why is it only women who have to wear these kinds of clothes?”

“I don’t know. I suppose they want to look good in front of men and it turned into a custom?”

“Don’t ask me, I don’t know either. I’m a girl but not a human.”

“I know. Let’s go instead of chatting on a rooftop. It’s getting cold,” Dred shivered as a cold wind blew through his thin clothes. He grabbed Elena’s hand and jumped towards the palace. They landed a few meters away, slightly surprising a group of people behind them. Ignoring the strange looks, they walked towards the entrance and after showing their invitation cards they were let in.

A wide, golden corridor connected the entrance to the ballroom. A servant opened the door in front of them, allowing them sight on the spacious ballroom. It was a fifteen-meter tall square room, and its walls were a hundred meter long. The walls were golden coloured and reflected the yellow light of the Mana lamps. Ancient intrications covered the four marble columns, which held up the ceiling. A luxurious square shaped red carpet lay on the ground, and tables filled with sumptuous foods were set up on the side of the ballroom.

On the right of the ballroom were two thrones prepared. The nobles were chatting heartily with each other and stopped every so often when seeing somebody enter.

Feeling uncomfortable by the gazes of so many people, Elena pulled on Dred’s hand and quickly left the spotlight. Using her sense, she realized that the seemingly defenceless ballroom was actually filled with strong warriors, magicians, and the newly formed Special Forces of the kings, led by Caleb. The army was in the hands of Salem and Sally.

After finding a corner, Elena finally calmed down.

“You look stressed out,” Dred raised a brow.

“Well, I can’t bear with a large crowd looking at me like that. It felt as if I was being measured up for sale!” she strengthened her grips on Dred’s hand.

“You know that nobody has that kind of intention here, right?”

“Yeah, hopefully. But that’s how it felt.”

“Are you not going to take off your cape?”

“Ah, it might be better to keep it on. Your words were true. My dress is too short,” she tried to reason with him, even though it wasn’t as short.

“Less trouble for me. I’m not going to tell you again,” Dred chuckled. Sensing a few presences behind his back, he turned around, only to see a group of young men with a few women getting closer them.

As the group stopped in front of them, a purple-haired teenager stepped forward and greeted them with a nod of his head, “Greetings. My name is Teslow from the Guinne family. I haven’t yet had the luck to meet you, Miss.”

“Good evening, my name is Elena and he is my boyfriend, Dred,” Elena replied with a smile, only to notice Teslow’s eyes filled with expectation.

“What is it?”

“Ah, pardon me. I was just wondering if you wanted to share your full name as well,” Teslow laughed awkwardly.

“Oh.” She looked at Dred with a questioning look. Seeing him shrug his shoulders, she said, “It’s Syracia. I’m Elena Syracia.” They thought of a name together while they spent their time resting and training.

“I apologise for my rudeness, but I don’t think that I’ve heard of that family. That’s quite a surprise as I know most families and you don’t seem to be from the other planet either,” he winked at her, meaning the ‘weak’ nobles from Dink.

“I do come from Dink.”

“Did Miss Elena get to this level in this one month?”

“No. I took part in the battle too and I also helped the union between Hector and Bethor.”

“A-haha. Of course, of course. Could it be that you are the princess of the old Drung Kingdom? I’ve heard of you, in that case.”

Elena’s eyes twitched upon hearing the word ‘princess’, but she still nodded her head. Looking up at Dred’s towering body, Teslow added, “Then you must be that fearsome black panther, Dred.”

“Mhm.”

“...” faced with their short replies and lack of interest in their conversation, Teslow felt completely lost at what to do for the first time in his life.

As the last saving grace, he introduced his entourage too, hoping that they could hit up a conversation and leave without the shame of silence. The girls stepped closer to Elena to ask, “Why are you wearing this cape, Princess?”

“Yeah, you should take it off quickly.”

“What do you think? Are they calling me ‘princess’ intentionally?” Elena asked Dred with her spell.

“Hahaha, I don’t think that they mean it in a bad way and I don’t think they noticed that it annoys you, right? Prin-”

“Shut up. That title makes me imagine myself as a useless woman.”

“Seriously? Why though?”

“I don’t know, that’s how I feel,” Elena grumbled in her mind.

“Miss Elena?”

“Oh, pardon me. I was lost in my thoughts. What did you say again?”

“That you should take off your cape. It would be a bit disrespectful to the kings if you wouldn’t even bother looking good at this celebration.”

“Is that so? Can you tell me where were you oh so great nobles were when Bethor fought against Atelon? When the other soldiers and I fought against his forces? Were you sitting on your asses, waiting for the winner and then take their side? So don’t talk about respect to me, you useless bunch of idiots. Your betrayal is much more disrespectful than whatever kind of clothes I wear,” Elena spat her words like venom.

“You know what? They are exactly the kind of people I want to kill. Can’t we do it now?” she asked Dred.

“Not yet. Let Bethor and Hector finish their speech when they arrive, show their bond and then we can do it. But we will have to leave afterwards. Both the city and this kingdom.”

“Haha, that’s fine by me. I could assassinate them as well, but that would cause unrest. This way, they will know who killed them and there will be no suspicion. Whether I’m a villainess or a heroine in people’s eyes, I don’t care. In the end, it always comes down to one thing. What they want to see and hear.”

“Well said,” Dred nodded his head.

Teslow and his entourage were left with wide opened mouths. His lips parted to say something, but after thinking about it for some time, he closed his mouth. His face twitched slightly as he bowed down slightly, “I apologize for not being any help to the Princess and our Kings.” Clenching his fists, he continued, “If you don’t mind, I’ll take my leave now.”

“Go then” was all Elena said, while her eyes burned with hate. “Your kind is the shittiest. Atelon was a trash person, but at least he was open about it and he worked to become strong enough to support his twisted ideals. I’m probably similar in that. But these people…”

“They are just waiting for the right moments to leech off of other people, doing nothing but taking sides. Those deceased people were just a small amount considering the whole planet, but how many people would be still living if these nobles helped? My last present for Bethor and Hector will be that I’ll remove every noble from this place. They would just betray them at the first opportunity anyway. Might as well get ahead of them,” she fumed in her mind.“Are you okay with that?”

Hearing her question, a smile formed on Dred’s face as he held Elena’s face and leaned closer for a kiss. “Yeah. Remember. I belong with you. I want what you want and the other way around.”

“Hehe, okay.”

Their idiotic lovebirds moment was interrupted by a loud announcement, coming from the servant’s who stood in the door.

“KING HECTOR AND KING BETHOR HAVE ARRIVED!”

The guests welcomed the kings with claps. When Hector and Bethor stopped in front of their thrones, they crowd turned silent and waited.

“I thank you for coming here this evening to celebrate with us and to mourn those who died for our goal, which is to create a powerful Kingdom and get to new heights!” Bethor shouted.

Hector picked up on Bethor’s words and continued his speech. He told what kind of union they made and how they would operate from now on.

Bethor finished everything with an inspirational speech and after the coronation ceremony took place, everyone cheered loudly. Elena and Dred were on the verge of falling asleep in the corner since there was nothing new for them. Elena’s boredom got to the point where she just sat down beside the table and started nibbling on some of the more delicious food.

“So who should we kill? You gathered more information,” Elena asked after gulping down a ball-shaped chocolate dessert.

“Yeah, since you were too lazy to do it, I had to look up everything and kill the necessary people…” Dred grumbled upon remembering what he had to do this last month. Finding spies, conspiring nobles who aspired to take the throne, assassins, and gather intelligence to make sure that he wasn’t just killing innocent people. Elena helped him sometimes, but she focused on perfecting Ekilsta and her spells most of the time.

“I’m sorry for that, but I rewarded you every time!”

Dred raised a brow, “Is that so? It’s not like you aren’t a pervert yourself…”

“I’m not.”

“Mhm, you are so believable, Elena.”

“...”

Sighing loudly, Dred finally replied, “The Nyssa family, the Diogenia family-”

He couldn’t finish the list since he saw a short brown haired and a long red haired girl coming their way.

“Yo, little devils. What are you doing in the corner? Stuffing your mouth?” Sally asked with a smirk, seeing Elena eating one chocolate ball after the other.

“It’s nice to see you too… and I just realized that I hate these kinds of events,” Elena replied with a long sigh.

“I know how you feel. We are warriors in the heart. Events like these aren’t good for us,” Sally laughed. She too had only a simple silver coloured dress on, similarly reaching her thighs. Opposite of her, Hoa’s red dress was very eye-catching, especially combined with her beauty.

“You two are strange. Doesn’t it make you feel good when you know that you look good?” Hoa asked with wonder, not understanding them.

“Who are you calling strange?” Sally asked as she gripped Hoa’s shoulders.

“Ouch, ouch! Stop it, Master.”

“Haah- anyway, what do you plan to do once this ceremony ends? You don’t seem to want to stay here,” Sally tilted her head to the side.

“Why do you think so?” Elena asked.

“You rarely even came to the city and lived in the forest instead. I didn’t even see you talk with Hector, who should be your stepfather, in a way, and I heard from one of my friends that the princess was buying travelling equipment.”

“Your friends talk too much… But it’s as you said, we don’t plan to stay here.”

“By the way, you didn’t pay taxes after your shampoo store… I should show you to your prison since you didn’t pay even after all those warnings.”

“Why the hell do you even bring this up?” Elena raised a brow, knowing that Sally would never bother with actually taking her to a prison.

“Haah- it would have been nice if you had stayed. You are very talented and we need people like you. But since you are going to leave, can I ask a question? It’s been bugging me for a long time now.” Sally clenched her fists.

“What’s it?”

“I want to know the truth about the guards and the hidden thugs that were killed. Was it actually you or Atelon’s people or some outside force? I won’t hold it against you, even if it was you. I just want to know how you broke the oath in case it was you.”

“You are straight with your words, like always…” Dred remarked, catching Sally’s attention.

“Are you not going to reply?”

Elena looked at Dred from the corner of her eye, asking for help. She was unsure of what to do. “Fine. It was me and we didn’t break the oath. We just took them out of the city and killed them there. Jake didn’t see when we killed Al, he saw when we brought back his body and laid him on the ground.”

“But when we found out what was going on, we wanted to leave for the capital city and take care of Atelon. It happened by chance that we found a gateway between the two planets-”

Interrupting Dred’s words, Elena said, “Do you really want to tell that too to her?”

“It doesn’t matter at this point and won’t change anything,” Dred shrugged his shoulders, while Sally’s interest was piqued.

“We found the Drung Kingdom by chance and we didn’t even know their language. We learned it over the time we spent there and I’m quite sure that Hector worked hard to learn our language too. They were in trouble as well and after helping them out, we made deals with Hector to cover for us. It was a bit risky, but we helped both sides in the end, so it’s fine. I’m sure that you are clever enough to keep your mouth shut and not tell anyone.”

Hearing Dred’s words, Sally took a seat beside Elena and held her forehead. “Hahaha, so we were led around by the nose the whole time. It’s no wonder that you don’t care about Hector that much. But let me ask you why did you do this? What did you gain from helping us? I mean, most people help when they gain something from it.”

This time, Elena replied, “Nothing in particular. We’ve gained experience and power if I have to say anything.” I can’t tell her that the war gave us so much strength in such a short time. It would be hard for her to imagine that we levelled up more than fifty levels in a single battle. It would make her suspicious as well.

“It’s good that you told her everything, Dred. Now we have an excuse to everything and there should be nothing turning us into suspects of Devourers. We didn’t break oaths, we didn’t devour people in public, we didn’t kill everyone like we are supposed to, and our abilities are still hidden. The only suspicious thing about us is our progress speed. But that should be alright.”

“I know, that’s why I told her everything. If any higher being came here in the future to ask about us, she would tell everything and still nothing,” Dred replied in her mind.

“I love you~” Elena thought with a cheerful tone.

Poking Sally’s shoulder, Elena looked into her eyes seriously as she said, “Sally, I’m sorry. It’s for your kingdom’s sake.”

“What are you talking about?” She asked, but her vision slowly turned blurred. Looking at Hoa who stood beside her, she saw her falling to the ground before everything turned dark. Standing up, Elena took off her cape and pulled out her daggers from her storage ring.

“What did you do?!” Bethor shouted upon noticing Sally’s and Hoa’s state.

“Hold your horses. I just put her to sleep with a strong herb. She will wake up in five or ten minutes, along with the rest of the people,” she replied as she walked towards a man nearby. Everyone but Caleb and Bethor fell asleep in the ballroom, even the Special Forces, who used powerful spells to hide. She took out a yellow coloured flower from between her breasts and put it on the ground.

“You surely know this. It’s a simple flower with a sleeping effect. It’s perfect for what I need to do at the moment. I hope that you will close your eyes and fall asleep along with the others,” she said with a meaningful tone. Standing over her first target, she grabbed his hair and raised his head. Holding her dagger against his forehead, Elena looked into Bethor’s eyes.

“What are you trying to do?” he asked, trying to resist the sleepiness that was coming over him. Thanks to his high level, he was strong enough to stay awake if he wanted.

“You know that your new Thivalon Kingdom will never reach new heights as long as these pests are here. They will always look for ways to stab you in the back and gain more benefits and if you killed them, you would be feared by your men, in a bad way. You surely don’t want that. You can ask Sally about the details pertaining us later. For now, it’s enough if you know that we aren’t related to either of the two kingdoms that existed a month ago.”

“I’ll be the evil who killed the nobles and then ran away. I planned to leave anyway. Whether I’m a bad girl or not is something I don’t care about. So just fall asleep and say that you couldn’t stop me either. Fake your sadness and everything will be alright.”

Clenching his fists, Bethor made a thoughtful face.

“Time is running out.”

Hearing Elena’s warning, he stopped channelling his Mana and felt sleepiness overcome him. As the world turned dark, he saw through the slit of his eyes as Elena’s dagger entered the man’s forehead through his brain.

“Alright, he is unconscious. Let’s get to work and then leave. Our friends must be waiting already~” Elena mused as she walked towards her next target.

“Haah- so many corpses we could have devoured! This is like torture…” Dred grumbled, seeing the growing amount of corpses.

Slitting a woman’s throat, Elena replied “Yeah, but we must leave behind their bodies ‘intact’. The marks of our weapons are enough. If we devoured them or turned them into empty husks, it would be too obvious what kind of race killed them. And the humans from Kriton will probably start appearing here soon, while their planet should die in the next few days. Once the higher beings sense the sudden death of a young world like Kriton, they will definitely start looking for its cause. Once they realise that Devourers were born, we will be hunted all around the world, haha. I wonder what it’s like on their side…”

“It’s not so funny when you think about it…” Dred muttered as he stomped on a man’s head and smashed it into a bloody pulp.

“Well, that’s where the fun begins!”

“You are a bit too optimistic sometimes. But whatever. This is actually enjoyable…” he added while crushing another head.

“Shh- behave. Don’t turn this place into a bloody mess. Somebody will have to clean up their brain matters now…” Elena rebuked him.

“I don’t care. We are finished now. Let’s leave a message and then leave this place,” Dred said as he started carving a few words into the walls of the ballroom.

“Death awaits the spineless worms, those who have no pride and tread on the path of betrayal, conspiracy, and treacherousness. Heed my words for we will always find you.”

“Hehe, did you think of it now?” Elena read aloud and asked.

“Mhm.”

“Sounds good to me. Let’s go,” she grabbed Dred’s hand and pulled him towards the door. Reaching the snow-covered park outside, Dred transformed into his Wyvern form and flew into the starry night sky, Elena on his back. He landed in the forest far away from the city.

“We are back!” Elena shouted as she jumped off of Dred’s back and ran behind a tree. Her black dress dissolved on her body and after taking out her leather armour, she wore it happily.

“Finally, I hate dresses, it seems,” she grumbled to herself.

“But you were very sexy in it,” Dred whispered into her ear, startling her.

“Damn it, you startled me. Don’t sneak up on me like that!” she complained.

“Fine. Are you not interested in turning Sally into our blood servant? She is quite talented, after all,” Dred asked as he hugged Elena from behind.

“She is quite talented, but she reached her current strength after many years. She wouldn’t be able to keep up with us even if she got our blood. You know that we have only three options. Find very young people or people with almost no magical past or very talented people, like Cor. I don’t know how strong he was in the past, but he was definitely a rare genius. When I saw him unconsciously activate a Shell type armour, that became clear to me.”

“Mhm. Creating Mana Armor is really hard, after all,” Dred muttered as he gave a kiss on the back of Elena’s head.

“Uhm, let’s go. The air is turning quite hot, even though it’s really cold.”

“Heh- I can’t deny that” Dred replied and let go of her.

Their friends were already waiting for them, packed up for the travel. Dred transformed into his Wyvern form and after everyone got on, he took off.

He made a small circle in the air and looked at the city far away. The blue lights of the Mana Crystals shone ever so brightly, illuminating the city.

Elena and the others had thick coats covering their bodies which protected them from the cold wind. Looking up at the beautiful night sky, filled with stars, Elena spread her arms and enjoyed the cold wind, even if it felt bad. She felt alive.

“Hey your hair is tickling my face,” Audrey complained behind her back.

“Haha, wait a moment,” Elena chuckled and tied her hair in a ponytail.

Sucking in a breath of cold air, she leaned back and rested her back on Audrey’s chest. Audrey embraced her from behind and both of them closed their eyes. As Dred finished his circle, he flew off, towards their future.