Ava’s POV(as the ballroom fight is going on): I had slowly started to get used to the underground city and some of the civilians had even warmed up to me enough to not give me looks of disdain. The soldiers on the other hand didn’t care one way or the other. I’d never seen soldiers who were so fanatically loyal that even idle gossip about their young master was enough to have several death threats hurled at you. As long as you didn’t break any laws or go somewhere you shouldn’t they would just ignore you, but should you try to steal something there was no escaping them. Today had started out like normal my sister woke up jumped on me till I was awake and after eating a breakfast I prepared for her she climbed into a military truck as it was called that would take her and the other children her age to a school. it had taken some getting used to in order to adjust from the life of a royal where servants did everything for us to having to work just to be able to eat. The government of the city had given all those they rescued a small amount of money that would last a month so that hopefully they could find a job before it ran out. My sister seemed to like it here and she’d even made a couple of friends. One thing I couldn’t bring myself to tell her was that this would probably be our last day here, I’d decided to tell the upper levels of the cities government that we were both princess of Yggdrasil. After they found out I would have to tell them the embarrassing story of how we had gotten into a spat with our parents and fled the royal capital with no plans before being captured by human slavers and ending up were we are now. I’m sure mother and father must be very worried and they might even have tried to attack the humans to get us back. Since the humans and even the other dwarfs and elves didn’t recognise us as the princesses of Yggdrasil no one was the wiser, and I couldn’t even think about how mad I’d be at myself if our saviours got in trouble cause we were to scared to reveal ourselves. Or more like I was. As I was on my way to the castle I noticed the soldiers were rushing every which way and the shops that normally lined the base of the hill leading to the castle fortress on the hill were all closed. As I got closer I could hear yelling, “All squad leaders report in!”

“Beta 1-1 team all accounted for”

“Beta 2-1 accounted for”

“Alpha 2-1 missing two guardsman who are on the wall!”

And it went on and on. For one city they had a massive army nearly half the population were soldiers and the other half had been trained as reserves for if the time ever came. It looked like almost all the actual soldiers were here. There were nearly 5,000 of the soldiers who carried the title of guardsman and almost 500 of the big armoured soldiers who were called protectors. Seeing one of the gate guards approaching me I nearly clammed up but remembered that I needed to return home before a war occurred over our disappearance. As the gate guard got nearer to me he asked me,”Miss there is a mandatory stay at home order on right now if you are seen out of your assigned building again you will be held on suspicion of treason.”

“I need to speak to your vice general or another high ranked official.”

“That is not possible right now they are preparing for war.”

“War against who?”

Pointing at me he said the one thing I’d been hoping against hope he wouldn’t, “your people”

Falling to my knees I grabbed his armor and I desperately begged him to let me inside,”please let me talk to them! I can stop the war! I just need them to listen to me.”

“The guard looked down on me and in a tone that toed the line of being a threat he hissed, “one of our own is died saving the young master from being killed by a poison arrow. It doesn’t matter even if you were somehow a princess of theirs we are at war. Half of us go to support the master in battle and the other half go to put one of the border cities to the torch. Plead your case to the council all you want we want blood.”

Turning on his heel he led me past the gathered soldiers who seemed to hate anything elven at the moment and took me straight to a room where 8 seats were arranged in a semi circle with a 9th seat behind them that was raised into what looked like the mouth of a demon lord. Only one seat was occupied and it was the seat on the far left where a old human with graying hair sat.

Without saying a word the guard who brought me bowed and left the room closing the doors behind him. I had gone to the library in the city proper several times in the past couple weeks I’d been here and I’d made sure to find out what titles were used for those who were in governmental positions. A seat on the council of elders was decided purely by merit and anyone who managed to become a member were given the title of elder followed by what ever they were chosen to advise their master in. The man infront of me was the strategist for their entire military. He was known as a very calm man who rarely lost his temper even when dealing with the most selfish of nobles. However this time he was different he was hitting me with a vast amount of killing intent and I knew this was someone who had long since surpassed the limits of the average human, his rank was at least the lower and of double S or he might have even had a foot through the door for triple S.

“If I hadn’t seen the look of terror on your face when you heard we were going to war I would have executed you the second you walked through that door.”

Deciding that going the normal route of a princess and acting like we stood on equal footing would be a bad idea I treated him like I would if I were talking to my parents during court. Curtsying to him and bowing my head I introduced my self.

“Greetings honoured elder I am Ava Yggdrasil the second princess of the elves.”

The second I introduced myself he grabbed my hand and teleported us back out to were the soldiers were gathering, I also saw my sister appear out of a portal the elder had conjured. Pulling me along he shoved me in front of a small table that had a moving image of a protecter who seemed to be in combat as he kept looking over some wall we couldn’t see and firing some kind of wand in the direction of his enemies.

“This is alpha 1-3 of the masters body guards we need those reinforcements now! We’re being overwhelmed and we’re down to our last couple rounds!”

“Hold out for one more minute then we’re through the spatial blockade!” One of the other elders yelled at the table

The elder strategist I was with reached into his coat and pulled out something that resembled the wands I’d seen the protectors use when they rescued us. I’d seen how devasting the were against flesh and as I felt it touch the back of my head and heard the click of some mechanism in it I knew I was in trouble.

Speaking to the man in the table the elder said, “Alpha 1-3 project this to the entire ballroom.”

“Confirming orders my lor” he was interrupted by the elder

“Your heard me the first time soldier question orders again and I will kill you.”

“Of course sir sorry sir, projection will take 30 seconds for everyone in the ballroom to see.”

Leonidas POV: it had been only a couple of seconds since Isabell had engaged the elven queen and despite how powerful my “elder sister” was she seemed to be completely overwhelmed by that elven b****. Me and my soldiers were almost completely out of ammo and despite my massive mana pool this body could only handle first through third tier spells. Because of my knowledge and my ability to practice in my mind I had gotten several skills to very high levels but I couldn’t use those spells because of the strain they put on my body. Even my strongest skill which multiplied all my stats by 10 times put a massive amount of stress on my physical body and forget being detrimental to my development in this human body it might very well kill me. The first time I used the “True Demon Lord transformation first form” it I broke both my legs and seriously damaged my spine. If it weren’t for mother and her incredibly powerful healing magic I might have become disabled for life. Despite the risks I knew we needed to help Isabell hold out for just half a minute. Despite it only being 30 seconds on a battlefield 30 seconds could feel like a lifetime. Me and alpha looked at each other and I could see he knew what needed to be done. My the highest level magic I could use in theory was my dark magic at lvl 6 and most likely death magic both because of my blessing from the gods of darkness and death and my past life as the living incarnation of the law of death. I couldn’t help but hesitate even with all the magical powers I had at my disposal I was a frontline fighter who used magic as a shield and to keep the small fry away from my fights against higher level opponents. Never had I studied magical combat, I’d always relegated the mages of my house to support and defensive duties. Buffing my front line soldiers, shielding them from other magical attack, weakening the enemy forces and doing some crowd control if an opportunity presented itself. I started to panick my mind going into overdrive as I retreated inside my mind trying to find some way to hold out long enough for help to get here. I clenched and I clenched my fists looking around desperately for something, anything!

“Stop child” a voice echoed in my head, “I am the world. *Yawn* stop doubting yourself move with confidence. I chose you as my next ruler and partner because of your courage. Do not make me regret my choice because you allowed the death of one soldier to shake you so much you don’t see the truth in front of you. Now. Do your duty and Fight in my name!” The connection cut off immediately after that and I could only assume that the world might very well have woken itself for no reason other then to slap some sense into its champion then gone back to napping. Unclenching my fists for the last time I stepped onto the parapet and drew my sword. Raising it into the air I yelled, “All melee troops up and over!”

Immediately I jumped over the wall and activated cloak of the darkness a 6 tier spell that allowed me to hide in the shadows and jump to any others within 10 meters. An elf who reached the base of the wall swung a long sword at me, he seemed to think I was just a brat who was trying to earn some honor for his family. Unfortunately for him I wasn’t some untrained ankle biter I was a trained ankle biter and using the shadows I warped behind him and bit the Achilles’ tendon on his right side. Using my teeth that had been reinforced with ki I ripped the part I was biting out of his foot. Screaming the elf turned around and swung his sword down at me, unfortunately for him alpha had come to my rescue and he wasn’t happy at all. His boot smashed the elf’s head into the ground and like a overripe tomato it popped. Blood went everywhere and since this body wasn’t use to death so did my vomit.

“Young master, next time you want to do something this stupid please let us know so we can tell you how stupid it is and come up with a better one!”

“Hehe” I chuckled nervously I was well aware that by the fact dad was currently tearing the elite elven troops around us apart with his bare hands that alpha spoke for both of them and I was aware I was probably gonna get the lecture of my life once this was over. while scratching the back of my head I said,”well it’s all or nothing either we help Isabell hold out for 20 more seconds or we’re all dead. So hop to it alpha we’ve got a champion to assist!”

As two elves charged us Alpha grabbed their heads and slammed them together knocking them unconscious before he drew his sword and beheaded them, “By us young master I don’t suppose you mean me, a mere A rank charge into a fight between those that surpass triple S and actually get something done that doesn’t involve instantly dying?”

“Yes it’s so nice to have a retainer who understands me so well.”

“F*** off you little brat.”

Despite Alphas sass and his claim of being a “mere” A rank he didn’t hesitate to start casting earthen mana arts in support of Isabell. On the other hand I was busy slapping the shit out of a mage who had made the mistake of using some kind of art that directly attacks the mind. I’m guessing it’s probably a 7th or 8th tier mind spell but it doesn’t matter, despite my mind element only being level 6 I have far more experience in mental combat then he does so I just shattered his mind after literally slapping the crap out of his Astral body. The rest of my protectors had formed a wall around me with their swords and shields out, while I casted spells to trip, distract and confuse our enemies. Since I couldn’t engage in melee combat I had sent Sebastian out on a little rampage after piling as many buff spells as I could on him. The only order I gave him when I sent the old butler off was to create as much chaos among their spell casters as possible. As to keep them from being able to engage me in a mages battle. Considering my mana pool was 20,000 times that of the average human and i didn’t think I’d lose one on one or even one against a dozen but I didn’t want to risk it when I’m not even sure how mages fight in this world. Through my connection to Alpha a felt a massive amount of pain and looking over I saw the there were vines growing from the ground and constricting around him. Looking at the elven queen I could see she was now covered in armor that seemed to be made from vines. While I was trying to free him I Yelled to alpha, “I’ve got good news and bad news. Which one do you want to hear first.”

“Let’s start with good master”

“She’s a champion of nature”

“And the bad news”

“She’s a champion of mother f***ing nature!”

“Oh that’s not very good for us.”

“No no it is not. 10 seconds left alpha let’s do this together!”

“Yes lord!”

After I managed to get alpha free I checked my mana and ki pool. Even with my mana recovery rate I was down to 200 average humans worth of mana. My ki pool was half empty but I could make that work. Signalling to Alpha and my protesters we all charged the elven queen. I don’t know why she would come here but you can bet I’m going to beat her reason out of right before I burn one of her cities to the ground infront of her. Alpha was the first to reach her his enchanted long sword smashed against hers. Locking their swords together Alpha suddenly twisted his blade so that the queens slid along the flat side and pushed throwing her out of balance and leaving her open for Isabel to launch a fireball at her. Recovering far faster then should have been possible the queen jumped over the fireball before sending a wave of water back towards Isabell. Before the wave even touched her it disappeared. Shuddering I silently reminded my self to never use mana to try and attack a champion of mana. While the queen was in the air I muttered,”your mine” and fired a small ball of death at her. I thought for sure I had her but then one of the vines one her armor flew out and grabbed onto a pillar pulling her to the side and resulting in only a couple of vines to turn black and shrivel up. Looking at me four vines shot from her armor two aimed for my eyes one aimed for my groin and the fourth went straight for my heart. Side stepping I barely dodged the two aimed at my heart and groin before turning my head to the side as the vines skimmed past my nose and the back of my head. I grinned to my self thinking it wouldn’t be to hard to hold out for another five seconds before I lost all sight in my left eye. I instantly used flash step to appear 10 meters to the left right behind a pillar before creating a small mirror using water magic. In my left eye was a thorn the size of my dads thumb imbedded directly in my pupil if I wasn’t for my ki barrier I might have died then and there. After pulling the thorn out I flipped around the corner just in time for Alpha to get knocked into the pillar next to me and to see a heavily bleeding Isabell kneeling on the ground as my remaining four protectors fought a desperate battle against the queen and some elite soldiers who had come to help her. My soldiers were being beaten quite badly and across the ballroom the nobles soldiers were dropping like flies. There was still five seconds left and I started running. Throwing caution to the wind lightning arched up and down my body as it stimulated my brain and increased my agility and strength. My voice echoed through the ballroom, “thunderclap strike”All anyone in the ballroom could see was a lightning bolt head straight for the queen in in far less then a millisecond I was standing in front of the soldier who had been forced two his knees by the elven queen. Just before her sword reached his neck my sword intercepted it and knocked it into the ground. 3 seconds to go! Her sword popped out of the ground and flashed towards me. Bending my knees I stepped back with my left and redirected her blow to my right. 2 seconds! Again her sword thundered towards me. This time it was an overhead slash meant to cut me in two. Despite the aching of my bones I used flash step again to appear behind her and I swung my sword right at her neck. She didn’t even bother blocking and let her ki barrier take the blow. swinging at me as I was in mid air and didn’t have any traction I was sent flying. I felt my left shoulder disconnect from the force of the blow. Doing a Flip in midair to reorient my self I slammed my sword into the ground to kill my momentum. As soon as I stoped her foot was already in my face and her kick broke my nose and my jaw. I could no longer move and I’m almost certain I had a concussion. Standing over me with her sword Pointed at my throat she said, “For a young champion who doesn’t even have his spirit yet it was a good fight. Now goodbye little brat this is what happens to any who would dare kidnap my daughter from me!” Looking straight at the king she continued,” my daughters will be returned to me in two days or else I’ll kill your daughter so you can feel my pain!”

At that moment the communication device we’d been using to talk to base glowed blue and a voice echoed from it, “All elves lay down your weapons and surrender or else your little bitch princess dies!”

Despite being only semi conscious I still recognised the voice as one that belonged to a elder I’d appointed to help me run our little city. While the elder made his threat portals opened up all around me and I could only sigh as I knew just how many mana cores it took to open all these. There goes building an even bigger army once I’m back. I’m gonna need to send the fake adventurers out again to get some more money. Or maybe come clean with dad so he can help me, either way I need cash. My thinking was a little messed up because of the beating I’d just been given and As my soldiers charged out I couldn’t even say anything to them other then meet the eyes of the 6 elders who’d come through the portal and looked at the elven queen with pure unadulterated killing intent. It was even manifesting around them in the form of armor that seemed to be made from blood and weapons that floated in the air. All these were non magical and were created by the sheer amount of bloodlust in the air. Meanwhile the face of the girl the elder strategist held in the video seemed to look right at her mother. Meanwhile the old bat didn’t even realise and looked at me, she was radiating killing intent and despite the nearly 5 thousand weapons aimed at her she was focused entirely on me.

The elders voice echoed through the ballroom one more time, “get off the young master or your little bitch of a daughter dies.” Out of the corner of my eye I could see father sneaking closer and getting ready to grab me with one of his high speed charges. As soon as the queen looked up father made his move creating an explosion under his feet he punched the queen in the face and grabbed me before spinning around and landing just in front of a squad of around thirty protectors who immediately moved forward to shield us and create a wall of flesh to keep the queen from trying to use me as a hostage. The queen realising she had lost her only leverage gestured for her soldiers to put down their weapons before she glared at the king and said, “well you win let us begin negotiations, just please do not harm my daughters i can give you a lot capital and magic beast cores if you just let them go!”

The elder only looked at her and responded with, “that depends how the negotiations go and what my master feels like. We rescued you precious daughter from a slave caravan so maybe someone should have kept a better eye on them and then we wouldn’t be in this position in the first place.”

As the medics hastily treated my wounds and my other body guards limped over to me to get healed as well a table was conjured and our king and the elven queen sat down to begin negotiations.