Chapter 580: Challenges Thea’s version (part 16)
Seeing the two queens taking their battle with the Fake Thalia into the sky, Nea took the lead of the army, as Mirellia's friend who grew alongside her to become her personal guard, she chose the path that would allow her to complement the current Lamia queen, in other words she became a mage.
However, the reason as to why she got along so well with Mirellia, is simple, though they are both calm and composed in their daily lives, when it comes to anything battle related, they are both… savages.
"Don't leave a single one of these damn fanatics alive!", with a fierce war-cry, Nea wielded her new toy, the highest ranked magic weapon of the batch of treasures that Daimon gave them, a metal Warhammer.
Originally, Daimon considered giving that thing which didn't lose in terms of quality when compared to the war spear, that Horals got as his reward back at Neptune, to Calvin since he wanted to stablish a connection with his grandfather, but he got a better offering in mind now, so the Warhammer went to Nea.
And judging by her smiling expression when she rose it upwards as she channeled a large amount of mana through it, she really like the thing.
"Verdict!", with a single word and a swung of her Warhammer, a few hundreds of metal spikes of around ten meters of size, manifested behind Nea, who then flew into the battlefield, sniping any target that caught her eyes.
Blood flowers, blossomed all over the battlefield, as Nea made her way towards the Snake Tyrant's army, second in command, a tall woman wearing black armor, meaning she was from the Black Spirit race, like the one in charge of the hidden lab.
"Light green hair and metal affinity, the second branch royalty, the Gramy family, you resemble that woman who lost her life protecting the former Lamia queen, quite a bit, what a shame I couldn't get my hands on her corpse since she blew herself up at the last moment", said the black armored woman.
Nea's body shook from anger, the one of whom the woman was talking about was her mother, the captain of the royal guard back when Mirellia's mother was the queen, who lost her life, when they were ambushed within a dimensional tunnel.
Seeing her taunt working, the black armored woman smirked behind her helmet, but that sadist smile of hers froze when multiple metal clashing sounds echoed through the battlefield.
"Trying to assassinate someone in the presence of the Mein family's "radiance", aren't you underestimating us a bit too much, dear friends from the Dagger Teeth race", a cold voice came from behind Nea, as two figures revealed themselves.
Closest to Nea, there was a lanky man wearing grey leather armor and pointing a black dagger towards Nea's armpit, one of the weak points of human-shaped races as there is a clear path towards the heart there, that guy is the captain of the Grey Snake army, formed exclusively by the Dagger Teeth snake race, the assassin squad that served the fake Thalia.
And behind of him, was a rather unexpected figure, a meek-looking young woman with honey blond hair and brown eyes, wearing light metal white colored armor, used her own dagger to stop the one aiming at Nea, it was the Mein Naga queen.
Since the Mein family has always had the lowest number of high ranked people, as the vast majority of its members are mixed races who were ostracized and driven out by the other families, the Mein queen of around ten or so generations ago, made a decision, since they couldn't rival others head on, then they would do so in the shadows and thus the next queen and all the upper echelon of the Mein family, were trained to become assassins.
Thus, they overcame the limits of having a smaller number of people, or being the weakest among the Naga royals, since an assassin can take on stronger enemies, the most interesting part of this story is that, not even the other Naga kings knew about this, the Queen who was considered the weakest among them, was actually the most dangerous, a dagger hidden at plain sight, they were utterly tricked by her.
Let alone them, even Mirellia hadn't confirmed the Mein queen's ability, until not too long ago, as she decided to reveal it herself, since now the Lamia and Naga races were united again, thanks to Daimon's interference.
"Why the hell is an assassin wearing white and metal armor", said the leader of the Dagger Teeth race as he broke the clash between his dagger and the Mein queen's one, putting some distance between them.
It was certainly unusual to see an assassin using light colored clothes and wearing metal armor, that would be prompter to make noise and also limited mobility more than leather armor.
"Training purposes, if we got used to handicaps like leather to avoid making noise when moving or dark colored stuff to make it easier to erase our presence, then we'll end up being mediocre and the one bleeding after a single exchange wouldn't be you, but us", said the Mein queen as she raised her dagger, showing the drops of blood that stained its tip.
This scene repeated all over the battlefield, since the members of the Mein family's forces, blocked the assassins from the fake Thalia's army and retaliated at the same time, showing that they wielded two daggers instead of the traditional single dagger fighting style of an assassin.
Despite the wounds not being fatal, they were a huge blow against the pride of those assassins, as their angered faces suggested, both the Mein family's forces and the fake Thalia's assassin's squad vanished from plain sight again, quietly focusing on their own war, allowing the regular soldiers to continue loudly clashing on the battlefield.
"Damn it!", the Snake Tyrant's army second in command, cursed at the fact that their army got bested like that, she also felt wary since they didn't know that the Melliun kingdom also had a strong assassin army at their disposition.
…
While the Lamia and Naga armies engaged in battle with the Snake Tyrant's army, above in the sky said Snake Tyrant was clashing against a pair of black and green fierce flashes of light, which were none other than Thea and Mirellia of course.
"Booom!", an explosion resulting of the clash of those two's mana and battle aura as well as the fake Thalia's mana, echoed through the sky, sparks flew all over the place followed by a thunder produced by the shockwave, which forced the three to backwards, breaking the previously close quarter exchange of blows.
"To think the Melliun kingdom which was always a bystander in the battle for the supremacy of Draim, would turn out to be so good at hiding their trump cards, a whole assassin force was kept under the rug when it could have come in handy quite a few times in the past, like that battle where the former queen got the wound that ended her life, for example", coldly said the fake Thalia to then mockingly add.
"Still, revealing it to the world just because you got sweet talked by a rebellious child, I must say you are "greener" than what I expected, Lamia queen".
As composed as Mirellia looked on the surface, her blood felt like boiling, that being said, this subject was already discussed beforehand, when the Mein queen revealed her forces, Mirellia's mind couldn't help but wonder if her mother could have been saved if a high ranked assassin bodyguard was with her.
However, she didn't put the blame on the Mein queen, the reason as to why she had to keep her kingdom's forces on a leash, limiting herself to keep the peace at her own kingdom, was because of Duke Nascenti and the Yillian naga king, their influence spread to the Lamia nobility, so she had her hands tied, if she made a bad move, her kingdom would have suffered.
In other words, the real cause of the former queen's death was both the corruption in the Melliun kingdom and the subordinates of the, mocking silver armored woman who was floating a few hundreds of meters away from the Lamia queen.
Before Mirellia could say anything, Thea whose eyes sparkled for a second, patted her shoulder, but by the time she turned around to thank Thea, the empress was nowhere to be seen.
"You sure talk big for someone who has to rely on a magic treasure to barely keep up with my spatial affinity, old ancestor~", jokingly said Thea making emphasis on the word "old".
The empress who didn't pay mind to the taunts, ridicule and mockery of the enemy, has recently decided to change her ways, something she took from Daimon's book, is that the battle of the mind comes before the physical battle.
It was amusing to see the formerly frank and battle centered empress, adding a sharp tongue to her arsenal, if Evangeline was here, she would have said that Daimon has successfully "corrupted" Thea.
Specially because, her words hit a sore spot for the fake Thalia, that shiny full body silver armor, wasn't only to satisfy her vanity, it was a really rare and extremely valuable spatial attributed magic treasure, which property wasn't storage-related.
Unfortunately, and as luxurious as that sounded, the reason as to why she wore it, wasn't grand at all, Thea could tell since the very first time her eyes gazed at the fake Thalia, that unlike Daimon or herself, that woman didn't have spatial affinity by innate.
The body she was currently using, was an artificial one created by imitating Thea's race after all, so while she gave said race, spatial affinity it wasn't as good as those innately talented in the space attribute, even after she entered the Stellar realms which allowed her to move through space with ease, enhancing her spatial affinity, compared to Thea, she was second rate at most.
The fake Thalia knew that someday, someone with spatial affinity by innate would come, because the pages she left in that diary, would only show the coordinates of Draim to someone like that, so after gathering the dregs of space laws produced by using the summoning circle, for dozens of thousands of years, as well as a fortunate encounter in a dimensional tunnel, where she obtained a space attributed piece of metal, she with the "help" of the blacksmiths from the Rune Scale race, under her, this armor was created.
Said help, was basically sacrificing a peak high stage Stellar, in secret, to process the metal and infuse those specs of space laws into it, granting the armor the incredible ability to enhance the space affinity of the one who wore it, beyond its realm/race limits.
What she didn't take into account was the fact that at the end of his days, Ryner would awaken space affinity and while he wasn't born with it, but obtained it thanks to Thalia's blood which was bestowed to him, his space affinity derived from the real deal and it also grew stronger trough hundreds of thousands of years of being stored as no one could make use of it, until Thea was born.
And that Ryne's fang would end up becoming a space attributed material, with a non-storage related property as well, making the spear which was crafted with it, the nemesis of her prized armor.
Thea's spear didn't enhance her space affinity, not because Ryner's fang couldn't be processed to achieve that function, but because Thea's space affinity was as strong as her body could handle, the fact that she hadn't been able to advance to the high Stellar stage, despite the latent talent which fiercely ran through her veins, is because she is unable to fully exploit her own potential.
And her spear was designed to help her with that, the Royal Fang as she named it, has two functions, first and formal it was made to resist the raging power of space and second… it could cut, pierce and break through space, it was a "cane" to help Thea experience what a royal of the Void Devouring Python race could do if she was able to control her innate talent, properly.
'Tsk, that damn Ryner bastard, being a thorn on my side even after his death!', inwardly cursed the fake Thalia as she saw the sharp head of Thea's spear coming at her neck, from the side of her eyes.
"Crack!", her silver armor shone, projecting a translucid thin membrane at the fake Thalia's side, just in time to collide with the tip of Thea's black spear.
Normally the defense of the fake Thalia's armor, which is a space barrier, wouldn't budge unless a peak high stage Stellar attacked it seriously, but the tip of Thea's spear pierced through it as if it was nothing, destroying the projected shield as it went through it.
With a "swosh", the fake Thalia managed to teleport herself a whole kilometer away from her previous position thanks to the millisecond she gained by her armor defending her by Thea's surprise attack.
That being said, the smirk on Thea's face made the fake Thalia touch the face of her helmet, just to feel a thin but really deep cut which was carved through it, it didn't stop there, a faint but still noticeable cut was made on her cheek, in other words, Thea's attack had harmed her face!
And this was possible because of the fraction of second, in which the fake Thalia was distracted due to Thea's sharp words, which is why Thea inwardly giggled, remembering Daimon's advice to incorporate some techniques to mess with the mind of her enemies into her fighting style.
Though Thea didn't externalize it, it was impossible not to notice her current bright mood, Mirellia nodded at Thea before she gave the fake Thalia a condescending gaze, making the latter grit her teeth.
"Booom!", the energies of those three clashed on the air as the they all released their domains and battle avatar respectively, also Mirellia's legs turned into a gracious, light green scaled snake tail, meaning that their fight was about to turn serious.
…
Quite a few dozens of thousands of kilometers away from the battlefield, within a dimensional tunnel, a silver haired masked youth accompanied by a few beauties as well as a group of fully black clothed figures who even wore masks, advanced at high speed.
That was of course Daimon and the others who had left the vicinity of the hidden lab and were now rushing to their next destination, the curious thing is that while the overall direction in which they were advancing did align with the location of the Snake Tyrant's headquarters, they had taken a significant deviation, which altered the final destination of the dimensional tunnel.
Daimon who was meditating in the dimensional tunnel, since he had a sudden moment of "inspiration" after he made a contract with Thalia, opened his eyes realizing that he was still missing something and because they were about to arrive to their first stop.
He observed the others, who followed his advice and focused on recovering and adjusting themselves to be at their prime for the incoming battle, even the younger Lamia princess was responsively meditating.
"Wake up everyone, we are about to exit the dimensional tunnel", he said, making each and every present person open their eyes.
This dimensional tunnel to which Rita connected her own, was discovered and "adapted" in a short period of time thanks to Mirellia using the sapphire refined by the first queen, in order to kept it hidden from others, but there was a limit, just like earlier when the army arrived at the headquarters.
'Daimon, are you sure you don't want me to put up a barrier…', mumbled Rita from within Daimon's shadow, to which the latter shook his head in response.
'No need, but be on guard in case we have to leave in a rush'.
'Mm, okay', with that, the group reached the exit of the dimensional tunnel, appearing in the middle of a mountain range, constant trembles shook the nearby ground while wild roars and other sounds could be heard coming from all over the place.
In case you wonder, where did Daimon had chosen to appear, it was in the closest island which belonged to the Dark Berserker army.
Since they weren't hiding their presence, it didn't take even a minute for the owners of this island to rush towards them, but before that, a large pack of magic beasts arrived to their current position.
The races were quite varied, but they were all reptiles and another thing that they all had in common, were their bloodshot eyes and the murder gazes that they directed towards Daimon and the others, those were the distinctive traits of the Dark Berserker clan.
'Mm, they are pretty much mindless and are just obeying the command that was given to them, pretty much like that snake back then', thought Daimon as he inspected the arriving magic beasts.
Among which, there were mostly peak Arch rank ones as well as a couple of initial Stellar rank, another thing that Daimon noticed is that, while invisible to the naked eye, each and all of those magic beasts were radiating a red thin mist that pounced towards them.
The first one to react was Naomi, the younger Lamia princess frowned, feeling a strange unpleasant sensation, for a second, the smell of iron assaulted her nose, until Ferris placed her hand on top of her head.
"Sharpen your mana, that is the innate ability of the Dark Berserker clan, they use their murderous intent to confuse their enemies, when in presence of the stronger ones you'll smell blood even if there isn't any in the vicinity and see seas of bones and blood around them, it's quite shocking the first time", she said as she stole a gaze at Daimon.
Truth to be told, Ferris was amazed at how good Naomi processed her first encounter with strong members of the Dark Berserker clan, despite she being a mage, when back then when she experienced it, she nearly vomited due to the bloody smell and that is taking into the account that Ferris as a knight has a tougher body.
It wasn't a matter of talent, but of experience, so the only reason for Naomi's smoother reaction that the older Lamia princess could think about was that they were exposed to Daimon's aura which had a similar but way stronger effect, earlier.
While Naomi coughed a couple of times before calming down, Daimon's eyes were glowing behind his mask.
'Those guys are using a crude and rudimental form of aura, with similar functions to my Overlord's Pride, in that case…', the atmosphere around Daimon took a 180° turn when he expulsed his aura all over the place.
Unlike the ability of the Dark Berserker clan, which though hard to detect, could still be seen by the infinity eyes, the aura of Overlord's Pride was colorless and formless, still Daimon could perfectly see how that red fog which tried to swallow them, was easily driven away by him.
In fact, the magic beasts all trembled the very moment his Overlord's Pride was unleashed, before they started roaring at Daimon in a try to hide their fear.
"Perfect, those guys are taking too long to reach us and these beasts should do the trick, Celia restrain them, Rita, open the portal", said Daimon.
"Yes", with an answer in unison, Celia casted water chains that restrained all the magic beasts in the vicinity, for a total of around three hundred of members of the Dark Berserker clan.
Why was he going through this hassle you ask, well, in terms of size, the fake Thea's army would outnumber both the Melliun kingdom three or four times, not because the fake Thalia's subordinates were more talented, but because she had a swarm of magic beasts at her disposition.
All those hatching grounds worked at all times, so though she used a lot of magic beasts as cannon fogger, the numbers were constantly being replenished.
Which is why, the plan wasn't to go in a war of attrition with them but to strike the headquarters and of course kill the enemy commanders, among them, the fake Thalia was the final target.
Naturally at this point, the fake Thalia should have already called all the available magic beasts towards the headquarter, luckily Daimon also had something in mind to deal with them.
Basically, he was going to "borrow" some magic beasts from the Dark Berserker clan, restrain them and throw them at the border of the fake Thalia's headquarter, the reason was simple, he wanted to seed chaos in the Snake Tyrant's army, making it easier for Thea to deal with the fake Thalia.
But apparently the plan was about to take an interesting detour, Daimon, Rita and Ferris suddenly looked upwards, while Celia's water chains which were about to capture the nearby magic beasts, were suddenly erased.
"Since when does anyone try to snatch my subordinates", a cold and unpleasant to the ear, voice came from above, followed by a visible wave of red fog that poured down towards Daimon and the others.
"Booom!", an "invisible" wall interrupted the advance of the red fog, stopping the weakest members of the group from passing out due to the smell of blood.
The magic beasts seemed to go crazy about the clash, they actually started fighting each other, pretty much to the surprise of the tall bulky man who just arrived.
'How the hell is fighting for the control of the pack!', inwardly screamed Travis, that's right, the newcomer was actually the leader of the Dark Berserker clan and the fake Thalia's sworn enemy!