{Empress}
I lead the twenty lightly armed lizkin forces into the city with my man at my side. It must have been quite the sight. After getting the shell of the slave tattoo back on and learning how to make it vanish at will, I was relieved. If my man was to actually put a slave curse on me and use me in unsightly ways, I would never trust another person again. My man is worthy though, so I trust him. He looks so dignified right now too. Higher class settings really suit him. I couldn’t help but smile as we entered the city. What we began doing first was looking for a place to spend the time until nightfall, which means getting an inn. My man had a subtle smile on his face as we entered a high class inn. The food should be pretty good. After having a short talk with the innkeeper, we arranged for our wagons and the lizkin to sleep in a shed.
As I thought, he isn’t the first one to come into this city looking to raise an army to fight in the south. As we ate a light meal, we waited for other people to come into the inn. Normally, I wouldn’t give the other inn’s residents a second thought, but my man looked at them coldly. I gave a second glance, and I could feel the miasma coming off one of them. The only other person that I felt have such a strong force around them in recent times was my man. I understood immediately what he was thinking without us discussing it. He’ll be in trouble if he fought that person. As I tried to ignore them, they spotted us and laughed before coming over. The one with the miasma wrapped his arm around my neck as if it was the right thing to do.
“Hey there sweet thing. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a dragon1dragonspecies lass.” (Hero)
I then heard a crunch of iron under my mans fist as he squeezed his fork.
“Please unhand me.” (Empress)
I said, as calmly as I could, then the stranger gave me a confused look.
“Huh? Something wrong sexy?” (Hero)
I then turned toward coldly at him before speaking.
“You’re insulting my master. Please unhand me. I won’t be as polite the third time.” (Empress)
The man finally looked at my man after I said that.
“Scan!” (Hero)
As soon as he said that, I felt violated, then my man suddenly stood up.
‘What the hell are you doing disturbing my lunch!?’ (Emperor)
As his mental yell entered everyone in the dining area, my man moved to one of the hero’s escort woman, then put a hand on her breast. The catkin then squealed in surprise.
“What the hell man? I was only messing with you!” (Hero)
My man smirked after hearing that.
‘Oh, you’re not that big of a man that you’ll touch another person’s woman, but won’t accept another person touching yours? Why don’t we settle this outside then.’ (Emperor)
The hero gave a ‘tsk!’ sound as he moved away from me.
The six of us stood in the roadway, me and my man next to each other, and the hero with his three girls. This became a duel, as several city guards began to block off the street. As soon as I learned the other man was a hero, I became quite serious.
‘My lady, please beware. Common sense doesn’t apply to heroes. Don’t hesitate and don’t hold back. Activate my mate’s link’ (Emperor)
Notice! ‘mate of dragon blood’ has been activated by your mate. Your mate has confidence in you after his dignity was insulted. 10% bonus to all base stats. Your mate’s knowledge of curses6cursesstory mechanic enters into your mind. Skill, ‘curse resistance’ has been created. Skill, ‘soul rend’ has been acquired. Since the duel hasn’t officially started yet, I took a glance at my new ability. I’m already familiar with curse resistance after all.
Soul Rend– A world magic5magicstory mechanic skill. Infuse your weapons with your spirit. It also enables you to cut immaterial objects. When used on an enemy of the world, it’s 150% more effective. It also purifies light miasma.
It took less than a second to fully grasp the skills nature. Being the legacy of dragons, I had at least the basic concept of the world and my place. Even after falling from grace, the world hasn’t abandoned me yet it seems. I then smiled gently.
‘You seem calm and happy?’ (Emperor)
I looked back at my mate. For the first time, I spoke to him with my mind only.
‘I never realized how fortunate I am to have such a good man in my life.’ (Empress)
After that, I drew my sword.
Notice! ‘mate of dragon blood’ skill has been boosted. Accepting your partner as a lifelong mate has awakened your dragon blood’s true nature. You keep a calmer head through enraged states of mind. Class has been changed from dragonoid knight to dragon blood knight!
After reading the notice, I closed my eyes to focus as I stepped into the middle of the duel area. The so called hero was surprised as he looked at me.
“Is he not coming out here himself or something? Also, what’s with your jump in stats?” (Hero)
I eyed him coldly.
“You’re one to talk after getting all those enhancements.” (Empress)
We eyed one another for a minute before the guard that’s acting as the judge spoke.
“All right then. We guards will set up a barrier for the duel. After that, anything goes.” (Judge Guard)
The hero then looked at the guard.
“I want to add a wager. I want this woman as my own if I win.” (Hero)
I heard my man’s own thoughts soon after the hero spoke.
‘Then I desire his current equipment, items, and the money to repair them fully. I will of course match the price difference of my slave if she loses.’ (Emperor)
The guard unsurely looked at my mate, but the hero spoke before he could answer.
“Agreed! I can always use some extra spending money.” (Hero)
My mate closed his eyes, then spoke to me through our mental link.
‘Destroy him! Let him be an example that only I have the right to touch you!’ (Emperor)
Notice! You have felt your mate’s rage at someone other than him acting upon your body. Temporary, ‘mate of dragon blood’ effects have increased from 15% to 20%.
As we backed away and revealed our murderous intent to one another, I unsheath my sword and hold it at my side in a low stance with both hands. My blood was boiling from both my own anger and my mates. Through that anger, I had a clear mind. As the copper that the guard tossed hit the ground, I rushed forward with an upwards diagonal slash. To my surprise, the hero took out a shield from nowhere and blocked my attack, causing my sword to become embedded into his shield as I quickly pulled it away. My attack left me exposed to a counter attack. I felt like a fool for not heeding my mates warning about heroes being people that defied logic. The blade stabbed me in the side, causing me to let go of the sword to stop the bleeding with my left hand. Luckily, it was beside my belt, so I took out a nut potion and poured it on my open wound as I fended off his follow up attack.
“Shield bash!” (Hero)
I painfully rolled away to avoid the attack as I gritted my teeth in pain. If that hit me, I knew I would have lost.
“Surprising! To think that you avoided that weak attack.” (Hero)
I spit out some blood as I got to my feet again. My speed and experience is higher than his, but his strength and endurance outstretches mine by a good margin. Plus, there’s the fact that he’s a hero with odd abilities. This isn’t going to be an easy fight. I took my stance again, then I started focusing as a red aura appeared around my body and my sword.
“Oh? What’s this? Are you deciding to get serious now? All right then. Become my experience!” (Hero)
I ignored the weird thing he just said and focused fully on my soul rend. As a world skill, I felt like it was a natural thing to use like flying. I must show my man what I can do!
“Descend! Sword of the fire mountain!” (Empress)
As I spoke, I charged at him again. Before I reached him, he took a defensive posture.
“Parry!” (Hero)
I smiled more as his shield hit the flames of my attack with an impact. As he raised his shield, he thrust his sword at me.
There’s an opening!
“Chain attack! Valley of molten flow!” (Empress)
Of course, only the magic of my attack hit his shield. His strategy was easy to read, as I reversed the blade and pushed into his groin with my blade and my magic. I barely heard him whimper after that.
“Low blow!” (Hero)
I didn’t care though. It was time to finish this.
“Rend! World’s echo!” (Empress)
This is the true ability that I learned from the soul rend skill. I quickly turned around as I pulled the sword upwards to have him at my back. In a flash, blood splattered in front of me from my sword. It would have been a shame to destroy the armor he wore, as I took a cloth to wipe my sword off and walked back to my man. He only smiled at me happily instead of speaking. My blood was still boiling, and I could feel his was as well, as we went into our room to finish passing the time. We were only disturbed when the spoils of the duel were presented to us. That was a small thing compared to the satisfaction that we were getting from the lust in our loins at that moment. Notice! +2 Vigor.
{Narrator}
The duel of Virocant City. It was the debut of the one that the world would call the Hero Reaper. If the emperor became infamous for his curses, then the empress became famous for permanently slaying heros. In her lifetime, it is said that she’s slain over 100 heroes, but historians can safely conclude that the actual number is far less. With the exception of only one time she used soul rend on the emperor, every hero who’s met her blade has met an eternal end. Since her signature move is a world magic skill, it was concluded at the time that the heroes she fought against had vast amounts of dark miasma. A tainted energy of the world. An energy her mate wielded for the beginning of his rebellion.
The fighting style she created dealing with heroes in her long life and eventually passed onto her son and seven daughters is named World’s Hero. In time, the style has became rather common knowledge in empire, and it’s used as a standard for fighting overpowered individuals with unique traits. While few heroes in history after the empress’s death were recorded to permanently fall to this style, it became feared by heroes and labelled as a ‘game breaking’ skill, ‘bugged’, or a ‘cheat’. The exact definition of the term has been uncertain for a large number of years, but the style soon became well-known as a natural bane to heroes. With exceptions of extreme mismatches in combat experience and fitness, or under unfavorable conditions, users of this fighting style often fought evenly with heroes. It made the empire the strongest melee artists of the world. It should be worth noting that heroes aren’t able to learn this style either.
