“DIE!” Just when there were barely two meters separating the two of them, the skinny man abruptly transformed in an explosion of muscle and fur. The first to reach out of this changing mess was a set of sharp claws whose tips seemed to sparkle in spite of the overwhelming darkness of the cell. Each point dove unerringly towards Nicole, promising a grisly death for the beautiful girl.
Three werewolves! To think that there were actually three of them, not two!
This third opponent had grasped the timing of his attack perfectly. With so little time to react, it was basically impossible for her to even unsheathe her blade. Thankfully, Nicole wasn’t one to panic even in the most dire situations. Seeing that the attack was going to hit her, she performed a half-draw at the quickest speed possible and deflected the werewolf’s claws.
“It’s no use, my claws are imbued with mana, even if you block them, the residual mana on them will still hit you…” As he triumphantly gloated over his attack, his claws crashed into the blade with a resounding clang. This werewolf was no fool however. He knew how terrifying the edge of Nicole’s blade was so instead of facing it head on as he usually did, he diverted his claws at the last second to hit her sheath.
By now, he was feeling pretty confident that his swipe would be enough to take down this girl. Unfortunately for him, things didn’t work out as he had planned. She not only received his attack but also managed to inexplicably diffuse the mana imbued in his claws.
“That’s…not possible!”
Under the disbelieving and shocked eyes of that werewolf, Nicole’s Fighter’s Aura seemed to burst out in flames and wrap around her left hand which forcefully shoved the werewolf away, using the sheath gripped in its fingers. Having done that, she sheathed her blade. A second later, a crescent shaped sword, composed of a myriad of strange energies, came flying out of the now filled sheath opening and cleaved the werewolf apart before he could even react.
Interim Techniques: Clear Mirror Still Water.
Now that they were all dead, Nicole turned around and left for the door. Just as she opened it, she was greeted by the stunned face of that middle aged guard who still hadn’t recovered from the scene he had just witnessed.
Ignoring the man, she merely continued on her way and soon passed by him. It was only then that the guard finally came back to his senses and reached out to stop her: “Wait…please wait a moment…”
“Is there something?” She stopped for a moment and placidly turned around to face him.
“How did you know that there were three werewolves?” Having had a clear view of the inside from his position, he could tell that she didn’t trust any of them from the very start. That was why she was able to survive those three otherwise deadly attacks.
“If any one of them was truly innocent, you wouldn’t have locked them all up together.”
“…but I just told you that there was only one set of werewolf tracks…”
“Sometimes, the information we are given isn’t accurate. Often, the cunningness of our enemies end up exceeding our expectations. In order to fend against that, we have to be vigilant at all times.” She blandly stated while sweeping her eyes over the slightly embarrassed guard who had been caught lying to her.
His intention was to lead her into falsely assuming that was at least one innocent man so that she would waste time trying to figure who it was. Who would’ve thought she not only didn’t do that, but she had also guessed that all three were fishy. Because of that, she was able to fake an opening and easily lure her opponents into a false sense of security.
Having said all that, she left without turning around.
Watching her dainty figure disappear into the darkness of the hallway, it was then that the middle aged guard realized that his son would never be able to catch up to this frosty girl in his entire lifetime…because she was just that perfect and oh so icy…
(Author’s Note: A Flower’s Windy Ballet was created by Thousand Snow Flowers and is highly suited for use by females. Clear Mirror Still Water was a set of techniques created by Clear Water Mirror of which Nicole managed to only learn two techniques so far.)
……
Elsewhere.
Regine would ever so often leave the Demoness’s Abode to wander around. Each time she returned, she would bring with her some destitute woman or children. These children weren’t all girls, there were boys under the age of 12 as well.
They would be put under the foster care of George who had them join Plateau Village. In truth, he wasn’t doing this merely out of the kindness of his heart. Not too long ago, because of the war with the Wolf’s Fang Bandit Troupe, their village ended losing a lot of people, especially men. After all, beautiful young girls were clearly more likable to the bandits than strapping men.
The addition of these boys brought new members to the labor force of Plateau Village. Once they grew up, they would undoubtedly form the backbone of the village’s labor force, with some eventually learning how to wield Fighter’s Aura and protecting the village. At the end of the day, population was an important resource, no matter which era or world it was.
Jezsere and Reyage were a pair of Dark Elven siblings whom Regine had encountered not too long ago. Jezsere was an Occultist and had noticed the scent of a Devil on Regine. Back then, the two of them were being pursued by other Dark Elves. Thus, they sought help and received it under the condition that Jezsere passed on her knowledge of summoning. With that settled, Regine brought the two of them to Plateau Village.
At the start, Regine assumed that the two of them would act like a typical Dark Elf: cruel and lustful and completely indiscriminate about their partners. Yet after being with them for a while, she found that Jezsere was more similar to those fabled Nature Elves than anything. In fact, her personality was almost cowardly. As for Reyage, he wasn’t similar to the typical Dark Elf either. He didn’t enjoy bullying the weak, neither was he lustful. In fact, he was more of an ice cube when it came to women…truly an odd pair of Dark Elven siblings.
Even though Ancarin’s talents weren’t too bad, she only had those few tomes leftover from Duran to study from. If she only had someone to learn from, for example Jezsere, there was no doubt that her proficiency in summoning Devils would improve by leaps and bounds. Once the time was right, they would summon their master. That was the driving force behind Regine inviting the siblings over. The fact that they were both harmless made the decision even easier to make for her.
Normally, the Demoness’s Abode was forbidden to men. It was even more unlikely that a man like Reyage would ever be given leave to stay or even spend the night. Thus, a small hut was erected for him that was right next to the Abode.
With regards to this male Dark Elf, Regine and Ancarin had always maintained a wary attitude towards him. After all, the reputation of the Dark Elves wasn’t really that good. The fact that he was so handsome did him no favors in that regard. His long flowing head of silvery hair, his crimson, almost ruby-like eyes and pale complexion that girls could only dream about in envy, all those traits combined with his exotically beautiful face just seemed to accentuate his iciness. With such qualities, it was hard to imagine any ordinary girl who could resist his charms.
After all, the Appearance Association spanned countless galaxies and had conquered multiple worlds.
At the very beginning, some of the women (and girls) of the Demoness’s Abode would constantly loiter around, some even go so far as to approach him. While they were all victims of abuse in the past, the men who assaulted them were mostly ugly and probably didn’t even have a tenth of Reyage’s attractiveness…in other words, they didn’t mind if he tried anything…all he had to do was ask or wave a finger.
Their disgraceful behavior almost earned them a swift rebuke from Ancarin and Regine, who wanted to take this opportunity to remind them of the pain they suffered and the whole reason why they were in the Abode in the first place.
However, things never progressed to that stage thanks to Reyage’s iceberg of an attitude. At all times, his face maintained a stone cold demeanour that only thawed for his little sister Jezsere. As for the rest, they might as well have been non-existent, at least they wouldn’t be viewed by him as being inferior. No matter how pretty they were, he treated them all the same way: as dogs or pigs…
As time passed, their passion for him waned given how abundantly clear he had made it that he wasn’t interested at all.
Going back to the purpose of the Demoness’s Abode, its formation was meant to aid destitute women and children who had nowhere to go, while providing a platform to gather worshippers for Mo Ke. Back when Mo Ke was forcefully removed from the Western Human Realms, he brought no material wealth with him; it had all been managed by Ancarin. Because of that, the two girls were able to set up the Demoness’s Abode without meeting much financial difficulty.
With how much financial power she had on hand, Ancarin would probably be able to maintain the Abode for a long time, assuming she spent the money judiciously.
The reason why she was so fixated on gathering worshippers for Mo Ke was not without reason. When a faithful made their prayer, a special type of psychic energy was generated. This was often referred to as the Power of Faith.
Once a Devil had reached a certain level of power, they could absorb faith. For that to happen however, the Devil in question had to at least be at the level of a demigod, in other words, a Devil King.
Still, there were exceptions to this rule. Some Devils who had a more noble bloodline were able to absorb faith even before reaching the level of a Devil King.
Faith was a unique form of psychic energy that could only be absorbed by its intended person since a target had to be specified. Naturally, if the specified target was a group, the faith would then be split amongst the members of said group. However, such cases were rare since gathering faith wasn’t easy to begin with.
The formation of Demoness’s Abode was done under the instruction of Ferti’nier; given that she was dwelling in Mo Ke right now, and that she was the Devil King of Lust, any faith directed towards Mo Ke would be absorbed by her. This state would continue until she left his body or perhaps until he was able to absorb faith himself…
Today however, wasn’t a day for discussing such matters. Today, was destined to be an eventful day for Plateau Village as this very day was the day Ancarin was expecting a child.
