The Damned Demon

The sky above the barren lands was thick with the scent of impending doom. Rowena saw Rebecca landing before the carriage and stopping Lysandra in her tracks. Never in her life did she expect to feel relieved to see that woman. But in this situation, she knew Rebecca was powerful enough to hold off Lysandra long enough.

She then turned her head to look at the imposing figure of Drakar, her crimson eyes glinting with cold resolve,

"Surrender? My kingdom was forged in blood and flames. Your words cannot chill its flames. All you can do is let it devour you," Rowena declared, her voice a calm, cold blade cutting through the tension.

"Hahaha," Drakar's laughter, deep and mocking, filled the air, only to abruptly cease as his eyes caught sight of something up in the skies.

He narrowed his eyes as he took in the sight of the advancing forces hundreds of meters away—numbering around 1000, but in his eyes, inconsequential. A small batch of Umbralfiends was also present among them, though it didn't seem to deter him.

"Is this the best you can prepare within this time? My men will eat through them within minutes," Drakar taunted, his smirk oozing contempt.

But Rowena's retort was as chilling as the grave, "Minutes? It takes but a second for a dragon's breath to turn your men into memory."

"ROARRRRR!!!"

The moment her words left her lips, it was followed by the earth-shaking roar of Flaralis.

Drakar looked up and had his jaw slack as he saw the colossal dragon, a force of nature personified, unleashed its wrath upon one of his draconian warships by chomping down on it. The vessel, a symbol of draconian might, was rendered into nothing but ashes in just mere seconds.

The draconians, witnesses to this display of raw power, were struck by a paralyzing terror, their confidence shattered like fragile glass.

Yet, the call to arms was inevitable. Drakar's roar, fierce and commanding, broke the spell of fear, "Kill it first! They don't stand a chance!" The order reverberated across the battlefield, igniting the flames of conflict.

Rowena, her spirit unbroken, brandished her whip, the weapon crackling with crimson flames. In the next heartbeat, her figure blurred into motion, a dance of death and defiance.

Drakar, equally resolute, met her charge head-on. The clash of their wills was a cataclysm in itself while their armies collided with a thunderous impact. The sky became a picture of chaos, filled with the echoes of clashing steel, fiery spells, and the indomitable spirit of warriors ready to lay down their lives.

Amidst the tumult of the larger battle, a more intimate and fierce clash unfolded between Rebecca and Lysandra. The air around them crackled with raw, untamed power, the ground beneath their feet scorched and frozen in turns, as the ferocity of their duel only seemed to increase with each second.

Lysandra raised her staff high as she relentlessly unleashed fiery orbs filled with her wrath and let them rain down on Rebecca.

Rebecca, her eyes glinting with an icy resolve, moved her hands quickly as she conjured a crystalline shell of frost, an ethereal fortress that covered her body from all sides.

*Crshk! Crshk! Crshk!....*

The fiery orbs crashed against the icy barrier, each collision an echo of steam and sizzle.

Lysandra's orbs, fierce and domineering, sought to consume, but Rebecca's ice, cold and unbreakable, held firm as the flames licked its surface before they died out from the sheer cold.

"Surprised that your flimsy flames can't touch me?" Rebecca taunted as the barrier melted away from the lingering heat while Lysandra furrowed her brows.

She then added, "Other than the Drakes, my bloodline is the only one of its kind. I can naturally thwart any flames thrown at me. So don't feel smug about your flames too much. You have no advantage over me." Her cold smile was a blade, honed and ready to strike.

Lysandra, her expression a mask of composed ferocity, raised her staff, the tip aglow with a menacing, dark red aura, "That only holds true until you run out of mana. After that, you will be no less pathetic than the weakest of your kind. You aren't immune to flames like your queen." Her words made Rebecca's expression darken, especially since this bitch compared her to Rowena.

The wraiths, borne of the coldest and lifeless depths of Rebecca's power, advanced with an otherworldly grace, their eerie presence spreading the smell of death in the air.

In vengeful response, Rebecca summoned ethereal wraiths, specters of chill and shadow, their ghostly fingers reaching out to drain warmth and blood from Lysandra, to instill a creeping fear that sought to paralyze. The wraiths, borne of the coldest and lifeless depths of Rebecca's power, advanced with an otherworldly grace, their eerie presence spreading the smell of death in the air.

But Lysandra, undaunted, wove a protective aura of enchantment around her, a shield of flickering darkness empowered by space magic.

The wraiths, their forms unstable and transient, met the shield and were warped, their essence torn apart by the chaotic energies that Lysandra commanded. Their howls, once filled with hunger and malice, faded into nothingness, their threat undone by the strength of Lysandra's will.

Not wanting to lose her momentum, Lysandra let her power manifest as a torrent of dark red flames that mirrored the wrath of a cosmic inferno, directing it towards Rebecca. The flames, dark and wrathful, hungered for destruction as they threatened to annihilate every fiber of Rebecca's being.

But in retaliation, Rebecca brandished a staff as dark as the night, its thorns extending outwards, the dark blue gem atop pulsating with a icy, eerie power. With a swift, determined motion, she conjured a veil of darkness and ice, an impenetrable barrier that rose to meet the onslaught of enchanted flames. The veil, a swirling amalgamation of the coldest shadows and the most biting frost, stood firm against the fiery tide, its presence a silent challenge to the raging inferno before it.

*BOOM!*

The two forces collided in a spectacle of light and shadow, ice and fire, each struggling for dominance, each refusing to yield. Rebecca's veil absorbed the relentless assault, its dark, cold energy slowly but surely mitigating the fury of Lysandra's flames. "Yaah!" With a surge of willpower and a cry that resonated with the depth of her strength, Rebecca pushed back against the inferno, and the veil exploded in a cataclysmic burst, a maelstrom of darkness and flames that engulfed both women and sent them flying like a broken kite.

The aftermath left the two women bleeding from their mouths, though their eyes were still brimming with heavy killing intent as they quickly got themselves back on their feet despite the pain radiating through their bodies.

Wasting no time, Rebecca, her triumph etched in every line of her visage, summoned a barrage of bloody ice spears, each a deadly harbinger of doom, and sent them hurtling toward Lysandra. Lysandra, her reaction swift as thought, conjured a swirling mantle of protective flames, a fiery shield that devoured the icy spears, nullifying their necrotic curse with the fiery enchantment of her flames.

Yet, in the relentless dance of attack and defense, one spear, empowered by the sheer force of Rebecca's will, pierced through the fiery barrier and found its mark. "Ugh!" The icy spear struck Lysandra's shoulder, piercing her tough skin with enough force to almost expose the tip from the other side.

Lysandra stumbled, her face contorted in pain, yet her eyes burned with an unquenchable fire, her spirit undeterred as she took out the bloody spear from her shoulder and threw it away, though her natural rapid healing process was slowed down by the icy mana lingering in her flesh.

Seeing that her attack proved successful, Rebecca, with a triumphant grin, unleashed another relentless barrage of bloody ice spears, each one imbued with her vengeful spirit. These spears, crimson-stained and deadly, hurtled through the air with a murderous intent, aiming to impale Lysandra with their frozen wrath.

However, Lysandra, undeterred by the imminent threat, straightened her back.

Just as the bloody spears were about to strike her, with a swift motion of her staff, she conjured a small, dark red portal, a vortex that bent the very fabric of reality. All the spears were swallowed by this portal, disappearing into its mysterious depths.

To Rebecca's utter shock, another portal, mirroring the first, materialized before her, and the spears she had conjured re-emerged, now shooting toward her.

Did this bitch purposefully let herself get hurt to make her lower her guard?

In a desperate move, Rebecca conjured a barrier of icy darkness to shield herself, but it was not enough. One spear, defying the barrier's strength, pierced through and lodged itself into Rebecca's shoulder.

"Ungh!" The impact sent her reeling backward and was strong enough to make her fall on her back, a mix of rage and disbelief etched on her face.

Bleeding and incensed, Rebecca removed the bloody spear, her expression twisting with rage.

But before she could get up, in an abrupt eruption of movement, Lysandra materialized seemingly from nowhere, catching Rebecca off guard.

The air seemed to momentarily warp around them as Lysandra thrust her staff forward in a swift, brutal strike that collided with Rebecca's unsuspecting face. A gush of blood spurted forth, splattering onto the ground as if punctuating the violent act. Stunned, Rebecca reeled back, her vision blurring as her head snapped violently to the side under the force of the blow.

Lysandra then raised her staff to deal the killing blow, "You son will soon join you in the pits of Tartarus. Take comfort in that," Lysandra declared, her voice cold and unwavering.

Hearing her words, a wild transformation overtook Rebecca's visage - her features morphed into a twisted, frenzied grin, giving her countenance a sinister edge.

Just as Lysandra prepared to lower her staff to burn Rebecca to death, her brows raised when Rebecca hurled her arm upward, causing Lysandra to pause mid-strike. An overwhelming, chilling, and eerie sensation suddenly filled every fiber of her being, leaving her paralyzed. The feeling surged relentlessly until she couldn't bear it any longer. With trembling hands, she released her grip on her trusted staff, watching helplessly as it clattered to the ground.

Rebecca rose, her bloodied smile widening, reveling in her impending triumph, "Did you forget you were fighting a vampire like me? Now that my blood is inside your body, I can turn you into my slave in no time," she proclaimed, her voice laced with a sinister glee.