NOVEL WEB Ch.62 – The Storm
POV: Dyenna
It was absurd how traveling once you reached her level became more of a chore than anything else: the monsters trembled before her and those who used to attack her were swept away without her even having to draw her sword. She knew that no person in normal conditions could obtain the power that she had obtained in such a short time, she knew that the effects of this artifice were such that it had somehow signaled something to Rosalia and that she probably would have done better to hold back her power, but she couldn't.
She felt invincible! Even if she decided to unify the continent under the leadership of humans using only force, who could have ever stopped her?
Dyenna shifted her gaze towards her companions of adventure: she had nothing to fear from Shalotte, Darren could have created political problems within Heliolite, but for the moment she still counted on being able to show him the greatness of her cause and to convince him not to oppose, perhaps by offering him the position of vice king somewhere. The one who really worried her was Rosalia: her sister didn't have much of a level since she stubbornly repudiated violence, but her Class was one of those that were rarely seen, those of the heroes of ancient legends, and perhaps it was precisely her Class that allowed her to see something she shouldn't have seen.
'I would like to know what you saw, so I can understand if others can see it or if there is a way to hide it.'
Dyenna turned to look in front of her again, the village she had heard about was already in sight. They had told her that its name was Wadencap and that it was there that Nightmare Tyrant had decided to officially manifest itself, at the same time taking control of the village and making it part of its nascent domain.
'Personally I praise its ambition, a life without ambition is a life unlived, unfortunately for it, it's on the wrong side of the river,' thought Dyenna, 'a real waste of potential.'
She found herself agreeing to herself on how destructive a war is, the loss of human capital in particular was something she didn't like at all... it was one of those necessary evils that she was forced to endure in order to realize her dream and bring unity across the continent, a sad but inevitable loss of important resources.
“Here we are, my friends,” Dyenna said aloud, it was time for her performance, “if we are lucky, today we will avenge my brother's death, stop the prophecy, and return home as the heroes of the Eastern Continent.”
Shalotte seemed to be the only one to appear truly motivated by Dyenna's words, Darren simply nodded absently while Rosalia smiled at her in a way that seemed to convey a veiled tension.
“I beg all of you to leave Nightmare Tyrant to me, as I have received the Second Awakening and become the Blessed Champion, it is my duty to put an end to its threat,” I concluded with a hint of a smile, “Rosalia, you stay behind, Shalotte and Darren will face possible stooges.”
“Okay, sister,” Rosalia said, bowing her head slightly.
“As you wish, my lady!” Shalotte exclaimed, full of the typical enthusiasm of her race as usual.
“Men, you have heard the future queen's orders,” Darren murmured to the escort of knights accompanying them, “good luck with Nightmare Tyrant, my lady.”
. . .
When they arrived in Wadencap, the welcome they found was what one would expect from a people living in fear: the people did not have the courage to speak to them, to tell them where Evil had nestled in their land, However, there was the hope that the saviors would understand, fight and restore the normal order of things in the village. A child clung to his mother as he returned Dyenna's gaze and raised a trembling hand to indicate what a commoner would have defined as a sumptuous home, but which in the eyes of a nobleman like Dyenna appeared like a hideous hut that compared to the others it had the only advantage of being less horrible to look at.
Dyenna nodded at the child and winked, “Darren, order your men to assist the people around the village, Nightmare Tyrant must pay for what it caused. My dear sister, you stay here and find a hiding place if you see things getting out of control… the others, with me.”
Following the instructions, the real Nightmare Tyrant quickly walked towards the mansion where the false Nightmare Tyrant was staying; She kicked the door so hard that it came off its hinges and flew straight like a bullet into the wall on the opposite side of the front room, shattering into pieces no bigger than your forearm. “Your end has come, Nightmare Tyrant! It's time you paid for your past crimes!,” Dyenna declared loudly and defiantly.
Not even five seconds later, in front of the supposed saviors of the world appeared a human with light brown hair dressed in the red and white maid clothes typical of the Gornowayl clergy and a leporan with creamy hair and pink eyes, they were both armed and they seemed unwilling to let them pass.
“So you have decided to enslave yourselves to Evil?” Dyenna asked.
They must not have yet inspected Dyenna's level when they decided to fight, because moments after their entry, the human and the leporan turned pale and their determination faltered.
“I won't… I won't let you h-harm Aradra,” the leporan said, his voice wavering, his hand holding his rapier shaking visibly.
“Why are you doing this? We Leporans are on the side of justice and peace!” Asked Shalotte, who was surprised to see one of her own in the ranks of Nightmare Tyrant... that is, the false one, "surrender and you will be guaranteed fair treatment in the prisons of Heliolite!"
“We can't,” whispered the follower of the God of Heroes.
“Then this is your end, there is no mercy for those who ally themselves with those who want to see this world in ruins,” Darren replied. “Go ahead Dyenna. Shalotte and I will take care of these two as decided."
“They're all yours!” Dyenna exclaimed.
The opposing human and leporan attempted to stop Dyenna, but she was too superior to them as well as enjoying a numerical advantage. The real Nightmare Tyrant dodged attempts to hit her with ease and slipped behind them with the grace and elegance of a dancer. The fight began behind her, but she didn't turn around: the most delicious prey was in front of her.
- - -
POV: Tamara
She was torn, she knew that if Helen and Luchael had failed it would have been her turn to take action, already the fact of having been persuaded to stay there instead of fighting alongside them weighed on her heart... who knows how the fight was going, maybe they were just a few adventurers who happened to pass by and were already being pressured to surrender and lay down their weapons? Tamara found herself seeking relief in that baseless idea.
She continued to do so until the door to her makeshift throne room opened and a human girl she had never seen before walked in confidently, weapon drawn; Tamara took a guard position and immediately inspected her opponent.
[Human – Lv: ??]
Tamara turned pale: if she could see her race but not her level it meant that the adventurer who appeared in front of her was at least halfway to reaching the fortieth level.
“Well, let's get started,” the girl said in a methodical tone, as if she were an office clerk about to get to work on a voluminous mass of paperwork.
Less than a second later, the mysterious human was straight in front of her, launching a blow that Tamara managed to deflect only partially thanks to a clever use of [Obsidian Defense], although the violence of the impact was still enough to break the quills and make the little salmadrer moan in pain.
'She's so fast! I can hardly even follow she with my eyes!'
Tamara tried to retaliate by using [Obsidian Defense] once again to force her to move back, but the girl avoided the quills as if they had stretched at a third of their real speed. Tamara's instincts were screaming at her to flee, this challenge was not even remotely within her reach and there was no surprise factor or plan that could compete with the pure and raw power that the human girl was exuding.
She wasn't even sure if she would be able to escape, she was terrified that the moment she didn't look at her she would find herself torn to pieces. Surprisingly, however, this didn't happen: Tamara managed to escape by throwing herself out of a window and rolled disastrously outside, straight into the afternoon light.
'This is weird,' she found herself thinking before she started running, 'I could swear he let me escape out the window on purpose.'
Quicker than her, a flash of light behind her made her turn, just in time to see a show of lightning that set fire to several homes starting from the room she and the human were in, the realization of what was happening dawned on her a mallet.
'She's trying to frame me! But why??'
Tamara squinted and tried to convince herself that Helen and Luchael were still okay, then started running again, she couldn't do anything, she was too weak, and her enemy was so inhumanly powerful.
“Are you going somewhere?” The blood in Tamara's body froze; behind her, the human was following her with a tender, sweet smile, like that of someone who is enjoying every second of her life. “Come on, keep running, Nightmare Tyrant. It would be a shame if it all ends so quickly.”
The mysterious adventuress continued to deliver blows that ran the risk of being lethal for Tamara, chasing her relentlessly like a harrier chasing a fox. Tamara had returned to the first day in that world, when that feline-like monster had tried to kill and eat her... only this time Velen wasn't there, Helen and Luchael were still in combat or worse... Tamara was alone, no one would have come to save her. Tamara was pushed away from the burning village, almost to the edge of a cliff. Once there, she turned around, resting her shoulders and back against a rock.
“How slow, but are you really Nightmare Tyrant?” Said the mysterious adventuress. This time her lightning-fast lunge proved impossible to dodge and pierced Tamara in the shoulder, causing her to let out a cry of pain.
She once again tried to react in desperation, finding that all resistance was truly futile when she received a punch in the face with enough force to knock her to the ground. It was impossible for Tamara to know how long she remained prey to that very strong adventuress, what she certainly would not forget was the feeling of helplessness, of being treated like a toy that somehow reminded her of Lyndvrath. Her attempts to resist using every move she could think of became increasingly tentative and feeble as exhaustion and the pain of her injuries sapped her energy.
“Well, that's enough,” The mysterious girl placed the sole of her foot against Tamara's stomach, pressing with such force that she was pushed back and crushed against a boulder, “that's no good, you're no use to me in this. way. Can't you try a little to convince me that it's worth letting you live? Come on, surprise me!”
'Fuck you!' Tamara gathered the last resources of Mana she had in the most violent [Acid Spit] she could create: this did some damage to one of the human's arms, but it was something marginal, it wouldn't even have left a mark. 'Well, it seems like there's nothing else left in me...' she thought, broken both physically and in spirit.
“You fucking bitch! What was that??” The mysterious adventuress hissed angrily as she grabbed Tamara's head just as it was regressing to her normal monstrous form and used it to try to test the hardness of a nearby boulder: the pain Tamara felt was horrible, as if her skull had been placed inside a a nutcracker.
Tamara didn't know if it was her human stubbornness or her salmadrer's soul, but she fought to stay conscious, not wanting to give up to that tormentor who appeared out of nowhere and who seemed to feel nothing but relishing in tormenting the others. Tamara stared back at her in those blood red eyes... 'when did her eyes turn red?'
There wasn't neither time nor energy to ask what was happening because the adventuress hadn't finished with her yet: she started kicking her repeatedly, each kick was more painful than the other and Tamara tried to wriggle and cover her tender parts as much as possible, however, the anatomy of her monster body didn't allow her to do so, she was completely in the hands of that homicidal fury with a humanoid shape. Tamara spat out blood, her consciousness coming and going without allowing her to even form a coherent thought.
SYSTEM: ATTENTION, CRITICAL HEALTH!
Tamara felt herself being lifted from the ground, she tried to keep her eyes in those of her tormentor, but the states of consciousness alternating with those in which she lost consciousness did not allow her to do so.
“You're still holding on, at least you don't lack character,” said the mysterious adventuress, “at your level you are not useful to me even in managing to peacefully unify the human realms, but I give you one last chance: survive, get strong, so I can kill you and become the savior of this continent… or die here, and I will bring justice and order for humanity across the continent in the old way.”
'You're nuts,' was all Tamara could think in response.
The torturer lifted her high and threw her down the cliff. Tamara, realizing what was happening, tried to use her still not fully developed wings to glide and avoid the most devastating impacts: in every movement, every fiber of her body sent an unbearable pain to her brain that would have reduced her to tears and agony if she had still been human. She managed to glide without crashing anywhere too violently, except upon impact with the ground, where the only thing that softened her fall were a pile of leaves that quickly became spattered with her blood as her consciousness slipped away definitively.
