Book 1: Chapter 40: Saving the Holy Maidens

Outside of the military town of Sakerid, within the defensive positions of the Gabriel Empire’s(Swordsmen) royal guard, a giant ant-shaped evil being had crawled out of the ground and was attacking the royal guards. This giant ant came with the giant flower that was currently wreaking havoc within the Church of Light’s ranks. The giant ant was 8 meters in length with a 2 meter wide pincer.

The ant bore strong resemblance in look to Earth’s army ants and although it wasn’t venomous, it had quite the number of subordinates that covered every square inch of land, the ants of various sizes swarmed the royal guards’ positions. These ants didn’t attack those who were infected by the virus, only those who were uninfected, leaving behind nothing more than piles of bleached bone as the wave of ants travelled through the royal guards’ ranks.

Most of the Gabriel Empire’s fighting force was comprised of swordsmen that lacked the ability to attack at a distance, those elites among them who able to use 《Jian Qi》 and attack from a range were rare and few. Swordsmen also lacked the mobility of knights due to the lack of mounts and were unable to flee the scene and could only fall victim to the ants, with screams piercing the air everytime a new victim fell to the swarm.

The royal guard’s commander, Klemans, ordered a general retreat, knowing that it was the only way for them to survive. The Church of Light’s templars had already retreated in another direction and the only one left was the 1st holy maiden, Sophia, who was still locked in combat with the giant flower. Kremans wanted to help the Church’s holy maidens, as it was a great opportunity to make the Church of Light owe them.

It was a shame that the swarm of ants had already caught up to the royal guards’ stragglers, leaving behind piles of bones. This dangerous situation didn’t allow for any hesitation, there was a small river not far from Sakerid, maybe if they forced a crossing the river the ants wouldn’t be able to continue their pursuit of the royal guards.

In the skies above Sakerid, a black dot was circling. The airspace above Sakerid was filled with countless invisible malicious spirits, but they all chose to give a wide berth to the flying girl. The girl had the conflicting scent of the demon world and aura that only god-tier equipment had.

The girl flying above Sakerid was the pricess of the demon world, Hadias, she was currently wearing the god-tier armour ‘Celestial Protection’ that Lisha had given her. She felt a little strange, wearing armour that had been blessed by a god of the celestial world in public, her demon lord father would definitely have grounded her if he had seen her like this.

Even she, the princess of the demon world was shocked by the gruesome scene beneath her, she hadn’t ever seen anything as terrifying as these two giant evil beings back in the demon world, she estimated that they were at least around the power level of Bella’s void monarchs.

Somewhere in the distance, Bella’s party was looking through a crystal ball at what was happening in and around Sakerid. This crystal ball was part of Lisha’s collection, ‘Vision Crystal’ was a treasure that was made up of two such crystal balls, that could share images with each other, even over long distances. The other crystal ball was currently in Hadias’ possession, she had brought it with her in her aerial reconnaissance.

It would be hard not to mention Lisha’s collection here, Bella had learned while in Lisha’s memory world, the 【Demon Dragon Empress】 Alisha could be considered filthy rich. All dragons had a habit of collecting and hoarding large amounts of treasure, and as the blood of dragons also ran through her veins, Lisha might have picked up this habit through osmosis. Even Alisha herself didn’t know how much gold and silver she had.

The thing that shocked Bella most was that Alisha had once prepared a giant mausoleum for herself, named ‘The land of Eternal Rest’. Around the Land of Eternal Rest were smaller mausoleums in which rested every one of Alisha’s challengers who had failed, along with all of their wealth that did not enter Lisha’s eyes, countless god-tier equipment included.

In her four lifetimes of terror, none of her challengers had been able to kill Alisha, so the Land of Eternal Rest remained empty while the mausoleums surrounding it kept on increasing it in number. The ‘Vision Crystal’ that they were looking through right now was something that Lisha hadn’t even bothered to take back to the Land of Eternal Rest. If it was taken to an auction within the human empire its value would be unimaginable, yet to Lisha it was only something that she had completely forgotten she had, it wasn’t hard to see that Lisha’s wealth had already exceeded a certain level.

It was a shame that the Land of Eternal Rest required Lisha to completely reawaken the power of the 【Demon Dragon Empress】 to open, which had not yet happened yet. The complete 【Demon Dragon Empress】 had a terrifying dragon mount that Bella saw in Lisha’s memory. It seemed that Lisha still had quite a few secrets awaiting Bella’s discovery.

“【Underworld Black Ant King】 Malthus and 【Death Flower Empress】Heklis, both of them are void monarchs, Heklis is a World Destroyer class too. That’s strange, the dimension invaded by their master 【Tenebrous Demon God】, Bloomfield Elise shouldn’t be this one, why has her subordinates appeared here?”

Noesha quietly whispered into Bella’s ear, after some explanation Bella found out that this 【Tenebrous Demon God】 was the younger sister of the 【Sanctified Demon God】Bellastier Samantha, and could be often seen together with her, the impression Elise gave off was a little sister that enjoyed clinging to her older sister.

Elise took pride in being Samantha’s true little sister, and was rather hostile towards the two sworn little sisters of Samantha, 【Darkened Evil God】Mystre Lydia, and 【Underworld Demon God】Salisbury Sherrill, but was kept under check by Samantha.

“Noesha, I don’t know any of the demon gods that you just mentioned!”

“Er, you… you’ll know in the future!”

Noesha looked at Bella who had an innocent expression on her face, then looked towards Mia and Angel who were playing in the distance, and didn’t know what to say. She had almost let slip that Bella’s true form was Samantha herself. Back when she was the 【Sanctified Demon God】, Samantha was very kind and gentle to everyone she knew, making it so that Samantha had many good friends within the ranks of both the Worldbreakers and the Troublemakers, Noesha being one of them.

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The Gabriel Empire’s royal guards had already began retreating in the direction of the small river. 【Underworld Black Ant King】 Malthus sensed an aura in the distance that made him uneasy. Not too far away in the distance, Bella had taken out three items for summoning void monarchs, she threw ‘Grisbane’s Feather’, ‘Gresham’s Stinger’, and ‘Yulysses’ Fang’ into the distance and three gates to the void opened up where the items landed.

Soon after, Bella’s three void monarchs and their minions appeared out of the gate and quickly began an encirclement of Malthus and Heklis. Normally in the void, it wasn’t uncommon void monarchs to fight among themselves, but were mostly 1 on 1 fights, fights between multiple void monarchs on different sides were a rare sight even in the void.

Seeing three ‘peers’ preparing to surround it, Malthus quickly fell back towards the giant flower, giving up on its chase of the Gabriel Empire’s royal guards. However, its route had been cut off by the 【Black-Widow Empress】 Yulysses. A little while ago Yulysses and Grisbane had just completed their first cooperative mission. Grisbane had carried Yulysses and ‘air dropped’ her behind Malthus, this surprise tactic had foiled the Malthus’ plan of converging with its companion.

Even though the retreating royal guards also saw these three newcomer void monarchs, but they hadn’t seen that Bella was the one who had summoned them. Bella didn’t interfere with their retreat, she turned her attention to the zombies that now cut off the path through which Bella’s party had came from.

The rate at which the virus had spread was much faster than Noesha had estimated, it had only taken a day and the virus had already spread to many nearby towns and villages. Bella didn’t know how the five great empires and the Church of Light planned to deal with this, as there was no way that they could keep this hidden from the public any longer. Bella didn’t really care about that however, as this virus would have 0 effect on her Dark Sanctuary, even if the entire Coristel continent fell to the virus, the Dark Sanctuary would remain unscathed.

【Death Flower Empress】Heklis was furiously using its vines to attack Sophia, who was living up to her title of the Church of Light’s 1st holy maiden. A magic field around Sophia kept Heklis’ veins from being able to enravel themselves around Sophia.

Apart from the magic field, Sophia relentlessly attacked Heklis with light type magic. Although she looked calm and collected on the surface, but Sophia’s heart was restless. Even though she knew that this evil being was strong, once they entered combat Sophia discovered that Heklis’ power had far exceeded her expectations, remaining unscathed through sophia’s attacks.

Sophia began to regret not teaming up with Hayley and Daisy because of the tensions between their factions. If the three holy maidens had teamed up from the beginning, they might have had a chance at escaping, Sophia had the chance to save Daisy and Hayley when they had just been caught, but it was too alte now. Hayley and Daisy had both been swallowed by two giant flower buds and Sophia could no longer see them.

Sophia wasn’t the only one restless, Heklis was as well. Heklis had already seen the three void monarchs that had encircled 【Underworld Black Ant King】 Malthus. Malthus had no anti-air capabilities leaving Grisbane free to dominate the skies, the ant king’s minions were locked in a losing battle against 【Black-Widow Empress】 Yulysses’ spider army as well as the scorpion army of 【Emperor Scorpion】 Gresham, it was only a matter of time before Malthus was defeated.

Heklis wanted to go to Malthus’ aid and then find a way for both of them to escape. They instinctively felt that other void monarchs had set their eyes on them, Heklis could also tell that there was another World-destroyer level void monarch among them. If the other void monarchs were to join in on the other side, Malthus and Heklis would probably be unable to escape.

Sophia who was struggling to maintain the magic field saw Heklis suddenly swell up and instinctive felt uneasy, she knew that this was probably the evil being preparing to use its ultimate. However, Sophia was unable to run, if she turned away now the magic field that she had set would break without Heklis even needing to do anything, which would mean that nothing would be stopping Heklis’ vines any longer, and she would probably share the same fate as Hayley and Daisy.

After expanding to a certain degree, Heklis exploded, a strong shockwave travelled quickly following the giant explosion, breaking Sophia’s magic field with the slightest contact.

Sophia’s vision blacked out as she was tossed into the air by the force of the explosion. Just as she thought that she was going to die, she felt herself falling into someone’s embrace. Even through a layer of armour, Sophia could tell from the figure that whoever had caught her was a girl. After finding out that she had been caught by a girl, Sophia calmed down a bit and didn’t struggle.

Bella was a little surprised at the beauty that had fallen from the skies. Her party had just arrived here and was preparing to save the Church of Light’s 2nd holy maiden, Hayley, who had a bit of relations with 【Blood King】 Eleanor. Only after she had arrived did Bella find out that it wasn’t only the 2nd holy maiden that had been caught. The beauty in her embrace was the 1st holy maiden, Sophia.

Sophia’s hair was a light purple which was something out of Bella’s expectation, because in her impression of this world, purple hair was effectively a trademark of the demon race. The Church of Light’s holy maidens should be 100% human, which meant that such ‘un-human’ hair colour shouldn’t appear within their ranks, especially on the highest ranked 1st holy maiden.

Heklis’ explosion ability came along with the effect of shredding all clothes, and also had a large area-of-effect. It was fortunate that everyone in Bella’s party was in god-tier equipment, or else they would be in the awkward situation of being nude in public again. It was even more fortunate that the Gabriel Empire’s royal guards and the Church of Light’s templars had already withdrawn. Sophia who was still in Bella’s embrace didn’t avoid the fate of losing all of her clothes and Bella look advantage of this to size up Sophia’s body.

“Who are you? Hurry up and let me down…”

“Is this how you should talk to the person that just saved your life, Sophia?”

“You know who I am! Then hurry and…”

“Sorry, I’m not affiliated with the Church of Light. Sophia-dono, I’m just an adventurer who passed by at the right time. I haven’t had any business lately and have been unable to fill my stomach. A couple days ago a noble in Paknir had made a request for a good female slave, offering a large amount of wealth to whoever brings him the best one… you’ll definitely be the one he would want if he saw you!”

“What! You’re going to… do you know what…”

“You can’t move right now, right? Sophia-dono, that giant flower’s special attack should have paralyzed every living thing around it temporarily. You’ll definitely fetch a high price! I heard that noble enjoyed tying up his female slaves and bring them to his dungeon…”

“Stop talking, I beg of you, tell just me what you want, don’t sell me to that perverted noble!”

Sophia opened her orange eyes wide, anger in her heart. It was true that she was unable to move right now, or else she wouldn’t have let Bella embrace her. Sophia enjoyed her cleanliness and didn’t like making physical contact with people, even if the other side was also a girl.

Right now however, Sophia had not only fallen into Bella’s embrace, but Bella had also seen her nude body. Even though there was nothing really to be lost by having another girl see her nude body, but Sophia still didn’t enjoy the feeling. This golden-blonde knight gave off the appearance of a holy knight, but it seemed that she was just a shameless adventurer that was also a human trafficker.

“Why don’t I auction you off at the underground slave market? You’ll probably fetch an even higher price there…”

“Don’t do that please! If you need anything from me just tell me, I believe that I’m worth more to you than the gold that you can get after selling me.”

Of course Bella wasn’t going to sell Sophia off as a slave, such a pretty girl would be better off serving Bella than any buyer. According to Felia’s memories, the Church of Light’s 1st holy maiden Sophia was a cold beauty, a classic kuudere. If Bella didn’t act indecent enough, Sophia probably wouldn’t even talk to her.

Bella had to admit that all of the Church of Light’s holy maidens were quite beautiful, Hayley and Susan who she had already met before were also outstanding beauties. Sophia however, wasn’t just beautiful, she also had a slight aura that Mia and Angel told Bella belonged to this dimension’s celestial world. Even though Sophia hid it well, but in the second that Bella had came into contact with Sophia, Sophia’s celestial aura resonated with the god-tier armour that Bella was currently wearing.

The demon world’s princess, Hadias, had told Bella that the celestial world had been destroyed by the 12 demon kings during the great war 10,000 years ago. Even if the celestial world had any survivors they would be unable to reach the surface world because the only pathway connecting the two worlds had already been destroyed. That left the question of why Sophia, one of the Church of Light’s holy maidens, gave off the aura of the celestial world, was she one of the survivors from the war?