[On the Forest Path.]
Mirabella stared at the enraged Yakima, whose high-level aura was still violently fluctuating, then down at the bruised, bleeding man groveling before her. She exhaled a long, tired breath.
’I didn’t even level up, it seems my guess is right... The ti is different.’ She shook her head lightly, processing the temporal anomalies between the previous and present lives. The cult was moving faster than anticipated.
"I am guessing you’re from the devil cult." She said, staring at the man with a slight frown, her tone conversational but carrying the weight of absolute authority.
"You? How do you know that??" The man asked in surprised, his eyes darting between her and the monstrous white tiger perched casually on her shoulder.
"Look around you... These experints are enough proof." Mirabella sighed, staring at him. She gestured lazily to the mist of blood and the grotesque, twisted remains of the human-monster hybrids that now painted the forest floor.
"Tell , what were those humans? So sort of experints?"
"What makes you think I will say anything?" The man yelled at her, spitting a glob of blood onto the dirt, clinging to the fanaticism of his dark faction.
"Oh well... I don’t have the energy to interrogate you. Besides, it won’t help." She turned around smoothly, backing the man.
"This is the conclusion, The devil cult has started experinting on Humans, discreetly, and I am sure they are kidnapping humans from villages and small towns, then turn them into monsters and use them as weapons. As for why you can block Miss Yakima’s attack here, it ans your organization have successfully created sothing that can greatly increase your physical and magical attack stats for so duration, making you deal more damage." She looked at him over her shoulder, her piercing blue eyes freezing the blood in his veins:
"Am I wrong?"
".....?!"
The man was completely dumbfounded. The dark secrets of his sect, heavily guarded by blood oaths and lethal curses, were being unraveled by this lady like basic arithtic. His eyes widened in shock, surprised, and disbelief: "How did you..."
"This is an average plan... Instead of you doing all this, while not just find a way to resurrect sothing powerful... If you continue with your plan on opening a gateway, it will still be useless, because." She started walking towards the carriage door, the wooden fra still splintered from the earlier attack:
"I will wipe out all the monsters in that dungeon." She said, with the casual certainty of soone discussing the weather. She reached out and opened the carriage door:
"Miss Yakima, that’s all there is to know... If you want to interrogate him more, you can go ahead, and please, don’t let him escape, we don’t want to ruin the mission." She said, completely handing authority back to the stunned Guild Master, and entered the carriage, closing the door softly behind her.
Yakima blinked, her mind struggling to process the massive lore dump and the casual dismissal. She moved her gaze on both sides of the path, seeing nothing but bisected trees. The ancient forest had been sheared perfectly in half for hundreds of ters by Mirabella’s invisible wave of spirit energy.
"You have already alerted them with this destruction, and how did you even know all that?" She asked herself quietly, a shiver running down her spine. She turned her attention back to the trembling man on the ground.
"Seems there’s no use keeping you alive." She said coldly, pointing her glowing heavy sword at the man’s throat.
"I know I can’t escape..." He brought out a small, jagged orb pulsating with volatile, corrupted red energy from deep within his robes:
"What are you doing?!!" Yakima instantly got on guard, her combat instincts flaring as her mind scread a lethal warning.
"If I can’t escape, I will die with all of you!!" He pushed his thumb into the orb, forcing his remaining life force into the artifact, and started glowing with a blinding red light.
"You bastard!!" Yakima cursed, raising her blade to brace for the shockwave.
"Mighty push!!"
Rose’s voice cut through the panic. She raised her wooden staff into the air, its tip flaring with pure elental magic. A concentrated beam of white kinetic light shot out from it, smashing directly into the devil cult mber’s chest and sending him flying violently backwards, covering ters away in seconds.
BOOOOM!!!!
He exploded violently exactly 300 ters before them. The shockwave rattled the trees, and the group quickly covered their eyes from the blast of dust, corrupted energy, and flying debris.
"We haven’t even reached the monster zone, and we are already getting attacked." Yakima muttered, lowering her arm as the dust settled. The geopolitical implications of this ambush were terrifying.
Yakima opened her palm, utilizing her high-tier inventory space, and a magical scroll with a golden feather and ethereal ink appeared. She kept her sword smoothly in its scabbard, and the scroll unrolled itself, hovering obediently before her as she started rapidly writing down exactly what Mirabella said, and the devil cult mber’s terrified expression and words, which only proves she was correct.
’Dad needs to see this. If what Mirabella said is the truth, then the three empires will face so difficulties in the future. The devil cult must be stopped.’ She thought, prioritizing the safety of the continent. After writing everything, she sealed the scroll with her spirit energy signature and called out:
"Sofia."
"Yes, Leader!!" Sofia rushed towards her from the defensive formation, stopping sharply at her side.
"Take this scroll back ho, make sure you hand it to Lord Hayatobi... You don’t have to return, just stay back and wait for us." She instructed, handing over the critical intelligence.
"Ok, Leader."
Sofia took the scroll safely into her inventory, and rushed towards her horse, prepared to make the dangerous ride back alone. While Yakima exhaled heavily, staring at the fresh blood painting the dirt path:
’She wiped out the enemy without drawing a weapon, is this so skill or just spirit energy manipulation?’ She thought, deeply unsettled by the fathomless depth of Mirabella’s power.
___
[In the Carriage.]
The interior of the carriage was tense. Princess Delphine sat stiffly, her regal composure shaken. She stared at Mirabella, who was back to the sit opposite her, looking entirely unbothered by the chaos outside.
"Thank you." She said with a small, genuine smile, staring at Mirabella.
"It’s nothing serious, if you die on this mission, it’ll be a bad thing to everyone here and also the dragon empire." Mirabella said matter-of-factly, entirely devoid of political sycophancy. She casually reached out, taking a sweet from the silver tray between them and popping it into her mouth.
Delphine stared at her for so seconds, studying the girl who defied all logic. Then, she slowly turned her head to the massive, jagged hole directly beside her head. The wind whistled through the splintered wood.
If Mirabella hadn’t randomly opened her eyes re milliseconds before the impact and plainly asked her to move her head to the right, the spear would have pierced her skull, and she would surely be dead by now.
’But still... Thank you, Mirabella.’ She thought, a profound sense of gratitude and awe washing over her, staring down at her trembling hands on her lap.
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