Thea thrusted her spear frontwards in preparation to et with the bident used by the fake Thalia, the "Royal Fang" in Thea's hands fiercely roared as a way to demonstrate its disgust towards the bone bident.
"Clang!", the black spear clashed against the bident, making sparks fly all over the place, followed by a deafening sound of tals colliding.
Seeing the withered bone bident safely blocking the obnoxious black spear that even her prized space attributed silver armor, was having trouble with, the fake Thalia inwardly grinned.
'Heh, luckily the won of this race have a thing for spears, this bident was prepared for the future, who would have thought that the little bitch from back then would have managed to pull a fast one twice', by the end of her inner monologue, the fake Thalia had gotten angrier.
Thea's race had ssed up her plans at key points two tis already, she had started to believe that there was more to it than what t the eye, but right now that didn't matter.
'If she even inherited the preference for spear-type weapons, then her lineage should be pure and high tanked enough to be of used for "that", that face of hers will have its uses as well, so I'll try not to chop her… to much!'.
Thea who was gritting her teeth and pushing against the bident that was actually negating the attack of her spear, while also resisting the pressure applied to her domain, felt her instincts warning her, her pretty snake-like pupils contracted.
"Watch out", Mirellia's voice was the last hint the empress needed, she rotated her body to stop the clash, redirecting the withered bone bident, avoiding by the skin of her teeth a sharp toothed snout that erged from it, aiming at her arm.
"Tsk!", the fake Thalia clicked her tongue, the circular array that contained the four bodyguards as its core, blocked at her right parrying the heavy punches of the Lamia queen and her battle avatar at the sa ti.
"Booom!", the thunder like shockwave made the fake Thalia cease her attack on Thea and take a step backwards.
"Are you okay?", Mirellia approached Thea, earlier she had a bad premonition which is why she instinctively warned Thea but she didn't know from where it was coming.
"Mm, thanks… sohow, she nearly made it past my defense", mumbled Thea, she was still in awe at the previous, as soone with space awareness thanks to her space affinity, it's really hard for her to miss sothing.
Taking Thea by surprise is really hard, after all unless an object travel through space, it does still exist in the sa plane as her, and she should be able to detect it, even if it's a fraction of a second before it reaches her, that opens a window for a counterasure, so be it head on clashing or distant fighting, the empress
Of course, there are limits and restrictions, but Thea didn't feel anything like the mana used by the woman living in Daimon's shadow, coming from the fake Thalia so she was confused as to how she nearly failed to dodge that attack, whatever it was.
'That bident seems to have been prepared to specifically deal with your spear, let be the vanguard, I'll take care of the bident so you can land your attacks on her', the Lamia queen sent Thea a mana transmission, without letting it show on her face.
'Okay, let's give it a try, be careful I can still interrupt her spatial movent, but not like before, her domain has sothing weird mixed in it', answered Thea.
"Whatever battle plan you two have, it's useless now", with a cold voice, the fake Thalia charged towards Thea since she wanted to get rid of that annoying black spear first.
"Humph", following what they just discussed, the Lamia queen blocked the fake Thalia's way, since she wasn't sure of what the hell was wrong with the bident, she used her battle avatar to test the waters and so a giant green gauntlet punch intercepted the white bone withered bident.
"Damn annoying pest!", the fake Thalia dodged the giant punch and thrusted the bident at Mirellia's chest, but her attack was received by the Lamia queen's own fist.
"Boom!", the fake Thalia was forced backwards by the extre physical impact produced by Mirellia's punch, just in ti for Thea to appear at her right, the black spear flashed towards the neck of her enemy, but the shield array interfered and to Thea's surprise her spear was blocked!
The empress was inwardly shocked, it's not like blocking her attacks is impossible a weapon of equal quality like that strange bident can do it in a frontal clash, but what this ti using the chance that Mirellia got for her, she found an opening on the space and was going to use her spear to bypass the fake Thalia's defense and reach her before she could react, but she… failed.
The opening was as small as a grain of sand yes, but who is Thea, a space affinity genius with a talent so high that she can't fully exploit it as of current and yet, at the last second her spear deviated a milliter making her fail, not to ntion that the battle aura shield also stopped her spear, all in all it was a failure.
Thea retrieved her spear on the spot and put so distance between herself and the fake Thalia, returning to Mirellia's side.
'You felt it too, right?', asked the empress to the Lamia queen.
'Yes, there is sothing weird going on, she shouldn't have been able to dodge the attack of my battle avatar so easily, also I put enough strength in my punch to send a mage like her flying but she only stepped back a bit', said Mirellia.
'Mm, it was short-lived but sothing interfered with my spear as well, if she used a space-related spell or ability to get in my way I would have noticed it, but that wasn't the case, what is going on', mumbled Thea.
The fake Thalia saw those two grow confused and wary of her and she inwardly snarked at them.
'Think as much as you want, there is no way for mortals like you two to…', her inner thoughts were stopped midway as she saw Thea suspiciously inspecting her arm, while Mirellia did the sa but her focus was on her waist.
Before the fake Thalia could react, those two charged at her, Thea and Mirellia alternated between each other to make it impossible to foresee which side would take each one of them.
At the last second, Thea appeared at the left side her spear clashed with the bone bident, releasing sparks due to the clash while Mirellia's battle avatar as well as herself punched the battle aura shield, making the thing shake due to the impact.
"That won't work, just go to hell already", the fake Thalia resisted the double assault of the two queens, that spike toothed mouth erged from the bident again, aiming at Thea's arm but then, the fake Thalia's eyes contracted as she saw a bright green stream blocking the ability of the bident.
"Acid Whip", the stream that originated from Mirellia's snake-like tail, lashed at the spike toothed snout, producing a sizzling sound as it deviated its trajectory.
"Damn it", the fake Thalia jumped backwards, realizing that she was tricked, she poured mana into the bident to cut off the part of the spiked mouth that was touched by Mirellia's martial art, preventing the acid from spreading further, then using her mana the thing was repaired and returned to the bident.
"So, you were indeed ssing with our bodies, what a nasty trick", coldly said Thea, Mirellia nodded, agreeing with the empress.
The fake Thalia gritted her teeth in disbelief, she was planning to use the power of her origin secretly a few tis to worn those two out before finishing them both by surprise, but sohow, they not only noticed it but also tricked her to confirm their suspicions and even obtain information on what she could do.
'Is every woman from that race so annoyingly sharp, or were these two specifically born this way, perhaps they have soone "special" as their ancestor… whatever in that case I can stop holding myself back, there are also enough casualties to experint on for quite so ti anyway'.
Thea and Mirellia suddenly felt their instincts warning them, they flashed to put more distance between themselves and the fake Thalia.
"Now, the playti is over, don't even think on getting a quick and peaceful death, you made get serious after all, pieces of trash", the fake Thalia appeared behind those two.
"Boooom!", a horrendous explosion of energies and a physical shockwave, produced a blinding flash and a thunder-like shockwave, once the clash finished the image of Thea and Mirellia who had been sent flying downwards a couple of kiloters was revealed.
The Lamia queen as well as her battle avatar had their arms crossed in front of them, she couldn't retaliate and was forced to block the bash from the battle aura shield with her body.
As for Thea, she was holding her spear with both hands, diagonally in front of her, there was a faint trace of gray mana coming from the middle part of the spear's staff with which Thea blocked the bident at the last second.
"The fact that you know I can ss with your body's reactions, doesn't an you can do anything about it, prepare yourselves "little girls" I'm going to rip your heads out of your bodies", said the fake Thalia with an authoritative voice before she beca a flash of silver light.
"Watch out!", said both Thea and Mirellia at the sa ti, a silver snake emblem appeared on top of Thea's right arm and to the anger of the empress she felt as if a giant chain was restraining it, forcing her to let go of her spear and catch it midair with her left hand.
"Clang!", Thea blocked the fake Thalia's bident with her spear just in ti, but she was pushed backwards, since she was forced to not use her dominant hand at the last second.
Mirellia tried to join into the fight but that silver snake emblem appeared in front of her shoulder and the punch which she had already thrown got deviated, it wasn't that much but it allowed the fake Thalia to dodge it and block the kick coming from the Lamia queen's battle avatar with the shield array.
"Quite cunning, you even realized that your avatar gets affected on the sa spot as yourself, what a sha but even if the resistance is higher when used on a knight, you will still be thrown out of your rhythm", said the fake Thalia as she gestured with her free hand, bashing the shield against Mirellia, Thea glanced from the corner of her eyes at the shield, making the thing tremble for a second, since it failed to travel through space to attack Mirellia from a blind spot.
The Lamia queen jumped backwards but used her battle avatar to break the clash between Thea's spear and the bident, helping the empress to safely retreat before that spike toothed mouth attacked her.
Thea had discovered that the attack of that bident was especially prepared for her or more accurately for her race, so taking it frontwards would be really dangerous for her, however Mirellia's acid battle aura was quite effective against it, so she left the task to parry it to the Lamia queen, in exchange she helped Mirellia to not fall prey to the fake Thalia's space tricks.
Mirellia inwardly panted, as the hand of her battle avatar let Thea down, next to her, they weren't sure of the extent of the ability that the fake Thalia was using to ss up with their movents, so they had to be really careful and it would be a lie to say that they weren't feeling pressured during the previous clash.
'How the hell is she ignoring our defenses like that, I couldn't lt away that restriction on my shoulder with my battle aura', thought the Lamia queen.
'Is the energy produced by that array, whatever it is, at the sa rank it overwhelms mana and battle aura, we should consider that she has put a step in what cos after the Maximum Stellar rank', said Thea as she also caught her breath.
It might not look too obvious on the outside, but she and the Lamia queen were using more energy to keep up with the fight compared to earlier, Thea's mana reserves were going down by the second as she fought against the fake Thalia's domain as for Mirellia, she had to use imbue way more battle aura into her gauntlets and her battle avatar to produce a similar to result against the shield array, as she did earlier.
They might look like they are keeping up rather well, considering how stronger the fake Thalia got, but if previously they could have keep fighting for half a day while having sixty sothing chance to win, now they would run out of energy in two hours and had their victory chances reduced to thirty percent, that's how much of a difference there was between before and now.
The empress's eyes glowed for a second as she rembered Daimon's words, before they entered the challenges.
"There are people who wield powers that outclass what even those considered geniuses can use, they can achieve things that would be impossible for others, but don't let them convince you that they are invincible".
"If you et one of them, be wary but don't panic, hit them with lethal force by surprise and don't let them catch their breath, in a 2v1 fight, any of the people accepted in our team would have a decent chance to win against them".
The empress had confird that the fake Thalia was one of those people at this point, so she decided to follow the advice Daimon gave them.
'We'll go with the ergency battle plan', she said to Mirellia.
'Are you sure, that's our last resort, after using that, I'll go out of Lamia form and won't be able to use my battle avatar anymore…', the Lamia queen's hesitation stopped when she felt a large wave of hostile vitality coming from all directions towards the battlefield on the ground, aning that a larger part of the enemy's beast army had just arrived.
The fake Thalia felt the urge to laugh out loud, just like those two she was still paying attention to the battle taking place below and to her displease, even with the arrival of the four generals of the beast army as well as their personal beast squads, they hadn't been able to gain the upper hand.
It beca painfully obvious that she had underestimated the lliun kingdom's elite forces, but even so, she was still in the position to drown them in magic beasts, as long as she gathered more than a third part of her army at the headquarters and her previous orders were finally being effective.
"Hey, young Lamia queen, you can feel it right, my army finally arrived and let tell you a secret, thanks to you I finally found a way to bypass the annoying disguising arrays of your kingdom's underwater cities and my army will march towards them as soon as I give the order".
Mirellia frowned, she wanted to believe that the enemy was lying but her instincts told her that wasn't the case.
Seeing the reaction she wanted from the Lamia queen, the fake Thalia inwardly smirked.
"I'm aware that you two can still last so ti against , the sa applies to your army down there, which is actually a surprise for and also the reason as to why I am going to give you one last chance, help capture that rebellious descendant of mine and I will take your kingdom under my protection, we can make a contract that would benefit both of us", she said to Mirellia.
Of course, the Lamia queen paid no attention to her words, to begin with she wouldn't backstab the person that saved her daughter's life, who se considered a friend as of current, not to ntion that she wasn't naïve enough to believe that soone like the fake Thalia would let her kingdom maintain its independence and she has seen how she treats her subordinates too.
This was just a nasty trick to seed distrust between them again, and just like before it didn't work at all, that being said it did make the Lamia queen steel her heart.
'Let's freaking kill her!', she said to Thea with a fierce voice.
'Mm', with a soft sound of confirmation, they both charged towards the fake Thalia to prepare for the final clash.
…
Back on the battlefield at ground level, the army of the lliun kingdom was bravely resisting against a larger number of enemies, as of current the soldier in the best condition was fighting at least one officer of the enemy's army as well as one magic beast, while the most outstanding dealt with more magic beasts at the sa ti.
But the one who was shinning the most right now, was the light green haired Nea, her tal Warhamr has been completely dyed red in magic beast's blood at this point, there was a mountain of crushed magic beasts at her vicinity all this while she was clashing against the fake Thalia's second in command and the strongest out of the four generals of the beast army at the sa ti.
"Crack!", the bloody Warhamr heavily landed on one of the two tower shields of the brown armored general, finally shattering it into pieces and also breaking the arm of the latter.
"Owen!", the fake Thalia's second in command yelled with anger, she flashed towards Nea and shot a giant torrent of flas at short distance.
"Humph!", Nea swung her Warhamr along with a large amount of mana, forcefully dispelling the fire, but giving her opponents enough ti to recompose themselves, the brown armored general drank a potion and after a few cracking sounds, his arm healed, but the armor of the arm was utterly destroyed, and that was also his last spare shield, along the fight, Nea had destroyed the five replacents he had, so he was left with just one.
That being said, Nea who had already used a mana and stamina replenishing potion during the fight, knew that she was in a tight spot, she should be able to kill one of her two opponents but the fight against the second one will be tough.
'Damn it, those magic beasts might not be dangerous under normal circumstances since they are pretty much mindless, but their numbers are enough to swarm us', thought Nea as she felt the horde of magic beasts appearing in the vicinity with her mana sense.
"Reinforcents!".
"Ohhhhhh!".
Seeing the horde of magic beasts surrounding the battlefield in every direction, the Snake Tyrant's army roared in excitent, while the lliun kingdom's felt the pressure weighting down on them.
"Kill them all!", the brown armored general who held the highest authority over the beast army, ordered and the magic beasts roared and charged towards the closest enemies, then the general turned to see Nea with hatred filled eyes, if it wasn't for him tanking most of her attacks, his lover would have died long ti ago, he wanted nothing more than ripping her flesh and grinding her bones.
"Humph, your mindless beasts are useless against , decide who of you two will die and co forward", fiercely said Nea as she wiped the sweat on her forehead and charged her Warhamr with mana in preparation for the ten magic beasts that were coming towards her.
But then a strange sensation of reliance blood in her agitated spirit, an almost unnoticeable smile appeared on the corner of her mouth.
"Roaaaaaar!", a different kind of fierce roar echoed through the battlefield, stopping the magic beasts that were just about to join the fray.
Without anyone noticing, shadows of the key mbers of the lliun kingdom's army, expanded and joined forming a giant black vortex on the ground, out of which seemingly countless magic beasts erged.
"Damn it, more magic beasts!", cursed the Valiun naga king as he crushed the neck of the officer that was fighting against him, alongside one of the four generals of the beast army.
But then to his surprise, the magic beasts that blood out of the ground near him, actually pounced on the magic beasts that arrived earlier and even charged against the general which has been a pain in the ass for him.
What was happening is that besides Nea and her grandmother who had the complete trust of Mirellia, no one else knew all the details of the plan, but they were told that as long as they endured the victory would be theirs, so without questioning they all let out a battle cry and joined the fray with renewed vigor.
"I don't know what's happening, but fuck it, co here you, slippery bastard!", the Valiun naga king with his bear-like constitution charged towards the general tackling him with his rock scaled armored body.
"What the hell is going on, is that crazy bastard also attacking us!", exclaid the brown armored general only to see his companion shaking her head at him.
"No, look at the eyes of those magic beasts, they aren't bloodshot like the ones of the Dark Berserker clan… they were hiding this beast army of theirs, damn it", cursed the fake Thalia's second in command.
'You really took your sweet ti', inwardly thought Nea as she felt a certain pair of Lamia princesses appearing far from the battlefield while guarded by a couple of fully black clothed figures as well as a girl with brown hair and blue eyes, no one else noticed it though.
"People of the lliun kingdom, show them what the Lamia and Naga races are made of!", with Nea's order, the soldiers got even fiercer and with the escort of the magic beasts that were suddenly "bestowed" to them by the heavens, they forced their respective enemies backwards.
Nea then fiercely smiled, all the magic beasts coming at her were intercepted, opening a clear path for her to smash the heads of her opponents.
…
"Booom!", a minute ago, above the clouds a trio of silver, black and bright green flashes collided on the air for a few seconds before being forcefully separated from each other.
They were none other than the fake Thalia as well as Thea and Mirellia, the battle had taken a much more violent approach since earlier, the right arm of the empress was bleeding, dying the sleeve of her elegant black dress and armor with a few blood spots here and there.
Mirellia has also taken damage, the parts of her gauntlets that protected her forearms had cracks from which blood dripped occasionally, also her battle aura had dimd down a bit.
On the other hand, the fake Thalia didn't seem happy of having managed to harm those two, unlike them she hadn't suffered major wounds, but there were cuts and bruises on many parts of her body.
'How humiliating, to think I had have weakened enough for these re ants to be able to land so of their attacks after recklessly abandoning their defensive stances… death isn't enough of a punishnt for them!', she inwardly roared.
During the past ten minutes or so, Thea and Mirellia stopped blocking any non-life-threatening attacks and focused on the offensive, which resulted in them getting wounded yes, but they also bypassed the blockade caused by the fake Thalia's ability to ss with their bodies.
Thea's eyes suddenly sparkled as she felt a familiar presence coming through a dinsional tunnel in her direction, Mirellia couldn't feel it but seeing Thea giving her a secret sign by clenching her fist twice, she used her battle aura to break a certain device hidden in her pocket.
"What happened my fake ancestor Gwen, don't tell you can't kill two opponents who are younger and weaker than you", mockingly said the empress.
"What did you say!", the fake Thalia whose real na was Gwen, frowned on the spot as she heard Thea calling her real na as well as "fake ancestor", her preparations were made so that no one would realize Thalia was being controlled, so there was no way for the descendant of Thalia to know let alone what really happened, but her real na.
In fact, there was only one person alive who knew her real na, as of current, Gwen's pupils contracted like needles, her head wildly turned towards a specific direction while the shield array covered her as she focused on scanning a specific object.
The very second her senses reached their destination, she saw a blinding flash followed by pillar of flas which reached all the way to the sky and then… her hidden lab disappeared from the face of the planet, along with all the things she had in there, subordinates included.
"You bitch, how dare you!!!", an enraged scream echoed through the energy sphere in which those three were having their battle, but was interrupted by Gwen listening to the turmoil that broke out at the battlefield on the ground.
She saw in awe how, magic beasts suddenly erged from the ground, tilting the scale towards her enemy's side and the surprises kept coming.
Gwen abruptly focused on those two once again, because she felt a sudden discharge of mana and battle aura respectively, of out of the scale proportions compared to everything she has seen during this battle.
Unfortunately, she reacted one second too late, the Lamia queen forcefully closed her right fist, producing a loud "cracking" sound as she crushed a certain object with her full strength.
Then a blinding green light appeared above the right hand of her battle avatar, it was a giant concentration of energy to be more accurate of… mana.
"Acid Nova", the last thing Gwen saw was the Lamia queen's battle avatar raising its hand towards the sky, while those two jumped into it, next with the battle avatar as its center a light green sphere expanded in every direction, covering everything with its light until it even surpassed engulfed the battlefield created by the clash of energies and domains in which they were fighting.
There was no sound produced by the explosion, however a huge hole was suddenly cleanly lted down in the clouds that blocked the sky, it was as if a green sun had descended from the space, causing the bloody last fight that had broken out in the battlefield at the ground to take a temporary stop.
Regardless of affiliation, those that saw the green sun which was dissipating already, felt a chill running down their backs, all of them were sure that if they had been near that, they would have died, a hundred percent of the tis.
Back at the sky, once the green sun dissipated, the energy field which was around 80% lted and crumbling apart, was revealed, inside of it two figures could be seen.
Gwen who had crossed her arms in front of her face while the shield array completely protected her, slowly moved.
"Cough!", she vomited blood on the spot, the shield blocked the attack but her domain was nearly destroyed by Mirellia's martial art, and that wasn't all, till the last speck of mana in the vicinity was lted down as well, so this zone had turned into a nightmare for a mage even if it was temporary.
The Lamia queen on the other hand, was panting, her previously glorious and solid battle avatar blinked a couple of tis before it disappeared, returning to her body, at the sa ti Mirellia's elegant snake tail turned into countless green particles, revealing her human legs which were covered by her armor.
"Haaa…haaa", Mirellia couldn't even speak as of current, but it was understandable, after all she managed to surprise Gwen, for real, since she a knight suddenly manipulated mana!
An ability that she would have never expected to see in a planet or galaxy of this level, that martial art of hers compressed a huge amount of mana into a sphere and then used all her battle aura at the sa ti to make it explode alongside it, a martial art truly befitting of the na "Nova", the resulting explosion seed like the birth of a new star.
But let's leave aside the esthetic aspects for now, what's important is that the Lamia queen showed a similar ability to that used by Adam when he grew an angel's wing back then, but it was different, first she couldn't fight in that state, like the light idiot, only use that martial art, she needed to be in Lamia form and use the martial art through her battle avatar and since she had no experience in handling mana, she couldn't gather the required amount by herself and needed an external easy to use source.
In this case, the Snake Sapphire left behind by the first queen was used to activate one of the two techniques, left behind by the her.
The sapphire was lost but the result was worth it, the mix of acid mana and battle aura was strong enough to nearly destroy the energy field that was practically in the hands of Gwen and also deprive her of any mana.
"You crazy bitch, die already!", Gwen saw the current weakened state of the Lamia queen and proposed to pierce her with her bident, but her body stopped midway as a translucent black called giant snake, appeared out of nowhere in front of her.
The shield array blocked in front of her but the snake… bypassed, as if it had no mass the black snake went through the shield like it was nothing, then engulfed Gwen's right arm all the way from her shoulder to her wrist.
"Dinsion Devouring Python", a tired but llow voice could be heard coming from a few hundreds of ters behind of Gwen, the black snake then bit the space with its snout and disappeared into the void.
"Crack!".
"Aghhhh!".
The result was half of the shield array crumbling apart on the spot since two out of the four bodyguards that acted as the core, had only their hands and feet left, Gwen's agonizing scream followed since her arm disappeared from her body, her hand which was still holding the bident fell down form the sky but was caught by Gwen with her remaining hand as she forced herself to regain her mind.
Her eyes got bloodshot on the spot, her face which previously had a certain resemblance with Thea, trembled and then changed to be that of a completely different person, for starters she looked way older appearing to be in her late thirties now.
Also, her hair turned gray and red and so did her eyes, in exchange for this, a strange fluid gray energy erged out of her body.
"Tyrant's Decree!", with a loud shout, the energy field which was about to disappear, shrank down but it ford again, locking Thea and Mirellia who were sweating and panting, inside of it, that wasn't all, her cleanly cut flesh on the shoulder trembled before a new arm which looked rather thin, ford, her hand which she managed to keep was attached to it, giving it a strange look.
"You two miserable ants should feel honored to have forced so far, you actually made waste thousands of years of accumulation, but don't worry, your bodies and all those rats you brought will be enough to make up for it, don't feel bad after all you two never stood a chance against …".
"And what if you add to the equation", a cold but comforting voice interrupted Gwen's monologue, her domain which had just reford got a hole teared into its roof by a giant white fla sword that descended from the sky.
The white fla sword exploded in a sea of fire, revealing a silver haired masked youth, around whom the flas twirled like a hurricane.
The very mont Gwen's eyes got a glimpse of the newcor, she took a defensive stance and brought the though reford, smaller shield array in front of hers, because she could tell that the masked youth was a system user!
"Damn it, so that's why those lowlifes were able to resist against , they had you backing them, you little bastard, still you are as smart as I would expect, choosing to protect those two instead of using the surprise advantage to finish ", said Gwen with disdain to which Daimon smirked.
"Well, I couldn't do anything about it, that's how a distraction works", that shiver-inspiring smirk combined with Daimon's words, made Gwen had a bad premonition.
But by the ti she reacted, a skinny black-haired woman had appeared behind of her, her right arm which had a lackluster phantom white snake coiled around it, pierced her chest from her back.
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