Chapter 432: The Underworld (VIII)

The blood moon hung over them like an open wound.

Crimson Demonic Energy surged through the countless vines covering the surroundings, causing them to twist and writhe like living creatures.

The enormous blood-red moon above them suddenly became brighter, and a strange pressure descended from the sky.

The princess did not wait for him to admire it.

She vanished.

Gray’s Spirit Eyes caught the movement a fraction late. A crimson afterimage tore across the ground, and her fist was already in front of his chest.

BOOM!

He twisted.

The punch still clipped his shoulder and sent him skidding backward through the roots. Dark soil exploded behind him.

"Oww..."

Pain flashed down his arm.

The princess noticed his gaze and smiled.

"What happened?"

She slowly walked forward.

"You looked so confident a moment ago."

Her crimson hair floated behind her as she approached, and the blood moon reflected in her ruby-red eyes.

"Where did all that confidence go?"

Gray smiled faintly.

"I’m still confident."

"Oh?"

She tilted her head.

"Then why are you sweating?"

Gray wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

"This?"

He looked at his fingers.

"It’s hot in here."

The princess stared at him in disbelief, her lips twitching.

"You’re unbelievable."

She raised her hand.

The vines answered.

Dozens of them ripped out of the ground and shot toward him from every direction.

Some were thin as spears. Some were thick enough to crush a carriage. All of them carried that same royal pressure.

Gray’s body dissolved.

[✧ Dream Mist ✧]

He came apart into silver-black mist and slipped between the first wave. The vines slammed into each other where he had been, spraying dark sap across the Domain.

He reformed behind her and drew the unnamed rapier.

The blade left its sheath with a thin, cold sound.

The princess turned as if she had expected it.

Clang!

Her forearm met the rapier.

A layer of crimson light covered her skin and stopped the High Emperor’s weapon as if it were ordinary metal.

The impact rang through Gray’s wrist.

She smiled.

"Is that all an incubus carries?"

Gray pulled the blade back and cut again, low this time, then high, then across her throat.

She stepped through all three.

Her kick caught him in the ribs.

CRACK!

Air left his lungs.

He flew, hit a wall of vines, and bounced off it into the soil. The Domain itself seemed to grab at him, roots curling around his ankle.

He slashed them apart and stood.

Blood touched the inside of his mouth.

The princess walked toward him without hurry.

"You wanted to feel my power, no? Then stop running!"

"...Ugh, so fierce~"

Her eyes narrowed.

"...Don’t die."

FWOOM!

The blood moon flared.

A column of crimson light dropped from it and smashed into the ground where Gray stood. He Swap-marked a vine twenty meters away a second earlier and vanished.

"[✧ Swap ✧]"

He reappeared on the vine.

The column carved a crater into the Domain floor.

Gray clicked his tongue.

’If that lands, Peak Saint or not, I lose a limb.’

The princess looked up at him, annoyed that he was still intact.

"Coward’s trick."

"Useful trick."

He dropped from the vine and met her in the air.

"Soul Chasing Extremities..."

[Severing Pursuit]

Swoop!

The rapier’s edge carried a thin thread of pursuit qi, locking onto the heat of her bloodline. The cut should have followed her even if she bent space.

She did not bend space.

She punched the rapier.

Swisp!

The pursuit thread snapped instantly, causing Gray’s eyes to widen.

’She broke the lock with raw force.’

BAAAAM!

They hit the ground together.

The Domain shook.

Gray slid back three steps while the princess slid back one.

For the first time, her smile sharpened with something other than contempt.

"You can actually stand."

"Disappointed?"

"A little." She rolled her wrist.

"I thought you were only good with your mouth."

"I am also good with that."

"Shut up and fight."

She raised both hands this time.

The vines behind her opened like a gate.

From the blood moon, a spear of condensed crimson energy formed and dropped into her grip. It was longer than she was tall, its head shaped like a crescent.

The pressure coming off it made Gray’s skin sting.

It was clearly... a royal armament.

Not a toy.

Gray lowered his stance.

Crackle...!

The Nine Heavens Thunder Claw stirred in his fingers, gold-blue lightning wanting out.

He held it.

Lightning in a closed Domain this dense would tell her too much about what he really was.

He used Gravity Magic instead.

Swoorshhh!

The soil under her left foot grew heavier.

It was enough to make her step half a second late.

Gray used that half-a-second perfectly, stepping in and flicking his rapier towards the gap under her spear arm before reversing and cutting her thigh,

Unfortunately... the spear came down anyway.

CLAAAAANG!

The Domain rang like a bell.

Gray’s rapier held firmly... barely.

His boots sank into the wet ground up to the ankle.

The princess pushed, and the difference in realm showed itself without mercy. Monarch force poured down the spear and tried to fold him in half.

He let go of the bind, slipped inside her guard, and drove his shoulder into her stomach.

She exhaled, surprised, but just as quickly, her knee came up into his chest.

THUD!

Both of them broke apart.

Gray wiped blood from his lip with the back of his hand.

The princess touched her stomach where he had hit her, then looked at her fingers as if she had not expected to feel it.

"You hit harder than a ordinary incubus should."

"I eat well."

"Liar."

"Often."

She pointed the crescent spear at his throat from ten meters away.

"Name."

"Why?"

"I don’t like killing people I haven’t named."

Gray smiled.

"Then... just don’t kill me."

Swoosh!

A sweep.

A crescent wave of blood-red energy tore across the Domain, wide enough to cut the entire field in two.

The vines split, and the soil opened as the wave came at Gray too fast for mist to be elegant.

He dropped.

The wave passed over his back close enough to burn through the coat.

He came up running.

The princess was already there.

Clank, fwump!

CREAACK!

A vine snapped up between them like a third fighter.

Gray cut the vine, ducked the spear, and took a grazing line across his cheek for the trouble. The princess caught his next cut on the spear shaft and kicked his knee.

He turned with it instead of breaking, grabbed her wrist, and tried to throw her.

She let him, and then used the throw.

Gray’s own motion became her pivot. The spear butt smashed into his shoulder blade and sent him face-first into the roots.

He spat dirt.

"Ow."

"Stand up."

"Give me a second."

"No."

A vine wrapped his waist and yanked him into the air.

Gray swapped with a falling leaf of crimson vine-matter behind her.

"[✧Swap✧]"

He appeared at her back and stabbed...

Splurt...!

The rapier bit, but barely... it wasn’t too deep.

The point punched through the outer layer of her defensive light and drew a thin line of dark-red blood across her shoulder blade.

The princess stopped.

The Domain went quiet for a single breath.

She reached back, touched the cut, and looked at the blood on her fingers.

"Pwa... pwahahahahah!"

Then she suddenly started laughing madly.

"Good."

The blood moon above them pulsed once, answering her mood.

"Now I don’t have to hold back as much."

Gray’s smile faded.

’There it is.’

KROOOOOOOM!

The crimson energy exploded off her body in a second wave, thicker than the first.

The Domain itself tightened, the vines grew thorns, and the soil tried to swallow his feet. The pressure that had been merely "Monarch" became "royal Monarch who had been playing."

Gray set his rapier and felt his Peak Saint foundation groan under it.

He could still fight, and obviously could not treat this like a conversation anymore.

"Come on then," he said.

The princess lowered the spear.

"Gladly."

She vanished again.

This time Gray’s Spirit Eyes saw the line of her movement before her body finished it. He stepped off the killing line, rapier rising, pursuit qi lighting along the edge.

[Severing Pursuit]

[Soul Binding Trace]

Two moves chained.

The first cut the vine she sent as a feint while the second laid a pale thread against her wrist.

For a moment, her spear arm slowed.

Her eyes widened.

"Y-you..."

Gray was already inside.

The rapier stopped a finger from her throat.

Her spear stopped a finger from his heart.

They stood like that, close enough to feel each other’s breath, the blood moon burning over both of them.

Neither pushed the last inch.

Not yet.

The princess’s voice dropped.

"You are not mid-level."

Gray’s voice stayed light.

"And you are not as bored as you looked in the market."

Her mouth twitched.

Then the Domain shook harder, and the stalemate broke as she shoved him back with a burst of raw bloodline force.

Gray flew, caught himself, and landed in a crouch, rapier still up.

The princess rolled her wounded shoulder as if the cut were a gift.

"Again," she said.

Gray exhaled once, tasting the blood on his mouth.

"Again."