'Yes, those girls have a few screw looses, but can you blame them?'

Olivia closed her eyes and recalled the misery each of her friends went through.

-

The first friend she met was none other than Marie.

At the time, Olivia had just lost her family, and was aimlessly walking through the dark and moldy streets of Noctelagia.

With only the ring left by her parents after their sudden death, she thought of following them.

Then, turning into an alley, she noticed a young girl her age being assaulted by a group of young men.

The young Marie at the time was fighting back with everything she had, but was easily overpowered and crushed under the men's violent punches.

As one grabbed her hair and pulled her closer to his face, she spat blood on him.

Olivia watched in horror, as she wondered if she was going to suffer the same fate.

Yet, seeing the girl fight until the very hand, Olivia got reminded of her mother's words.

'Never give up without giving your all.'

After that, she blacked out. When she recovered her consciousness, she was covered in blood, surrounded by bits of human chunks.

Marie, at the time, was in shock in front of the young Olivia.

She had horns, wings, and a long but thin tail behind her, yet, she didn't felt threatened.

The world came crashing down on Olivia when she realized that she had killed people with her own hands. Still, she did not feel bad.

When she turned to look at Marie, the two stared in each other's eyes, where they understood each other, creating an unbreakable bond.

That was how they met each other. Marie kept her secret sealed inside her heart, and Olivia vowed to protect her friend from ever suffering the same treatment.

None of them cried the death of the men assaulting Marie. Olivia became even more eager to get rid of these kinds of people.

She began her plan with the help of Marie. With the ring's magic, she worked on sealing her appearance, and with her own strength, she manipulated the previous Apostle of Noctelagia to take her in.

Marie, who became of a maid to support her friend, was a major help to make the play more believable.

Olivia became the daughter of the Lakis, who believed her until the very end. While she worked on getting rid of the filth in Noctelagia, she found other girls with similar situations to Marie.

Alice and Eden were the next she found. These two sisters were living in a dilapidated house at the edge of the city. They had been thrown out of their previous house by their parents for not being able to use magic.

As they were about to get killed by the guards after many complaints from the townspeople, Olivia worked around them, and dragged the two into her ranks.

Not long after, she went ahead and tracked down more people to strengthen her position.

That's when she found Kate, Alma, Serena, and Noelle.

Each of them were in a group of orphans that stole food from stalls to survive. That was when Olivia realized how horrible the city she lived in truly was.

Many children, who should have lived happily with their families, were, in fact, thrown away for stupid reasons. Because no laws were enforced upon the residents, the adults lived only for their own profits, not caring for the normal things to do.

She saved those four without caring for a single insult thrown her way, and continued her search.

At few months later, Olivia heard from Marie, who was acting as a spy inside the castle, that a few children were actually chained in the basement. This information was only known by four people in the castle.

The Apostle, his aid, a nobleman, and a guard. Marie obtained this information by seducing the guard, loosening his tongue in the process.

Olivia stormed the basement without second thoughts, and rescued the girls, who were each in a terrible state. In the process, Marie killed the guard who tried to stop her master.

There, she met Lilian, Celeste, Niya, Haileen, Ollie.

Celeste was a beastman, captured not far from the city. She was thought to be a spy, and tortured until she couldn't think. The guards cut her ears and tail, making her a shadow of her former self.

While Lilian, Haileen, and Ollie were normal humans, the same couldn't be said for Niya. The poor girl was a visitor from a distant land.

She mistakenly left the boat she traveled on, and rapidly got lost in Noctelagia. As anyone would have expected, she was judged a spy, and brought to the basement.

Once she rescued them, voices of disagreement began to rose from the people supporting the previous Apostle.

Words of rebellion got out, until a large chunk of the army broke into her room in the middle of the night.

No one returned alive from this. Olivia went straight to her 'father', and explained the situation. That she was saving people who lived with no hope for tomorrow, just like she was before.

Her predecessor asked her if she would rebel, and she said:

"Yes, but only against those who want my death."

What happened after that came to cause considerable changes to Noctelagia. Olivia, followed by her few maids, killed the ones who went after her.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Many noblemen died horribly, without anyone to support them anymore.

From those families, she took Zara, Grace, Marisa, Alisa, Rene, and the twins Helen and Helena under her wings.

She refused to let other girls from following the footsteps of the ones who struggled to survive, and instead took them in.

A lot of struggle happened during this time, especially from Alisa and Zara, who refused to listen to the murderer of their father.

Still, after explaining the reasons, they all understood that their actions were selfish, and would have hurt them too eventually.

Their freedom was forfeited just by being with these men, which Olivia made sure to make them understand.

The remaining girls were found in a hideout in the sewers.

Sonia, Marina, Laure, Angie, Isa, Chloe, Martha, and Claire. They were agonizing, on the border between life and death, with no food left to eat, and no hope of seeing tomorrow.

When words of one last stronghold of unfortunate children entered her ears, Olivia entered the sewers with her army of maids, and hurriedly searched for them.

Before it was too late, eight girls were rescued and saved. They were incredibly cautious at first, but warmed up to her within a month.

That was how her maid squad came to be. It took her four years to rescue all of them.

At twelve-year-old, Olivia began to teach each of them how to behave like ladies, just like she had learned from the Lakis.

Then, she made them learn how to fight. She wanted them to have a way to avoid falling back into the dangerous life they went through before, oblivious to her followers' feelings.

The twenty-seven maids fell in love with her. They vowed to always protect the only person who held a helping hand to them, who saved them from an uncertain future.

So, they became stronger. While unable to use magic, they became masters of another art.

They learned the Art of Fine Wire, Razor Floss. And with it, a thirst for violence.

-

Olivia looked at Marie's back.

Her friend was sliding rings around her fingers while smiling.

She looked at the others, who were doing the same.

Around the edges of those rings were wrapped long and thin steel threads. The moment all ten rings were worn, the atmosphere suddenly changed.

Incredible bloodlust filled the air, which could suffocate anyone not used to it.

The kelpies glanced at Eden and Alice, worried that they would be attacked, but still maintained their position after Saffira ordered them.

Some maids were either younger, or older than Olivia. Still, they were faithful. Nothing would be able to break their mind, and her orders were absolute.

So, when Olivia asked to get rid of something.

They were delighted to do so.

*Splash*

Many creatures began to emerge from the sea. Fish-like corrupted floated above sea level, flying straight for the shoreline.

Under them, various seal-like creatures were about to surface, while a row of deformed orcas and whales.

Way behind, three Corrupted Lords waited in the shadows.

To that, the Lord of Noctelagia, Olivia, chose to go all out. The illusion made with dark magic disappeared, revealing her demonic form to the world.

For the first time in her life, she willingly showed her true form.

The maids turned to look at her with awe. Since they were all trusted by Olivia, they knew. Yet, they rarely had the opportunity to see her in this glorious form.

Then, Olivia inhaled air, before shouting at the top of her lungs.

"War as begun! Everyone, defend the city!"

Threads dropped from the maids' fingers at her order. They were ready to 'welcome' the guest coming toward them.

Suddenly, a water projectile the size of a house traveled over Marie's head, forcing her to blink confused, before it crashed on the corrupted fishes.

She glanced toward Olivia, who had the palm of her hand pointed toward her. The two looked at each other, before a smile raptured Marie's face.

'Our first battle with Milady! How thrilling!'

In high-spirits, the maids glared at the enemies.

"No one will get past us! Be our guest, give it a try."

The battle of Noctelagia began this very instant.

~

The battlefield north of Noctelagia was amplifying by the minute.

Various beasts rushed the soldiers, ranging between smaller to larger types. Weird hybrids of animals appeared too, more dangerous than the normal beasts.

Wolves, rabbits, boars, horses... all types of animals were found on the battlefield. Even strangers, rare corrupted creatures also joined the assault.

Insects the size of a large tree threatened the soldiers from behind the first row of corrupted. Locusts, spiders, ants, creatures that appeared during Orion's venture inside the underground parts of the now destroyed fairy realm.

At that precise point, the army consisted of five thousand soldiers against forty thousands corrupted. Unknown to the actual number of corrupted, the army was terribly outnumbered.

Luckily, the speech May gave to the soldiers helped them maintain a high concentration and boosted their survival rate.

Not many suffered injuries from the corrupted, and no casualties were on record for the moment.

Those corrupted were the most basic creatures, easy to deal with in normal circumstances. What made them dangerous right now was actually their numbers.

While the soldiers were holding the lines, two individuals were killing great numbers of them.

May and Eric, both in front of the army, ravaged their ranks without showing signs of exhaustion.

"Hnn!"

Eric slammed his axe into the ground, creating large spikes of earth that pierced beasts in a straight line.

Grabbing the axe's handle tightly, he pointed the gun with his other hand at the corrupted approaching him, and fired a few frozen bullets at them.

The gun had no need for reloading, as each bullet was magically charged with an ice power. It was a strange device quite different from its original counterpart, powered by Monolavir's innate magical energy.

One scale was enough to create two artifacts, which could be used indefinitely.

The bullet traveled through the air while leaving snowflakes behind its trail, and pierced the beast's skull, before freezing it entirely.

Pulling the axe from the ground with his muscular arm, Eric rushed to the next place.

Though, he was forced to stop suddenly, feeling the air heat up intensely.

His eyes located the source of the heat, before a scorching beam of fire horizontally traveled in front of him.

Thousands of corrupted died instantly, as May unleashed her accumulated magical energy in the form of a ray of condensed fire.

Still, there was no time to stand there in awe. Eric turned his head, and noticed another wave coming his way, so he hurried to block as many of them as he could to support the soldiers.

May, on the contrary, stood her ground.

'How long until the next one?'

'---'

'Fifteen minutes... Not being able to fire that in repetition is a shame, but whatever.'

A gray tiger suddenly leaped from behind another corrupted, straight at her. It seemed eager to rip her throat off with its enormous fangs.

She took a step back to let the tiger land on the ground, and placed one hand on its back while doing a cartwheel over it.

At the same time, she slashed its head off with the sword in her free hand, and landed behind it before the tiger slid on the ground, lifeless.

Without glancing to confirm if she had killed it, she pointed her free right hand toward the left, detonating an exploding flame that pushed her away from a bear's lunging attack.

Killing the bear in one attack, she slashed three over creatures while rapidly traveling through the ranks of corrupted beasts.

'---'

'Got it.'

She jumped over multiple approaching boars, and stabbed her sword into the ground.

The ground began to swell under her, as her surrounding turned bright red. Flames erupted from openings in the ground, burning everything in its path.

Pulling the sword out of the dirt, she hurriedly moved away, before the ground split open and exploded into a giant geyser of flames.

"This is never-ending! How many are there?"

Slashing at one corrupted, she noticed the row of insects closer than before. When she looked behind her, she saw that the soldiers were still holding their ground, killing the stragglers that she couldn't finish off.

The first wave had been dealt with successfully, but it was far from ending.

When May looked forward, her eyes opened wide.

*RUMBLE*

The ground shook, as a giant humanoid walked toward the Talviera Mountain Range, following a brown dragon even larger than the giant.

When she saw them, she couldn't help but gulp.

"Amelia..."

Florian and Kamala saw this scene from their base, and immediately entered a portal leading to Horizon that was left open for this precise moment.

...

They explained that the dragon was on the move, but that another monster was walking alongside it.

"Strange. Well, in any case, I'll handle that dragon."

Amelia said, determination filling her being.

"Wait."

A voice caught everyone's attention.

"I'll deal with the giant."

Elliott walked toward her wifloth one hand on Vanitas.