The audience watched with horror as the buildings collapsed in on the raging construct and Morrigan. Lady Lily had gone deadly pale as she watched the projection at the screen from the podium. She turned towards the King to call to him for help, but he was nowhere to be seen.

"Now, dear audience, before you panic, let me assure you that our dearest Crown Princess is alright," Azrael spoke up and pointed at the screen. Everyone focused their gazes on it, watching the debris for any movements. The landwyrm wriggled its way from beneath it and continued chasing the participants, some of whom had also stopped to observe the situation.

"Where's the Princess?" Somebody from the crowd asked.

"She is right here," Alphegor's amplified voice resounded through the area, and everyone turned their gazes toward the podium. Morrigan was standing right next to the King, unharmed and uninjured aside from the bruise she got when she fell from the museum window.

"As you can all see Princess Morrigan is unharmed. But since it is clear that the landwyrm would have caught her had His Majesty not pulled her to safety, then I declare that her participation ends here, earning the fiftieth place," Azrael announced. The crowd cheered and applauded for Morrigan, which she accepted with a courteous nod. Then everyone returned their attention to the projection in front of them.

"I'm sorry, Father," she said, lowering her head in front of Alphegor.

"Keep your head up. You have successfully completed the task," Alphegor said sternly, and she straightened out. He nodded and pointed towards the empty chair next to him. It was supposed to be the place where a queen sits so Morrigan wondered whether it was alright for her to take it. But from the intense stare her father gave her she realized that she didn't have much of a choice and sat down.

"I shall have all the old buildings reconstructed. This is far too dangerous," the King muttered in annoyance, loud enough for only Morrigan to hear. She chuckled and decided not to dwell on the matter. She had completed the task. Even if she didn't obtain the boon, it didn't mean she still couldn't win. So Morrigan decided to relax and watch the other contestants.

The landwyrm construct didn't appear to be fazed by the incident in the slightest. It kept chasing whatever poor participants happened to be closest to it, mercilessly closing its jaws around them. One after another, their armbands shattered into pieces, leaving them trembling and horrified until the beast was well out of their sight.

Much to Morrigan's delight, Deziara was still in the competition, weaving and running out of landwyrm's reach whenever it got even remotely close to her. Her speed magic, which was trained to nearly its maximum potential, gave Deziara an unbeatable edge over other contestants who were forced to fight the landwyrm back with less reliant methods.

The duergar who had previously trapped Morrigan in the alleyway was flinging a barrage of rocks onto the construct in an attempt to stop it. However, the beast deflected the rocks with its paw quickly closing the distance between them. Seeing this, the duergar erected a thick shell around himself, encasing himself in stone. But this didn't hold the monster back for long either. It scratched at the shell with its razor-sharp claws and before long, the duergar was dug out like a rabbit out of its den.

Monster's jaws closed around it and the arm brace shattered to pieces, leaving a cursing, angry duergar behind.

"Duergar champion, would you please refrain your tongue? This is supposed to be a family-friendly event," Azrael called out, but the smile on his lips indicated that he in fact found the duergar's outrage amusing.

I'm not even sure what some of those words mean. Nobody ever bothered to teach me something like that. Perhaps, I could ask Azrael.

However, the stern gaze from her Father clearly said that finding out the meaning of such words was the last thing she needed to do. Morrigan returned her gaze towards the projection and decided to ask Azrael next time they'd have a magic lesson.

The landwyrm construct continued rampaging through the area, chasing the remaining contestants with even more ferocity. Those who were previously able to hide from it due to their size were picked off one by one. Deep gnome champion was one of them as he would often bury himself in a larger flowerpot or in a spare piece of soil to mask himself and the bracelet.

But the beast was done playing games. It found the deep gnome cowering inside a flower bed and dug it out as if it were an earthworm. Thrown out of his hiding spot, the deep gnome tried to scamper away as quickly as his stumpy legs would allow him. Alas the beast had him in his jaws before he managed to even take three steps. When the monster retreated, the gnome was curled up on the ground with a thumb in his mouth.

Maybe it's a good thing I never ended up in the construct's mouth. Seems like many participants will require some therapy after that experience. Do they even have therapists in the Underworld? I don't even know the demon word for 'therapist'.

Next one to fall was the infernal champion, who despite his best attempts to scare off the beast with powerful fireballs, was unable to truly damage its formidable hide. At least they took the loss far more gracefully, merely shrugging and walking to the Cathedral where the rest of the caught participants were gathered.

Finally, only three contestants remained scattered in the Old City – Deziara, Galandir and the vampire champion who was fluttering about in her small and speedy bat form. Morrigan wasn't surprised to see her sister remain among the last three and neither was she surprised about the vampire. But Galandir was unexpected.

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I didn't even notice him at any point. Did he fly? No, I surely would have noticed him at some point then. So how did he avoid the landwyrm for so long? Did he hide? Or perhaps outrun it? Or a mix of both? I wish I would have focused on his movements a bit earlier.

The landwyrm attempted to chase down Deziara first, heading to the side street where she was hiding between some houses. But as soon as she sensed its approach, Deziara swiftly ran out of her hiding spot, forcing the beast to give chase. Morrigan feared that it might catch up to her, but her sister always kept a little bit ahead of the monster no matter how long it chased her.

She's trying to lead it somewhere? Perhaps to lure it towards other participants.

Deziara suddenly turned into one of the side streets and the spooked vampire champion in her bat form tried to flutter over the rooftops. Deziara jumped up on the same roof, and then swiftly overtook her, leaving her in the monster's path. Landwyrm closed its mouth around the tiny bat, making it completely disappear for a moment. Before anyone even realized what happened, the tiny bat fluttered out of its mouth and landed on the ground.

The vampire woman transformed back to her humanoid shape, breathing heavily as she did. She glared at Deziara, who kept leaping from rooftop to rooftop, leading the beast behind herself to no doubt find the elven boy. For a while Deziara was chased by the beast much like Morrigan had been before, but after it became clear that she would not be able to find the sneaky boy, she sped up leaving the landwyrm far in the dust.

It chased her for a while, then gave up seeing as it wasn't going to catch up anyway. The landwyrm took a sharp turn to the direction of the cathedral and after a few minutes, Galandir surfaced from one of the side streets on his shimmering wings. He tried to fly up out of the construct's reach, however as it turned out – landwyrma are rather good jumpers. With a strong push from its legs, it was high up in the air and Galandir was between its teeth.

The beast landed with a loud thud and then opened its mouth to release Galandir. The boy slid to the ground covered with drool. He tried to get the nasty sludge off himself, but it hung unto him like glue. Morrigan laughed as she watched him, trying to desperately get it off by wiping his legs against the cobblestones.

"Demons and guests, we have our winner for the Monster Run – Princess Deziara!" Azrael announced, and the crowd erupted with cheers. Morrigan applauded enthusiastically and cheered for her sister, while Alphegor and Lady Lily were trying to show some restraint. Although she had no doubt that they wanted to applaud just as loudly as others.

"I knew that monster wouldn't be able to catch me!" Deziara called out, and Lady Lily sighed heavily for her daughter's lack of proper decorum. Thankfully, the crowd was too caught up in her victory to really care, instead chanting her name over and over.

"With this victory, Princess Deziara has secured herself a special boon to use in tomorrow's task. As for what it is – I'm afraid that will remain a secret until tomorrow," Azrael said cheekily and everyone groaned. "Now, now. Good things come to those who wait. Let's better give a loud applause to all contestants continuing to the next task. Coincidentally all three princesses and almost all of our foreign champions continue on."

The delegations cheered as did the demons who roared with enthusiasm, many of them directing their cheers towards Morrigan. She felt a bit unnerved by their attention but managed to keep her composure and waved at them.

***

"Really, you two. I was supposed to be getting drunk on magma ale out in the town but instead, I am stuck babysitting. Why'd you have to sneak out like that yesterday?" Azrael grumbled, kicking a piece of chewed-up wood away from himself. Meanwhile Deziara and Morrigan were hard at work, foaming up Haku's body to get hardened lava pieces off him.

Apparently, after the Test of Speed, the little dragon took it upon himself to go for a little walk along the lava river, occasionally submerging in the hot lava. Morrigan was happy to hear that her friend got his own bit of freedom and fun during the Festival. But apparently, he had really scared the festival goers, as they had gone to complain about the dragon to the Demon Castle guards. Haku had refused to go with them, so in the end Azrael had to be the one to bring him back to the stables.

"We just wanted to try some food and have some fun like Haku over here," Morrigan said and scrubbed away a piece of hardened magma with a rough brush. It crumbled away after she applied some force but left Haku's scales intact. It was quite possible that at this point his scales had become nearly impenetrable.

"And almost get caught by Asdeus again. Yes, that sounds like fun," Azrael scoffed.

"But we didn't – that's all that matters. Besides, nobody could have predicted that she would appear in the Festival and be equipped with that weird body control magic to boot," Morrigan grumbled.

"Can we not talk about such glum topics? In the end, everything was fine. Let's better focus on something else," Deziara interjected, her expression dark.

"Like your absolute victory today?" Morrigan cheered and Haku wagged his tail, sending foam flying all over the stables. Azrael jumped out of the way of a rogue cluster of bubbles and waved another away with a gust of wind magic.

"Yeah! Wasn't I amazing?" Deziara cheered and lifted her foamy brush high in the air, but Morrigan sensed that the gesture was a bit forced. It appeared that the incident was still eating away at her.

"While the other princess nearly got crushed by deadly debris. Do you have to endanger your life every single day? Can it not be every other day? Or like twice a week?" the white-haired demon grumbled. "You know every time you are in danger, this oath claws at me like knives urging me to go to your rescue. It's not a very pleasant feeling."

"Aww, Azrael is too shy to admit that he cares for you, Morri," Deziara sneered.

"It's alright to be honest with your feelings," Morrigan added, playing along with the joke. Azrael walked up to her, swiftly covered her in foam from head to toe and poked at her forehead.

"I am serious, you little menace! Even if the oath urges me to protect you, it cannot magically save you on its own."

"It's not like I wanted for those things to happen…"

"Yeah! Don't blame Morri for them!"

"I wouldn't if she didn't have a knack for finding trouble. At least try not to have an incident tomorrow," Azrael groaned.

As if I could control what is going to happen. But I do hope nothing bad happens tomorrow.