"I can sense around two thousand people still alive in the ships around us," I revealed. "Plus five or six thousand monsters in the water. Waiting for the buffet to be served."

Prince Rhenius leaned against the ship's mast and slid down to sit on the deck, "I don't think I can fight anymore." He seemed to be experiencing a massive adrenaline crash.

"Can't you... eliminate them? They are trying to invade your mermaid country," Still hugging her father, Callisto asked.

I made some vocalizations that couldn't be considered words. The straight answer was 'yes', but her question implied the concept of wanting to. I didn't.

Marlowe rescued me, "Her Highness can indeed decimate what's left of that fleet easily. However, she feels it is not her position to get involved with your politics because if she did, she wouldn't stop halfway. Learn your history, girl. Often when she gets involved in such affairs, it ends with a purge of the Royal Family."

Maybe rescue isn't the right word. I got stares from our former prisoners.

"She's the reincarnation of the one whose fame your family stole," the [Archmage] golem continued. Rhenius glowered. "There's only one person in the whole history of Yznaria to ever receive the title of [Hero]. Or [God-Slayer], for the matter."

Callisto was the poster girl for 'disbelief'. "Are you telling me this mermaid is indeed the reincarnation of our ancestor?"

"No," the tiny doll chided curtly. "I'm telling you that she is the reincarnation of the First [Hero]. And I'm probably also telling you that that claim about your family being her descendants is rubbish."

"I never had any children and died a virgin," I added. "As the [Archmage] so eloquently puts, your claim is rubbish."

"Princess Arista," Rhenius entered the conversation but his face told me he wasn't going to deny my statement, "I've seen a portrait of the First [Hero] and so has uncle. Forgive them for being skeptical. You are known to be a shapeshifter. I was a fool to follow you here, Marlowe. Did you know that before we came here?"

The golem shook his head. "No. I didn't withhold any information until I met Her Highness."

"Cousin... is it true?" Callisto gasped. "Is what she said true?"

Rhenius extended his hand with the fingers pointing at me. "I present you the {God-Slayer Hero}. Slayer of gods, monsters, and two Demon--"

"Three," I corrected him.

"Three Demon Lords."

They kept talking but I tuned them out. Instead, I looked up and started to sort the ghosts for the next and last batch of ressurrectees. The others would need to become silk golems. This time I gave preference to those with lower HP pools. The middle and lesser spellcasters and lower leveled people. The ones with Endurance-based builds were out of luck. A tank knight took the spot of five other people, on average.

I started to line up bodies on the deck.

"What is she doing? Some last rites?" Duke Arlington asked.

"Sort of," Rhenius groaned in a definitely non-gormandizing way. "Just watch, uncle."

I took a few mid-level and several low-level monster cores. Then I started casting {Last Chance} on the bodies. When my Energy pool went too low, I drained the cores like candy. Using {Drain Magic Core} I could get a little shy of six hundred thousand Energy per level in the Core.

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Duke Cadrel couldn't believe what his eyes and {Appraise} told him. The girl before him, the so-called reincarnation of the [Death Princess] was literally bringing the dead back to life. He appraised body after body before and after she used her {Last Chance} Perk on them. They weren't undead.

"Amazing," he let the word escape his lips.

"That she is," the cloth doll now inhabited by Marlowe the [Archmage] replied. "Witness it with eyes wide open, Duke. Before you are the most powerful mortal in this world. Although calling her 'mortal' might be wrong. Even though she can die, she'll just come back, stronger than before. She killed Bundeus in a fair duel, after all."

He stared at the tiny figure. "You convinced the kingdom to march against that? Are you insane, Marlowe?"

The doll scoffed, the little stitches it had for a face smiling. "I didn't know at the time. It is pretty impossible to use divination magic on her. All I knew was that an amazing source of magic lied in the island, and I wasn't wrong about that."

"You were wrong about everything else!" Cadrel yelled.

"I paid for my foolishness with utter humiliation and my life, Duke," The [Archmage] said without an iota of hubris in his voice. He raised his tiny cloth hands, flexing the stuffed fingers. "At least you are still flesh and bone, Your Grace. Look at me. Reduced to a child's toy," he said with a pitiful voice. Then he cackled. "Even if I went back in time, I wouldn't have it any other way! I serve someone that once stood at the {Pinnacle of Magic}! An entity so powerful the Gods fear her. And I am now immortal! Even if this cloth is destroyed, she can weave me a new body as easily as one chops an apple in two!"

Duke Arlington had no doubt. The insane entity in front of him was indeed Marlowe. And yet he couldn't find fault in his reasoning. If the [Wizard]'s goal was ultimate magical power, he might be on the right path.

"How many people has she brought back to life already?" He asked to shift the conversation away from the insane doll. At least the other doll next to Marlowe, that also appraised as an [Archmage], was the quiet and taciturn type.

Several soldiers and knights next to the dining table with the dolls raised their hands.

Callisto shuddered in his arms. "Daughter? What's wrong?"

The girl looked up and he saw she had tears in her eyes. She touched a rather unbefitting gash in her dress right over her heart. "Me too, father. I died today."

That's why the otherwise lively and sometimes haughty girl was so demure tonight. He attributed it to the shock of the carnage around them. Cadrel hugged his daughter. "I'm so sorry, my pudding."

Callisto sobbed. "She demanded nothing, father. The others, she made them pledge fealty, saying their oaths were fulfilled with their deaths. What does it make me? Did she deem me unworthy?"

They heard the clattering of armor plates. Rhenius placed a hand on Callisto's shoulder, prying her face from her father's chest.

"That's not true, cousin. She grieved for your death..." The prince paused for a while and stared at the starlit sky. "To hell with Virturia's dirt secrets!" His gaze met the duke's.

Arlington nodded. "Do it, Rhenius. Break the chains. You have my backing, my [Prince]." In for a copper, in for a kingmetal coin, as the saying goes.

"Cousin. Lady Callisto. Let me tell you. In the King's secret library, there are several artifacts from Stuteron, the ancient Kingdom that became Virturia. And there are some portraits. Old paintings. In one of them, we can see the lost daughter of King Ackerton. The one he mentions in his journals as the successor to everything he ever was. We know this princess died before her time. The person depicted in this painting..."

"Is the woman over there, raising the dead," Cadrel completed when Rhenius faltered. "King Romulus didn't want this to become known as did the previous Kings. It is something about Virturia's dark past."

"But the painting is her. Down to the smallest details. And there's more," Rhenius picked the pace back. "There's another painting, several even. They depict a noble family of only women. One of them looks exactly like you."

"Me?" Callisto gasped.

"Yes," Cadrel lowered his head. "That's why you came in this expedition with Rhenius and also why I came with Acacius, my daughter. I'm sorry. Romulus threatened to have you executed if you didn't come. He's afraid of Ackerton's legacy for some reason."

"No!" She screamed.

"Calm down, cousin. That's something only the King knows. But since you look like one of the women in the paintings, he considers you a threat. Damn!" Rhenius cursed and punched a nearby mast. "How blind was I?"

Cadrel felt the presence. Such bloodlust. A cold killing intent from which no living creature could escape.

"I'm sorry, I was too busy reviving the dead. I didn't catch your whole conversation. What did you say about paintings of MY family?"