Even throughout the eyes of someone she barely knew, Leona could feel the immense pressure present on Xenovia’s shoulders.
The crimson golden knight in front of her was the pinnacle of power. Both technology and magic was at her disposal. It didn’t matter how strong Xenovia truly was in the face of absolute power.
“Heed me, my knights.” The empress called out to them. “These so-be saviors of the empire are nothing if not the scourge that eats away at our hard earned peace. I, Leona Crossford shall be the judge of their characters. Through combat we shall decide who is right…” She unsheathed the black blade from its sheath—leaving a chilling cold sound of metal reverberating throughout the throne room. “...and who is wrong.”
Krieg and the other two female knights stepped aside as she slowly walked towards Xenovia while leaving herself open for any attacks with her blade almost touching the floor.
“Master.” Xenovia muttered as she looked at him from the corner of her eyes. “I won’t be able to fight with my axe with only one arm.”
“I know, just trust me on this one.”
“I will.”
She lifted her axe up and let it go in order for her to grab the weapon in the middle of the shaft. She readied for an onslaught of attacks the moment Leona stood about two meters away from her, but instead, nothing happened as the Empress stood still in melee range.
“What is wrong?” She had an evil smile on her face. “Are you afraid one of them will attack?”
Xenovia looked around the room and scoffed.
“I’m sure the infamous Empress does not need anyone else to help do her dirty work.”
Her smile slowly turned into a grin.
“You have guts, I’ll give you that.” She gripped the black sword tightly which made Xenovia flex her legs in preparation for an attack but instead, Leona grabbed the dismembered arm in front of her. “Hmm… it wouldn’t be interesting to have you fighting like this.” She proceeded to toss the limb to Robert. “Surely you can reattach it, no? I can wait.”
The sage grabbed the limb but didn’t reply, instead he focused on mending Xenovia’s arm back.
‘This… so this was the ‘me’ from this timeline.’ Leona thought as she watched Xenovia wince if just for a split second the moment her arm was reattached. ‘You… if you have struggled so much to get here, why have you been helping me now if you knew this ‘other’ me?’
As the sage was finishing healing his student’s arm, he subtly raised his right hand into a small cup pointing through his robes.
“Chain Lightning!”
Suddenly, a burst of electricity shot through his robes, making the hole the size of an apple before it hit Leona straight in the chest.
“Ugh!”
The impact of the spell was enough to send her down to her knee.
“Now Xenovia!”
The warrior lifted her axe while bringing up her now healed left arm and swung the weapon down with all her might directed at Leona’s right shoulder.
Clang, a loud noise came from the end of her axe as she witnessed something straight out of a fiction book.
Leona not only stopped her attack, but she also grabbed the axe with her left gauntlet. Xenovia tried to pull the weapon out of her grasp but to no avail.
“What the?!”
“Damn you…” She clenched her teeth in fury. “You told her about my arm, haven’t you?!”
“We are way past niceties, Leona.” Robert stood back and raised his staff towards the empress. “Unlike Xenovia here I’ll use anything I can to end your life.”
“Like hell you will!”
She quickly stood up and tossed the warrior back with so much force that she ended up sliding on her back against the floor.
“Ugh!”
Leona dashed with incredible speeds towards Robert, but the sage was prepared for it. With one snap of his fingers a earth pillar suddenly shot up from the floor, hitting the empress in the stomach.
“Argh!”
He instantly followed up with a dome of earth and a point-blank explosive fire spell.
“Flare.”
The violent explosion shook the entire building, despite that, the knights remained in place as if it wasn’t of their concern. From inside the dome, Leona appeared unscathed by the violent attack which prompted Xenovia to unleash an attack aiming for the Empress’ legs.
Another clang resounded in the throne room as the hefty swing made contact with Leona’s lower body, sending her backfirst into the floor.
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“It’s time to finish this!”
The warrior took one step forward and launched her whole body behind the lightning fast overhead strike that was meant to bisect the Empress in half but at the highest point of her swing she no longer felt weight around her forearms.
Just as her arms went down, she noticed she was missing both of them as the axe fell a couple meters ahead of her with two hands holding the weapon’s shaft in a death grip.
“Wha-”
She didn’t even have time to register what just had happened as she was instantly decapitated with an attack so fast she only noticed what happened as her vision turned as she hit the floor. Blood splattered all across the tiles as the headless body tilted ever so slightly forward and then backwards before falling limply on the ground.
“XENOVIA!”
“Ugh… shut up will you?” Leona stood up and cracked her neck from one side then another. “I gave you two a chance and you disappointed me.” She raised the black sword which was covered in blood. “She couldn’t even see this coming, it’s no wonder she’s dead.”
“Xenovia… no…” Robert crawled along the floor as he picked up her head in disbelief. “You can’t die like this…”
Leona crackled with laughter.
“Hey, hey now… Robert, I didn’t know you were such a softie. You weren’t like this when I trained with you.”
He didn’t reply. Instead he held Xenovia’s head close to his chest as he gently touched her body’s left arm. Leona noticed he wasn’t actually doing anything which prompted her to burst out in even more laughter.
“What has the incredible sage become? I thought you were a hero of countless worlds, but here you are crawling on the ground like an insect.” She smiled as she lifted the blood soaked sword over her head against her own shoulder. “If I knew you were like this deep down I’d given you an easier end sooner.”
He stood still for a couple more seconds which made Leona lose interest as she approached him from behind.
“I might as well end this.”
As she raised her sword there was just a split second where she noticed Xenovia’s body was no longer on the floor and when the realization suddenly hit her, Robert turned around in a flash and for the first time in decades, the Empress felt the sharp bitter bite of pain.
“Urhgk! You-!”
The frostburnt silver longsword was protruding out of the right side of her ribcage.
“I told you, I’ll take any chance I can get to kill you.”
He drove the blade through, slicing her lungs and cutting deep through her flesh.
“AAAARGH!” She retaliated with an overhead swing that would’ve bisected him if he didn’t teleport away in the last second with a snap of his fingers. “DAMN YOU ROOOBERT!”
In a very far away land, Robert arrived with the longsword drenched in blood as he let go of the weapon. The clanking of metal echoed across the room.
“I can’t… rest… just yet…”
Leona recognized that place as the very same lab she stood in. Xenovia’s body and head were sitting on top of the marble table as he, despite his obvious mana shock symptoms, started to heal the warrior.
“You won’t die… not like this…” He put her head close to her neck and started to mend the wound with a potent combination of water and wind magic. “Three minutes… no… I can do it in one…”
He muttered to himself as he continued to pour magic over the spells. The skin, muscles and bones around her neck started to mend together as if the tissue were weaving in between each other in order to heal.
“Now the hands…” He quickly grabbed a bottle of viscous transparent liquid before opening it. As opposed to a cream or salve, it seemed alive as it writhed upon his touch. “Come on…”
Inside the liquid was a small red orb that resembled a slime core. At first it seemed to hesitate before it made contact with Xenovia’s right wrist. But the moment it tasted blood, it suddenly started to quiver as if being possessed by something.
Robert nudged it forward which prompted the small slime to connect with her wrist.
“Good… now the other one…”
Hours passed in the quiet laboratory with the only sounds being of Robert shifting both tools and medicine around to treat the now unconscious warrior.
Another few hours passed and the first weak gasps for air echoed within the laboratory. Xenovia coughed up dry clots of blood as she opened her eyes.
“What the… how am I alive…?”
She tried to reach for her throat but neither of her hands were there to aid her. She winced in pain as she took a sharp deep breath while looking at her stump for wrists. The skin had sealed which left a scar where it used to be her hands.
“Right… that actually happened.” She looked around. “This is… Master’s lab…”
She glanced to her side and noticed Robert just blinking up awake while lying against the wall. The moment he noticed her he stood up from the ground and headed over her.
“You’re awake, thank the goddess…”
“I didn’t know you were a religious man, Master.”
“Oh shut it will you?” He gently patted her on the head. “How are you feeling?”
“Less beheaded.” She touched her own throat with her right wrist. “I’m surprised I didn’t die instantly.”
“You would have if I didn’t wrap up the fight quickly.”
Her eyes widened a bit.
“Were you able to do it?”
He shook his head.
“No, that armor of hers was surprisingly durable even against Avalon’s blade.”
“Well… it’s not like we lost yet…” She turned on her left side and sat up on the table. But a bout of dizziness overcame her senses. “Ugh…”
“You lost a lot of blood. I’ll take you to your room to rest.”
“Thank you, Master.” She hopped down from the table and Robert caught her arm over his neck while supporting the rest of her body with his left shoulder. “What do we do now? I thought these years of training here would have helped but I was powerless to change anything.”
“What else? We train more. Although I think we’ll start getting busy now that I’ve used magic here.”
“Death angels?”
He nodded.
“There is no doubt they’ll come back knocking on our door.”
Xenovia kept walking in silence until she was brought to a clean white room outfitted with the basic needs like a bed, nightstand and table.
“Master.” She said with a glint of determination in her eyes. “Is it possible to fix this world as it is?”
“If you want my honest opinion, it’ll be a miracle if it lasts more than a few decades.” He had a bitter expression on his face. “The death angels proved to be much more of a threat than I had anticipated and it doesn’t help that Leona is waging war all across the Arcadian continent instead of battling them.”
Xenovia sat down on the bed and took a deep breath whilst closing her eyes.
“Grandmother…” She then slowly shook her head before finally opening her eyes. “After Mother passed on, you raised me as your own and yet… it has come to this.”
‘Grandmother…?’ There was a brief moment where it finally hit Leona. ‘No… this woman is…’
It was at that point where she was suddenly taken back to the real world where she stood right beside the sleeping Xenovia. Robert sighed briefly as a dumbfounded Leona stared at him.
“Satisfied?”