A familiar voice, but it lacked the usual warmth and sweetness that always came with it. This sudden change caused a chill to run down Oryn’s spine. The voice was cold and indifferent. Unfeeling — emotionless. He was unable to believe that those words came from her.

Then she appeared before his eyes. A pair of deep crimson eyes gazed down at him which lacked any emotion she usually had.

“Princess…?”

The questioning tone came out from his lips, trying to ascertain whether that was the princess he always knew, for this one felt like a different person.

Oryn tried to stand up, but the force was forcing him down into the floor. He was familiar with this and already knew where this rampaging mana was coming from. However, this was supposed to blow everything away, not crush them and force them on the floor.

Therefore, there was only one answer from this. The princess was controlling her rampaging mana.

Everything’s wrong!

Definitely, everything that he knew about everything seemed to have been thrown away into the trash. Everything didn’t make sense. He glared towards the anomaly, but that anomaly gazed back with its chill inducing eyes.

“Oryn, why are you targeting me?”

That almost monotonous voice was a stranger to Oryn. The princess was keeping his distance from him, if she was a bit closer, Oryn could have grabbed her. However, it seems the princess knew that and kept herself away from his reach.

She walked around with gentle steps around him, and nonsensical of all, she was calm. She was unbelievably calm, contrasting what supposed to be her true nature.

“I… I have no need to answer you.”

“Is that so?”

The smoke thickened again, now Oryn saw it. The smoke was coming from the princess. Oryn tried to get up again and held out his hand, if only he could hit her once, then this would be over. However, before he could do it, the princess stepped back and vanished into the smoke.

Most terrifying of all, he couldn’t hear her footsteps.

How? How is she doing that?

Such a skill couldn’t be possessed by the pure princess. Utterly impossible. He scanned around in panic, but before he knew it, a foot kicked the side of his face out of the blue, sending him lying back on the floor.

“Ugh…”

Oryn wanted to blast everything away with his wind, however, the princess’ rampaging mana was disrupting the very air itself. Plus, he was also maintaining the barrier where he kept Vernon and Estevan, not to mention the barriers on the hallways.

It would even be more dangerous to set them free now.

He watched the princess step back after attacking him, and lifted the side of her skirt and pulled a… dagger.

A dagger? What’s going on?

For more than a decade, he had watched the princess. What happened now was crushing his very understanding of her and this terrified him.

“I should ask, do all elves cast some sort of wind magic? Or is it just you?”

The princess asked. But Oryn did not answer.

“And, it would appear that elves are not mere myths. Quite interesting that you hid yourselves, but why?”

She was asking all this with an almost blank face.

“But I’m impressed you actually had your ears cut, did you do it yourself? Then I commend you.”

Oryn looked at the dagger in her hand.

“Why aren’t you killing me?”

She had the current advantage, she wouldn’t even need to beat him up and just go ahead and try for the kill. He tried to think what could the princess be planning.

“If you… if you think you can get information from me, give up, princess.”

The princess slowly strode around him.

“I can see that. Conviction is often an annoying thing.”

Oryn couldn’t hold it but, the more she spoke, the more he got cold feet. The further she strayed away as the pure princess, he felt even more danger. As he got to witness this, he began to believe the prophecy even more.

The way she was in front of him, he could imagine that she would be capable of it.

“Then, what are you waiting for?”

“Patience, Oryn, death always comes to my prey, one way, or another.”

The princess glanced towards the door, then for the first time, a slight frown came to her brow.

“They sure are taking their time… hm… you did something to them, didn’t you? I doubt you managed to kill them given the amount of time that had passed, so, did you restrain them in some way?”

Oryn was in disbelief for a moment, the princess was able to guess what he did. However, the way she spoke, it seemed as though she had truly thought about everything before speaking.

This… this isn’t the princess…

That was what he thought at first, but changed immediately.

No… perhaps this is what the princess is originally.

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So, was everything a deception?

A deceitful princess...

Oryn gritted his teeth. He had fallen for her trap.

Then, the princess continued.

“If only Brother didn’t hesitate, we wouldn’t have been here.”

A faint trace of annoyance was in her voice.

It then dawned on Oryn, the princess was waiting. He couldn’t understand why, but the princess had no intention of killing him, at least not yet. Then, there was the fact that the princess was letting her mana go wild while controlling it to pin him down. However, it would seem that the princess was not in full control, evident from the shaking of the entire room — not all mana was aimed at him.

It was at the next moment he noticed her wince for a little. The princess was in pain. Of course she would be.

“It must be painful, princess. Unleashing your mana while controlling it, it won’t be long before you lose control.”

“... You think so, huh?”

“But I’m surprised you are able to endure it.”

Indeed, this was not the fragile princess he had always known.

However, even if she would be able to endure it, she couldn’t keep it up for long. Not to mention this vast amount of mana she had. A human vessel containing the power of a god, because of that she wouldn’t be able to keep unleashing the power she had as the one who was the daughter of the goddess of blood.

And, she won’t be able to take out her entire power as a young goddess.

A body born of human flesh, cannot cast the full power of the divine.

He should count himself lucky that this was the case.

In that moment, he felt the air change — no, the movement of the princess’s mana changed. He felt the pressure pushing him down weakened and was instead pushing him away from the princess.

The princess’s control over her rampaging mana was waning. The princess’s eyes gradually turned sore red because of the pain and mana damaging her body.

Oryn waited, then the next moment, he was propelled away and hit the wall. He made a decision. It was time to disable the wind barrier containing his two troublesome enemies as well as on the hallways. Vernon will be able to catch up faster than Estevan, therefore, Oryn needs to kill the princess before that happens.

The moment the link he had with the wind barriers was severed, he gathered a vast amount of wind and clashed with the princess’s mana and caused the smoke surrounding them to dissipate. The princess’s face turned stern the moment she saw what Oryn was doing. His wind after all, was matching with her mana.

The princess immediately fired a bolt of flames towards him, but Oryn blasted it away then instantly followed it with another blast of wind towards the princess.

A crimson barrier blocked his wind but sent his target flying back, but the princess then moved the barrier to her back and the one in front vanished to protect herself from the impact. It would seem that the princess wasn’t able to cover her entire body yet, if she did, it would weaken her barrier greatly.

Seeing that opening, Oryn sent a slash of wind towards her, the disturbance of the mana in the air weakened his attack, but Oryn poured a lot of mana into it, and if it hit, it could fatally damage the princess.

However, against his expectations, the princess reacted with no delay and fired her spell of firebolt, scattering and destroying his attack. The firebolt spell wasn’t supposed to be too strong. However, pouring a considerable amount of mana into it, it can become stronger. The princess with a vast amount of mana, it was possible for her to strengthen the spell than normal.

That being said, that was not the most annoying. What was annoying was how fast she could react to his successive attacks. The princess was not the normal princess.

As Oryn sent another attack, the princess had already swiftly moved from her spot, and the wind destroyed the wall it collided with.

“As I thought, you were holding back for some reason,” she said.

The princess fired a firebolt, and Oryn sent his wind.

They exchanged magic a couple of times before Oryn decided to do a close combat. Oryn pushed his fist forward covered in wind, but the princess conjured a barrier as she glared at Oryn. As expected, she wouldn’t risk direct physical combat. No matter how strong her magic was, she would be unable to physically fight against Oryn’s magic.

But of course, it would have been a different case if they both fought with plain hand to hand. But this was a battle to kill and to survive. Therefore, they will use anything at their disposal.

The princess still had her dagger in hand, but she wasn’t using them. This was baffling.

The pressure from the rampaging mana of course was greater now that he was closer to her, and it was dampening the magical strength he could muster against the princess. The princess knew this and she increased the output, her eyes now bloodshot and nose bleeding.

This princess is tougher than I thought.

It was shocking that she would be able to stand and fight even though it must have hurt a lot. A surging mana coursing through her mystic medium, the pain should have been intense. But the princess was still able to fight despite all that.

Then, Oryn heard loud footsteps from outside the room. He glanced towards it for a split second before returning to the princess, but now, her dagger was gone from her hand.

What?

Throwing away his confusion, he gathered an intense amount of wind to finish it once and for all. However, as he launched his attack, an interloper grabbed the princess away, his attack making a hole in the room.

He turned around to see Vernon holding the princess by the waist.

“Put me down this instant Vernon and fight him!”

The princess said and Vernon immediately complied. Oryn fired his wind and Vernon conjured a barrier of his own to protect himself as he charged towards him.

Oryn dodged a punch, and he delivered a wind covered attack successfully hitting Vernon’s chest, but the latter returned the punch to Oryn’s stomach.

This wasn’t good, Vernon was melee oriented and Oryn was not. So the latter stepped back and sent several sharp winds towards him. Vernon blocked with his barrier, but after two attacks, it shattered, and so he protected himself from the remaining winds using his own tough body and arms.

It was then that a pair of arcs of light came towards Oryn, he was unable to fully protect himself, and slashes appeared on his shoulder to his chest, blood bleeding out. He grimaced as he glared at the prince who sent that magic.

This will be difficult. Therefore, as cornered as he was, he became desperate and decided to use the entirety of his mana to cause a storm of wind in the room, sending furniture flying in the air. But also in the moment, Vernon landed a punch to his cheek then to his chest which sent him back hitting the wall.

Oryn spat out blood as a storm was erupting in the room. His two opponents were having a hard time walking, but it didn’t stop them.

“Brother!” it was then he heard the princess, her usual tone of speaking returned. “Do not hesitate!”

This princess. Is she… pretending? Was everything, is everything else an act?

When was the moment she was manipulating him, making him act the way she wanted? When did it start? Oryn had no time to think. But seeing the princess this way, it truly terrified him even more.

As he regained his footing he looked at the princess. It was then that he saw her which caused him to tremble as he thought of the future.

The princess was smiling, a satisfied smile. To others this may mean nothing much, but to Oryn’s eyes…it was something sinister.

No… No… if I fail then…

The future will certainly happen.

He clenched his fist.

“Princess!!! You! You’re too dangerous to be kept alive!”

Overwhelmed by emotion, he gathered what remained of his wind and power, but it was too late to do anything else when Vernon punched him on the side of his body.

In zero distance, he blasted Vernon away, but after that, his extended hand was severed after a flash of a blade cut through it. Oryn’s eyes went wide as he watched his hand fall mid air. It was then followed by a slash to his chest.

He turned to look the prince in the eyes. Then he felt a blade pierce through his heart as he saw the sorrow in the prince’s eyes.

“Oryn… you… you tried to kill my sister. I won’t forgive you for that.”

Oryn’s knees weakened.

“Estevan…” Oryn chuckled. “You have no need to forgive me, but… take care of yourself.”

Oryn didn’t know why he said those words. But, it must have been because of a habit. He had been working here for a very long time indeed.

The prince pulled back his sword from Oryn’s chest.

As he slowly fell on both his knees, his consciousness waning, blood spilling on the floor, he raised head to see the princess once more.

Her smile gone, and what remained was her frightened expression, her wide crimson eyes looking at him.

Which one was the true princess?

That question popped in his mind.

Then, as he collapsed, his senses felt the cold hard floor and his very own warm blood, a single thought came to his mind as he breathed his last.

My people… are...