The Frontlines

Close to the front of the frontlines, Axel Var Del quickly jerks his head around as he senses the approach of a Class V. And he isn’t the only one as the Class V human he’s fighting breaks away from him at the same time that he jumps back and turns his attention towards it as well.

Then both of them find a very familiar woman with red and black hair flowing down behind her with the wind as glowing crimson cracks slowly pulse across her armor, with an occasional vein of crimson showing on her skin. Her eyes are pure crimson and, as she spreads her arms out to her sides, slowly lose the whites within them, the crimson spreading out to fill her entire eyes as her whispered voice echoes across the frontlines, “Release.”

“Her Highness, The Warden…” Axel mutters, the wolfkin – a lesser version of a blood lycan – gazing up in awe as glowing crimson blood begins to leak out of the Princess’s body before shooting down like the humans’ bullets to hit all of the demons directly beneath her.

And the sight Axel sees directly after replaces his awe with abject terror.

All of the demons begin to show the same glowing crimson cracks across their bodies as the Princess’s armor shows as the demons drop like dominos to the ground with each of them convulsing in the process. Their eyes begin to turn red just like the Princess’s, and soon the convulsing goes silent as well while the crimson cracks grow larger and brighter.

The Warden of the Red Plague…

Axel watches with fear in his gaze as cheers ring out from the humans. And the last thought Axel has before he sees all of the infected demons turning to crimson ash, only for that ash to then get absorbed by the glowing crimson blood that is left behind, sends a shiver down his spine.

The power of the Royal Family truly is absolute…

But it doesn’t stop there as the Princess quickly raises her hand, stopping the glowing crimson blood from devouring any more of the ash and instead raising it into the air while the blood seems to shake from indignation. Then she pushes her hand out forward while floating ahead, bringing the glowing crimson blood with her to infect more demons.

Terrifying and without equal.

By now even the cheering humans have gone silent with the lone exception of murmurs of “The Red Plague” and “The Warden” throughout the frontlines.

Entire swarms of demons die as the demons infected by what Axel can only assume is the Red Plague die, turning into red ash faster and faster with each demon until they die near instantly upon infection. And Axel soon realizes that the glowing crimson blood is growing thicker and thicker with every kill, only for it to vanish the moment it gets too far away from the Princess.

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A weakness? Or… I don’t think it’s her erasing it… what’s that about?

Axel can’t figure out what’s going on as he watches the plague that gets too far away from the Princess vanish without a trace.

Time passes as he continues to watch, but after several minutes, the Warden floats back up higher while drawing the plague back into her body again with a sigh. Then she simply looks out over the army of demons from her spot located deep within the demon army far away from any humans.

Soon enough the demons and humans all around begin fighting again, no longer keeping their attention focused solely on the Princess. But Axel senses more than a couple Nobles heading straight over towards the Princess.

So he returns his attention to the human he was fighting as well.

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Scarlet

I grimace after I get high enough, feeling rather uncomfortable with how compressed and thick the Red Plague within my body is right now. After it’s feasted on tens of thousands of demons. Possibly even hundreds of thousands of demons. Most of whom were lower Class, and many not even sapient. But still demons, nonetheless.

And I think it may be a bit too much for me to comfortably handle…

It feels like my blood is too thick for my body, and at the same time it makes me feel powerful. But extremely uncomfortable, and like I’m about to burst any second now.

So without hesitation, I shift into my quadrupedal beast form and immediately begin burning away as much blood as possible using Blood Sacrifice. Which seems to work, albeit not that well.

I still feel like I’m about to burst, so I go ahead and begin using Crimson Overdrive as harshly as I can to burn away my own life energy until wounds begin opening up on their own and my blood vanishes amidst the crimson lightning. And I continue to do this while charging through the demons, slaughtering them by the thousands and gradually leveling up from the massacre every hundred or so thousand demons slain.

Meanwhile every time I do get wounded and lose blood, or the blood that is leaking from the open wounds caused by my drain of life energy instead of vanishing in the crimson lightning, vanishes thanks to Amelia’s interference. All the while I make absolutely sure that none of my blood is left behind.

This is a major pain.

“Well, it is a mutation skill,” Tar comments as I continue to slaughter demons. “And mutation skills often come with a price.”

True.

Law of equal exchange, was it? Something like that.

Great power comes at a price, or everything comes in exchange for something else.

Something like that.

“You’re just making up random stuff to distract yourself, aren’t you?” Tar points out, but I ignore him.

I grit my teeth as I feel the discomfort of burning my own life energy – a feeling that I can’t just diffuse with Pain Diffusion. And after a while, I begin to get lost in the slaughter.

So I try to snap myself out of it again, only to have that done for me when something crashes into my side and I find myself blasting through demons on my path to slam into a cliff.

After coughing out a good bit of blood that vanishes the instant it leaves my mouth, I turn my gaze to the demon that is responsible for my current state.

Then I grin at the sight of an outlet to vent my current issues on.

Five different Noble demons, all around levels 1150 to 1200.

Let’s hunt.