Scarlet

The crowd soon returns to normal again after Red is sent back up with us again. Then the next two duelists are revealed.

And just like the last two, these two get the crowd riled up the moment they’re seen.

Both the humans and the demons.

And also just like the last two, these two have a history.

The Blue Knight of Humanity and Xyvandra both appear in an arena located in some sort of underground cavern filled with both water and bugs, with some sort of massive squid that looks like a kraken from video games occasionally swimming around the arena. However, the arena itself, unlike the rest of the cavern, is completely dry. Other than the occasional dripping water.

The Lady of Devouring and the Blue Knight of humanity. Two people with a history of when Blue accidentally woke her up and had his emotions eaten in response.

Overkill? Probably.

But she was under the Sloth Sin at the time. So I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the Sin’s doing.

In fact, she may even apologize like Vorgrim did. Who knows?

Just like with Red and Vorgrim, the two just kinda stare at each other for a while. I think. It’s hard to tell where Xyvandra is looking, considering that she has a biological layer of natural armor over her face most of the time. And you can’t really see her eyes.

Blue eventually bows his head and says, “I apologize for my rudeness the first time we met. I hope you can forgive me.”

Then they both go silent as the audience goes wild with his apology. Although some seem to be rather upset that another duel might end up being nothing but a surrender instead.

Now, will Xyvandra apologize back to him? She did go overboard with what she did after-

Xyvandra’s head armor retracts to reveal her bug-like compound eyes as she looks at him. And after a second of silence, cracking sounds begin to echo from her body and she begins to transform.

Nevermind. She is absolutely not apologizing.

The Lady of Devouring gradually transforms into a massive bug standing at eight meters in height with four incisors sticking out around the round mouth at the front of the bug, each as sharp as a blade. She has six long legs, with a very thick carapace and two wings concealed partially underneath carapace armor on her back.

Overall, she’s a giant and dangerous looking bug.

Blue seems to be considering forfeiting for a moment, but then I feel a shiver when I hear Xyvandra’s voice coming from the large bug, but through some sort of telepathy that I’m sure connects to everyone in the stadium, “Forfeit if you must, but if you truly wish for forgiveness, fight with all you have, little kraken.”

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Alexander looks surprised for a moment, but he quickly makes a decision and begins his own transformation.

And soon enough, the battle turns into a battle of giants. One being a massive bug, the other a ten-meter-tall kraken with deep blue scales and glowing bluish red eyes.

“Now we have ourselves a real battle, folks!” the Fae King shouts, sounding more than a little excited. “For a second there I thought we’d have another forfeit! But I can’t tell you how glad I am that didn’t happen!”

King Oberon begins to give a sort of play-by-play of the events of the battle, but I just sorta tune him out to focus myself.

The fact that Xyvandra called him ‘little kraken’ likely means she doesn’t see him as a worthy opponent at all. Which, in hindsight, might very well be true. She is about a hundred levels above him and is a mindeater, so I don’t think he has a chance.

A chance or not, Blue quickly begins spawning a bunch of smaller krakens all around them while filling the arena with water. Meanwhile Xyvandra just kinda sits there without a care in the world about being submerged underwater. And when the krakens get within a few meters of her in an attempt to attack, they just kinda collapse with no warning, the lights fading from their eyes as I sense their life energy vanish.

And right after their life energy vanishes, I notice Xyvandra’s sheer presence just feeling… I don’t know, stronger somehow. It’s kinda hard to tell what this feeling is.

“It’s because you use mana and she uses mental energy,” Tar explains to me. “You’ve sensed this before, but those with mental energy have a sort of presence that you can sense, instead of the mana you can sense emitting from magic users. It’s basically the same thing.”

Oh. Interesting.

Wait, so she’s taking their mental energy? Do we without mental type magic even have that?

“You do,” Tar answers with a nod from where he’s floating next to me. “But what she’s devouring isn’t their mental energy.” His eyes narrow slightly as Blue’s do the same. “She’s devouring their minds completely.”

My mouth forms an o at that.

Lady of Devouring.

The Devourer.

Got it.

Yeah, that would make sense.

But wait, why would that kill the… oh. It’s because they’re just magical constructs of Blue’s that they died from it, right?

“Yeah,” Tar answers with another nod.

Doesn’t that mean…

“Yep,” Tar says, sounding rather dark despite the upbeat word choice. “If Xyvandra wanted to, she could’ve easily made Blue nothing more than a walking vegetable when they had their altercation on Tartarus all those years ago. But instead, she just took away his emotions. Emotions she eventually gave back to him, even if it was because you asked.”

I focus on Xyvandra at that, feeling more than a little surprised by her now.

Guess she wasn’t completely heartless after all.

Sure it’s cruel to take away his emotions and then slowly return them to him, but it’s not as cruel as turning him into a walking vegetable would’ve been. Just devouring his mind entirely.

I might have to rethink how I look at her now.

Blue seems to throw everything into his physical strength as he rushes at Xyvandra, only for her to suddenly use some sort of… strange skill. One that makes my mind just blank out for a moment, following which an incredibly powerful wave of power flows off of her, surrounding Blue entirely and then devouring him whole. All stuff I can only sense with my senses, unable to look at it directly with my eyes for some reason.

And when I’m finally allowed to look again, I find Blue lying on the ground, his mind having been devoured as well.

Good thing he had the Anti-death clause active.

Also, maybe I should take back what I just thought about Xyvandra.

She’s scary.