Chapter 439: The Fourth Seat Awakens (1)
The Northern Region of the Human Empire...
Ashina Province.
This was the uppermost border of the empire, a place where snow fell relentlessly all year round.
In those frozen lands, there stood an old wooden house, Once home to an elderly couple.
Now, it had become a grave that held one of them.
Millicent, the old witch, had died after her defeat at the hands of Beatrice.
She was quietly buried there,
and few even knew she had been alive in the first place.
Her story was a tragic one...
But that didn’t change the fact that she, together with her now-absent husband, had once protected the northern borders.
And without them, there was no longer a line of defense against one of the Nightmare Lords .. the Abyss Watcher.
This forced Sir Alon Valerion to place a beast resembling the Nightmare Knights in her stead, to hold the line.
And so, amidst the beautiful snowy fields,
a fierce battle unfolded, spilling foul blood across the land without end.
The Abyss watcher’s charged in vast numbers, rusted swords in hand,
desperately shielding themselves behind their tattered armor.
But their defense was meaningless against the dark shadowy tendrils that swept them away one after another.
Floating silently above them,
her dozens of black tendrils stretching from her back, Sansa slaughtered the Abyss Knights without mercy,
ripping them apart without pause.
With every drop of their blood that splashed onto the snow, the smile on the demonic princess’s face grew wider and wider ..
Delighting in the bloodshed,
drunk on the thrill of the hunt, as her murderous intent swelled with each passing moment.
Her shadow spread so rapidly that it engulfed the entire battlefield in the blink of an eye. And in less than a second,
It transformed into sharp spikes .. cold as black steel .. piercing through the bodies of the Nightmare Knights, annihilating them with terrifying ease.
"This is boring. Weren’t they supposed to be an SS+ threat?"
Sansa muttered with a frown, having effortlessly wiped out all the Abyss Watchers.
She had been stationed here for days now,
fighting the Abyss Knights day after day,
slaughtering countless enemies.
But they were far too weak ..
leaving her bored with the entire ordeal.
"The Abyss Watchers are a vast horde of nameless knights. Their strength varies from one to another.
Only their leader has reached the SS+ level."
A calm voice interrupted her from behind.
Wearing his usual white mask,
Oliver Khan explained the truth about the Abyss Watchers.
"I see. Then let’s go find their leader !"
Sansa smiled eagerly, but Oliver shook his head immediately.
"No.
Your only task is to stay here and guard the border."
"You’re so boring, Uncle Oliver.
Are you trying to lock me up here or something?"
"..."
Sansa descended quietly from the sky,
wearing her carefree smile, while Oliver remained silent.
It was hard to read Oliver Khan’s thoughts or emotions since he wore a mask all the time, but his eyes said plenty.
Though he was starting to accept the reality, he still couldn’t stop his mixed expressions from surfacing whenever he looked at Sansa’s dark horns...
Her skin had grown paler,
her hair now a white tinged with gray.
Wearing that black dress she wove from shadows, she looked entirely demonic.
Watching his only niece turn into a demon was hard for Oliver.
It was far from easy.
And with her heightened senses,
Sansa had already seen all of that ..
which only deepened the tension between them.
"It’s the only way to keep you alive.
That was the condition we agreed upon."
Oliver changed the subject, reminding her of the necessity of staying in the north.
Sansa simply shrugged indifferently,
heading into the wooden cabin where Millicent and Vendrick once lived.
Despite the growing tension between them,
Sansa didn’t care much.
Her personality had changed.
She was no longer the princess Oliver once knew and loved.
There was little left that could stir her now ..
even exile from the empire wouldn’t faze her.
Oliver honestly believed she wouldn’t care in the slightest.
In truth,
Even if she tried to escape, not even Sir Alon, with his light-speed sword, could stop her.
She had grown far too strong ..
as befitting a demon.
The current emperor wanted her dead.
But an unexpected intervention changed the Iron Emperor’s mind.
"Who would’ve thought the one to save her would be Aegon, of all people..."
Oliver Khan sighed in frustration, following Sansa into the cabin .. recalling what had happened before.
The princess’s transformation into a demon was unforgivable ..
a complete disgrace to House Valerion,
descendants of the First Emperor who had sacrificed his life to save humanity.
Her very existence was a stain on their legacy, and that was why Sir Alon had drawn his sword.
Back then, Oliver Khan hadn’t known what to do.
He froze, unable to move.
But unlike him, Aegon stood before the Iron Emperor and argued for his sister’s life.
Aegon Valerion ...
the first to escape from the Ultrass Continent, and the only one to return without a single injury.
A young man who had achieved so much in such a short time, quickly earning the Iron Emperor’s favor.
And so, he persuaded Sir Alon to spare Sansa’s life ...
on the condition that her power would be used for the empire.
Even in a situation like this, Aegon Valerion had managed to come up with the most beneficial plan .. and it had worked perfectly.
Sansa agreed to the prince’s dubious proposal, becoming a secret weapon of the Empire, a tool wielded by the Iron Emperor and Aegon as they pleased.
It all began with assigning her to guard the northern borders, for now.
Sansa had become a demon,
and Aegon secured his claim to the throne.
He even gained the full attention of Sir Alon.
"It wouldn’t be wrong to say the Empire is now in Aegon’s hands."
Staring up at the sky,
Oliver Khan wondered with concern ..
What kind of future awaited the Empire when Aegon finally ascended the throne?
The prince was certainly capable...
but his true motives remained a complete mystery.
Only God knew what dwelled within that mind of his.
The fate of mankind had never been more uncertain, with a devastating war looming on the horizon.
Anyone could see it now ..
a storm was coming.
A storm that would change everything on this planet called Earth.
...
...
...
On the other side of the world ..
Where the Ultras lived.
The land of the other humans .. those branded as traitors.
That land had witnessed many events recently.
Events that changed it forever.
Perhaps the most important of them
was the return of their supreme lord, whom all had thought dead:
The Human Demon ..
Dragoth.
Driven mad ever since his crushing defeat at the hands of Abraham Starlight,
he had finally begun to regain his composure, after enduring endless torture throughout the past years.
The return of such a beast to his senses
only made the threat to the Empire even greater.
Surrounded by Gavid Lindman and Mergo,
the supreme lord of the Ultrass was restored.
Elsewhere, both Baylor Moonlight—the traitor— and Gvardiol officially rose to the rank of lords, after the deaths of Madam A and Godfrey.
The Madam fell to Maekar’s spear.
As for Godfrey ..
the way he died remained unknown to this day.
This time, the Ultras gathered their true strength, preparing for the war to come.
Among their strongest,
perhaps the most mysterious was the warrior Draxler.
This man wandered aimlessly through one of the deserts, his greatsword resting on his back, his gaze fixed on a mountain far in the distance.
After a long, tiresome journey,
he finally reached his destination.
There, inside one of the enormous caves—its entrance resembling the maw of a colossal beast ..
Stood a refined woman, wearing a deep violet dress, her hands calmly folded together.
"You’ve finally arrived."
The woman spoke with a soft smile.
It was Beatrice.
"My apologies. It took me quite some trouble to find you... which caused the delay."
Draxler bowed his head respectfully.
He had known from the start that Beatrice would never die so easily.
But finding her afterward had been a difficult task.
He brushed his orange hair back,
revealing two golden bracelets adorning his elbows.
Then, with great care,
he removed them ..
and his body shone with a blinding white light.
In mere seconds, a dramatic transformation overtook the mysterious young man with golden teeth.
His skin darkened into rough obsidian,
his eyes became a mix of crimson and black, and a pair of black horns pierced through his orange hair, rising atop his head.
"Rank 33, Draxler, at your service."
In that moment, Draxler’s true identity was revealed ..
one of the 72 Demon Seats,
the holder of Rank 33, and a direct servant of Beatrice.
"Hmm, well done."
Beatrice smiled, gesturing for Draxler to follow her.
"These enchanted bracelets hid my true form perfectly, Lady Beatrice...
but they also limited my power greatly.
It reduced my effectiveness on the battlefield."
Draxler grumbled, complaining about the magical tool Beatrice had crafted for him,
but she remained unfazed.
"No matter. You’re of no use on the battlefield anyway."
"Ugh..."
Hearing the harsh truth, Draxler let out a sigh.
"You’re cruel as ever, Lady Beatrice."
"If you know that much already,
you shouldn’t have spoken ill of my magic tools in the first place."
"My apologies..."
Draxler apologized with slumped shoulders,
looking like a defeated loser,
trying to stay on Beatrice’s good side.
She gave him a faint smile.
"You’ll have to work very hard from now on if you truly want to apologize."
"I’ll do my best."
Draxler replied with a blank face.
He already knew Beatrice would work him to the bone anyway, so it didn’t really matter.
As the two of them ventured deeper into the dark cave, Draxler gradually became more and more serious...
"Did we really manage to catch his attention?"
Draxler asked cautiously, and Beatrice answered calmly.
"Yes. That’s the very reason I created the Witch’s Game in the first place.
We succeeded .. he already appeared before me once."
The moment she mentioned him, excitement clearly spread across Beatrice’s face.
She had finally obtained what she had long desired.