13 I am here peacefully

The ghostly woman couldn't even believe what she was hearing. After seeing the cultist dying, she thought she was gone as well. However, not only did she kept her life, she was even proposed to regain her original body. While a small spark of hope was ignited inside her mind, the cold cruelty of the world quickly extinguished it. No free meal was ever served on this planet, and the first won't be given by a demon inside a burned and broken body. Those changes of sentiments didn't escape the observing eyes of Leilade, but the truth was that she didn't care at all. Her only goal was to reduce the incoming pressure that will fall on the survivors of the Artosis planet. And gaining the sympathy, or at least the favor, of a princess was a good way to do that.

"Well, looks like you are not really happy about that. So, farewell Muïrne."

And as Leilade said those words, the tentacle near her feet began to slowly move toward the spirit. Seeing the incoming doom approaching without any artifices, the princess quickly explained herself.

"No, no, I gladly accept it. Yes, yes, I accept it. Thank you very much, ehh, dark god? Great god? Great being?"

The visage of the little girl was totally impassive, not reacting at any of those names. Muïrne knew that, by accepting the offer of the monster in front of her, she will probably sell her soul or something like that. But she still didn't know who was responsible for the attack perpetrated by the Church of Torment. The only one that could have answered her questions was the grandmaster, but he was swallowed by the moving shadows. Only by staying alive, will she finally reach her goal. Filled with that newly formed determination, she was ready to suffer anything, except being enslaved. If that was the case, she will try by any means in her possession to kill herself.

"What do you need in exchange of that service, great one?"

At that point, the Empress found out that a terrible misunderstanding was happening in front of her. The tongue and voice employed by the transparent woman looked like the ones used by the new recruit of the Demonic Army. Those that were thinking horrible stuff, like them eating babies at every meal and slaughtering anyone just for fun. Well, those things kind of happened, but they were not common at all. Feeling another headache in her head, Leilade decided that she shouldn't even think about that braindead woman and just end this comedy.

Seeing the still intact body of the princess, she picked it up telepathically, not letting anything happen to it. With just a gesture of her hand, the broken armor was disassembled and turned into a metallic ball, without any imperfection. Concentrating for a few seconds more, she shaped it into a necklace, a white metallic necklace. On it, she conjured an enchantment of her concoction, something she was usually very proud. With this, she will enjoy a bit the spectacle while fulfilling her promise.

As for the princess, she was astounded by the spells of the little girl. One had to know, even the Archmage, the only magician of the seven Circle, needed to spell the names of the sorceries he will employ. For example, the grandmaster had to shout the two spells that turned her into this. But even after concentrating, Muïrne couldn't hear anything coming from the monster surrounded by shadows. And as far as she knew, the things that small child was doing was not achievable by a lot of people.

In the end, all she could do was receiving the floating necklace, not knowing what to do with it. After a few seconds were the little girl watched her with her disturbing dark eyes, the princess guessed that she should wear it. Only after this did she realized that the necklace was still in her hands and not on the ground as it should be. As for the enchant on it, she was not capable of either detecting it or even activate it. She only had a weird feeling about it, but since it was the simplest design, just a chain, she decided to discard this feeling, not wanting to displease the powerful being in front of her.

The moment she put the chain around her neck, she began to feel again the sensation of flesh. It was hurting her so much that she began to scream. She fell from around twenty centimeters, but to her, it looked like it was twenty meters. Only at that time did she realized that since she was turned into a spirit, pain and suffering were gone. But now, those were coming back with interests. For a dozen of seconds, she felt in her entire body more pain than she ever imagined. She crawled on the ground, but even touching it with her arm caused more scream.

During that, Leilade was smiling at this sight. Others didn't know, but she was far too familiar with this feeling. She had resurrected countless beings for the demons, and even the most hardened warrior, veteran of thousands of wars, ended up crying like a little baby. Most fainted after that torture, so the fact that the princess was still conscientious was an honorable feat. In the end, after nearly a minute, the screams were replaced by the sobs of the crying woman.

Even as she was standing on her two feet, the princess was under the impression of walking on ardent charcoals. Looking downward, she saw that she was still wearing her armor, even when she should have been naked. Will she permanently stay like that, wearing a broken armor and with her injuries? This was not what she asked, she even began to regret not staying a ghost. As she raised her watery eyes at the small girl that was smiling, that sentiment of regret was even more important.

"Great, you are not noisy anymore. So, let me explain a bit what happened. First I save you, then I killed one of your deadly enemies. And in addition, I allowed you to have a solid body again. That's a lot, now let's talk about the favor that you owe me."

As those words reached the ears of Muïrne, she considered more and more the opportunity of just betraying her honor and trying to kill that abomination. As she internally battled on that notion, she judged that her conscience would be fine with that. Raising her sword at her supposed savior, she righteously told herself that it was for the greater good.

"You demonic creature, you can oblige me to serve you, but you will never take my soul. Now, take my sword!"

And as she charged without any hope of succeeding, she was immediately stopped by the raised hand of Leilade. The situation was clearly a huge misunderstanding since she really didn't care about anything that this princess could give her. But how could she have explained that to this moronic human?

"Ok, I give up. Go back to your home, it's fine. Just tell you it's good fuckin luck that I was passing by. I am not planning any random massacre either if that's what you are thinking. I am here peacefully."

None of those were true, but she still tried to salvage the situation, maybe the princess was naïve.

"Empress, we have cleared the battlefield. That was a very good meal, those humans are delicious."

Just at that moment, her four subordinates arrived, all more bloodied than the other. For the succubus, it was because of her injuries, but for the three others, it was entirely because of their barbarians' way of eating. Ymir was still eating a leg as he arrived and saw the woman in armor pointing a sword at their superior. Everyone froze for a second, allowing the princess to connect the dots between everything. Hearing the same incomprehensible language that the shadows spoke at the beginning, and the fact that some of them were eating human bodies, that confirmed her supposition. They could never be allowed to set a foot in her kingdom, or chaos and destruction will happen.

The change of behavior, from suspicious to determination was easy to see and Leilade finally gave up. She only wanted to have an easy time while they will recover. But now, it looked like that won't happen. "Now, should I kill her or not?" she thought.

(Outlander, let her live. She might not understand right now, with all the battles and the adrenaline, but she will remember what you did. And she is still a soul in the end if one day she tried to gather an army to fight you, one snap of your fingers and their beautiful princess will be gone. With such a symbol killed, their morale will drop and the battle will be won. As for the drawback, maybe your presence will be reported. But they won't be able to find you anytime soon, except when we will want that.)

Hearing the advice of the Viscount, Leilade acknowledged his vision. She raised her hand, signaling to the four others to follow her. Leaving only a baffled woman, still in her fighting posture. The last thing she saw of them was a tall man licking his rows of canines while looking at her, making her shiver. In the end, she was standing alone, in the middle of the night, and without anything showing the intense battle that happened around her besides some burned areas of the forest.