519 Chopped potato

It really was not any hidden secret but was considered as common knowledge that every single witch knew that ultimately, it would be only one of the three who will soon be crowned queen. But on the exact day that Alicia's hair started to turn silver and everyone had acknowledged her to be the next queen, her two friends, her bosom buddies, started to change. They turned green-eyed with jealousy which had, in due course consumed them until they eventually rebelled and left the Black Forest. Alicia saw it in the late queen's memories that these two were the reason why the late queen was captured and they were also the ones who drew blood from the late queen.

Gritting her teeth in anger, she shot a deadly glare at the two witches who were once her so-called, sisters, her best friends. She swore that she would surely make them pay – and her payback would not be something small and itty-bitty.

"Oh, hell no," Alicia whispered silently, those words only audible to her own ears. These green-eyed bitches truly have crossed the line. Betraying their long-time friendship, their sisterhood – that is still something that was done perhaps due to personal feelings and their own private covetousness over what she had, and they did not receive. That she could still accept. Alicia would perhaps deal with it with just some personal revenge and getting back on even terms. However, this type of betrayal is more than personal. It involved their loyalty to the family that raised them, their oath they had vowed to their witch clan and above all, it involves the numerous lives that depended on the late queen's influence and power. They had basically betrayed their own nation! And if that – Alicia viciously thought – was not considered high treason with the outcome of the cruelest form of punishment or death, she really do not know what is.

With the earlier duel, Alicia had focused all her senses on Dinah that she was careless and failed to protect herself from the sneaky attack of her fellow witches. Those black magic balls were lethal. They were spells made to weaken their target as the black magic will suck the strength that is contained inside one's body.

Dinah's body was covered with wounds. When Dinah looked down and saw her body being slashed like it was some kind of chopped potato, a high-pitch scream filled the vastness of the cavern. Dinah finally started to feel the pain from the hundreds of cuts Alicia had inflicted on her. Her face too was not spared, and she suffered some cuts. Even though the wounds have already started healing, Alicia made to thoroughly coat her blade in a various concoction of poisons to slow the enemy's healing and give them the most agonizing pain they deserved.

While standing there silently watching Dinah throw her tantrums and having a bitch-fit, she gave an internal shrug. "Well, whoever can force me to draw my swords will definitely deserve this torment caused by the blades as well as the poisons," she thought. She was not one who draws her swords out on a whim. Only in distressing or harrowing circumstances is she willing to pull out her twin blades – reason being, those poisons she coats her twin blade with, were not the usual run-of-the-mill ones. These were only privy to the queen witch that is succeeded when the mantle of queen is passed down. And the best thing was, there are no antidotes for the poisons that she concocts. The only way one can survive was by having enough magic power to overcome the toxins running in their bodies – but at an exceedingly high price. They would lose half of their inner power if not more.

Dinah continued screaming as Alicia wordlessly observed her from her spot. "I will kill you, bitch!!! I will goddamn kill you!!!"

"Be my guest…if you can…" she drawled her reply and just had her sentence trail off, driving Dinah into an even heightened screaming frenzy. That scene was something she didn't regret watching, even though she knew she was not in a much favorable position herself.

Dinah lifted her right hand to attack her with her sword, and it was only then that she realized that she had lost her right hand. Another scream echoed as the hand on the ground slowly flew back to its original place.

The intense pain seemed to have killed the last bits of her sanity and she roared like a beast. Her fiery golden eyes, zeroed at Alicia, now more than prepared to take her life.

Alicia breathed deep. She managed to counter the black magic and it had left her body. But the magic had also drained quite a lot of her energy. The all-out attack she launched at Dinah also consumed her body's power. Alicia knew she wouldn't be able to last for much longer. But she would never give up.

Gripping her sword again, the witch queen raised her twin blades and was prepared to fight until the end. She uttered another short series of chants and Dinah started to gnash her teeth and fall on her knees. The poison Alicia put on her blade was still circulating on the inside of Dinah's body. Even though her wounds have already somewhat healed, the poison was still trapped inside.