Volume 1 Chapter 33 - Skryme’s Gifts

Within the Dark Sanctum, Bella sat on a lounge chair, satisfaction showing on her face. Hadias was still in the attire that she had been presented to Bella in, except that there was now a red pair of cat ear decorations on her head. Apart from the anti-demon cross, a red collar now also decorated Hadias’ neck, a intricate chain connecting the collar to a pillar besides the bed.

Hadias’ face was blushed as she thought about her current state, she was currently on all fours prostrating herself before Bella, massaging her feet. She had wanted to voice her complains, but Bella had shoved a red ball into Hadias’ mouth, effectively sealing her voice.

As Hadias had signed a Master/Servant contract with Bella previously, Bella could completely use the contract’s powers and force Hadias to do her bidding. Bella, however, for some mischievous reason chose not to invoke the contract, making Hadias do this of her ‘own will’.

“Come close Hadias, why are you hiding from your master? Do you think that I’ll eat you or something?”

Bella tugged on the metal chain in her hand and Hadias was forced to crawl towards her. One of Bella’s hands gently caressed Hadias face, also making it so that Hadias was forced to look at Bella.

“It seems that you aren’t fully conscious of your identity as a slave yet! Maybe I should summon Skryme to help you ?”

Hadias was unable to maintain her resistance after hearing that Bella planned to summon Skryme. She obediently got into Bella’s arms, letting Bella embrace her like one would to a pet cat.

Seeing Hadias who had submitted herself like a pet, Bella felt a surge of accomplishment. Bella had tested out the ‘tools’ that were currently on Hadias before on Noesha, but didn’t have quite enough time to enjoy herself. But now, Bella had all the time she needed to satisfy her dark desires.

Hadias’ identity as the demon world’s princess only made it all the more exciting to Bella. Bella wasn’t afraid of Hadias’ demon lord father coming to look for trouble. Bella had thoroughly ‘interrogated’ Hadias previously, who had quickly spilled the all the beans about all she knew about the demon world due to her fear of Bella.

The demon world used to have 10 demon lords, who had joined with the celestial world’s gods’ punitive expedition against the twelve demon kings who had invaded this world with their armies of evil beings. The expedition was a catastrophic failure, with all twelve of the celestial world’s high gods being, the 12 demon kings then invaded the celestial world, slaughtering most of the celestial world’s gods and bathing the celestial world in their blood.{1}

The fate of the demon world wasn’t that much better, all 10 of their demon lords slaughtered. The only fortunate thing was that the ancient 12 demon kings had all disappeared before they had the opportunity to invade the demon world, but by that time they had almost driven the inhabitant races of the surface world to extinction.

The demon kings from 10,000 years ago had made their first appearance on the Alfred Continent, first destroying the human Frederick Empire before defeating the demon and celestial worlds’ punitive force. All twelve high gods and ten demon lords had lost their lives on the Alfred Continent.

After that, the twelve demon kings sent their main force towards the celestial world while the others stayed behind on the surface world and wreaked havoc on the other continents. At the time, humans, elves, beastmen, as well as dragons were all cautious of each other, not willing to fully commit to an union. The beastmen had even attempted to work with the twelve demon kings and share the surface world.

Within a year, the elves who had lacked the numbers of the other races and were therefore unable to keep up with the high number of losses as well as their lack of proportion between troop types were forced to become the first to exit the battlefield.

Elven archers were completely unable to resist against the unstoppable force that was the demon king armies, the elven empress at the time brought the remaining third of her people and retreated back into the forests. Withdrawing from the affairs of the outside world.

After the elves had withdrawn, the demon kings focused the vast majority of their forces on the dragons, their largest threat. The beastmen were unwilling to send aid due to hatred of the dragons for invading their land previously. The human race had eighteen empires at the time, making it hard to come to a unified decision. After the humans finally managed to settle their internal problems, it was too late. The demon kings had completely routed the dragons.

After eliminating the largest threat, the offensive of the demon kings’ armies were completely unstoppable. The five beastmen empire were all decimated by the demon kings, a portion of the remaining beastmen choosing to defect to the demon kings while the rest of them turned to guerilla fighting where they could and continued their resistance in places far away.

Of the human race’s eighteen empires, thirteen of them were destroyed by the demon kings, the remaining five forced to put aside their differences and create a unified frontier to make a stand. These five empires would go on to become the five great empires of the current time, but back then the five were still the relatively weaker of the original eighteen empires.

After, the demon kings and their forces had mysteriously disappeared, sparing the five remaining human empires. As for the demon world, it had fallen into a chaotic civil war for power due to the deaths of all the demon lords that had previously maintained order through force, the devastation of the demon world’s civil war wasn’t any less than that of the war on the surface.

Many of the noble families that had lost favour chose to flee to the surface world in order to avoid the complete extermination of their lineage. These were the demons that would go on and lay the foundations for the current four great demon empires.

The last group of demons that had managed to escape had decided to completely destroy the only route that connected the demon world to the surface in fear of their lives. The demon civil war lasted for over a thousand years, ending with the Naler family’s complete victory. The Naler family was the one that Hadias had descended from.

In the present day, the only way for the inhabitants of the demon world to enter the surface world was through the extremely rare transportation orbs, a one-use item that would be destroyed after use. Hadias had entered the surface world by stealing a transportation orb from her father, the demon lord.

Therefore, the demon lord wouldn’t be able to come to the surface world, he might not even know that his treasured daughter was currently in the new demon king Bella’s hands. This meant that Hadias’ fate was completely under Bella’s control, a familiar bound by a master/servant contract couldn’t deny any command given by the master, meaning that Bella could make Hadias kill herself and Hadias would have to carry it through. It was a rather brutal contract that was effectively enslaving the servant and depriving them of their rights.

“So I’ve heard that you have a cute sister back at home Hadias, you should invite her up here sometimes…”

Of course Hadias knew that Bella didn’t have anything nice planned, but she didn’t even have the ability to speak right now, there wasn’t anyway for her to voice her opinions. She could only nuzzle up to Bella and pretend that she didn’t know how to answer.

This little temptress, if there wasn’t something that Bella needed to attend to right now, she would have already ‘eaten’ this girl already. Well, there wasn’t harm in waiting just a little while longer, Hadias was chained and wouldn’t be able to escape her fate. Bella looked at Irene, who lay on a bed behind her and Hadias, still fast asleep, she wouldn’t be able to escape Bella’s grasp either.

Bella took out a strip of red cloth and blindfolded Hadias, then blocking the loli’s ears with some cotton. Hadias couldn’t resist and could only let Bella have her way. After finishing all of this, Bella pulled Hadias towards the pillar and secured her to it, planning to leave her here for a while.

Bella returned to the Unholy Spring, a blurred figure at her side. Judging from the figure, it seemed to be a female that was made of a viscous fluid, but no details could be discerned.

This was the main body of Skryme, the only one of the 6 void monarchs that were allowed to enter the Dark Sanctum. The other five void monarchs were unable to understand why Skryme had been fortunate enough to be allowed in, Medusyr was technically more powerful, but was still not allowed to enter.

Probably only Bella and Skryme knew the reason, the two of them had come together because of their shared interests, it was impossible for normal people to understand the complex friendship between ‘gentlemen’. From the moment that Skryme had gifted Bella, the two of them immediately became good ‘comrades’.

“Bella-sama, this is a gift that I had obtained by exchanging large amounts of live captives with that big spider, Yulysses, I hope you’ll like it.”

Because Skryme’s body was made out of a fluid that ignored the laws of physics, it was able to change its size at will and was easily able to enter through the 3-metre entrance of the Dark Sanctum. As it was able to freely enter every nook and cranny of the Dark Sanctuary, it could do a lot that the other five void monarchs couldn’t.

This time Skryme had brought Bella a familiar yet unfamiliar girl, with brown eyes and a horsetail of the same colour. The girl had not a single scrap of fabric on her body, her arms tied together above her head by semi-transparent spider silk that was also connected to a metal hook on the ceiling, making it so that the girl was forced to stand straight.

The girls feet had been forced apart and glued to the ground by Skryme’s special glue, probably to stop her from lashing out with her feet as well as to deny her the ability to escape. The girl’s pretty face had a look of fury on her face, her eyes fixed on Bella.

Bella thought for a bit and remembered that this girl was one of the legendary heroes that had accompanied Lisha, 【Shadow Thorn] Lola. One of those that had ambushed Bella back at the Anola Clark Strip, defeating the unawakened Dolores.

As an assassin, Lola usually covered her face and this was the first time that Bella had seen it. Bella hadn’t expected Lola to be a beautiful girl that looked only around 16 years of age, apart from her attractive face Lola also had a great figure that was on the thin side, similar to the swordswoman Ivy, with whom Bella had just parted ways with.

After remembering that this was the girl that had almost ended Dolores, Bella kind of wanted to call Dolores over to let her take ‘revenge’. But decided against it when Bella remembered the battle madness that took over Dolores in Battle, it would be a waste of such a beauty if Dolores ended up crippling or killing Lola.

Even though Bella liked ‘playing’ with beauties, but she wasn’t perverse enough to be into completely breaking her victim. Lola was also the good friend of Bella’s ‘little sister’, Lisha, Bella didn’t want to do something that would damage her relationship with Lisha any further, only partly because she was a ‘cheat’ hero.

‘Bella-sama, this girl is quite the feisty one, don’t be tricked by how placid she is now. She kept trying to kill herself on the way here, I had to gag her with some of my special material to stop her from biting her own tongue. It’s the first time that I’ve seen a prey resist for so long, she resisted even harder than that demon world princess that I brought here last time, I just had to scare that loli a bit and she gave in.”

“You’ve done very well Skryme. From today on you’ll be my exclusive void monarch, follow me and we’ll conquer this entire world!”

“I thank demon king-sama… master’s appreciation, this slime will help aid master in the conquest of the world until my death!”

Bella patted Skryme’s shoulder in encouragement, the two experienced members of the gentry didn’t need words to communicate with each other, having the ability to understand the subtlest of gestures. Bella wasn’t wearing anything currently but it didn’t matter much because as they were currently in the Dark Sanctum, the only ones that could enter were the girls that had some form of relationship with Bella.

As for the void monarch, Skryme, its gender depended on that of its owner, it was a female which meant that it wouldn’t cause any problems. Skryme still had a gift that it had not yet presented to Bella, Skryme was saving that one as the grand finale, but there was still some special circumstances with that gift that made Skryme unsure of whether or not it should deliver it to Bella.

Lola had quickly recognized Bella as the princess Felia who had gone missing months ago. She had watched the fight between Bella and Lisha back at the Anola Clark Strip, when the ‘demonized’ Felia had been defeated by Lisha and had chosen to jump of the cliff to her ‘death’.

Because of the giant explosion that had happened after, as well as the fact that one of the Church of Light’s three cardinals. Salo, had quarantined the entire Anola Clark Strip; Lisha’s wish to find Felia’s body to bring home for a proper burial had been broken.

As a companion that had been at Lisha’s side for over a year, the friendship between Lisha and Lola was strong, she was rather knowledged in the matters concerning Lisha. Lisha had regretted becoming a dragon knight not long after she had became one, because of the fact that it inadvertently shattered the relationship between Lisha and her sisters Felia and Irene because Lisha had ‘stolen’ the opportunity from those two.

After that, Lisha had been trying to find a chance to apologize to Felia, but didn’t know how to do so and had been avoiding her until she could find a way. The next time that they had seen each other, everything had changed. But now, Felia was still alive and standing right in front of her, this shocked Lola.

Felia had already fallen, this was something that Lola could confirm. Or else, there was no way a holy knight like Felia could command all these terrifying evil beings. Not far from Bella, Lola was able to see the still asleep Irene, she hadn’t expected Bella to be the one behind the disappearance of Irene.

Irene had been tied up with semi-transparent red silk, not far from her was a loli with blood-red hair that was equipped with some strange accessories chained to a pillar. Hadias’ snow white body was still shaking lightly, probably because she wasn’t sure what Bella was planning to do with her after. Hadias was also too scared to move, because Bella might use the excuse that Hadias was moving without permission to ‘punish’ her.

While Lola wasn’t sure what had happened between Bella and Hadias, but she knew that it definitely wasn’t anything good. Seeing Bella’s vile gaze turning towards her, Lola wanted to loudly reprimand Bella about how shameless it was for a holy knight to fall to the dark side, but was unable to voice due to the soft, almost jelly like substance in her mouth that made even talking an impossible task, not to mention suicide.

Bella walked up to Lola, who could only express her emotions through her gaze. Bella laughed to herself, this girl was quite stubborn, at least more so than Hadias the demon world princess. The first words that Hadias had spoken were to beg for mercy, Bella guessed that if she were to give Lola the ability to speak again, her first words would probably to insult Bella, all Bella needed to see were Lola’s furious eyes and she could tell that this would be the case.

“You’re my little sister’s companion, Lola, right? Welcome do the Dark Sanctuary. There’s no need to worry, I won’t kill you, it would be much more interesting to make you submit to me.”

Bella’s hands wandered this beautiful assassin’s body while the girl could only watch furiously, unable to do anything about the hands that were recklessly traversing her body. She found it hard to understand why Bella was doing so and why she had such strange interests, what’s the point of this if they were both girls!

“Skryme, did you capture my little sister, Lisha, too?”

Bella knew that Lisha travelled everywhere with Lola, there ws no reason that Lisha would be fine if Lola was caught, Lisha wouldn’t abandon her good friend like this. So Bella asked Skryme to try her luck, not expecting an actual result, Lisha was a hero after all and it wouldn’t be so easy to capture her.

“Master, I did in fact, capture Lisha… it’s just that the circumstances are kind of special… master, your little sister might… no, is very likely someone from our side.”

Hearing the whispered report from Skryme, Bella felt a little out of the loop; She and Lisha had fought a battle of life and death not that long ago, when did Lisha suddenly become an ‘ally’? Was she an existence like Kriss, a dark hero?

___

Back in the Gabriel Empire’s(Swordsmen) military town of Sakerid, the returning Kriss and company brought new hope to this town that had been in despair. The return of the empire’s number one hero, as well as the Ignaz family’s young lady, Ivy, and the Church of Light’s 3rd holy maiden, Susan, brought a ray of hope into this town that had been overcast with dark shadows.

In one of the town’s many alleyways, Kriss looked cautiously at the beautiful female magician that blocked her way. Even though this magician was a little shorter than Kriss, the aura that she gave off made Kriss instinctively endangered.

The magician’s flowing hair was the same silver as Kriss’. Her beauty wasn’t any lesser than that of Kriss, while Kriss gave off a bewitching air; this magician gave off a feel of mystery and unpredictability, a sort of indescribable beauty.

The only big difference between her and Kriss were her pink-hued irises, completely different from Kriss’ violet ones.

Looking at Kriss who was staring at her in caution, Brittany Ariel found it kind of awkward. She hadn’t followed Kriss because they had the same coloured hair, nor was it because Kriss was also as beautiful as herself.

In Kriss’ hands was a box of delicately crafted desserts that Bella had gifted her when they had parted ways, the desserts’ style was undoubtedly from Earth, this was something that Ariel could confirm. She had transmigrated several times and had yet to see anything like it, she wouldn’t ever be able to forget the style of her homeland.

Ariel wanted to ask Kriss where she had gotten these desserts from, but she didn’t how to word it now that she had confronted Kriss. Just like how Kriss had avoided asking Bella if her clothes were from Earth, it was hard to find another transmigrator in another world and many transmigrators were cautious about their identities.

The two girls looked awkwardly at each other for a while, until Ivy who had been looking for Kriss finally found her and broke the stalemate. Seeing an outsider, Ariel took this chance to leave, leaving behind a relieved Kriss and a curious Ivy. Ariel decided that she would find another time to ask Kriss about the origins of the dessert.

—TL NOTES—

{1} All the inhabitants of the celestial world are ‘gods’, but can only be considered fakes as they were all created by their dimension’s Creator, therefore they have nowhere as much power as that of demon/evil gods