Chapter 121: Valentina Scarlet, The Absolute Queen

"Oh, it seems the trash has woken up... Why don't you come here?" Ziriel questioned, challenging all the knights to rise and face her.

However, the same continued. Looks of anger and hatred began to bloom in all the idiots who watched her. Of course, how could they not? Insulting not only the Emperor, but the royal guards as well. Truly, who was this woman for the princess to even care about such blasphemies?

"I won't stand still." A tall and very muscular man stood up. He had red eyes and black hair that covered part of his face.

"Hey, are you sure, Tutz?" One of the knights tried to stop him.

"Stop! Tutz, don't go!" Others tried to prevent.

"Damn, she really caught the attention of that ogre..." "Let her deal with the consequences, she asked for it." One of them said and then turned to sit back down.

Ziriel looked around and saw a large man approaching. His aura was somewhat unusual, but Ziriel didn't care. She just looked at him in a way that made him even angrier. From top to bottom, she stared. He was much taller than her, in fact, he looked like a giant. With little to say, they simply nodded quickly.

Quickly, the knight in front of her lunged towards her, his wooden sword slightly bent with his intent to kill. Ziriel jumped back, distancing herself. Her sword emitted a faint light, indicating it was bathed with strengthening mana.

The clash of wooden swords felt more like mithril swords. The Knight unleashed a series of quick and precise strikes, seeking openings in Ziriel's defense, which proved to be completely relentless.

Ziriel had already moved from her position, unlike the insignificant opponent before, this one was worthy of recognition. Yes, that's it, he was recognized by Ziriel's sword.

Responding to the Knight's strikes, Ziriel sunk more mana into her sword and retaliated with powerful blows, each one carrying the force of thunder, swift and ferocious.

Unlike before, she changed her tactic. The Knight seemed like a wall, but she wouldn't let that wall stand intact in front of her. She made a leap, avoiding the low strikes of the knight who mainly aimed for her abdomen. With a series of strikes at a single point on the opponent's sword, Ziriel decided to finally end this dull duel.

While the knight resorted to his experience and skills of the Imperial sword he had learned, Ziriel made him remember something. Duels don't end just because of skills.

Ziriel was stronger, faster, more skilled, and above all, she was a cunning demon.

Using the battle tactic she had learned, imbuing her sword with mana, a horizontal attack came.

But it wasn't a common attack. The wind around the mana gathered and accelerated the speed of the wooden weapon. With a clever block and a swift deflection, she advanced, batting away the sword and hitting him on his left arm, the same one that held the sword previously.

It was a slight falter, but with the height difference, he still managed to protect himself. The size of this wall was enough to make Ziriel furious. He lunged again, but realized that this was his end.

With a deafening crash, Ziriel's sword broke through the defense of the Imperial Knight, cutting through the sword itself and sending him crashing to the ground with a powerful blow. The training ground fell silent for a moment, the only sound being the panting breaths of the exhausted fighters.

"Get up," Ziriel said to the fallen Knight, but received no response. At least, the Knight's breathing was heard by Ziriel, and she said again, "Get up."

The Knight stirred slightly and rose with renewed determination, but he didn't get the chance.

"315076231 seconds..." Again, the punch broke part of the world that held her, like glass and magic, everything regressed, correcting the flaw in the sky. She was constantly trapped between the beginning and the end of her life, but she never stopped fighting, never came the moment to stop.

"315198402 seconds..." The sound was already tiresome, her body could no longer withstand the exhaustion of training, and again, she fell into sleep, the sleep that led her into her eternal loop of nightmares.

"315276003 seconds..." She woke up, rose again, and returned to training, as if nothing could stop her, an infinite motivation to the point of considering erasing her own world when she remembered what she had lost.

"315533994 seconds..." The thought of ceasing to live passed over her head every time she remembered her lack of strength.

"315546005 seconds... 315556006 seconds... 315566007 seconds... 315576000 seconds..."

"Ten years have passed." The redhead who continued training didn't let herself be hurt, it was ten years of long physical and psychological training. She had restarted her journey testing a new style of fighting and combat. She studied so much about herself and others that, upon restarting her power, she achieved it in four years, and in the remaining 6 years, she created something new for herself.

She learned about the Mana Core Ascension, alone.

She had already abandoned mourning, but at the same time, she clung to something completely new and different from anything she had ever felt: love.

Valentina previously didn't know what love was. She thought she knew through Dante, but she didn't fully love Dante, these years showed that. Her plan was to find a husband molded to her own lifestyle, her personality, and so she went after a son, pretended it was a lie about all this, and acted innocently to make him fall in love with her. She succeeded, but...

She felt a deep emptiness when she separated from him to go find Igris, just as she broke down completely when he died.

She realized that loving was a unique thing, a unique and selfish feeling between two people, a journey shared with various ups and downs, laughs and tears. She deeply blamed herself for all the times she remembered Dante and realized that none of it was real.

She felt empty for not having given her all, and then remembered Dante, all the smiles and affection he gave her, and she constantly accepted them, but not completely, she didn't show much of that side of her, she constantly blamed herself.

Her biggest mistake of all was not loving him enough before he left.

Did she not care about his death? Of course, she cared. She learned to love him every day she slept and revisited his memories. She was anxious to get to the moment when she was about to meet them, she endured all the thousands of years just to get to the last moments with Dante.

From when he said he was her husband, from when he said "mommy" for the first time, from when he met Morgana and learned to walk, every moment was like lovely pictures in her heart. She suffered, but she was happy. That's why she never left the seal, she just wanted to stay there forever to remember what happened between her and Dante.

But not only with flowers is a garden made. Valentina, with her destructive temperament, burns in fury every time she remembers Dante taking her out of the curse that was cast on her. Her mind broke every time she remembered Dante protecting her, and this only fueled her strength even more.

Valentina was beginning to want to leave, her blows continued to break the skies of the sealing dimension and not much longer, her ascension would happen if she continued to train, the cube would be destroyed.

And when that happens and she really confirms that it is impossible to bring Dante back, she swore she would erase the remaining three continents that betrayed her by trying to kill her son, and if the nonsense of "He was a Demon King" comes to light, she herself decided that she would descend into hell to confront Lilith personally.

Her life without Dante made no sense, so why would others' lives? She would erase continents for Dante, she would kill the Demon Empress herself for him.

Valentina has always been crazy, since she was a Ruler. Valentina is the absolute driving force that rises even if the world falls, and now would not be different. Her possessiveness for Dante made her an tireless machine of mass destruction, something worse than a nuclear bomb. An Apocalypse dressed in crimson red. This was Valentina Scarlet, the Absolute Queen.