Book 4: Chapter 10: A Loophole

Book 4: Chapter 10: A Loophole

The Cliff Overlooking the Battlefield of Blood and Ruin

Arkaz frowns as he watches Scarlet through a blood mirror, unsure of if he should praise her for winning or scold her for almost killing herself to do it. He almost stepped in himself if it wasnt for his noticing her slowing down the amount of blood she burned at the end to keep herself alive.

She knows what shes doing.

He continues watching her for several seconds in the cave.

But if she ends up killing herself by accident Ill be grounding her from hunting for a month after bringing her back to life.

Arkaz really hates using Blood Resurrection, because the skill costs him all of his mana and stops him from regenerating mana for an entire week. But theres no way he would let his granddaughter die, much less to a freak accident where she ended up overusing a skill, killing herself.

The Demon King shakes his head before using Blood Transcendence and switching places with a droplet of his blood he has inside of the witches abode in the Mesa of Illusions. And the moment he appears fully in front of the head witch, he notices her eyes widening in shock. But she doesnt let out another sound, unlike the other witches in the area who all let out fearful yelps before bending the knee to him.

He scoffs on the inside as he glares at the head witch, still wondering if only slaughtering ten of them was holding back too much after he found out about the prophecies, much less the witches act of locking his only son in an illusion for five years with a Knight and causing them to get together. But he calms himself down again at the thought of how if that hadnt happened, his beloved granddaughter never wouldve been born.

So his glare lessens a little as he asks, Have you an answer yet?

If she can escape from her bodyguards, she can handle herself on her own. It was the same thing I did with Leonidas, and Im not going to break whats become tradition now. Even if shes getting help to escape.

Out of the corner of his eye, Arkaz notices a kitsune Noble beginning to approach the cave system Scarlet is in. So his eyes narrow and he instantly appears in front of them, moving far faster than even the speed of light in the process and scaring them into jumping straight into the air and landing on all fours with their six tails sticking straight into the air. But he ignores that to reach down and grab them by the neck, raising them into the air as he asks, What do you think youre doing?

Arkaz can tell that the kitsune is lost to their Greed. That theyre hunting his granddaughter to keep for themselves.

But Arkaz dislikes killing his own Nobles for losing themselves to their Curse, so he gives the Noble a chance.

The kitsune scratches at his hand without managing to even ruffle his clothes despite the Nobles level of 1607, clearly not capable of clear thought right now. So Arkaz slowly begins to constrict his hand while being careful not to pop the kitsunes head clean off in the process. And slowly, ever so slowly, clarity begins to return to the kitsunes eyes as its being suffocated.

After he deems the kitsune coherent enough to speak, he releases the pressure on its throat, dropping it to the ground as he asks again, What do you think you are doing?

The woman a prodigy from a younger generation of the kitsune if Arkaz remembers correctly coughs out loud a bit before she kneels down and exclaims, Please forgive me, Your Majesty! I have committed a terrible Sin!!!

Arkaz watches for a few moments as the woman repeatedly bows her head over and over again towards him until he eventually snaps his fingers, making her vanish in a swirl of blood before she ends up deposited several dozen meters above the kitsunes castle halfway across the world where she falls with a yelp down through the air. Then he reappears on the cliff he was originally on and continues watching over Scarlet, ignoring his duties as the Demon King and leaving them to his son to handle for the moment.

Serves him right for sending Scarlet to Earth.