Blood Warlock: Succubus Partner in the Apocalypse

"Seraphina, are you really feeling well? If you think you can't do it then don't force yourself."

"That's true, Seraphina. You have had practically no sleep for the last four days. Remember that your safety is more important than anything else.... Although you can't intentionally commit murder, serious injuries are normal in this kind of competition and in the worst case there could be careless deaths."

"Even though the Azure Kingdom is powerful, I don't think they have the ability to defeat us. We have even crushed the three parent kingdoms!"

...

Sitting in the second princess's private carriage, the eleven representatives of the younger generation and the future of Gales looked worriedly at the twelfth participant; Seraphina.

Seraphina could feel the concern and the real care that came from the bottom of her teammates' hearts. No, more than teammates, they were her friends.

Even then, her personality was not that of a soft and gentle girl.

She gave her older sister Ellis a sidelong glance before snorting and saying in a self-assured voice: "You guys don't need to worry, this princess will crush the twelve soul evolvers from the Azure Kingdom all by herself! So what if the crown prince of the Azure Kingdom has a strange treasure? One swing of this princess's staff is enough to get him out of the arena crying for his parents!"

"Hahahaha!"

"As expected of you, ponytailed princess!"

"Anna, you!"

Liam leaned in slightly and whispered in perplexity, "Say, Ellis. How did you manage to get Seraphina out of her room? We all thought she wouldn't show up for the finals. She looked especially depressed yesterday."

Ellis's eyes glistened slightly but she smiled faintly without explaining anything.

Liam sighed and shook his head, finally giving a shrug without asking any more questions. He knew that if Ellis didn't want to say something then no one would be able to make her talk even if they cut off her hands; that was the kind of person the first princess of this kingdom was after all.

"Still, it's a pity that Bai Zemin left. He left even without saying goodbye," Liam muttered under his breath as he stroked his greatsword, "Even though we met for a few hours and didn't interact too much, I came to like him. He didn't even discriminate against me after seeing my appearance.... Also, for some reason, I felt that he was really powerful even though he was clearly only level 50."

His voice was very low, so only Ellis and the shy assassin Katt who happened to be sitting next to him heard him. However, Ellis didn't comment on it and Katt remained silent as usual.

Some continued to chat, but at some point, Seraphina managed to slip into the background. As she looked out the window of the carriage that was slowly making its way through the streets of Bearcrest City under the guard of several soldiers in armor and holding spears to keep the agitated crowd from approaching in an attempt to meet the heroes of the kingdom, Seraphina couldn't help but remember the last night she saw Bai Zemin before he disappeared.

She was very angry at the time, and still was. However, she began to feel a bit of regret.

Her last words... were not particularly pleasant to hear.

Seraphina might seem like a rude and sometimes even unfeeling girl, but in reality, she had a very kind heart and cared about other people. Only her family knew that she just had a handful of jewelry needed to attend different events while all the rest had been sold to support poor people.

Despite being only 16 years old, she was more mature than she let others believe. Therefore, with a cooler head now, she regretted shouting those words at Bai Zemin back then in a burst of blind anger.

.... what if he really did return to his world? Seraphina closed her eyes and shook her head without even wanting to think about it.

Her rebellious personality returned as she clenched her teeth and fists.

'You ungrateful orc! You bastard! You... You just wait until this princess gets her hands on you and I'll.... I'll bite you to death!'

Just then, the gong that hadn't rung for several generations shook the entire city when someone struck it.

For two or three seconds, the citizens of the Gales Kingdom froze as did the others. However, their faces soon turned terribly pale as they remembered what was the meaning of the sounding of that gong that even now continued to resound noisily from the top of the mountain.... Every king every 10 years made sure to remind the citizens of what that gong represented even though the last time it had been struck was over 450 years ago.

"D- Demon attack!"

"The demons are coming!"

With pale faces, they all began to shout to warn the others and with surprising order, they started to go to different points of the city as if they had already been taught what to do in this kind of situation.

Hearing the words of Gales' citizens, the people from other kingdoms were terrified and some of them began to run in disorder and panic, while only those who managed to keep calm in spite of their fear followed the crowd of Gales.

Seraphina and the others inside the carriage also froze and their faces were as pale as those of the citizens.

Demons? Why were the demons attacking now? Practically the future of the human race had gathered in this place! Did they think it would be easy to fight against 49 Third Order powerhouses and so many geniuses combined with hundreds of thousands of soldiers?

"Courting death!!!"

Liam stood up, his red eyes flashed with anger and murderous intent burst out from within him, manifesting itself on the outside and awakening everyone from their shocked state.

"Shadow Steps!"

Before the other eleven could do anything, Liam jumped out and destroyed the window on his side before dashing towards the wall located in the northern part of Bearcrest City. He disappeared in a matter of seconds into the crowd and buildings.

"Liam!"

The others finally realized what was happening, but by the time they wanted to call out to their friend he had disappeared. Seraphina and the others got down from the carriage in a hurry, but just as they were about to follow Liam, a soldier dressed in golden armor approached and stopped them.

"General Rick." Ellis recognized this man, one of the most brilliant generals in the realm, a powerful Second Order soul evolver over level 90.

General Rick bowed slightly to the two princesses and without waiting for a word said with a serious expression on his face, "First Princess, Second Princess, His Majesty Philip and Her Majesty Queen Helena are already on their way to the north entrance to stop the demons. According to the direct orders of His Majesty King Philip, I will be in charge of leading the troops on this side of the city. The other generals have already received orders as have I."

Seraphina's and Ellis' hearts tightened a little when they heard that their parents had already headed to the front line.

"General Rick, what about the other kings of kingdoms?" Ellis asked quickly.

General Rick's expression grew even uglier and a flash of anger shone in his eyes as he struggled to keep calm in his voice, "One of our scouts managed to discover the demons breaking through the middle part of the Forest of the Ancients, and fortunately this scout had the skill Remote Transmission. The demons will probably take a few minutes to arrive, which will give us time to prepare. However, that also gave us a problem none of us expected to face."

Seraphina's heart sank as a possibility she didn't even want to think about crossed her mind. With trembling lips, she hesitantly said, "The kingdom kings... Did they flee?"

General Rick shook his head and said in a deep voice, "Rather than flee, I would call it something else. It seems that the demons are planning something big this time since strangely enough all the kings of the different kingdoms were informed of sightings of scout demons near multiple cities in their kingdoms, therefore, they immediately left without even waiting for the younger generation."

Basically, the kings of the various kingdoms departed to avoid having their castles set on fire. It made sense, actually. However, the problem was what would happen to Gales now.

"First Princess Ellis, Second Princess Seraphina, all of you." Proud General Rick lowered his head and said in a serious voice, "I hope you can support His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen. I know you are the future of our kingdom, but I'm afraid the north side might be in trouble as His Majesty ordered all of us generals to spread out inside the city and along the flanks, carrying only a little over 50,000 men with him."

Seraphina gritted her teeth and said angrily, "Future of Gales? If Gales falls today there will be no future for anyone!"

She didn't wait for words from anybody as she waved her staff and the mana inside her body gathered around one of the runes that were engraved on her soul representing one of multiple skills.

"Divine Agility!"

Immediately after those words left Seraphina's mouth, a faint halo of silver light covered the feet of the ten members of her group and they all received the same message from the Soul Record.

[World Priestess Seraphina Di Gales ha utilizado una habilidad de beneficio sobre ti. Durante los siguientes 40 minutos, tu estadistica Agilidad aumenta en un 30%.]

[World Priestess Seraphina Di Gales has used a buff skill on you. For the next 40 minutes, your Agility stat increases by 30%]

This was the first time Seraphina used such a powerful skill to buff a person, therefore even her sister Ellis looked at her very surprised and couldn't help but rethink her little sister's true power.

However, Seraphina didn't give anyone time to say anything when she said in an authoritative voice, "Come with me! We have to support to defend the north gate with Liam and the others!"

Seeing Seraphina moving away in a flash of silver light, the others did not delay and immediately followed her without hesitation in their steps.

General Rick bowed again in the direction of the young people who were at least three times younger than his age and turned to the soldiers behind him before shouting in a loud voice, "Move! Start rallying the surrounding troops near the church tower in the western part of the city!"

The whole city went into motion and the people were like ants agitated trying to extinguish a fire.

* * *

Approximately 30 minutes earlier, Bai Zemin cloaked in a black cape covering his entire body and face came out of a middle-aged western-looking mansion.

People walking past him looked at him weirdly but only for a moment before going on about their business. Although it was not normal to wear a cloak in broad daylight in the middle of the city, some people played at acting mysterious so no one said anything about it.

Of course, Bai Zemin was covering himself to avoid being recognized in case he met Seraphina or someone else and not to act mysterious. After all, he mistakenly believed that after so many days everyone should have moved on with their lives, and perhaps only Seraphina occasionally remembered him so it was best to avoid direct contact.

Bai Zemin looked for an inn but naturally, all the rooms were occupied, so he waited for a person to come downstairs and stopped that person. After some bargaining, Bai Zemin managed to buy the person's stay for five times the price she had paid.

Bai Zemin didn't really care about luxuries, he just needed a safe place for what he was about to do since he didn't dare to do it in the mutant forests.

Sitting down on the bed, he pulled out a small pale blue fruit from his storage ring. This fruit was called Fresh Soul Fruit and was a rarity among rarities, it was part of the reward Bai Zemin got from an important nobleman of the Gales Kingdom after handing over the heads of the orc leader and the orc leader's wife to the man who had lost his daughter and wife during an orc assault on the carriage they were traveling in 14 years ago.

[Fresh Soul Fruit (Rank 3): A fully ripe natural fruit that usually grows blessedly in cold climate environments with high concentrations of mana and record fragments. It takes 300 years to ripen, and if plucked before the ripening process is complete the fruit will die 24 hours later. Effect: Heals 5% of damage received on any soul of Fourth Order or lower after consumption. Side effect: After consuming the fruit, you will not be able to move your body for 60 minutes while the soul absorbs the properties of the Fresh Soul Fruit]

"With this, I will finally be able to return to my 100%." Bai Zemin sighed in relief and lay down on the bed before biting into the fruit several times and swallowing the pulp that surprisingly tasted delicious despite its peculiar color.

Little did Bai Zemin know that after 30 minutes with no problems, the last 30 minutes of waiting to be able to regain mobility would be hell for him, but a lot worse for the rest of the city.

* * * * * * *