The Spider Queen

Rachel's sword emitted a blinding flash of light that caused the whole room to be illuminated with a harsh glow.

Astrid recoiled in pain and tried to move backwards to get some distance between her and Rachel, but it was to no avail.

Rachel took advantage of Astrid's temporary loss of vision and darted forward to launch a quick thrust towards her back.

Sophie recognised the telling glow of the Holy Sword Art from her numerous spars with her father, so she closed her eyes immediately once she sensed the familiar circulation of qi.

Righteous qi had to be used to form the circulation pattern to unlock the different moves from the Holy Sword Art, so it was inaccessible to those practicing dark or demonic cultivation.

"Urgh..." Astrid gave out a short grunt of pain as the sword connected with her back and caused her to stumble momentarily.

No swordsman would miss this opportunity and Rachel followed up by slashing forward to aim at her neck.

Crack!

Rachel completely forgot about Sophie's position as she simply assumed that the blinding flash of the sword art would leave her temporarily immobile.

This was a fatal mistake.

Sophie's whip coiled around Rachel's body and flung her into the air before crashing down to the ground with a painful thud.

The shield emitter flashed a few times and Sophie could see the holographic scoreboard giving her an impressive ten points.

"Oh…it's on now!" Rachel yelled furiously before getting up from the ground with a huff.

"Hear my cry Lord…your humble servant seeks to drown my enemies in a sea of holy fire and fury."

Archangel's Descent!

"What?" Sophie exclaimed in shock.

That was a secret body fortification art only taught to core believers of the Nephilim Church who had the potential to become future pillars of the organisation.

Rachel's figure was covered in a holy light as if she was undergoing a baptism with gentle trumpet sounds ringing in the background.

Two angelic wings of pure gold colour sprouted from her back and lazily unfurled to an impressive ten meters in width.

Sophie was under the impression that her roommate had only learnt the holy sword art, but it was now clear that she was actually a believer in the Nephilim Church!

There was an enormous difference between these two concepts.

The Earth Federation did not have or promote any official religion but there were still several churches of minor to moderate influence.

Members of these churches were allowed to obtain cultivation techniques and manuals based on their respective gods or energy.

One of the most popular churches was the Nephilim Church who worshipped the old Earth mythology of the legendary children of angels and demons.

Their holy maidens and demon knights were all powerful members of the imperial army whose contributions granted the church three planets in a minor star system to govern as they saw fit.

Members could choose a path of either demonic or angelic cultivation and the church would handle all the expenses of training.

The secret techniques were graded differently, and the church would pick out candidates carefully out of a tiny pool of potential seedlings.

These children were either connected to the higher ups of the church or possessed enough talent to make up for the lack of a background.

Sophie's father had paid an enormous monetary price to learn the holy sword art as he was not a member of the clergy.

Rachel's transformation was almost complete as the light falling onto her body suddenly concentrated into a halo that floated gently above her head while she hovered in the air.

She opened her eyes and a piercing white light shot out sweeping the entire length of the room.

An angel appeared on the battlefield and caused all who witnessed her glory to be left with feelings of awe and veneration.

This holy atmosphere was promptly disrupted by a loud chant.

"Vites, has ut canis in pariete!" a roar howled out from the corner of the room.

Just as Rachel was about to lightly drop onto the ground, an enormous vine grew out from under her feet and smashed her right into the wall.

Sophie: "..."

"Damn it you stupid mutt!" Rachel stood up from the crater formed in the wall with an expression of rage.

"I wanted to look cool you ***** but you went ahead and ****ing disrupted my entrance."

She may have been surrounded by an angelic aura….

…but the following choices of words that Rachel yelled out were not holy by any stretch of the imagination.

Astrid stretched out her claws and dashed straight towards Sophie with an imposing air.

She was completely out of mana and at this point most mages would have retreated from the battlefield.

But Astrid knew the greatest spell of all…...

Were her fists!

White flames coated Rachel's sword as she leapt into the air and flew straight towards the running figure of Astrid.

Sophie gave a wary grin before taking out a few of her throwing knives and tossing them straight at the two other fighters.

(Twenty minutes later)

After such an intense fight, Sophie was sprawled out on the ground while trying to catch her breath.

Rachel was also leaning casually against her shoulder with the angelic aura long dissipated, leaving behind just an exhausted girl.

The only one who seemed to be in cheerful spirits was Astrid who was happily running around the training room to burn off the extra adrenaline from the fight.

"Shall we have another round?" she called out.

"No way!" and "Hell no!" were the hasty replies from her tired out sparring partners.

"Should we check to see who won the spar?" Rachel spoke up.

Sophie groaned with pain and dragged her tired body to the terminal to check the final point tally score for each of them.

The holographic display shifted from displaying the duration of the duel to a series of dots before the results came out.

[Points Calculating….]

[Sophie Peterlor – 40 points]

[Astrid Lockhart – 100 points]

[Rachel Empyrean – 35 points]

All three remained silent as they stared at the scoreboard before Astrid howled in excitement and ran towards Sophie and Rachel before sweeping them together and giving them a big hug.

"I won! I won!" was the celebratory cry.

Sophie pushed down her small feelings of discontent and wrapped around her arms around this naïve battle maniac.

"Congrats Astrid," she smiled gently.

Astrid glanced down at her with beaming eyes and suddenly Sophie was struck by the thought that this wolf girl suddenly looked like a little puppy.

She had to admit that Astrid was a fierce opponent that she did not have the confidence to beat at the current moment.

Even when her mana eventually ran out, Astrid was able to use her natural physique and fierce hand to hand combat skills to match both Rachel and Sophie who were using qi attacks.