[BOOK II] Chapter XIX - XXII: People Are Just Too Horny

Eliza smiled. What a glorious day it would be for her beloved kingdom, if they had birthed such a being. But unfortunately, the thought of manipulating the Celestial Hero to make the Kingdom the strongest in the myriad realms was out the window the moment she had signed the contract.

Also, Elm would probably figure out and annihilate the kingdom if she figured out. Something about those cold, dead eyes staring down at you being the last thing you saw before you died made Eliza sweat profusely.

“Many,” Elm replied. “But, still not enough.”

Oh, how Eliza wanted to flip over and strangle herself after she heard that. Elm was strong enough to contend with the top 5 Demon Lords, in under a month and she was still not content with her power.

Eliza pointed at the scrolls. “So, up north, or down south?”

“North,” Elm replied without hesitation. “I can make do without the armor for now.”

“The climate?”

Elm breathed in, letting a sheen of white protective light envelop her body.

“Right,” Eliza said. “And, the fallen angel guarding the shield?”

Elm only glanced at the invisible Holy Sword hitched up her waist. “Not even the wings of God can impede my path.”

“I forgot you had the sword,” Eliza rolled her eyes when she realized why.

“How could I not? It’s invisible most of the time,” Eliza said. “You’re just too good for the rest of us, aren’t you?” In Eliza’s mind, the sword in question buzzed with fury but in reality, not a sound was made.

Eliza looked up into the Celestial Hero’s golden eyes, that appeared to glow under the rays of sunset glimmering from the window.

She managed to put up the most serious face she could handle and asked, “When are you leaving?”

Eliza took a look over the beautiful, strong golden-haired woman with an invisible sword that would bring annihilation to the world’s evils. She couldn’t help but feel a certain pang of loneliness when she realized that it would be a long, long time before she could see the Celestial Hero she had fallen for, again. She thought herself too smart to do such a stupid, inconsequential thing as falling in love, but the stoic woman had her charms and unfortunately, Eliza fell to them.

Oh, she was still smart enough to know that Elm would never belong to her, as long as that annoying brother of hers still lived. A dark thought ran across Eliza’s mind, before she shook the devil’s whispers, specifically the whispers of the demon lord living inside her.

She bit her lips, and took a dare, asking a stupid question that would bear no fruit.

“Will you ever come back?”

For a moment in time, for seconds that spanned hours, for the first time since her birth, Eliza put herself out there not as the strategist of the Kingdom, the holder of the 2nd Demon Lord or even as the crown princess.

It was Eliza that asked the question, and hopefully, it would be Elm that answered her question.

The pair looked into each other's eyes, silver mewling up into gold, as silver wished for the moment to freeze, locked in all eternity. Actually, she could do something like that but Elm would easily be able to break out of it.

“I-”

BOOM!

“Hear me, worms of Valterra, I have descended to deliver a warning. And, after your judgment.”

The moment broke. And, silver eyes were furious. Eliza’s head whipped so quick, looking outside the window to find that there was a company of Demon Lords, specifically, the heads of House L to LX, with a Head of House XX standing above them. The Twentieth Demon Lord was the one speaking with such an arrogant tone, a tone that suited only someone far, far above his station.

Eliza’s brain raced, thinking of ways to torture the company of fleas. It would be easy to kill them all, but it would still take quite a long time, time that she wanted to spend on her little crush for it might be the last time she had with her.

“Ten Seconds.”

Elm’s sweet voice broke Eliza’s thoughts. She turned to look at Elm, only to see that the Celestial Hero was still staring at her.

“What?” Eliza thought over what she meant. “Even for you, ten seconds is a little too short to get rid of one of them.”

Elm tilted her head. “One of them?”

Eliza’s eyebrows furrowed, before her eyes widened in surprise. “All of them? In Ten seconds?” Then, she couldn’t help her lips from smiling. “You’re that strong already?”

Elm corrected her. “I’m still this weak, unfortunately.”

It was those words that shocked Eliza to the core. She realized that Elm didn’t see her limits the same way Eliza saw hers. Whereas, Eliza was using her knowledge of past Celestial Heroes and their limits, Elm had been consistently testing her limits, using her inheritance to understand and invent new ways in which she could surpass levels of powers in one-go.

To Eliza, Elm was sufficiently strong now and would be endlessly powerful when she cracked the Top 10.

To Elm, the word ‘strong’ started only when she cracked the Top 10.

The realization brought awe to Eliza’s mind. After all, the strategist side of hers wondered and tried to formulate how powerful a Celestial Hero who could break the universal limits would become. After all, even the weakest of the Top 10 was at least a solar-system powerhouse, which is why they were called the 10 Sovereigns. There was only one who had broken the universal limits, but the identity hadn’t been found even after using all of Eliza’s resources and connections. She did have a guess to who, and if she was correct, another being - the Celestial Hero being on the same level would be catastrophic beyond imagination.

Her promise to the World’s Spirit told her to kill Elm now, before she weakened the world more than it already was but the mischievous side in her wanted to see how far this Celestial Hero would go. Besides, she loved Elm much too far to simply kill her, just for a debt she owed years ago.

Since the romantic atmosphere had been interrupted, Eliza could only go into strategist princess mode and say, “Alright then.”

“I, as the Crown Princess, Eliza V.Vetruvian Valterra, ask of you to save us, and our kingdom of wisdom from this terrible plight,” Eliza did a royal curtsey.

“10 seconds,” Eliza teased, after she had done her royal custom. “Let’s see it. I think you’ll go past 20.”

Elm didn’t care much for the jab, as Eliza could see it. But the way Elm disappeared in a flash of light, a little faster than usual, told her all she needed to know about the woman’s true temper.

She walked over to the window, watching over her soon-to-be grand Silver Kingdom, nodding to herself as a silvery runic barrier started forming around the kingdom. The elves were doing their jobs right, before she heard a sonic boom in the distance and a number of demonic, ugly shrills.

She leaned on her arms, and sighed melancholically. “Please be safe.”

***

Willow’s POV

The Mystic Woods, Southern Region

I stepped out of the portal, on a whinnying pegasi and first came to a breath of fresh air. Taking a look around, there was nothing but an expanse of trees, magical fauna and anything green basically. Just from the smell of the air, and the cool touch of the wind, I could feel that I was in the real world now, a realness that not even a god’s domain could imitate.

I should be happy, elated even that I’m finally out in the open world, after a long month of gruesome training to become stronger. And that, I could finally take my first steps in the world to become one of the strongest beings in the myriad realms, all due to my knowledge amassed behind a screen.

But, I wasn’t. Happiness was the last thing in my heart. A cool breeze blew then, causing my little bracelet to swing about in the free wind. The fact that I could still feel Ivanka due to my constitution didn’t help as I knew I could go back to her whenever I wanted.

But, my ambition said no. My duties said no. My promise to Ivanka said no.

So, all I could do was close my eyes, and pat the beautiful white mane of my pegasi, before sensing the world’s energies. In my mind’s eyes, a plethora of colors, far more than in Ivanka’s domain, appeared but they weren’t the color I had grown so familiar with over the long month.

‘Come.’

I sent out a burst of chi into my surroundings, and suddenly the plethora of colors disappeared. But, one still remained. An aurora of white, pure white that would never have it’s colors blemished as long as the universe breathed life.

I smiled. The energy of life felt even purer in the real world, more concentrated due to the many populations situated in this world.

‘Where’s the nearest town?’

The aurora of white shifted, wobbling before disappearing and reappearing as a straight line to which I could follow. Tapping into the chi before me, I could tell that there was a town with a significant amount of life-forms situated west, where a great river ran through but it would be a day’s walk, for normal people.

I channeled the chi inside my body, sacrificing 10% of it to the sleeping Anger inside me, before focusing the remaining chi on my legs, especially on the soles of my feet.

“Whoo,” My breath shuddered. I don’t think I’d ever get used to the sense of adrenaline coursing through my veins. It felt like my legs were balloons.

A day’s walk? I could get there in less than half of that time.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“. . .”

“. . .”

“. . .Is that a fucking pegasus?”

“An Elf?”

I blinked, once, twice perhaps more. With my eyes enhanced by chi, I could tell that the person standing in front of me was not just any elf, but a whole High Elf, a species that were considered direct descendents of the goddess of the moon, aka, my mate.

It felt awkward to make sense of the situation. I didn’t know how I should address the girl in front of me, besides what on earth was a High Elf doing so far from home? This particular high elf didn’t appear in the game either, I think.

Now, although elves and high elves share the same name, it would be extremely rude and racist to classify them as the same species. You could attempt to do so, of course at the risk of being sacrificed to the new moon goddess, my lover. The elves usually had different colored hair, and were around the same height as humans, not to mention they ate meat too, the only difference between humans and the elves were the pointy ears, and the system of magic they operated under. Oh right, they worshiped the previous goddess of the moon too, so that’s the main reason for strife between the two.

The high elves, on the other, were something akin to purists. They were extremely tall and graceful, lived deep in the woods in a secret realm, ate only what the trees provided them, and had silver hair along with silver eyes akin to Ivanka. Oh right, they were extremely lustful too, even more than the dragons, and were well-known to even fuck their own siblings and parents. How ironic that their goddess was none other than my stoic Ivanka.

The High Elf lady standing in front of me looked similar to the rest of her race, with her only striking feature being that she was as short as a dwarf.

“Answer my question first,” The High Elf lady demanded. I almost forgot about how haughty high elves were. But I couldn’t blame them. The only thing that drove them other than sex and debauchery was their pursuit of knowledge. Again, how ironic.

I would have answered the tall lady’s question like a pushover, but I was different now.

I wasn’t stronger than the high elf lady, oh dearie no. Just from my eyes, I could sense how dense and tall her mana pool was, unlike her height.

But, how could I be scared of a race belonging to a being who I’m dearly in love with. But seriously, this high elf lady is really short.

“You just made fun of my height, didn’t you?”

I immediately shook my head. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did,” The high elf lady was shaking. “You incorrigible, rude fool. You and your species know nothing but debauchery. Listen carefully, wench!”

The ‘high’ elf lady proceeded to throw her hand out to the side, whipping her red-golden cape back in a manner of utmost haughtiness.

“I am the unchaperoned, the single one, the future seeker of knowledge, Fayeth Shorh!”

I tried my best not to let out a chortle at her last name. Her parents knew what they were doing by giving her such a wonderful last name. And, the future seeker of knowledge? From my knowledge of the game, I don’t remember any short, high elf being a seeker of knowledge.

“You would do well to remember my name,” Fayeth said, flipping her silver hair back.

“Wow,” I deadpanned, giving her an applause. She seemed to like it since her lips curled into an arrogant smile. Oh wow, I don’t like her already. Aegis, my pegasi snorted in derision which brought Miss Fayeth back to reality.

“I almost forgot. How did you stumble upon a pegasi?” Fayeth asked with greed in her eyes. “And how on earth did a mere human manage to tame it?”

For some reason, Fayeth seemed like an absolutely fun person to tease. I remember, I had a friend like Fayeth, always boisterous and loud, always giving the best reactions. Oh, how I miss my little doggo.

My mind conjured up ways to mess with her. Ah, I got it.

“It’s a gift from the goddess of the moon,” I decided to just be blunt with it.

As expected, she didn’t believe it.

Fayeth burst in laughter. “From the great silver one? Please, don’t jest with such ambition, little human.”

Little human? I was a whole foot taller than her, and I wasn’t even that tall! I watched the little elf slowly come down from her laughter, before shaking her head at the last of her giggles.

“Oh, it’s true,” I replied. “Would you like to check it for yourself?”

Fayeth’s expression immediately switched from laughter to anger. Her eyes glowed with magic and power but her and all mana felt like home to me. I frowned in loneliness.

“If I find you to lie, you won’t be happy with the consequences,” Fayeth told me, her voice empowered by her magic. “Be careful with your next words.”

I simply smiled, and waved her to my lovely pegasi. “Go ahead. If memory serves correctly, anything your goddess touches and wills, it will have her mana signature.”

The only reason I wasn’t glimmering with the moon goddess’s mana was because I had my own divinity, only that it was asleep. Last time I checked, a god couldn’t be marked with another god’s divinity. Otherwise, there would be a war of the gods, a war for the one true god.

“Hm.”

Jesus, even the way she walked was arrogant. I wonder if being short her entire life in a race full of towering people had something to do with it. After all, she has to make her presence known somehow.

As Fayeth approached my lovely pegasi, Aegis raised it’s head warily, inspecting if this new person frothing at her mouth was someone to be kicked nine ways to hell. I whistled low at Aegis, and it went back to eating grass.

“Hehehe,” Fayeth finally got close enough to my flying steed. I saw the maniacal curiosity that plagued my lover’s descendants and wondered if letting such perversion touch my Aegis was worth the prank.

A soft magical glow from Fayeth’s eyes and she suddenly stopped giggling like a perverted, old man and froze. Not even a single muscle in her body moved.

“He’s a good gift, isn’t he?” I decided to rub salt in the wound. She turned around to me with color drained from her face, which was awesome to see since all the high elves were naturally pale already.

“Oh, I wonder what the Great Silver One will think about a little elf doubting her gifts and therefore, her words,” I shook my head. Even if I tried, I couldn’t stop the nasty smirk from spreading across my face.

I shook my head even more, now walking towards her. When I got close enough to her that my lips were near her ears, I whispered, “I heard it’s considered. . .blasphemy.”

PLAP!

Fayeth’s body turned even smaller as she dropped down onto her knees, face kissing the grass that Aegis was lazily munching on. Oh, I was trying so hard to stop myself from giggling that annoying giggle the haughty, little elf did.

“I-I-I apologize for my mistake. I-I didn’t re-realize that someone of such stature was in such a remot-”

“Either way, you doubted the Great Silver One’s gift and my words, didn’t you?” I said, with a sadistic grin on my face. It felt absolutely wonderful to see her body practically shrinking onto itself.

“You even threatened me, didn’t you? Oh, what was it that you said?” I snapped my fingers in mock-derision. “Ah, I remember now. You said, ‘If I find you to lie, you won’t be happy with the consequences.’”

Fayeth shrinked even smaller than she already was.

I rubbed my chin mockingly. “Now I may be wrong, but if I remember correctly, wasn’t the punishment for such treachery towards the moon goddess punishable by death?”

Fayeth started trembling like a little leaf.

“So, what do you think I should do, little elf?”

“I-I don’t believe I shoul-”

“Oh, but isn’t it true that you did threaten me?” I told her. “Or, was I simply mistaken? Are you accusing me of lying now?”

Don’t laugh. Hold it in.

“No, no, I was simpl-simply just say-saying that-”

“I think you’ve erred too much to be forgiven,” I was going to burst into laughter. No, hold it in! “What do you th-Puhahaha! Oh, I can’t do it, I can’t do it anymore!”

I fell on the grass, kicking my feet out as I held my stomach in laughter. “You should have seen the look on your face!”

“. . .Huh?”

I was still rolling on the floor. “Hahaha, I-I-I-I, haha.” I pointed at the little elf who was looking at me with absolutely no emotion in her eyes. “That’s how you sounded, you little elf!”

“. . .Huh?”

“Hahahaha,” I wiped my tears and let out a long sigh. “Oh, I haven’t had a good laugh in such a long time. There’s just way too many things to worry about in the future.”

“. . .Huh?”

“Oh, the pegasi is a gift from the moon goddess or whatever you call her if you were wondering,” I said. “But everything I said after was a joke, just a little prank to rile you up. Don’t take it so seriously, okay Faruth? Fayti? Whatever your name was, it was really great meeting you but I have to go now, bye!”

I bid the little elf farewell, and turned around to hop onto my cute, little Aegis so that we could get on with our journey and finally make it to the town before the sun went down. What did I think of the little, haughty high elf? Oh, she was an interesting character for sure and would definitely be a popular character in the game as well if she’d ever been released. We needed more loli, rich elven characters after all. They just gave the best reactions.

After all is said, I didn’t really think I’d meet her a second time, or any other time. Characters like her were fun to mock around but soon enough, they’d get pretty annoying and really fast at that so it was better to just mark her as something I encountered along my journey to kill the Demon God.

After the good laughter I had, I started feeling down. Meeting a high elf this early in my journey did nothing to help the loneliness I felt inside my heart. I missed my powerful, warrior goddess whose hair shone more silver than the simple, little high elf could ever dream of.

Oh, Ivank-Danger!

“Yah!” I patted Aegis, and he understood, blinking to the right in a flash, narrowly dodging a lightning strike from the heavens.

“What in the nine hells?!” I turned back to see that the area I had just been standing on, was charred completely black and caved out.

“You think you can fool with me?!”

Oh shit.

Maybe I shouldn’t have played around this much. I took in a deep breath, fortifying myself with chi and deactivated my chi eyes so that I wasn’t bombarded with the immense magical energy pouring out in waves from the little, high elf. On my flying steed, and enhanced with my chi, I didn’t really need to worry of my death if this was the highest level the little, high elf could reach but if I wasn’t careful, she’d be able to take an arm or two.

The little, high elf, dressed in her academic robes of gold, gray and red, exuded a magical aura of the same three colors which told me everything I needed to know of her magical affinity. A triple-attributed magical user was pretty rare but by high elven standards, it was pretty normal. . .if the three elements weren’t lightning, wind and fire.

A triarchy of elements that had the most amount of destructive combinations known to the entirety of the myriad realms. And, something told me, the little, high elf and her haughty little ass had every destructive combination memorized.

I thought of every possible option I had. Then, I settled on the only option that made sense.

“Stop!” I yelled, an open palm facing her.

A high elf that had three orbs of pure elemental destruction was pretty scary, especially when said elf was floating in the sky with glowing eyes. It looked sexy on my goddess, but on someone who wanted to probably char my ass nine ways to sunday? Definitely not.

In front of such terrifying power, suddenly, I remembered her name.

“Fayeth!” I spoke, before pointing over to the pegasi. “Do you not realize you’re in the same territory as him?”

My pegasi still didn’t care much, and was more interested in munching his daily grass. Wow, the amount of love Aegis had for me was absolutely touching.

“And?”

Woah, her voice was absolutely booming. I seriously need to learn how to do that. “And, if you smite this entire place to dust, you’re going to get rid of a mythical creature signed by your goddess.”

That brought some sense, and fear into the flying shortie, but not enough to bring her down. Her glowing eyes stopped glowing, and her aura cut to half of it’s original size, but I knew that it was more her suppressing it than releasing her anger completely.

“. . .Oh, but I could just aim at you, instead,” And, her eyes were glowing again.

I shook my index finger. “You could do that,” I faked a confident smile. “But, I can run fast enough behind that horse, or at least near it. What do you think’s going to happen to you when all that remains of a goddess’s gift is charred ash?”

She remained quiet, contemplating. I stared her down. This was the important part that would determine whether she would call my bluff or not. Now, many of you might be wondering whether I could take the little shortie on, or not, since I had so many new offensive abilities to my arsenal now.

The quick answer would be, no. The long answer would be, it didn’t matter how much I’d progressed in Ivanka’s domain, it still wouldn’t be enough to match an experienced triple-attributed high elf whose domain of magic was a direct counter to my martial arts/chi. After all, she would just keep blasting me with long-ranged magic and make it impossible for me to get in. And, while she wouldn’t be able to kill me instantly, in the end, it would just result in a long stale-mate.

Which, I couldn’t afford.