Chapter 17: Chapter 16 – Cumulonimbus IV

Xlara tilts the sword onto the side before hitting Rosaria, the impact causing her to fly several meters in a large explosion of white sparks, and letting out a peculiar scream「Annnhhnnnnnnnnn...! ❤」

She falls, rolling across the ground, kicking up pieces of moss and pulling wilted grass out, scraping against the gravel while making more sparks fly about wherever she makes contact.

As soon as she stops, she raises her head, blushing heavily, with heart-shaped reflections in her pupils. Xlara looks at her, noticing her unscathed body and the demeanor of a woman in heat.

「Ridiculous,」 she declares, spotting her one-piece is stained with wet spots around her thighs.

Switching her gaze to the pillars that she had cleanly cut, she scoffs, 「These... were not for protection but privacy? And the wet spots on your dress ... Aren't you just a pervert?」

Staring daggers at Xlara, Rosaria strains as she forces her body to get up.

「S-shut up...!」 she hisses while grinding her teeth, her face still flushed a crimson red and sweaty in embarrassment.

In the time it takes Rosaria to fully stand, Xlara has already reached the unconscious Percibell. She attempts to grab the elf but her hand is repelled and stopped by a strong force as if she hit a wall. A dome of blue light becomes visible for a brief moment, forming itself over Percibell.

「Not a chance!」 Rosaria says with a smirk.

Xlara clicks her tongue before readying her long sword again, both hands gripping the handle and pointing it at Rosaria menacingly.

「Fine, let's see what else you can do.」

After taking a couple of steps back, she bends her knees and springs forward, keeping the sword to her right. With a yelp of surprise, Rosaria attempts to leap to the side but is too late again as the sword's tip is already at her neck. White sparks leap off where it slides across her skin.

Rosaria bites hard on her lip, her face straining as if enduring something besides pain, evident in the way her flush turns a deeper shade of red.

Another earthen pillar juts upwards, but this time diagonally, aiming for Xlara's legs.

「You've tried that already,」 the half-elf quips as she deftly jumps over it.

「Yes, but it caught your attention.」

With a smirk, Rosaria clasps her palms together in a loud clap, and two gusts of strong wind immediately gush upwards into Xlara's sides, managing to lift and keep her suspended a meter above the ground.

Having lost contact with the ground, Xlara thrashes around as she attempts to anchor herself by stabbing her sword into the ground, but Rosaria is prepared and mutters, 「Farewell」 with a smug expression before blowing air out of her mouth.

That air quickly expands, and as the princess stretches her arms out toward Xlara, the air turns into a hurricane-like wind, sending the half-elf flying. Hurled several meters away, Xlara barely manages to stop her flight with her sword stabbed into the ground. She holds on to it like her life depends on it, legs dangling in the air as the strong wind is attempting to blow her away.

With labored breathing, Rosaria's face turns grim seeing the half-elf weathering through her wind. Xlara is able to hold on until it finally dissipates before falling to her knees.

「Shame... 」she says while getting up and fixing her cloak nonchalantly.

The scarf on her head, however, has been blown away and is nowhere in sight, leaving her light grey hair with braided pigtails on full display.

She lifts her head and moves a lock of hair blocking her sight before saying, 「Just like the rumors said. Your skills are impeccable, we could've taught you how to use them properly.」

Rosaria, who is on her knees, looks at her in disbelief while panting heavily. A yellow-white rim-light covering her whole body suddenly appears, only to slowly fade away.

「I was thinking you were some monster with infinite power, but looks like you have already reached your limit?」 Xlara sneers, readying her stance after pulling out her sword from the ground, 「Tell me about those Church Prosecutors and I'll consider sparing you.」

The princess stares back at her menacingly and spits on the ground before the half-elf while cursing, 「Screw you!」

The pupils inside Xlara's gray irises become vertical slits as she focuses her sight on the princess.

Suddenly, the air buzzes with a high-pitched metallic note, like a sharp tool dragged across a flat surface, stopping mere inches from one's ears. Two short blades appear out of nowhere, hanging in mid-air like specters at the half-elf's sides.

Staring wide-eyed, Rosaria clenches her fists hard enough to stab her fingernails into her palms. She keeps her eyes peeled on Xlara without blinking, afraid that the moment she does, her opponent will have already closed the distance between them.

「Why should I trust you?」 asks Rosaria, tracing the movements of the sword through the air with her eyes.

「You don't have a choice, do you?」 Xlara responds, bending her knees and preparing to leap.

The howling of the winds around and above them goes quiet, and the air gets tense as they glare at each other in silence. The occasional tufts of sparse grass around them, up until now swaying to and fro, suddenly stop, laying down in complete repose. But there is an electricity in the air, a heavy feeling not unlike before a lightning strikes.

Rosaria lets out an exhale and lets her tense body relax as she explains,

「Fine! They are an elite organization of archbishops who function as the Church's enforcers. They've been used to influence kings and queens for centuries. You understand what that means?」

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A frown appears on Xlara's face, 「If they are that powerful, why have I never heard of them?」

「They are kept as a secret even among the High Archons, only used for special tasks, as the church's trump card,」 Rosaria responds.

「... And you have been up against these Prosecutors before?」 Xlara relaxes a bit and corrects her pose, listening attentively.

「I've had my fair share of problems with them, yes」 Rosaria responds frankly while still eyeing the sword.

Xlara narrows her eyes and puts a hand on her chin, muttering in deep thought, 「Which means... you're someone of great standing... but you're here, exiled? No, fleeing...?」

After contemplating for a brief moment, her gray pupils turn a shade darker and she lifts her sword before pointing it at Rosaria.

「... are you an ally of the church?」

After a short pause, Rosaria scoffs, 「Hmph, I'm not siding with them, that much I can tell you at least.」

Xlara stands firm and grimaces for a moment before shaking her head.

「I hope the time you've bought was worth it!」 she says, putting one leg behind the other.

Suddenly, the half-elf begins to stride ahead with incredible speed, reaching her target before she can get back up in time. Yelping in surprise, Rosaria instead opts to crawl backward, and desperate, she quickly utters a few incoherent words.

By the time Xlara is ready to swing her sword, the air near her feet rapidly becomes whitish as the vapor in it appears to condense. Steadily, it becomes more turbulent, changing into a dense, almost opaque fog reaching up to her knees. She watches with confusion as Rosaria becomes blanketed by a thick veil of mist, which at the same time seems to sprout tendrils as it swirls around the half-elf. The shapes of the fog coalesce into amphibian-like creatures that begin swirling, ready to wrap themselves around Xlara, reaching around her torso and neck, and looking about to fill the whole world with bright, white light. The sounds around her become muffled, merging with each other until they become one indistinct warble.

Xlara pauses her movements and makes the floating twin blades trailing behind her launch forward. They soar ahead, slicing through the haze and heading directly for where she saw Rosaria last, before the half-elf's vision is completely obscured.

A whimper and a groan come from ahead of her.

Momentarily satisfied, she walks forward and both hands on her physical sword. She lets out a roar, swinging forward and down with such a force that the cloud in front of her disperses for a moment.

With a sharp piercing sound, her sword hits the ground, now empty with Rosaria nowhere to be seen. The only thing remaining are pieces of white cloth ripped from Rosaria's one-piece pinned to the ground by her twin blades.

Suddenly a stifling giggle resounds so close to her that it is as if someone is standing next to her. Rosaria's laughter echoes, and unlike all the other sounds, it is clear in the mist, seemingly coming from every direction. It makes Xlara jerk around, trying to pinpoint its source.

「You're going to regret this,」 Rosaria sneers from somewhere in the thick clouds of mist.

「That would be a first,」 Xlara grits her teeth, still frantically turning her head around, in search of the sound's source.

She closes her eyes and stays still. After a brief moment, she snaps them open, revealing pupils that have turned the same pure black as her sword, a color that sucks you in.

Looking around again, this time slowly, and without blinking, she keeps her eyes peeled open. Xlara twitches her half-elf ears as the eerie giggles continue. Finally, she locks her head in a single direction. The twin blades appear hovering to her sides once again before soaring forward in the direction of her gaze.

Once hearing a scream and groan, Xlara leaps a few steps forward, and peers down on Rosaria lying flat on her back, pinned by the twin blades lodged into the ground on her sides through her dirty white one-piece.

「How!?」

Xlara smirks, ignoring Rosaria's hateful expression and question while her pupils return to their usual shade of grey. She stabs through the air with her sword, causing Rosaria to shut her eyes and wince.

There is a sharp, piercing sound for a moment, before everything becomes quiet again.

A few seconds pass before Rosaria opens her eyes wide, only to discover the sword having missed her just a few centimeters away from her face. She looks up, but Xlara is nowhere to be seen, and the twin blades are no longer pinning her down. She quickly raises her hand and with a flick, the fog starts dispersing.

「I'll let you in on something...」 Rosaria begins as she gets up. 「The beasts around here do get relentless sometimes, and they have grown a bit too fond of me since moving here. Did you really think this barrier was just to keep people out?」

With the fog dispersing, new guttural growls draw attention. Looking in their direction, Rosaria sees a creature the size of a big troll, with a lizard's skin, legs and tail. Its hide is a dark, muted red on top, with light spots on its underbelly, and its triangular, bulky head features large curved horns and long, serrated teeth that stick out from under the lips.

Below its maw, Xlara is struggling to break free from its huge claws while dodging every attempt to gnaw into her. Using her floating twin blades, she pierces them into the beast's arms, making it cry out in pain. While it momentarily shrinks away, she attempts to roll out of its grasp, but the beast swings its claws again, missing her abdomen by a hair's breadth. Another fast swing hits, and one of the creature's claws lodges itself into Xlara's arm. Instead of crying out in pain, she bites down hard on her lip, and, with a strained face, she wills her twin blades down below its stomach before cutting it open with a powerful swing, letting purple blood pour out. The beast howls in pain before trashing around in a frenzy, as it becomes more ferocious with more powerful and faster attacks.

Letting the beast deal with the half-elf, Rosaria has already reached the unconscious Percibell. With almost no strength left in her, she begins dragging her towards the barrier before pausing for a moment upon hearing several more growls from the distance. Looking out behind, she spots multiple creatures of the same kind but varying in sizes, all racing towards them.

With panic soaring through her, she musters the little bit of mana she has left and conjures a wind that pushes both her and Percibell into the barrier.

The last thing she sees before entering is Xlara still struggling against the same beast while trying to retrieve her long sword lodged into the ground where Rosaria was minutes ago.

Once inside, the princess lies flat down in exhaustion, staring up at the sky. She exhales and her tense body relaxes while she reaches around her neck to clutch a small green pendant. Her pupils contract and she bites her lip before muttering a single word,「Xal.」

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