Angel Monarch

After saying goodbye to Bran, Sera headed home and quickly packed a small bag. There wasn't much she needed, they would gather food and water as they move through the land.

The only real concern was clothing, but that was solved by her armor most of the time. Only issue was that it drained her essence constantly. Luckily she could literally wear the armor for a full year without it fully draining her life essence.

She only packed two separate outfits, while also wearing another one. This gave her enough to switch around every now and then. It wasn't the most hygienic, especially the underwear department, but technically she was a soldier. Also the torture sessions really helped elevating her ability to not feel discomfort.

Other than clothes a normal evolved would pack something to make fires with, but Sera had her own flames, which made taking any such item redundant.

They would also take some kind of knife, which she already had in her soul. Actually she had basically everything necessary for survival, and as a luxury she placed a few cookware in her bag. It was always nice to be prepared.

She placed the packed bag next to the door, then unclothed herself and went to bed.

After a few minutes it looked like she had fallen asleep, but looking closer people would see how her facial expressions changed and sometimes she muttered something inaudible. At one point she even laughed for some reason.

This went on for nearly half an hour, before she muttered a 'good night' to whoever she was talking with.

Her fitful night of sleep didn't last long since the sun already started to rise a few hours later.

Sleepily Sera got out of her bed, then after a quick shower she got dressed and went to the gathering point near the main gate of the encampment.

The others were already waiting for her. They didn't dare to get here later than their hollow-souled leader. After the usual ritual of going into attention and Sera's dismissal, the three of them waited for her next order.

Sera turned towards the rising Sun for a moment and enjoyed the warmth it brought her.

Slowly she turned to the other three ascended. Behind her back four large wings appeared two white feathered and two made of whitish-gold flames. With a small nod Sera took to the skies heading northeast.

Below her Kathy turned into a large eagle and followed after Sera. Percy seemed to sigh, then he dissolved into purple specks of light and lifted Hector into the air.

They would travel like this through the 450 kilometer distance between New Athens and the gathering point. At least that was the plan, who knew if there wouldn't be any complications along the way.

Their first destination was the seashore about 40 kilometers to northeast.

While flying Sera looked down at the city... her city... She had no emotions about the city, but she still felt strange, almost reluctant to leave it behind.

This place was her home, filled with her people. Leaving it even just for a couple of weeks felt wrong.

The roofs of the buildings only just started to shine below the illumination of the Sun. There were no big skyscrapers or anything similar in her city. This meant the people and their houses had to spread horizontally along the ground, but it was worth it for this beautiful skyline.

Gradually they approached the city wall. The guards saw Sera's wings much sooner than that and as she flew above the gates, all the soldiers went to attention, which she acknowledged by sending a small wave of white and gold flames towards the sky.

It made the regular soldiers look away because of the brightness, but the evolved just stared at it in awe.

The others passed above the gate soon after, but they didn't get nearly as much fanfare as Sera. It didn't bother any of them except Hector, but nobody cared what he thought.

While flying Sera took a quick glance back at her city while it was still visible. Her eyes contained unbearable sadness, but the rest of her face stayed hollow. She seemed to make a barely audible sigh, then eventually turned away and increased her speed.

The others didn't even care for leaving New Athens. They didn't seem to consider the city as their home, or at least they didn't have as strong of a connection to it as Sera.

They had been flying for ten minutes now. Sera couldn't nearly go as fast as her max speed, she had to slow down for the rest of her team.

Below her the ruins of both the ancient world and the old world passed them by. It was strange to think about this area as prosperous once.

Once those destroyed or abandoned buildings had actual people living inside them, but now most only contained emptiness and tragedy... or monsters.

There were a few of them roaming the plains, but Sera quickly killed them before the others could even approach the area. This made Hector very enraged, he seemed to be near exploding from anger at that point, but still nobody gave a shit.

If he would actually try to do anything, Sera would possibly beat and even kill him, so by a lot of effort he managed to calm himself down.

He had no interest angering an emotionless killing machine, who he had a chance to fuck later. If she wanted to of course. It was nice to have sex with Sera, but he didn't have the balls to request her to do so. It was only possible when she felt like it, which suited both of them just fine.

After another few minutes they flew above a small gulf which was only about 3 kilometers long. When they reached the other side, they began flying north.

Beforehand, they spoke which way to go and decided to began their journey through the Aegean Sea, at the furthest part to the northeast on the island named Euboea.

They were still about 30 kilometers from said starting point, but luckily all of this area had been mapped and cleared out a while ago. There were still a few monsters populating the gigantic island, but those died quickly under Sera's flames.

When they finally arrived at their destination she was already nearing the 8600 life essence, but her hopes were much higher. If everything went according to plan, she would reach the 10.000 mark by the end of the siege!

They stopped on a large mountaintop and looked out at the endless azure waves. Here they cooked some food that Sera hunted on the way.

This would be their last stop before they stopped on the next island about 40 kilometers to the east. The journey would become much more dangerous after leaving the Greek Peninsula.

The waters hid things nobody knew about, which meant that even flying above it could lead to their death.

While the meat cooked above the makeshift campfire, Sera just stared out at the waves closing in and moving out on the shoreline. Further away sea monsters had fights in the waters, turning its color red or sometimes green and purple. Many creatures had different colored blood it seemed.

Eventually Kathy called out to her, the food was ready. Sera ate in silence while the other three members of her team talked.

"I hope there won't be too many other teams for the siege! I haven't killed anything in WEEKS!..." Before Hector could say anything more, Percy cut in while giggling.

"Maybe you should be better at fighting and Lady Seraphine would take you on more missions!" This brought a laugh out of Kathy too, who quickly doubled down on Percy's remark.

"Yeah, you are way too excited to fight every time... Are you maybe compensating for something? Is everything working right with your lower instrument?" While speaking Kathy reached out her hand and slowly dragged one finger down Hector's jaw, which further annoyed him, but instead of lashing out he just grinned.

"Ask her if you doubt how good I am in bed!" He shrugged while speaking and made a hand movement towards Sera, who seemed perfectly bored by this conversation.

Percy and Kathy looked at each other with deathly paleness. Saying something like this in front of Sera was a very dangerous game.

"What is it? Are you two jealous since neither of you got invited to her bed yet?... Maybe there are problems with you two's ability to please your partners! I haven't even heard of you having anyone in your bed Kathy... So how can you judge me, when I..." Suddenly Sera cut right into his next remark.

"Are you planning to continue that sentence?" Her emotionless voice cut right through whatever he was planning to say next.

Suddenly the realization hit him. The large grin from his face disappeared without a trace and with a trembling body he turned towards his leader.

Her golden hollow eyes hid only pain and suffering within. They focused on his face, which caused the shaking to increase tenfold. Her beautiful face revealed nothing of what she was thinking.

"Are you planning to continue that sentence?" She asked again in the exact same tone, which caused Hector to look away with fear.

"No..." He answered in a very small voice.

"No? Who are you speaking to?" Asked Sera with cruelty in her eyes. She gradually rose from the rock that she used as a seat. Below her Hector was trembling in pure terror. With widened eyes he slowly looked up at Sera.

"I'm... I'm talking to you..." Before he could continue Sera cut in again.

"You?... Is that how you talk to your commanding officer? I don't remember us having that good of a relationship, or maybe I have said that you can refer to me as a friend?... Tell me did I ever say such thing to you? Remind me if I had done so and I will apologize this very moment!"

Her voice was getting lower with each word. At this point even Kathy and Percy were terrified, but they were in a much better position than Hector, who was just about to piss himself from fear.

"No... No, ma'am... You haven't blessed me with such permission... I'm sorry for... for my disobedience... It won't happen again..." He didn't dare to look away from Sera's face, which had a small almost invisible frown on it.

She made a small nod to acknowledge his apology.

Suddenly the aura changed and the suffocating atmosphere passed. All three of them took a deep breath to calm their turbulent emotions. Nobody saw the small smirk that appeared on Hector's face, he thought with this little performance Sera was fooled to thinking he wasn't as awful anymore.

He really should have hid his real emotions with more care.

Hector couldn't even react to the fist that hit him square on the jaw. He flew through the air for a dozen meters, but before he touched the ground Sera stomped on his head from the air above him.

It only took two moves for Sera to knock him out cold...