Devouring Monarch: Rebirth of the Profane Phoenix

⁜ Lucretia POV

Filled with concern, Lucretia left the royal city and headed to the southern wilds before Lorem could warn her to stay away.

To her, once something became important, everything else became irrelevant. From the moment she saw those assassins approach Asura, using those red balls. She switched to destroy mode.

'Where are you?'

Unlike the students, they provided the instructors and royal knights with the location and a detailed map of the areas. Lucretia knew exactly where they fought.

Her body, wearing a different outfit from before, dashed to Asura, followed by five after images that ran split into separate directions to confuse the viewing stones.

Instead of the usual black combat outfit, her main body wore strange armour that covered most of her body, only leaving gaps for her eyes and nose to breathe. It was dark red with black from the main leathery material.

'Let's go. Those balls only last an hour at most. I don't have time to wait.'

Despite knowing Asura was talented, she couldn't tell whether the leader was Stage Three or Four from the video and that there were assassins from the cult here.

She knew a Stage Four must be waiting somewhere if the first team failed.

Her powerful legs galloped through the forest, and her body sprang off the trees and branches, flipping and twisting. She looked nothing like a human and more like a beast rushing to protect her cub from a predator.

Ten metres from the fight where she last saw Asura, there was a man in black and red robes, his body quite short but lean, bending over the corpses of a dozen cultist bodies.

'It's him! He's the Stage Four!'

Once someone reached Stage Four, their lifespan almost doubled. The average person could live up to 200 years while remaining youthful in appearance until 150. Without surpassing Stage Five, they would age slowly and eventually die.

This was the level most warriors, mages and knights would reach before their end. Asura, who lacked knowledge of the world outside of being a No-Mag, misunderstood the average as Stage Two or Three.

That was because he lived in the lowest-level towns and cities after his father's death, and the Fenix territory allowed its strongest knights to fight to help the kingdom, a foolish thing that left their territory vulnerable.

'Stage Four... Or Five?'

Lucretia stood 50 yards in the air and over 100 yards from the man.

She couldn't take a risk or lose this advantage, but without most of her clones, her combat power against those close to her level shrank.

'Asura killed so many alone. I am so proud of my student, Fufu.'

Thanks to the appearance of this assassin, though, she realised Asura rose above the challenge and didn't lose.

'Let's fight!'

Slow breaths sucked the air into her lungs as Lucretia's eyes shone with a golden light. Her muscles tensed and contracted as shadows overlapped with her movements.

The assassin looked around, his eyes narrowing. "Why is the mana so disturbed?"

He sensed Lucretia's presence, but it was too late.

Lucretia arrived above him in an instant, swinging her arm down.

—Shadow Fist!

There was a loud boom as the assassin flew 15 yards, flipping backwards, using his left hand to grasp the earth, forming small hooks to decrease his speed.

Damaged by the strange blows, the upper half of his body suffered a deep wound and broken bones from Lucretia's six shadow clones following her attack.

His body regenerated the damage, and he grinned. "You aren't ordinary." The man stood tall, his body instantly wrapped in earth as if the world loved him.

"You either, freak."

Darkness wrapped around Lucretia's limbs, completely hiding their movements from the assassin, whom she realised was powerful.

Shrouded in darkness, her fist punched forward, palm outstretched like a spear tip, colliding with the assassin, who used earth and rocks to block her attacks.

—Shadow Lance!

A powerful thrust, far stronger than Asura's, carried Lucretia behind Stage Four, who blasted her away with the giant fist of rock that shattered the flimsy lance of darkness.

"Tch. This isn't the time to fight my worst opponent." Lucretia shrugged, cracking her arms and neck, spitting blood from her mouth caused by the backlash of losing their elemental battle.

The Stage Four Assassin raised his right hand, his figure vanishing with a stomp on the ground, catapulting him into the air as Lucretia prepared to chase him.

—Earth Prison

'Too slow!'

"You can't escape. I'll kill you later."

She vanished, her figure bursting into seven shadows while it trapped two inside the huge earth prison created with 20-yard-long walls with spikes covering the walls and crushing the two shadows. Lucretia arrived 15 yards ahead despite taking damage, chasing the assassin who didn't realise she dodged the attack.

—Shadow Spear!

Lucretia's palms clasped as her nails merged, becoming a 20-yard-tall black spear. "This is the difference between us!"

'He's fast. My clone is close.'

The assassin blocked her attack, creating a stone pillar as the spear slammed down, striking the earth wall 20 yards below Lucretia.

However, a smirk came to her lips as she opened her arms, allowing the pillar to push her into the air. The next moment, the assassin's world became shrouded in darkness, with six women completely made of shadows with their hands pushed together.

—Shadow Spear Rain!

Using the force to leap high, she swung her leg, creating a dark wave that resembled a spinning crescent, merging with the spears and slamming into the assassin, who formed earth armour and shields that shattered as his body fell 20 yards with a loud bang, forming a huge crater caused by her spear and crescent kick.

'Stage Four, huh? You're weaker than Asura in endurance and ferocity.'

Lucretia landed on the chest of the Assassin, not even giving him time to cast; she grabbed his jaw, snapping it with a brutal twist, her left hand holding a small dagger which slashed across the air seven times, destroying his tongue.

Blood shot out, and the Stage Four assassin spat the blood and flesh, his bones regenerating, but the fleshy tongue didn't. His eyes looked terrified as Lucretia's clones held his limbs, dragging him 50 yards into the air.

"Your organisation made a mistake coming after my student. I'll send you to your grave. Don't worry, I will be gentle."

—Dark Assault!

The Shadows merged six became two, but their power seemed close to the original. One shadow with an eerie smile and then whispered.

"But we won't."

After that, she covered the entire area in darkness. Only the sounds of tearing flesh and screams from the tongueless assassin sounded for the next five minutes before silence visited the forest.

The blood vanished along with the many corpses. If anyone hadn't seen them before, they would think nothing had happened in the forest.

Lucretia now stood in a completely different location, her figure hidden from the viewing crystals while she sat across from the exhausted Xavida.

"Since they want to play dirty. I will protect my students' lover while he trains."

Her eyes gazed at the slovenly dragon covered in white, both dried and wet, with a blissful smile on her face, oblivious to the threat Asura faced tonight. Yet Lucretia couldn't hate the girl. She was adorable and trained earnestly.

"Haa... what a fool. Maybe I shouldn't have rushed here if I knew he was fine."

She realised after the battle that her actions were a little too erratic; leaning against the wooden wall, she crossed her legs with one knee in the air, resting her face against it as if to sleep.

'The cabin stinks of him. How comforting.'

⁜ Lorem POV

Lorem worried about the chaos she would create. Instead, she continued announcing once she noticed Lucretia's decoy clones.

"It seems instructor Lucretia is checking all zones for other assassins who have found their way into the assessment site. There is no need to worry!"

'Asura isn't there?'

She watched the side screen to see that the area where Asura headed and the assassins vanished. There were no traces of battle, blood or disturbance, but Lorem could tell the darkness in this crystal lingered was Lucretia's.

'Is Asura unconscious or teleported somewhere? Instructor Lucretia is also dealing with assassins. This is troublesome. Is he back with the dragon?'

Instead of caring about the casualties or that the scores had changed significantly over the past two hours, she searched for Asura.

'Where is Asura!'

She checked every zone, including where Asura vanished, hoping to find him, only to see his figure momentarily in the danger zone's camera.

'Asura!'

His black armour and dragon scales bathed in blood as he held a gigantic monster that looked like a fish with legs in midair, impaled on his sword-lance while channelling a furious black and red flame along the shaft into the fish...

"Is this little bastard fishing in the danger zone? Then cooking his catch!?"

The moment she saw his actions and the strange aura that flickered around him, she realised something, and suddenly, a sense of excitement and anticipation for the future grew in her chest.

'He's going to advance again!'