"I found him, he's in here!"

Alex abruptly woke up as a shadow was cast over him. He had fallen asleep in the alley after not moving for long enough.

As he opened his bleary eyes, he saw a guard standing over him in thick, gold trimmed plate armor. His mind was confused at the sight, as this was the armor of the royal guards from the capital.

The guard reached down and picked him up from the collar before walking him out of the alley.

Alex's eyes shot open wide when he saw an entire small battalion of nearly a hundred Third Step royal guards converging on the area with strict discipline.

Among them, was an older man and a young woman he was all too familiar with.

"Pr-princess?" Alex stammered out of shock.

Princess Zoerina was dressed in battle gear, a valiant dragon designed suit of armor covered most of her body yet left enough room to not restrict her flexibility and mobility.

"The traitor has been found," Zoerina declared in a regal voice while casting a disgusted glare at him. "Everyone get in formation, that witch will appear soon."

"Are you actually a prophet?" Irene appeared on the roof of the adjacent building where there had previously been nobody and asked with an innocent smile.

"I don't need to see the future to predict what a whore of the abyss will do," The princess turned and glared at the maid, her eyes turning into amber reptilian slits. "Surrender immediately or lose your head."

"The princess herself came, how could I not show an appropriate amount of courtesy? You are holding something I want, so how about you hand it over before your kingdom loses their only princess?"

"Die, whore!"

The air in the street turned so hot it began to distort. Alex felt himself burning up and was about to pass out when the old man in the group cast a spell and covered him in a thin barrier.

"This isn't a battle for greenhorns like yourself or old timers like me," He chuckled and retreated with Alex.

"Duke Montreal, I may require your help," Princess Zoerina stated before conjuring a spear of dragon fire in her hand and launching it at the maid.

Irene merely raised her hand and blocked the attack with a mana barrier, the spear colliding with the barrier like a missile and detonating in a violent explosion of fire so large the sky appeared to be covered in fire.

An evacuation warning rang out within the city, prompting the citizens to get as far away from the battle as possible, but it was inevitable that there would still be casualties.

"What a ridiculously thick barrier," The princess spat in disgust upon seeing Irene unharmed, the barrier slightly cracked but immediately repairing itself.

"I feel conflicted hearing that from someone who casually throws dragon fire like sparks."

"Shut up and turn to ashes!"

"It would be unfair if I didn't reciprocate."The royal guards drew their swords, spears and bows, which glowed red under their systematically trained skills. Each were hardened warriors and charged at Irene from different angles, aiming to kill.

Lightning broke out around Irene's body and snaked across the building, causing destruction to everything it passed by.

In the sky, an enormous amount of mana congregated as pitch black clouds rapidly built up, full of so much lightning energy that everyone's hair stood on end.

"Fuck, you're not some average witch, huh?"

Irene ignored the princess' words and cast her hands down. Giant bolts of lightning as thick as tree trunks struck the ground, destroying concrete, stone and steel in pure violent collision.

The bolts didn't immediately dissipate, but snaked along the ground and buildings, leaving a wake of destruction behind.

The royal guards and the princess rapidly dodged as best they could, but whilst they left afterimages behind and dodge giant bolts snaking past them, there were too many bolts of lightning to dodge altogether.

Not all of the royal guards could completely dodge the lightning bolts, and none could break the attack formation to attack Irene.

The lightning melted armor, shatters bones and tore limbs apart, even if the person had a body of a Third Step ranker.

Several royal guards lost an arm or a leg, several more were hit directly by the lightning and torn into pieces by the violent lightning energy.

A spear wielding royal guard got trapped in the air as a bolt of lightning approached. He was resigned to his fate but unwilling to go down without one final attack.

The air around him burned in crimson spark of lighting before he launched his spear directly at Irene's heart.

Whilst controlling the lightning bolts, Irene's defenses were weaker and allowed the spear to finally land a hit on her. She sacrificed her hand without hesitancy to offset the spear, which pierced through her hand and shoulder instead of her heart.

"Tch. I was careless," Irene clicked her tongue as she pulled the spear out, the wounds rapidly stitching themselves closed and healing.

This created a brief lapse in the lightning calamity, allowing Zoerina to cover herself in dragon fire and charge through a building to attack Irene from behind.

Irene sensed her coming without being able to look and fired several meteors of stone at the dragon princess.

Zoerina smashed apart those cannon ball like meteors with her armored fists, not hesitating as she charged head on at Irene, smashing her shield with her armored gauntlets and causing it to dangerously crash as the maid used the recoil from the blow to increase their distance.

"Whore, fight me head on if you dare! I will take your head today!"

"Us mages have weak bodies, don't bully us."

"The nerve!"

Irene cast several giant water blades that cup apart buildings and forced Princess Zoerina to dodge once again and throw a giant piece of building at the mage maid in a fit of rage.

Irene stared at the incoming giant block of stone, concrete and wood before flying away to another building with the wind.

More royal guards tried to intercept her now that the lightning storm was finished causing her more difficulties.Several attacks got through and caused various injuries that she was forced to heal from.

"Don't lose your footing, hot-headed princess."

Irene distanced herself from the guards and created another earthquake, causing countless buildings to collapse and everyone to lose their balance as giant blocks of earth erupted from the ground.

The very landscape was altered to give Irene the advantage, which she took to sever the heads of several disoriented royal guards.

Out of nowhere, a red beam of energy shot through Irene and punctured a fist sized hole in her stomach which began spurting blood down her body.

Irene turned her head and looked at a group of adventurers and mercenaries who were coming to reinforce the royal guards.

"Witch, your head will roll today!"

Jovran the Red headed the paid reinforcements, his giant spear head gyrating and emitting smoke as several formations emitted an enormous amount of energy.

"This is truly disadvantageous. I honestly hadn't expected the royals to care about a failure of a hero who fled from the battlefield."

"We didn't come for the traitor, we came for you, witch. You are completely surrounded now, surrender."

Irene looked at the princess whose entire body was emitting power, her rage being converted into raw mana by her bloodline.

Zoerina's body had undergone changes from overexerting her bloodline, a pair of obsidian dragon horns emerging from her head and a thick, crimson dragon tail extending behind her.

"Princess, I dare say, can you come back from that? Do you still count as human, now?"

"If it means destroying the abyss and you monsters, I will turn into the ancestral dragon itself."

Irene didn't give any warning as she snapped her fingers, causing countless magic arrays to spring to life over the battlefield where she had passed, including two on Princess Zoerina's body.

Nobody had time to react as the formations all imploded on themselves before erupting in a violent explosion which tore space itself. Buildings collapsed and even the reinforcing adventurers and mercenaries were forced to protect themselves from shrapnel as large as bricks flying like cannon shots at them.

Princess Zoerina had two of these formations on her body, secretly planted on her by Irene when she got too close.

The dragon princess was sent flying, crashing through several buildings and creating a crater in the center of a marketplace still not fully evacuated.

She rolled over in the hole and vomited blood that was so hot the stone melted and began to combust.

"Whore!"

Despite the damage, with blood running down her face and out of several joints in her plate armor, the princess' body had forcibly withstood it.

"And you call me a monster," Irene commented as the princess reappeared covered in blood.

"I will kill you, whore!" The princess screamed, her rage shaking the space around her.

"Unfortunately, I already have my prize."

Irene had Alex under her arm unconscious and bleeding from the head. Her stomach had completely healed too, fresh pure white skin visible through the large hold in her maid dress.

Princess Zoerina launched herself at her and crushed the building under her fist, but Irene had already vanished with the hero, the image the princess attack only a mirage caused by magic.