12 The princess Muïrne

For a brief second, the battlefield became even more obscure than it was before. The dark light produced by the cultist swallowed everything, except for the moving shadows near him. At that sight, he became even more shocked, since his spell was one of his most powerful. Even if its power couldn't be compared to the one thrown by the dark gods, it was still a threat to anyone but a handful of experts. And as he watched the result, he confirmed that the princess was not part of that group.

At first, she didn't realize anything different, only that her vision blackened. When she recovered her view, she could only see the very wide smile of the magician in front of her, even wider than when he was mumbling about the resurrection of his gods. Of course, she didn't take that for granted and began to examine her body, to search what happened. And as she looked downward, she noticed a strange corpse in a destroyed armor. It was partially melted and she couldn't see the face of the dead person, but it was immensely familiar. Only when she realized that she was not touching the ground anymore, did she understood what happened.

The young princess began to scream and tried to reach her former body, but all she did was pass through it. On the other hand, she began to slowly fade, her limbs becoming more and more transparent. As despair began to fill her, she looked at the cultist one more time, and the fear turned into hatred. Even if it was the last thing that she will do, she swore to kill the bastard that turned her into a ghost.

The magician noticed the change of sentiment of the beautiful woman in front of him but was not scared at all. Dealing with her as a human was a real pain in the ass, but to fight a spirit newly formed, he had decades of experience with that. Even exhausted and injured like he currently was, he could bind her long enough for him to recover. And after that, he will enslave her and present her to his new masters. Then, he will be rewarded as the texts foretold it.

"Oh princess, you should be happy, you no longer look green like before. That's an improvement I have to tell you that, otherwise, what would your future husband have said? On the other hand, you look a little furious, so, let me do my things. [Dark Chains]!"

Suddenly, from all around the cultist, dark bindings appeared and began to lock the princess in place. She tried to hack those with her sword, but she couldn't even leave a dent on them. And couldn't pass through them either. She also shouted at the magician, cursed him with every name she could remember, but nothing left her mouth. Seeing the mute spirit getting angrier as the seconds passed, the old man laughed.

"Oh, my dear, you are a spirit now, a ghost. You don't need to use your mouth anymore; no air is leaving it. I heard your scream before, but what you are saying now is inaudible. I guess you are smart enough to figure out why the two are different?"

The woman stopped in her cursing and began to think deeply. At first, she thought it was a ruse, but the cultist didn't need to do one, so it was probably the truth. She didn't realize that the bindings were getting tighter and tighter as she reflected on her condition. By the time she figured out that it was probably her sentiments or her thoughts that were used to communicate, she was incapable of moving. And her rage that was gone was raised to an unprecedented level. But this time, her flow of insults was audible.

"You old, smelly, and impotent trash, I will torture you and when all your bones will be broken I will personally put a bounty on you in the Lake. You will … Mmph mmph! MPHPH!"

Even if she was not using her mouth, her reaction when her mouth was sealed was still to be unable to speak properly. But the rage in her eyes was still burning, and if looks could kill, the bearded man would have been crippled already.

While all of this was happening, Leilade was trying to understand the situation. She captured the souls of everyone still alive, and after a short analysis, she got the big picture of what was happening. From the side of the soldiers, they were on a secret mission with the princess Muïrne Gwendhir of the Kingdom of Massalia. The mission was a failure however, that's all that was known. The elite soldiers were all dead and their souls dispersed by the time she got there.

On the other hand, the cultists were part of a group called the Church of Torment. As expected of an organization with such a name, they were rampaging the region and were avoiding the authority for many years. But today, the dark gods were supposed to return, or at least that was what the grandmaster of the church told them. The old cultist still alive was that very man, and normally, the death of the princess would have been the catalyst for the return of those gods. Leilade snickered after gathering all of that information. She had seen many beings called gods, and most of them were just pathetic creatures that were slightly above the rest. But apparently, all the dark gods were either killed or banished to other dimensions. So nothing to worry about.

The only thing that she still had to deal with was the situation in front of her. She pondered a long time, about who should be killed, who should survive. Even if the magician was clearly experienced in the dark arts, especially in relation with the ghosts, he was still quite weak for her. Even the most useless recruit of her Death Corps was immensely stronger than him. Just thinking about her precious army being destroyed made her angry. Even right now, she was on a planet without any information about the forces around it. Those ignorant barbarians didn't possess a technology allowing them to explore the space above their heads.

Still hearing the muffled voice of the princess in front of her, she decided that the comedy had to stop. Her tentacle began to dig under the ground, to surprise her target before he could react. As for the survivor, Leilade will show herself. Of course, the moment the Empress of the Underworld made a move, both of the humans, or the former human and the other that was still a human, jumped in fright. And for one of them, that was his last move.

The princess saw the same fate that her soldier suffered was coming for the cultist. None of them noticed the tentacle that was popping from the ground before it was too late. The moment darkness swallowed the old man, the eyes of the spirit widen in terror. If even the believer was slain, she didn't hope for a lot. The bindings surrounding around were slowly decaying, but she had no intention of running away. She took her standard fighting posture, gripped tightly the transparent sword that was still in her hand and was ready to launch a final assault. But she never imagined what she will see a few seconds later.

The light of the two moons uncovered the shadows that were covering a small little body, nearly entirely nude except the right shoulder where a strange purple metal was shining. A very, very young girl, not past ten years old maximum was standing in front of her. However, she knew that it was definitely not a normal girl. The wounds, injuries, bloodied and burned flesh that was covering that frail child were terrifying. If she was still a human, she would have thrown up seeing this gruesome sight. She didn't know that such a heavy amount of wounds was possible on the body of a child. But the main problem was the fact that this corpse was still moving. In the end, all she could do was stare in the dark eyes of the monster that took human form.

"Great, you didn't run away. Otherwise, I would have terminated your life. So princess Muïrne Gwendhir, did killing the grandmaster of the Church of Torment was a meritorious deed?"

The same child voice resonated in the head of the princess, but she couldn't think for a few seconds. The demon swallowed and ate all the dead bodies around them, killed her enemy, and still asked such a question. The shock of being turned into a spirit was still present and coupled with that unreal situation, the beautiful woman broke down. She began to cry and kneel in front of the little girl, not putting any defenses. This, of course, annoyed immensely Leilade. She sparred Muïre to be more efficient, but now she had to deal with a crying woman.

"Look, I am not your enemy, so I will take your lack of answer as a yes. Now, do you want to retrieve the form of your original body, or not?"

The first sentence of the Empress didn't wake up the spirit of her stupor, but the second immediately stopped the crying. Starring at the immobile woman that was levitating above the ground, Leilade knew that she said the right thing. When the princess finally raised her head, her eyes were filled with hope and incomprehension. Never in even her dreams, she imagined such a situation to happen.

"Do … You really can do that? But why?"