Chapter 453 Seventh Finger, First Hero V
The instant Kethryllia tilted her head to the side, two rays of crimson red light of destructive essence, shot through the air where her head was a second ago.
Despite moving to dodge the attack, one of the beams of light slightly grazed her skin, burning off the flesh where it touched completely, going on to completely carve out part of her skull and turn that section of the bone to dust, before piercing through her hair and disintegrating it on an atomic level.
**BOOM!
She released a burst of aura that knocked Abigail back and sent her body flying, before taking more distance from the Elf and holding up her palm to her head.
'WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT???!!!
DID SHE JUST SHOOT A BEAM OF DESTRUCTION AURA OUT OF HER EYES???!!!!!'
Kethryllia's breaths turned heavy and blood dripped from the side of her head and onto the ground from the wound that did not seem to show any signs of healing despite how much energy she poured into it.
She infused her energy into her spear and swung it to the side, with the ground bursting open and releasing a massive wave of blood-red aura that surged towards Abigail who was just getting back to her feet.
In the face of this incoming massive wave of aura, the girl took a deep breath before exhaling, releasing a stream of cold energy that enveloped the massive wave of aura and within seconds, it was encased in a thick layer of ice.
With the flick of her fingers, Abigail launched a small bolt of destructive energy that collided with the frozen aura and shattered it into tiny fragments of ice that fell to the ground.
Looking at this nonsensical scene, Kethryllia had her jaw drop in shock as she stared at the Elven girl smiling at her, however, her eyes narrowed in the next second as she held up her spear, condensing an enormous amount of magic, aura and demonic energy around it.
'Enough playing around. I'd kill her this instant.'
Tendrils of lightning snaked across the weapon and onto her arm as she took a stance, ready to attack.
"Lady Keasatra. That's enough, too much time has been wasted."
The voice of her contracted demon rang out as a tall pale skinned man appeared right beside her. He then held out his hand and grabbed Kethryllia's arm, making the Demonic Hand executive exhale in exasperation.
"Tsk…"
She clicked her tongue and reabsorbed her energy back into her body, twirling her spear around and dismissing the weapon right after.
"Now then, we would be making our retreat, your highness."
The demon spoke politely with a light bow as he infused energy into the teleportation crystal in his palm, crushing it right after and causing spatial-attributed magic power to burst out and wrap around him and Kethryllia.
With a short flash of light, the two disappeared from the spot.
? ? ?
Staring at the spot where the Executive of the Demonic Hand was mere moments ago, Abigail heaved a deep sigh of exhaustion as she gazed at the status of the demon who she just appraised.
"Seems the demon ranks are the same as a thousand years ago.
Master levels and below are low-rank demons, Middle Ranks are Grandmaster (Lower-Middle) and Epic (Upper-Middle) level existences.
Means that High-Rank demons are still Legendary Level."
She then ran a hand through her scattered hair and dismissed the status in front of her before continuing.
"Seems like you only match up to a High-Rank Demon, Zestari."
"Is that so? I couldn't really care less, though."
A euphonic voice replied to Abigail's words as the Elven princess turned around to meet with the golden eyes of a dark-haired Elf who was suddenly standing a few metres behind her.
The woman had the race's prominent pointy ears and sleek calf-length dark blue hair that bordered on black, left to flow freely with straight fringes framing her face.
She was adorned in a maid uniform consisting of a grey blouse with puffed sleeves and a high, frilled collar secured with a back ribbon underneath a black frock which has a full skirt. All under a grey frilly apron that was wrapped around her waist.
On her legs, she wore long black stockings and a pair of heeled shoes.
This woman was the reason for the Seventh Finger's retreat earlier, as her arrival in the area meant that Kethryllia could not carry out her attempt to end Abigail's life there and then.
Her name was Zestari Herrel, a peak Legendary level existence who held the title of 'Living Legend'…and Abigail's maid-in-waiting.
Occupation aside, even if Kethryllia entered her demonic fused state, defeating Zestari was still a feat that would have been considered next to impossible, so the Demonic Hand executive had opted for a retreat the moment she had sensed the Living Legend's presence.
After all, even if they were only a single existence level apart, there was a huge gap in power due to the fact that Legendary Level existences could use the powers of world law doctrines.
"Putting those eyesores out of the way, I have to ask you, Abby. Do tell me why you seem to insist on taking actions that would evoke 'certain' unwanted reactions from your father?"
"…Ugh.
Can you not tell him about this?"
"Impossible.
The fact that I'm here means he is already aware of your little escapade.
You said you wanted to test out your power after becoming an intermediate stage grandmaster, so can you explain to me how AND why you ended up fighting a Demonic Hand executive?"
Zestari questioned Abigail with narrowed eyes, making the young Elven princess flinch lightly under her gaze.
"It was a total coincidence!! Who would have expected that a Demonic Hand executive would be in the dungeon I wanted to go to?!
But look on the bright side, I was able to find out about her skills and her magic affinities.
She probably thought she could block my appraisal with that item but 'FULL' appraisal is different."
Abigail replied with a smug look on her face, patting her chest lightly before continuing.
"ALSO! I was able to inflict a near-lethal injury on her too and damage a bit of her soul itself. Plus, I placed a tracker on her so I would know where she was teleporting to. It has a limited range though."
Zestari's eyes widened slightly in surprise upon hearing Abigail's last statement, not having expected Abigail to do such a thing.
"…Why are you looking at me like you're surprised that I did that? What do you take me for, Zestari?"
"I'd rather not say, Abby."
The maid's reply made Abigail's brows twitch lightly in annoyance but she took a deep sigh to calm herself before turning her attention to her wounds.
Naturally, it was impossible for her to fight an Epic Level existence and come out unscathed, but even so, she didn't let all her wounds heal so as to prevent Kethryllia from finding out about her absurd regenerative abilities.
With a flick of her wrist, thin strands of multi-coloured energy seeped into her body and all the injuries she had were completely healed, both external and internal.
Seeing this phenomenon happening, Zestari couldn't help but look on in awe as even she did not possess the kind of regenerative prowess that Abigail did.
Although the girl claimed she was using ambient energy to heal her wounds, Zestari could neither see nor sense any energy of any kind being involved in this regeneration process.
And she could tell that Abigail was not consuming any of her own energies, nor was she losing stamina as she did this.
Her regenerative powers were something that made even her father, the 'Elven Emperor' shocked as he could not deduce their working process.
Not many beings on Aidos could.
This was expected, as they were all incapable of sensing the ambient multicoloured energy that was omnipresent on the planet, the same energy that would move to regenerate Abigail's wounds within seconds even if she did not actively will it.
Without using special means, truly killing Abigail was a feat that was ridiculously hard to accomplish, even for people many times stronger than her.
"Now then, let's deal with your torn clothes."
Zestari rose her hand and formed a simple fifty cm wide tier two magic circle in front of her palm, however, the instant Abigail turned her eyes in the direction of the magic circle, it shattered and fizzled into oblivion.
It was at that moment, Abigail knew, she'd fucked up.