Angel Monarch

As the sky burned behind them, Cassandra and Sera floated towards the battlefield. The fighting had stopped with the explosion, and the defenders of New Constantinople quickly put down their weapons.

Sera barely registered any of this. Her mind was in constant pain and she felt exhausted. She also felt cold and her skin was really pale. The only thing keeping her up straight was Cassandra's firm hold on her waist.

They moved towards the ground where people began to cheer. Sera winced at the loud sound, which caused the migraine to greatly increase. Cassandra saw this as well, and she quickly made the sound illusionary for Sera.

She closed her eyes and breathed in relief. But Cassandra didn't stop with making the sound disappear.

Unknowingly to Sera, she made a copy of her, and made the real Sera invisible. A few meters in front of Cassandra she floated. The copy was quite accurate. Cassandra was sure most people would be fooled by her.

The fake Sera looked at the crowd fiercely. Her wings were still huge. Her golden armor glistened and she held her signature glaive in her right hand. The cheers slowly died down as the soldiers prepared to hear her speech.

A few hours later, when Sera will regain consciousness, she will be mortified to learn about this. Cassandra really shouldn't have used her illusion to speak to the soldiers, but Cassandra was too caught up in the glory of victory and she was really grateful to Sera. In her mind this speech was supposed to be a gift.

"Soldiers! Evolved! Ascended! Today is a great day! We have won a great victory yet again, causing the United Front to back down further! But this isn't enough! We won't stop until every city is liberated from their oppression!" She shouted and the crowd cheered.

"We killed three transcended today, and we will kill as many as needed to achieve final victory!" The crowd roared their response.

"With this battle we now control all the south of Europe, and there is nothing stopping us from marching north and take the rest of their cities!" She took a quick breath and before anybody could cheer she continued.

"Next we take Buda-Pest, who hid in its mountain bunker all this time, but we won't stop there! We will take Wien, then march on to Pragua and Stuttgart! We will fight and conquer until the gates of New Paris are broken!" This time she left time for the cheers.

In the crowd David looked towards Sera with concern. This behavior was very unlike her. The cohort stood around him, including Percy and Kathy. They each survived the battle, not entirely unscathed, but better then the enemy.

"My soldiers! My evolved! My ascended! MY ARMY! Tonight we celebrate, tonight we mourn, tonight we pay respect to our fallen brothers and sisters! But tomorrow we move on! Their deaths weren't in vain and until you follow my lead, I guarantee you never be alone or lost!" The crowd roared with anticipation.

"I'm Seraphine! The Angel Monarch! The Deathless Phoenix! I hereby declare MERCY to the enemy soldiers and if anyone's got an issue they can take it up with me!" With this last declaration she raised her glaive into the air, but before she could shout her warcry, the crowd began to chant.

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They weren't shouting in unison. Some shouted "From The Ashes We Will Rise!", others said "Deathless Phoenix!", while a few who were followers of the Angelic Order, went down to one knee and bowed their heads.

Strangely enough this action by a few people caused a landslide to happen in the crowd. The chanting slowly died down, while everyone went down on one knee. Even the enemy soldiers and evolved done the same. The only people left standing was David and his cohort, but eventually they bowed down as well.

Cassandra used this opportunity, while everyone was looking away, to disappear. The illusionary copy of Sera broke into pieces, and she quickly carried the real Sera back to the artilleries and other support vehicles.

Frank was there too and he quickly took her away. Cassandra trusted him enough to leave Sera in his and his group's care.

After that she flew back towards the soldiers. There was a lot of work to be done. The walls had to be patched, the gates fixed, patrols set up, citizens taken care of... It felt overwhelming and liberating at the same time.

The battle was horrible and she nearly died, but somehow she felt more alive than ever. She even felt excited about getting the city back in working order!

...

From an alley a short woman watched the whole speech with a fierce and wrathful expression. She held two green shortswords in her hands. Her body was covered in dark leather armor, that stuck close to her body.

She had a helmet for the armor too, but at some point she dismissed it. Her face was beautiful and intricate. Her skin was milky white, her eyes were foreign, like the people in Old China had. Her irises were dark green, while her pupils were small slits.

Her hair was bright, shiny and close-cropped, barely reaching below her ears. It was dark green in color and it was obvious that she took great care of it.

Hearing the end of the speech she grunted in amusement, then she slowly stepped further inside the alley. She began walking away from the congregation of soldiers.

The only thing she wanted to do was killing Sera, but until her power ran out there was no way to really hurt her. It also didn't help that another transcended was with her.

She was running through alleys and side streets. She wanted to reach her small house and get her stuff out before the soldiers found it.

It was going well, she was closing in on her home, but before reaching it she found three soldiers. They weren't the usual Federal Alliance evolved, their armor glistened under the rising Sun's rays.

All of them wore the same kind of armor, white with a large golden seven pointed star in the middle. Their faces were obscured by helmets, but it wasn't hard to figure out their gender.

From the cut of their armor and how they stood, the Empress judged them to be two female and one male. They turned to her and after a second each summoned their weapons.

One woman had a longsword, another a bow and the man a greatsword. Each weapon was the same golden color, which didn't escape the Empress's eyes. With a large menacing grin she stared at the three elite soldiers.

"So you are that whore's soldiers. She was hiding you well didn't she! It's good you arrived, I need to send that bitch a clear message!" With that the Acid Empress exploded into movement.

She made it one step before she had to dodge the incoming meter long energy arrow. From left and right the other two closed in. They didn't respond to her earlier words, just moved with deadly precision and coordination.

The woman's blade ignited in blue flames that seemed to freeze the air instead of heat it up. The man's greatsword stayed the same, but he moved much faster and with more strength.

The Empress's grin widened, and she laughed to herself... "Finally! A real challenge!"

The greatsword was about to slam down on her, but she moved to the side and guided it away from her with her right sword. She then used her left one to try and deliver a stab to the man's stomach, but the woman stopped and deflected her blade.

Another arrow was about to slam into her, but with a quick back handspring she evaded it with ease.

The two melee soldiers gave her no respite. The greatsword swung at her head, while the woman prepared to defend against any incoming attack.

The Empress used both sword to guide the greatsword above her head, then using her pent up momentum, she sprang forward to stab both sword into the woman. She blocked to blades with a grunt, but this was exactly what the Empress counted on.

With a well placed kick to the stomach the woman got pushed away. The greatsword was heading towards the Empress with incredible speed and accuracy, also another arrow was shot towards her, which would impale her in the next second.

Her blades glowed dark green. With her left sword she cut the energy of the arrow in half, while her right deflected the incoming greatsword for the third and last time.

As the Empress pushed away the sword she spun with the attack and when she had her back towards the man, she used her left sword to stab behind her. The sword entered his armor, cutting through it without any resistance. The blade entered the man's heart and killed him on the spot.

The last thing he remembered was what the Oracle said to him before the siege...

"Give me more, I need her brain. An old lady needs sustenance to see who shall be slain!"

She didn't exactly say it to him, but at the last word the hag clearly looked at him. He didn't really think it to be true, but he should've known better... When you learn about the future, you lose the ability to escape it!

The two other sisters screamed in anger, but the Empress gave no time for them to process what happened.

She pulled her sword out of the man and moved towards the woman with the longsword.

The Empress swung one sword, which the female defended against, but she wasn't fast enough to stop the other from cutting her on the leg. She grunted in pain and backed away a few steps, just as another arrow sailed past the Empress.

The woman didn't understand why, but the Empress turned away and ran at the archer. She wanted to help and was about to pursue, when her legs suddenly gave out. She fell on her face, while her mind was absorbed in pain.

With the help of her sword she managed to climb on one knee. She looked up just in time to see the Empress decapitate her Sister.

Her strength and power was failing her, and she had no idea why. Between gasps of pain she looked down at the festering wound, but her armor was in the way, so she didn't see much.

Slowly she looked up again. The Empress stood above her with a bright smile. The woman didn't understand how could someone look so happy after killing two people.

"Come now, stop playing with your food! We have places to be!" After the Empress said that, the woman felt something moving in her body.

It caused an extreme amount of pain and she felt herself trying to scream, but couldn't since something was blocking her throat. From her mouth a snake slithered out. It looked at the woman's terrified expression, then attacked her right eye.

It bit down on it and swallowed the whole eye. The woman trembled in terror, pain and everything in-between, as the snake slowly moved and entered her skull.

She felt relief when her brain got pierced and her suffering finally ended.

The Acid Empress stood above the corpse for a moment, when slow claps sounded from one of the alleys. Her body stayed unmoving, full of potential energy, like a strung up arrow ready to move if needed. Read new chapters at empire

The alley was dark, darker than it was supposed to be. The clapping sounds came closer as a man exited the mouth of alley. He was of average height, he had dark blue hair, with similar colored eyes. His once handsome face was mostly burnt up, which made him very ugly.

"So you are the famous Acid Empress. The one who fought the Deathless Phoenix to a stalemate. It's an honor to finally meet you!" He said while bowing deeply, but also mockingly.

She was about to speak, but the burned man spoke before she could.

"I think we have a common enemy. I heard you felt really angry how your last duel with the Phoenix turned out... Would you like to try again, this time on a much more 'fair' battleground?" He asked with a cunning grin, which looked almost menacing because of his wounds.

The Empress quickly put two and two together. The burn marks made it obvious why he wanted revenge on Sera, and after thinking for a bit she realized there was no reason for her to refuse.

With any even scarier grin the Acid Empress said... "I'm listening!"

[End of Part 1 – Flames of War]