Chapter 60: The Stranded Hell Princess

“Major Fire Boost, Valor+!” Scarlett cast as a fiery aura formed around her, increasing her strength. She punched the red, mechanical creature with all of her might, and it retaliated with a quick bite to her arm, drawing blood.

**This thing is tough as nails!** Scarlett thought. **It must be at least of Golden quality.**

Meanwhile, her enemy drew a group of small summoning circles. Five, ten, fifteen at great speed.

“Go forth, Willows!” Amelia shouted.

Balls of fire were summoned and hovered around the Scarlett before becoming projectiles. When the fifth impacted Scarlett, she grunted, setting her fist on fire. “Fire Style, Meteor Punch!”

With such tremendous power, the metal beast constantly harassing her was finally torn into pieces, allowing the warrior to dodge the sixth and seventh firebomb coming her way.

Observing her fighting style made Amelia snicker. “Don’t tell me you’re copying the Golden Comet’s techniques!”

“I’d be a fool if I didn’t!” Scarlett quickly replied. “That woman knows her fighting. She has been quite an inspiration for me.”

Amelia bit her lower lip before grinning and full-on laughing. “This is perfect! From now on, I’ll treat you as an Astrid knockoff, so allow me to show you the spell I developed with the only purpose of kicking her short ass!”

“Bring it on!” Scarlett yelled, emanating fire from her fist, and with it, deflected the incoming fireball, sending it flying to the neighbor’s house, making it explode. Scarlett was ready to deflect the rest, but the remaining fire drones collapsed on their own around her, creating small explosions. Scarlett was unscathed, but a wall of fire was now circling around her.

**She’s buying time to channel that spell she’s boasting about.**

Scarlett jumped upwards, but one last drone was waiting for her above.

**No, you won’t!**

“Dragonfist!” She threw a punch, sending a burst of fire onward. The resulting blazing explosion suddenly stopped, like frozen in time, changed colors, and turned glimmering and metallic, quickly forming something pointy and elongated.

**A lance! But how?!**

“Since it was my Willow that exploded, that fire is technically still mine,” a smug Amelia could be heard from below.

The lance started swirling before getting launched downwards, which Scarlett barely caught with both hands. The kinetic force ended up sending her back to the ground, causing a quake.

**Why do these things have so much power and durability? This woman… Her Elemental Crafting resembles what Serenity can do. That’d mean that these magical constructions share the User’s Spirit rank or at least a large fraction of it.**

Scarlett threw the inanimate lance aside and gritted her teeth.

**She’ll become a threat if she manages to construct something more–**

Scarlett looked around, noticing she had returned to the circle of fire that she had first tried to escape, which had transformed into a black shiny enclosure.

**You better kill me this time…**

The walls closed around her until forming a 15 feet wide dome, sprouting spikes on its interior.

Outside her prison, she heard Amelia cast: “Superior Fire Crafting, Magical Construction Style–!”

++++Notice: Your Berserker estate has augmented your Vitality by one rank. ++++

**That’s good to hear…**

Scarlett broke free with a fiery explosion. Her HP and armor looked once again unaffected. “Thanks for helping me prepare myself, princess!”

“No, thanks to you…” Amelia’s voice was heard, coming out of a large silhouette towering Scarlett. At first, Scarlett believed Amelia had summoned an 8 feet, 2 inches tall demonic minion, of red skin and bat-like wings, wearing a skimpy leather outfit, but she then noticed an unnatural metallic shine on its four golden eyes and inverted horns.

**An armor… Pieces of metal, so intrinsically connected, and exhaustingly crafted to resemble a living thing.**

Scarlett drew a smile, mirroring that faux demoness’ black-painted smirk. “Ha! Are you inside that thing?! Are you seriously planning to go face-to-face with it? I thought you were just like other pyromancers! An annoying long-range piece of shit! But this–! This is PERFECT!”

“Do you like it?” Amelia said in a deeper tone of voice, pulling out her Legendary Staff. “Bow and kneel, then! Because you’re about to receive my unholy judgment! I’m Amelia Laflamme, The Stranded Hell Princess!”

“Please,” Scarlett murmured, salivating, “…tell me this thing is durable…”

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When Serenity’s black monster dashed towards Alan’s position with opened fangs, Amelia’s summon tackled it, sending it against a house that got leveled with ease. The doppelganger then released a black dense mist from its maw, which the original countered with a fire breath.

**Did that thing try to eat me?**Alan thought, watching the burning house collapse after a blazing pillar of fire rose from it, making him cover his gaze.

Amelia’s Fire Clone stood a few feet away from him, gaze locked on the two feline monsters.

**Did you create that thing just to help me?** Alan gritted his teeth. **You worry so much about me…**

He looked back at Ashley, who had charged against the albino woman, dagger in hand. With quick calculated movements, Ashely stabbed the enemy in the stomach, chest, and neck, but Serenity’s body reformed like made of black sand.

“Alan Warden,” Serenity called from afar, ignoring Ashley’s physical attacks. “You asked if I was about to summon my Draquinox. Well, there’s no need for that, for Unus Town will disappear from the map by the simple fact of us standing here.”

He looked down. A pitch-black shadow slowly crawled toward him, trying to swallow his feet.

**This woman and whoever Administrator is behind this, gain nothing from destroying this place as they did in Londorus. No. This time they’re really after me. Since we’re in a world of ‘immortals’, the only way to guarantee my silence and prevent my interference is by kidnapping me… Damn… Something worse than what happened to me in the Shooting Stars headquarters awaits me…**

He glanced at Ashley, who had stopped her attacks, and was instead glancing at the beast doppelganger in silence, before giving another quick glimpse at the black substance under his feet.

**She tried sinking me into this thing before, and the fake cat tried to swallow me, so this black mass must be her ‘method of transportation’. With that in mind, I won’t let her get me that easily.**

“Anastasia,” he called. “Distract Serenity.”

“Yes, Master.”

Anastasia dashed and bashed Serenity with her shield, who did not retaliate, giving Alan the opportunity to run toward Amelia’s clone.

“Amelia II!” he called.

Although the clone was made of fire, Amelia’s features were clearly distinguishable. It was floating, and its hair made of flames hovered behind the back of her neck.

+”Alan Warden,”+ she greeted in a monotone voice. +”You can call me Belphy. I’m Amelia Laflamme’s personal AI Assistant with the mission to protect you.”+

“You can talk! Neat! And… thanks! Where is–?” a sound interrupted him. Something had crashed against the neighbor’s house in the distance.

**Was that the enemy or Amelia? Crap, I don’t think I could survive something like that!**

“Alan,” Ashley rushed to his side and pointed towards the enemy. “I have figured out how her magic works. Although I can not touch her, Amelia’s giant cat is hurting its counterpart. Do you remember those spikes she threw at us? They must be made of the same substance as that monster. That means she can only attack once at a time.”

“Or there might be a limit on how much ‘shadow’ she can use, and the doppelganger is currently using all of it,” he whispered while processing the information. “What can you do for us, Belphy?”

+”My priority is to protect you, Alan Warden. To accomplish it, I have access to 30% of my master’s mana pool and every single magic spell she knows. I have already used 10% and my Auto Combat configuration is set to Counter.”+

Alan opened his mouth to speak, but a piercing sound made him flinch. He glanced at the monsters and observed that the shadowed one had sprouted spikes from all over its body. Although Amelia’s Summon was getting impaled, it released an incandescent breath of fire to break free.

“You’re controlling that Summon, right?”

“Yes.”

“Can you set it to auto and change its parameters to ‘fully aggressive’ or something like that?”

“Request Accepted.”

The monstrous cat roared as its body glowed incandescently, melting everything in a 150 feet radius.

“W-What is it doing now?!”

+”It’s self-destructing. The heat will gradually expand for 300 feet radius, approximately. You cannot stay here.”+

++”Anastasia! Get the hell out of there!”++ Alan said through Party Chat and the NPC quickly turned around, but her ankle got caught by a shadow tentacle sprouting from the ground.

“Do not fear death, sister, for we are immortal after all,” Serenity said to her, giggling.

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