[POV Liselotte]

The horned demon lunged at me with a confidence born from centuries of slaughter. His speed was inhuman, a streak of darkness cutting through the dense air of the underground chamber. In his red eyes, I could read the mockery—the certainty that a mere human, no matter how “special” her mana, would fall before the brute force of his kind.

But he made a fundamental mistake.

He compared me to the rest of this world.

When his claws were mere centimeters from my throat, I did not step back. I didn’t even raise the shield I once carried as a guard.

I simply let the void in my chest expand.

Time seemed to slow.

The hum of Varek’s inhibitor—the force suffocating Leah and Elliot’s soldiers—became nothing more than distant, irrelevant noise to me. I moved my dark crystal sword in an upward arc so fast that the human eye would have seen only a blue flash.

The clash did not produce a metallic sound.

It sounded like a glacier colliding with a wooden pier.

The demon let out a grunt of surprise as threads of absolute ice pierced his obsidian skin. This was not ordinary ice—it was a manifestation of will, freezing not only flesh but the flow of life itself.

His right arm—the one meant to tear out my throat—stopped instantly, encased in black frost that devoured his heat.

“Is that all?” I asked, my voice devoid of human warmth.

He tried to retreat, panic flickering in his calculating gaze, but I was already upon him.

I pivoted and drove a mana-charged kick into his solar plexus. The impact sent him flying across the chamber, crashing into one of the alchemical display cases. Reinforced glass shattered into a thousand pieces, and corrosive liquids drenched his body—but he barely reacted.

What was truly killing him was the cold spreading from the wound my blade had inflicted.

I surged forward, my boots barely touching the ground, and before he could rise, I drove my sword into his shoulder, pinning him to the stone wall.

The horned demon released a horrific scream as ice climbed up his neck, sealing his vocal cords.

Subduing him had taken only seconds.

Compared to the vastness of the void I had endured, his power was nothing more than a flickering flame in a blizzard.

Without wasting a moment, I turned toward the center of the chamber—my heart tightening with anxiety for Leah.

What I saw took my breath away.

Not from horror.

From admiration.

Leah stood before the fanged demon.

The monster unleashed devastating swipes that cracked the marble floor, yet Leah moved like a dancer of fire within an inferno. Her magic was suppressed—yes, Varek’s circle was draining the very atmosphere of mana, making every spell a monumental effort.

And yet, she refused to yield.

I saw her trembling hands, the sweat on her brow—a sign of both physical and spiritual strain. Leah was forcing her own internal core to generate flames.

She was spending three, perhaps four times the usual amount of mana just to produce a faint protective flare around her short blade.

It was inefficient.

Exhausting.

Dangerous.

She was burning through her own life force to compensate for the inhibitor.

But it was working.

Each time the fanged demon lunged, Leah detonated a burst of heat at the tip of her blade, deflecting the attack just enough to survive.

She was pale.

Her lips were drained of color.

But her eyes still burned with the same determination as the day I met her.

She was not a princess waiting to be saved.

She was a warrior of Whirikal, fighting for her right to exist.

“Just a little longer, Leah,” I whispered to myself, regaining focus.

I couldn’t go to her yet.

The corruption process on the operating tables was reaching a critical stage.

Maya and Elina were no longer screaming. Their bodies arched in silent spasms as the black liquid of the Valerius bubbled through their veins, turning their skin into a gray, hardened surface.

If I didn’t disconnect them now, they would lose their humanity forever.

I rushed toward the operating tables.

Varek’s subordinate mages tried to intercept me, hurling ritual daggers and fragments of shadow magic that barely managed to graze the void—but I passed through them like a phantom of snow.

With two precise slashes, I cut the feeding tubes connecting the girls to the tanks of demonic essence.

The black liquid splashed onto the ground, hissing like acid.

I moved to Maya first—she was closest to losing consciousness. I placed my cold hand on her forehead and channeled a gentle current of ice.

Not to freeze her.

But to force her circulatory system to slow drastically, halting the spread of corruption before it could reach her heart.

I repeated the process with Elina.

Her red eyes began to regain their original color as the cold neutralized the corrupted mana raging through her brain.

“You’re safe now,” I told them, though I knew they couldn’t hear me.

I stood, ice mana swirling around me like a living mantle of frost.

Elliot and his surviving guards had regrouped and were holding off the remaining mages, giving me the space I needed.

From above, Varek watched in horror as his “anomaly” destroyed his enforcer and saved the core of his experiment.

“Impossible! The circle should have nullified you!” he shrieked, his voice cracking with fear.

I ignored him.

My gaze was fixed on Leah.

She had just barely dodged a bite from the fanged demon. She was reaching her limit—the aura of fire around her blade suddenly vanished, a clear sign that her mana reserves had been completely depleted from fighting against the inhibitor.

The demon sensed her weakness.

It roared in triumph and raised both fists to crush her into the ground.

“LEAH!”

I launched myself from the operating table with such force that the stone beneath my feet cracked.

I didn’t step.

I burst forward.

I crossed the distance between us in a single heartbeat, placing myself between the demon and the princess just as its fists came crashing down.

I took the impact directly on my ice mana shield.

The shockwave extinguished the torches, plunging the chamber into darkness illuminated only by the blue glow of my power.

My feet sank into the marble.

But I did not move an inch.

Leah, who had braced for the blow, opened her eyes and saw me.

Her face was covered in soot and exhaustion—but when she saw me, a smile of pure relief lit her features.

“You’re just in time, my guardian,” she gasped, leaning against my back to keep from collapsing.

“I would never let you fight alone for long,” I replied, feeling my power surge in response to her presence.

I turned toward the fanged demon.

It stared at me with a mixture of fury and disbelief.

I had defeated its brother.

And now I had blocked its strongest attack as if it were nothing.

The temperature in the chamber dropped even further, until every breath turned into crystals in the air.

“Now,” I said, raising my sword toward the monster, “it’s my turn.”

The battle in the academy’s depths had entered its final phase.

Varek Valerius was about to learn that it didn’t matter how many magic circles he activated or how many demons he summoned.

There was nothing in this world—or any other—that could stop a woman fighting to protect the heart of her queen.

Absolute ice was ready to claim its victory.

And there would be no mercy for those who dared touch what was mine.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep