When the shell of the gigantic egg cracked and splintered, grey mist hissed from the fissures and dissolved into the air.
With the waning misty fog came the appearance of a form. A feminine form.
Slender and beautifully curved as she sashayed out of the crumpled shell.
Long vivid pink hair bounced down her back to the base of her trim waist, and her legs were long and graceful as she ambled closer.
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The only avian features about her were the tiny wings just peaking behind her back and the hawkish penetration of her gaze.
It was totally normal for a full blooded male's heart to skip a couple of beats at the sight of such temptation.
Caedren didn't dissapoint.
And it had been a while since he'd seen anything remotely close to such beauty.
It was safe to say that for a moment there he was utterly mesmerized.
He managed to shake it off at the last second, and lifted the Shadow Sword with a threat.
"That's close enough…woman."
God, how dare his voice sound so thick.
But the seductress…lady chose not to obey.
Piercing ruby pink eyes fixed on him, she drew ever closer, ignoring the blade pointed at her chest until it hovered just within the dip of her…well, ample cleavage.
An observer would've agreed that the amount of seconds Caedren spent fixated on her bold bossom was totally unnecessary and unavoidable.
Caedren cleared his throat.
"One more step and I'll slit your brea…throat."
She stared at him for so long he feared she planned to burn him to ashes with the power of her eyes.
What she did next shocked even the Monarch wherever he existed in the tower.
She dropped to her knees.
Caedren stumbled back, his thoughts fleeing to unholy places. With their current relative positioning it was easy to misunderstand.
Her head bowed, a couple of bangs falling in front of her soft face.
"I surrender, Master Valerian."
Caedren cocked his head. He was indeed Valerian but the ''master' attached to it sounded strange. Not in a good or bad way.
Also, this wasn't how he'd expected it to go.
The woman, whoever she was, obviously existed as the Boss of this floor.
Shouldn't she be defending her territory.
Something seemed amiss here.
He eyed her warily.
"Who are you?"
"Ariadne Derythsea, Princess of Perdition."
He frowned. Surely he'd heard her wrong.
"Princess of what?"
She responded with action.
Swift, quick, and sly as a fox, she whipped an arm back to pull her weapon from a dimensional pocket and slammed the bulbous head into Caedren's chest.
The pain was instant and consuming.
The force threw his body ten feet across to crash into a jarring boulder.
Whizzing from the flames roaring in his chest and down his back, he blinked away the invading darkness in his vision.
He squinted at Ariadne and almost gagged.
Oh no, she was still curvy and slender.
The sharp beak beneath her nose and fluffy pink feathers sprouting over her face and upper body was a huge turn off though.
Wide pink wings spread out from her back, the wingspan of about twenty feet.
The short club in her hand hosted a massive round head of pure gold and specked with silver spikes.
A tiara of similar make sat nestled on her hair.
The whole ''princess of perdition'' hashtag now made sense.
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Caedren pushed to his feet. His upper body still throbbed, but at least he wasn't injured.
His coat had absorbed the brunt of the impact.
In the prison garb he'd probably have gotten off with punctured lungs, broken ribs and a dislodged heart. Best case scenario, that was.
"Your beast mode is a little underwhelming, princess." He stretched the princess to sound like something festering.
Ariadne didn't find it funny.
She screeched like her more feathery and animalistic colleagues before shooting towards him, club raised to do bodily harm.
Caedren didn't wait around to discover just how much damage her full throttle attack would cause.
He swerved to the right but still felt the groan of the club as it smashed the boulder to smithereens.
He arched the sword but met empty air. His fist got some joy as he jammed it into her side.
Talons swiped twin cuts down his shoulder but couldn't break skin.
He grabbed her hair and brought the sword towards her neck…
She blinked at him with sparkling eyes and his heart skipped. Again. One time was a mistake. Second's asking for trouble.
Immediately a heady scent oozed off her to invade his nose and the soft feathers of her chest tickled his arm.
He was caught, hook, line and sinker.
He dodged the club swinging towards his head at the last second but couldn't get away fast enough.
It slammed into his shoulder with such force that he tumbled down.
The bitch of a princess packed quite a punch in those slender arms.
She stood over his fallen form, club pointed down and face twisted into a smirk. Her beaks ended up looking like crushed sandwiches.
"You ready to surrender to me, Master Valerian?"
Despite the flaring ache in his side with each breath he drew, he grinned.
"Not nearly."
He kicked her legs from under her, and snapped up to grab her waist as she fell.
Her wings flapped but his weight was enough to pull her down.
The Shadow Sword thrummed as he slashed it towards her exposed neck…
He hesitated at the last second before ending her existence.
Yes, foolish move. Burn that bozo of an MC for being so daft. Off with his head!
But he couldn't…not hesitate.
She was a beast, a boss beast for that matter, but she looked so human right now.
He'd never killed anyone before.
And that was a line he wasn't quite ready to cross. Yet.
The she-devil did not miss her moment.
She offered him a pitiful smile. "Fool."
Her talons dug deep into his neck, gushing blood over her face.
Well, there was no worse pain than dying.
Again.
👽
The Monarch is in charge.
👽
No shit!
The moment of unconsciousness was startlingly brief this time.
Ariadne Derythsea, self proclaimed Princess of Perdition, blinked once and lost him.
Shocked, she wiped the blood from her eyes and scrambled up.
On looking around she found nothing, not even a trace of the man she'd just battled. His blood vanished from her body too.
She cocked her head, mind whirring around to make sense of it.
"Did I kill him?"
What a shame.
He'd been quite something to look at. Totally her spec in the breathtakingly handsome and tall department.
Under different circumstances she'd have shoved her talons into his ruffled silver hair and kissed him to the moon.
Even as she soared into the air, she kept revisiting how his weight had felt pressing her to the ground.
Yeah, what a shame.
If he wasn't dead then he'd return.
And she'd be here. Waiting.
Ready to possess him.
After all, seducing young handsome men was her most rewarding hobby.
Good thing she had the skills and abilities to match.