The Northern Coast of the Eastern Continent

Draven von Nightborne walks alongside his twin sister, Aurora von Nightborne, as their force of three thousand Class IV demons marches onto the coast from the tundra bordering it. And as the vampire walks, he constantly keeps his guard up, watching for any potential enemies. But no matter how many times he looks, he doesn’t find anything across the nearly endless tundra. All the way till they all climb downhill and arrive directly in at the coastline.

“Stay vigilant,” he shouts at the other demons now that they’ve entered an easy ambush location.

Because no matter how many times the witch assigned to his forces says the humans don’t know of their existence, he won’t believe her. Not fully, at least.

Not when the humans have the Purple Knight of Humanity on their side, even if she’s not known to directly participate in small-scale conflicts.

Draven glances at his twin, finding the woman to appear as nonchalant as ever.

Both of the twins have been relatively detached from others aside from themselves for as long as they can remember, but Aurora is even more detached than Draven. And neither of them have much trust in other demons.

Not that that’s an uncommon thing amongst demons.

The two of them both have long white hair with the appearance of late teenagers despite their level, crimson eyes, and are wearing matching sets of black leather armor.

‘This operation is running too smoothly,’ Draven says to Aurora through their shared telepathy, making his sister nod her head. ‘Do you think the Purple Knight warned them about us and they’re setting up an ambush? Or do they simply not know of our arrival?’

Aurora purses her lips for a second before shrugging.

Draven sighs.

If I had to guess, they’re most likely unaware of our march. The Purple Knight isn’t one to care about forces as small as ours even if me and Aurora are leading here.

The two vampires continue marching across the coast before they split up at the sight of a large cliff overlooking a small stretch of coast, with Aurora heading to the back of the group and Draven staying at the front. And after tightening the demons’ formation a little, they slowly begin to head across the several-dozen-meter-long stretch of coast in front of the cliff.

If anywhere would be a good place for an ambush…

A loud clicking sound echoes throughout the area, followed by a shattering sound as the space in a large cube around them fractures.

…this would be it.

Draven immediately lets out a hiss as he raises both of his arms, spreading blood out around him with his Blood Surge skill along with making a Blood Barrier over his skin. And at the same time all of the demons immediately begin activating their own defense skills.

But some of them are too late when bolts of all kinds begin swarming down around them, killing more than a few of the demons in the ambush despite their preparation.

Draven grits his teeth as he raises his hands, pushing the surge of blood up into the air to envelop a half of the attacks. Meanwhile his twin sends a surge of darkness up to envelop the other half. This gives the other demons time to recover and begin sending their own attacks back up to the top of the cliff, shattering the spatial barrier that was set up there to cover the ambushers’ presence.

At first glance Draven begins to grin since all he sees are weak Class III and IV humans.

Then his grin vanishes in an instant when something jumps down from the cliff, absorbing all of the blood in his attack without even slowing down before landing on the ground and smashing through hundreds of demons.

Draven’s eyes widen in shock and fear at the sight of the bloody mist flowing through the area that used to be the demons the girl just crushed. A girl he recognizes very well.

The girl has black hair with lightly glowing crimson streaks, glowing crimson eyes that reflect off of the snow falling down around them, and blood-red armor Draven easily recognizes as being made of Blood Metal. He even recognizes the Blood Runes shimmering in his vision thanks to his own legendary rarity skill related to blood runes.

“Her Highness…” he mutters, feeling fear at the mere idea that someone other than the Demon King could simply wrestle control of his own blood magic from him. And that fear only shoots up a notch when the Princess turns to look directly at him and grins.

Damn it…

Draven immediately feels the royal order flowing through him from the Demon Prince, Leonidas. One he gave to every Noble demon within the level range of his daughter, the Princess.

An order to fight the Princess to the death should she not have her crest out so that she can continue to grow stronger. Unless it’s simply just throwing their lives away, since that wouldn’t benefit her at all.

So without hesitation, Draven, driven partially by the royal order, manifests dozens of blades made out of blood above him and throws them all at the princess.

Only for his eyes to widen in both shock and fear at the sight of the blades directly striking the Princess and instead of harming her, merging into her skin and making her skin begin to glow a faint red.

Blood magic used against her… empowers her?!

Draven flinches as the Princess begins slaughtering the Class IV demons in between him and herself, only to be sent flying by a bolt of darkness sent by his sister. But she quickly gets back up while a massive hole in her side completely heals under his very eyes.

Then she just shakes her head and frowns, focusing on Aurora.

All while attacks continue raining down on the force of demons under Draven’s command from the Class IVs above that have gone unhindered thanks to the Princess’s presence.

Draven grits his teeth and begins using his higher rarity blood magic skills, refusing to believe that she could be fully immune to blood magic. And just as he expected, the moment the massive orb of blood from his Blood Fall skill hits her, she grits her teeth and has to push back against it.

So she can only absorb blood magic of a certain rarity and below.

He narrows his eyes slightly and makes eye contact with his twin then looks back at the Princess again.

This’ll be tough.