Chapter 16: The Hunt of the Blood Demon Princess

The rain poured relentlessly.

Ira stood on the rooftop, her eyes closed.

In an instant, all surrounding sights became transparent to her senses. Only the scent of blood lingered in Ira’s mind.

Soon, the distinct aroma of Mona’s blood flooded her nostrils. Ira opened her eyes, a crimson thread visible only to her, guiding her way.

‘I’ve found you.’

Ira cast a cold glance at the city below, then transformed into a swarm of blood bats, vanishing into the rainy night.

“Hiss-ha!”

The Spider Cadaver Beast crawled hoarsely through the forest. It meticulously tracked the scent of black sludge, inching closer to its suddenly vanished prey.

It had taken less than ten minutes to defeat Magical Girl Kunhong, Mona’s transformed self. Just as it prepared to devour both her and the little girl Mona had protected, a mass of unknown black sludge abruptly appeared, whisking them away.

‘A companion wants to steal my prey, it seems.’

The Spider Cadaver Beast’s hideous face twisted into a vicious grin. Its eight spider legs, bristling with anger, splayed open behind it. In a flash, countless strands of black sludge-formed webbing sliced through all the trees obstructing its view.

‘It doesn’t matter. That Magical Girl has already been marked. I just need to follow the scent.’

‘She’s just ahead.’

‘The food is right there!’

The Spider Cadaver Beast swiftly crawled to Mona’s training ground. It could sense that its quarry was indeed in this very place!

‘Where are they?’

The vast training ground was empty. The Spider Cadaver Beast crawled onto a central rock; the bloodstains upon it had been washed clean by the rain, yet it could still faintly detect Mona’s scent.

Just then, the bristly hairs on the Spider Cadaver Beast’s legs stood on end. It could feel the webs it had cast around being destroyed by someone else. Simultaneously, a potent attack surged towards it.

It instinctively leaped, dodging a crescent-shaped blade wave that spun as it attacked.

“You have no right to dodge.”

Accompanying a cold, emotionless voice, the Spider Cadaver Beast felt the surrounding space warp slightly. In the blink of an eye, its body was returned to its position two seconds prior.

This time, Ira’s attack had already reached its front.

Bzzzt! (TL Note: Sound of cutting)

The blade wave precisely severed four of its left-side spider legs. Black blood gushed from the wounds, mixing with the rain as it splashed onto the ground.

However, these black bloodstains, mixed with rainwater and resembling filth polluting the earth, soon began to float.

Ira descended from the dark clouds, stepping gracefully down a staircase formed by countless blood-red small bats. At that precise moment, lightning flashed, illuminating Ira’s masked face, as cold as frost, and the scythe in her hand, dripping with black blood.

The five blood-red stars on her scythe glowed under the lightning’s illumination. The Spider Cadaver Beast stared, dumbfounded, at Ira before it.

“Five stars… you are the Blood Demon Princess’s second master!” A low, guttural voice, accompanied by a chewing sound, emanated from the Spider Cadaver Beast’s maw.

The creatures of the Abyss possess a clear hierarchical system. The stars on their bodies symbolize their strength and authority, as well as their degree of contamination upon the world. A higher-starred individual holds absolute dominion over a lower-starred one, save for matters of life and death. To increase their stars, a lower-starred creature must either employ every means to kill a higher-starred one, or further pollute the surface world.

They can grow stronger by polluting the surface world, or by killing and devouring their own kind.

These were the Cadaver Beasts—monsters born from the black sludge, contaminating and mutating the creatures of the surface world.

They were inherently destined to slaughter one another until their very last breath.

Within the Abyss, Ira knew of only two five-starred beings: her elder sister, the Dark Demon Princess, and herself, the Blood Demon Princess.

As for six stars, Ira had heard Leila mention that a six-starred Cadaver Beast was imprisoned in the deepest reaches of the Abyss. Not even Leila was a match for its combined might, and only by defeating it could one ascend to six stars.

Yet now, the Spider Cadaver Beast, a two-tiered jump, faced Ira, the five-starred Blood Demon Princess, one of the known pinnacles of the Abyss.

Its body, composed of black sludge, disregarded the intense pain, forcefully kneeling before Ira.

Ira did not acknowledge the Spider Cadaver Beast’s genuflection. She merely raised two fingers slightly, and the suspended black blood she controlled surged towards the Spider Cadaver Beast’s wounds.

“Return from whence you came.”

‘How dare your filthy blood presume to pollute this world?’

Ira coldly manipulated the blood, which swiftly burrowed into the Spider Cadaver Beast’s body, eliciting a cry of agony.

It instantly understood that Ira intended to kill it.

Enduring the excruciating pain, the Spider Cadaver Beast staggered to its feet, aimed its spider legs at Ira, and shot out countless strands of webbing.

Lower-starred Cadaver Beasts instinctively obey the commands of higher-starred ones, but their aggressive actions are not suppressed. A lower-starred Cadaver Beast can attack a higher-starred one at any time and place.

Innumerable black sludge-produced webs threaded through every corner of the forest, ready to launch a concerted attack on Ira.

‘Rather than sit idly by and be killed, I’ll fight for a chance!’

In an instant, thousands of black webs lunged at Ira. Any trees that merely touched the black sludge webs were immediately severed and quickly corrupted and decayed by the sludge.

Black sludge webs from all directions blanketed Ira, making her seem like a bird trapped in a cage, unable to escape this inescapable net.

Alas, this was far from an inescapable net, and Ira was no caged bird; she was a hawk soaring above the world!

Ira sneered, then simply snapped her fingers, aiming at the Spider Cadaver Beast, whose expression was already twisted in agony from the blood reflux, lying on the ground.

Time seemed to stand still.

“Blood Beckon.”

The Spider Cadaver Beast’s eyes, like black orbs, widened. It could feel a powerful force coursing through its body, spreading little by little from its wounds to its entire form.

In a flash, the black blood that had flowed back into its wounds exploded, triggering a chain reaction of explosions from the other black blood within its body.