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Looking below, she saw what was precluding her escape- a black, bony hand that had sprung up from the cracked ground, covered in patches of a malodorous brown liquid that seriously made her want to barf.

So it was just a bony hand that was restricting her? She didn't scoff at this verity but took the issue gravely.
This hand... Did it belong to a demon that hadn't fully made its appearance yet, or what King Drake actually summoned was just an arm and nothing else? Whichever was the case, she still had to be careful.

With a little more effort, she liberated herself from its hold, but there was no time to feel relieved, as she unexpectedly felt immense pressure above her, which immediately nullified her levitating ability.
She dropped to the ground and found to her astonishment that the hand that she'd escaped from had surprisingly duplicated. The two hands elongated and grabbed her feet tightly.

‘Jeez! I can’t believe two hands are restraining me!’ she thought as she struggled to get free, to no avail. She then looked up with some difficulty and saw a massive glowing red palm shrouded in black fog levitating.
"Gosh!" she exclaimed in stupefaction. She'd never seen anything like this. Looking at the king once again, she saw he was having a tough time remaining conscious, his eyes were bleeding and he ended up stabbing himself with a black knife at the shoulder, while he gritted his teeth, using his sceptre as an aid to continue standing. That grey book was still levitating in front of him.

She couldn’t use any of her tails to snatch it, as the pressure exerted by the hand above was really much.
'Well then, I have no choice,' she turned invisible and the bony hands were forced to let go, as her legs transformed into a mermaid tail.
While the hands were attempting to hold on once again to her nonexistent legs, Lavana crept away, with a lot of difficulty, from the reach of the two hands and then teleported out of the garden entirely. She didn’t have any particular place in mind, but anywhere was probably better than where that quirky red hand was.

The two hands went back into the ground but the large hand floating above started moving, heading towards the late queen’s mansion, while the determined king sat in a meditative pose on the ground, the book now resting on his thighs. He slit his right wrist open and placed his bleeding hand on the particular book page, resolutely muttering inaudible words.
***
Lavana found herself on the floor of a dark place. Returning back to human form with her gemstone still in appearance, she rose and looked around the room as her gemstone served as a torch.
She gulped after seeing that the extra spacious room didn’t just have a very high bed, it also was filled with a lot of spooky
decorations.

The entrance double doors were locked from the outside. That wasn’t a problem for her, as she could teleport out of it.
Nevertheless, since she was here already, with the light from her gemstone, she wanted to explore for a bit. She knew that there was a big chance she hadn’t successfully escaped that mysterious glowing hand yet, but if it attacked her again, she’d be better prepared for it.

The large framed picture hung on the wall had the image of the queen wearing a black crown and silver gown, looking sinister.
Lavana ignored it and headed to the study that was attached to her room. Upon entering it, she saw a lot of books, neatly arranged on the shelves; all of them had black covers.

‘How does she even differentiate them when they don’t even have titles on them?’ she wondered.
There was also an exquisite wooden table and two chairs in the middle atop a round brown carpet. On the table was a large black book that was left open. The words on the visible pages she couldn’t comprehend, so she didn’t bother with it.
As she was about to exit the study, her hand accidentally brushed the wooden vase that was placed on one of the ends of the table a bit. It almost fell, but she caught it and placed it back on the table in its previous spot.

The shelves on her left parted immediately, revealing a secret passageway. She was floored by this occurrence.
“Lavana, there’s something in this hidden place. You have to go in,” Cephina suddenly spoke.
“Oh? Is it something that concerns us?” Lavana asked in bewilderment. The passage was dark and looked creepy.
“Yeah,” Cephina responded.
“Okay then,” Lavana nodded her agreement. Since Cephina viewed it as important, then, she would go in. But first, she had to inform her cherished one, just in case.
“Phoenix?” she mindlinked her mate.

“Yes, darling. Are you alright over there? Did the king give you a hard time?” came her mate’s reply.
“Um… he summoned three hands. I think I got rid of two of them. But the third hand, although I have temporarily escaped it, I know it’ll come for me,”
“Where are you currently?”
“In the late queen’s study,”
“How do I get to it?”
“It’s attached to her bedroom. A secret passage has just opened. I want to go check it out,” she revealed before adding, “I just wanted to inform you,”
“What? Why didn’t you say so earlier, mate?”

Immediately, golden light appeared close to her and Phoenix’s figure was soon seen after the light faded. He immediately turned around and took out a loose green gown with pink petals as a design.
“Catch,” he threw it to her without looking back. She caught it, expressed her gratitude and quickly put it on.
“You can turn around now, mate,” she said with arms crossed.

“Okay, my dear,” Phoenix turned around, “Lavie, you look good in everything,” he complimented with a smile.
“Thank you, mate. I have to ask, though. Why did you appear here so soon?”
“How will I let my beloved mate brave the unknown alone?” he smilingly asked.
She shook her head and sighed at his response, “You’re afraid that I’d get hurt or be in mortal danger?”

Rubbing his palms together, he responded, “Honestly, that’s one of the reasons I’m here,”
Uncrossing her arms, she asked the last question, “So, what’s the other reason?”
“I also want to explore and know what the queen’s hiding. I’m also itching for a battle. The two snakes were not enough for my copy to kill. They actually caused lots of damage in the kingdom before I sent them to hell though.”
“How big were they?” she curiously asked as they entered the secret passageway together.

He responded, “They were very big when I first met them in the forbidden cell. I went to, you know, deal with that General Karlh and his subordinates. I just beat them a little, at least they won't be sitting for a year. Then I visited their treasure house. There were some things that I liked. So I took some of them and left the rest. It should be enough to repair the damage done in the kingdom, I think,”
“What exactly did you take?”
“Um… I found precious herbs, medicines for rare diseases, prized military books, precious stones… I didn’t take too much of everything,”
“So... what do they have left?”
“I’ll just show you when we’re done here,” he said, hands in his pockets as he walked leisurely while she shook her head with a sigh.

“They almost emptied our treasure house once. And I nearly got killed too, if it weren’t for a late general who saved my life back then. So I swore to become stronger, so no one would die because of me. It’s not easy to get into this kingdom without a jade pass. Now I got here so freely, of course, I’ll return the favour. I didn’t kill anyone like they did back then though,”
She didn’t reply to him and instead increased her pace.
“Are you angry at me, Lavie?”
“Yes,”
He sighed, “I’ll put everything back, if that will make you happy, okay?”

“No. I want you to empty the treasure house and set it on fire. They hurt you so badly, we're just returning the favour by hurting their pockets, alright,”
“Whoa. That’s nice of you to suggest. We kill no one but cause some 'little' damage,"
"Destroy the food storehouses too,"

"That's a great idea," Phoenix gave his mate a thumbs up, "At least they won’t come with intent of attacking when they have a food shortage and lack the funds to repair the ruined places. I'll also make sure the wiz hospitals are filled to the brim,”
“Just don't paralyze anyone for life, unless the person resists. I’ll have to get rid of that mysterious hand while you make some dents in the land,” she added smilingly.
Phoenix chuckled, “Sure thing, dear,”

***
10 minutes later…

“I guess this was a bad choice to come to explore this secret place,” Lavana said telepathically as she stopped herself from puking, by covering her mouth.
The smell in the part of the passageway they were in was really awful. Cephina didn’t reply but went back to slumber. Sure, she did have the habit of her former spirits- the love of beauty sleep.
“Relax, dear. We’re already in here. Even if we don’t find anything worthwhile, at least we get to explore,” he said after handing her a white face veil that would help with the terrible smell.

Lavana’s gemstone was no longer in sight as her mate had brought out a glowing white pearl that could surprisingly levitate. He told her that he’d cast some kind of spell on it the day he got it, so it could continually levitate, unless when its inside his spatial ring.
“Phoenix, how is it that you don’t need a veil or mask for this kind of horrible smell?” Lavana was forced to ask after wearing the veil.
“Well… I’ll explain later. We’ve got company,” he said, taking out his peacock fan in readiness.
Suddenly five creatures materialized not too far ahead of the couple- all belonging to the same species. They were giant lions that had huge golden eagle wings, blocking the duo’s path, looking ready for their prey.
“Handle these, I’ll take on the ones ahead,” Phoenix said before vanishing.

“I’ll use you guys as practice then,” she said, charging at them with a battle cry, taking off her gown in the process and transforming into her Olmpha form.
Before she could reach them in her giant form, 18 more of these creatures appeared, along with one last one that had two glowing grey horns.
'I guess that must be the leader,' she thought as she turned on her invisibility skill.
The creatures who were ready to pounce on their prey were stunned when they saw nothing. Then. unexpectedly, a low growl of pain was heard, compelling them to turn back.

Their leader was in mid-air, struggling to get free from the tail of a wolf sovereign that was tightly wrapped around its neck.
Angered, they flew towards the giant wolf, not in the least bothered by the fact that she was bigger than them.
Lavana’s main tail was wrapped around the creature leader’s neck while the other eight dealt with the rest.

...
A few minutes later, the 22 creatures that had been trying to kill her were dead, except for one, the leader.
She’d thought he’d been strangled to death, just like the others but just when she was about to pick up her gown, its eyes unexpectedly glowed a red colour and it got to its feet.
The two-horned lion became larger than her Olmpha size, its tail elongated and turned into a draconic tail. The horns on its head became even longer.
“Wow!” she was forced to exclaim as the gown fell from her right hand.
“You have angered me, female. I will tear you to a thousand pieces and bury your dismembered body with my minions!” she heard a masculine voice.
Her mate wasn’t here with her, just this vexed lion that had gone through some changes. The force of its roar pushed her meters away and her tails prevented her from falling to the ground.
“Go to hell!” she heard the voice again as the creature ran towards her.
She immediately became invisible, flying towards the approaching beast.
“It’s no use becoming invisible, wimp. I can f*cking see where you are!"

“Since it’s that way,” she cancelled her invisibility and launched huge fireballs at the creature in quick succession. It dodged quite a number of them but the ones that hit it only burnt a few fur before quenching.
“Cephina, wake up,”
“I’m already awake,” the latter replied. Appearing before Lavana, although invisible to the enraged beast.
“What sort of creature is this?” she was forced to ask her battle assistant.
“That is a demon lion and a conscious beast,”

“Conscious beast?” Lavana asked in befuddlement as she used her tails to throw the creature backwards by a few meters. It was really heavy, she had to admit.
Cephina continued her explanation, “Conscious beasts are very challenging to tame and even harder to kill. I think it’s as strong as a low-ranked sorcerer now that it’s shown its ultimate form,”
“What?” she exclaimed in disbelief.

“Demon beasts are usually very strong. Even a baby can be as strong as a low-ranked certified wizard, Lavana. This one couldn’t be tamed and neither killed. I guess it was just put here as a guard to prevent intruders from getting further. The others you killed are just it’s meat shield,”
“Okay. You know its weak point?”
“Same as a wolf’s,”
“Okay,”
“Defeat it without using any ability related to your other two forms,” Cephina said before going back to slumber.
“Okay,” Lavana transformed into her wolf form. This time, she wasn’t going to teleport, fly, use ice chains nor telekinesis and definitely not lightning.

‘I think she’s implying that I’ve been relying too much on my several abilities,’ she thought as she charged at the roaring conscious creature.
As they collided, a ferocious fight ensued, with the beast trying to impale the Olmpha with its horns or bite its neck deeply.
Lavana sent it flying backwards a few minutes later with many scratches from her claws and before it could stabilize itself again, she charged at it, using two of her tails to grab its wings, to prevent it from flying. The maddened lion struggled to be free, resulting in both wings being torn off as the Olmpha’s tails had used more strength at pulling.

Her tails flung the wings far away from the infuriated creature.
'Now you won’t be flying anymore,’ Lavana thought in triumph as she pounced on the lion, the fierce fight resuming again. Despite being weakened by the loss of its wings, the lion still had much vitality to spare.
“Olmpha, I will cut off those tails of yours,”
'Like I’m scared,’ Lavana thought as she bit its back, pulling out a chunk of flesh.
“I’m no regular Olmpha. I came here, not to die. It is your honour to serve as my punching bag temporarily, she mind linked the lion, spitting fireballs at its face.

It was forced to give some distance between them.
The fire in her Olmpha form was more potent as shown by the damage to its face. If it continued, he’d end up dying which was a shame to him- a demon lion.
“Revenge after ten years is not too late,” he said before turning around to flee.
She returned to her human form and chased after it.
“You go nowhere, big cat,” she yelled as she launched fire spheres at it.
…
Minutes later, with the swipe of her long, sharp claws, she cut off the beast's head successfully, her body stained with blood.
“Congratulations on taking down the conscious beast,” said the awakened Cephina, “You still have much to learn. Some abilities are yet to be unlocked. Keep training harder and one might be unlocked soon,” With that, Cephina went to sleep.
Lavana sighed and flew backwards to where she’d left the gown and picked it up.

Too bad there was no water to clean up. It was fine still; she could do that after they got out of the passageway. She flew forward, heading in the direction that she sensed Phoenix was.
Reaching there, she saw two of his copies battling numerous giant black spiders that made the demon lion she just killed look like a friendly cat in comparison.

Phoenix in question was seated on his sceptre Enzo, palms pressed together with his eyes a glowing viridian.
“Mate, you’re done with that beast?” she heard him mind link to her.
“Sullivan, aren’t you supposed to be focused on your copies at least?” she questioned.
He responded, “Don’t worry. The spiders aren’t that much of a threat. I feel we're close to whatever it is they are meant to protect,”