Return of the Mythic Bloodline

Chapter 525: Nymeria vs Ragnar

Celestia and Nymeria were engaged in their battle against Ragnar on the Old Bridge of Heidelberg. Or at least, that was how it should have happened.

Before Nymeria had even arrived, she had been lost in her wedding planning, and even now that the battle had begun, she had yet to make any move, standing idle while Celestia bore the brunt of the assault.

Ragnar was a centaur from the Valewood Forest of Rukadvatta, a fierce warrior of formidable strength and unprecedented speed. Together with the sharp dual swords he wielded, he was infamously known as the Blade Tempest, a name that had once struck fear into the hearts of his enemies in Rukadvatta.

That was what he had been before he was corrupted by death. He was now just a towering monster, larger than an elephant and taller than an adult giraffe. His once beautiful emerald eyes had turned dark and hollow, with only a few strands of dead hair remaining on his head, fluttering continuously from the dark aura emerging from his body like smoke from a dying fire.

"Twilight Sword, how dare you betray the Doom," Ragnar roared, his dual swords pressing down upon Celestia with crushing force. "Have you abandoned our world and your family?"

"You are being fooled by the Doom, Ragnar," Celestia muttered from below him, her sword trembling as she held its hilt with one hand and the edge with the other, her arms straining against the weight. "Our world is gone. It will never be revived, not through the destruction of this world, nor the next that the Doom targets."

"Preposterous!" Ragnar roared, the dark aura surrounding him turning violent, flaring outward like a storm. He raised his twin swords high and began frantically unleashing strike after strike upon Celestia, each blow carrying the weight of his fury.

The stone bridge beneath her began cracking and splintering from the impact of his attacks. Her knees slowly bent with each successive blow, her body being driven downward.

Clang!

Ragnar’s barrage of attacks was blocked as a sword with a blade as white as snow appeared before him, a red ribbon fluttering at the edge of its silver hilt. The impact sent sparks flying across the bridge.

"You have no manners," Nymeria muttered, her pale white eyes glaring at Ragnar with cold disdain. "We were in the middle of an important discussion here."

Ragnar’s eyes narrowed as he tried to increase the strength in his arms, his muscles bulging, but before he could overpower her, Celestia drove her blade into one of his massive front legs, stabbing deep into the joint with both hands.

He reared on his back legs from the searing pain, bellowing in agony, his massive frame thrashing. Celestia’s body was pulled upward along with him, dangling from her embedded sword.

Nymeria grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her down, pulling her free as Ragnar staggered backward, increasing the distance between them. His hooves clattered against the stone.

"You claimed that you were the strongest in Rukadvatta, yet you are struggling with a creature that is neither man nor beast," Nymeria asked, her voice laced with disappointment, her creamy eyes narrowing.

Celestia swung her sword in a wide arc, sending dark blood splattering across the stone path below them as she revealed, her voice strained, "My powers are bound to master now. With the distance between us, I cannot access my full strength."

"Do not call him master. It feels weird," Nymeria hissed, as the memories of the wild nights when she had served him as her master appeared in her mind at the word, sending a flush of heat to her cheeks.

"Address him as Lord, or simply just as Taranis," she ordered, her tone leaving no room for discussion.

Celestia was exasperated. A calamitous monster was standing in front of them, ready to strike at any moment, yet Nymeria was more concerned about how Celestia should address her lover.

Before she could reply, Ragnar bolted toward them, his hooves rattling against the stone path, the bridge trembling with each thunderous step.

He attacked Nymeria with one sword and launched a strike at Celestia with the other, each blade swinging with a completely different motion, his arms moving independently. It was as if they were fighting against two separate opponents, each limb acting with its own will.

Due to her suppressed cultivation base, Ragnar possessed greater physical strength than Nymeria. However, because he was a being corrupted by death, his attacks only carried raw power with no precision.

Nymeria easily deflected his strikes, changing their trajectory with effortless grace while launching counterattacks in between. Each of her strikes landed slashes across the centaur’s body, carving shallow wounds into his hide.

The slashes themselves were not the problem. They were shallow wounds that should have been instantly healed by the power bestowed upon him by Doom. The real threat was what followed after each cut.

With every strike, crystal like small snowflakes bloomed on Ragnar’s skin, freezing his blood inside his body around the wound and even preventing his injuries from closing.

His motions grew more sluggish with each passing second as Nymeria continued striking both of his arms through the gaps in his defence, her blade finding its mark again and again.

"What kind of cursed power are you wielding?" He demanded, stepping back in frustration, his hooves scraping against the stone. "How could you suppress the power of death?"

Nymeria grabbed the Frostbite with one hand at her side, its blade pointing downward, the edge gleaming with a cold, pale light.

Her snow white hair began shimmering with the radiance of silver, the mark on her forehead turning bright white from black, glowing like a beacon, as she declared, her tone low yet heavy like an absolute decree, "I am the Snow Goddess who wields the Snowflake Ice of the Sovereign class."

Suddenly, her body turned blurry. Ragnar could only see several translucent copies of her before him, each one reaching closer to him yet every copy carrying the same stance, the sword pointing downward with lethal intent.

"What is happening?" He murmured, confused, raising his blades before his torso in a defensive X, his eyes darting frantically.

The world around him slowly shifted, turning upside down. Gravity seemed to lose its hold. "Did she inject poison through those slashes?"

It was only when he saw the inverted figure of a centaur, his arms and his torso cleanly cut in a diagonal line, did he realize the truth.

"I-I have been slain?"

Thud...

His severed torso fell onto the stone floor, landing with a heavy sound, while Nymeria stood behind his still standing body, which had not yet registered the blow that had killed it.

A wave of gently falling snowflakes covered the path from where she had stood before to where she was standing now, her posture identical to when she had begun the attack.

Moments later, various snowflakes bloomed across both sliced parts of Ragnar’s body, frost spreading through his flesh. His legs buckled, and he fell lifeless to the floor, his massive frame crashing against the stones of the Old Bridge.

"Beautiful..." Strangely, these were the words that left Celestia’s mouth after witnessing the graceful skills with which Nymeria had slain the centaur.

Her lips were parted, her oceanic eyes fixed on Nymeria’s figure as her hair returned to normal, the brilliance of her forehead mark fading, darkening once more.

"You did not even need my help," Celestia said, sheathing her sword with a soft click as she moved closer to Nymeria, her armoured boots echoing against the stone. "Why did Mast—Lord Taranis send me to support you?"

"I second that, Celestia," Nymeria said, placing her sword back into her storage ring with a casual flick of her wrist. "The monster possessed more Soulforce and physical strength than I do. Thanks to you keeping half of his focus occupied, I managed to slow his movements with my ice."

"Would you have lost if I were not here?" Celestia asked, her eyes carrying genuine curiosity. She could not picture the scenario of Nymeria losing at all, the possibility seemed absurd.

"It would have been a little inconvenient without you," Nymeria said, her pale eyes shifting to Ragnar’s corpse, studying the frost creeping across his form. "But I would have won."

With a graceful sway of her hand, the frost from Ragnar’s torso spread across his body, covering both severed sections in two coffins of diamond like ice.

"He sent me with you because he did not want to inconvenience you?" Celestia asked, her brows furrowing with genuine confusion, struggling to grasp the logic.

Nymeria moved the centaur’s icy coffin into her storage ring as she whispered with a serene smile, her voice soft, "What can I do? He just loves me that much."

Celestia released a long sigh, shaking her head. Her master was setting the new standards of the bare minimum that she had not witnessed in Rukadvatta.

"Where should we teleport to next?" Celestia asked, her eyes turning serious.

Nymeria’s fingers pressed against her chin as she considered the question, "The next closest SS rift is in Rome and Cairo. Let us move to Rome first."

Celestia nodded, her hand moving to the teleportation array prepared on her palm. With a flash of pink light, both women vanished from the Old Bridge, leaving behind only the petals of plum blossoms and the remnants of their fight.