Royal Secret: I'm a Princess!

Chapter 1041: BLINDSIDED (1)

VETON.

Neoma remembered that there was a time Ruto left his Thunderbird in her care.

Actually, her man wanted to leave Veton to her before he left for the Upper World. But since she already had Kingston this time, she refused.

Plus, Ruto is facing Helstor there, so he needs to be as OP as possible.

The fact that Veton was here could only mean one thing.

"Come here, Veton," Neoma said, extending her to the side. "Come to mama."

She saw Lewis, from her peripheral vision, look at her in disbelief.

"That bird isn’t my brother, Princess Neoma."

"Are you changing your catchphrase?" Neoma asked, laughing softly. "Well, I suppose Veton is like your stepbrother since he’s Ruto’s son."

Lewis just scoffed.

My ’son’ really hates Ruto, huh?

Anyway, Veton started descending— causing a few mages to panic.

Well, it might be a natural reaction since the Thunderbird was a giant bird. Hence, its flapping wings caused quite a strong wind.

However, the closer Veton got, the smaller he became.

When the Thunderbird finally landed on Neoma’s forearm, it was only the size of a hawk.

It’s heavy, though.

"Hi, Veton," Neoma greeted the Thunderbird cheerfully. Yes, she sounded lively. But she was serious as hell. Ruto wouldn’t send his Elemental Guardian to her without a reason. "Why did your dad send you here?"

Veton answered through telepathy, the Thunderbird’s stone cold voice echoed in her mind.

<Princess Neoma, the God of Eternal Darkness proposed a rule change...>

"What?!"

Lewis, Paige Avery, and Greko immediately surrounded Neoma worriedly.

"Did something happen, Princess Neoma?" Paige Avery asked. "Is it related to what happened to the tower?"

Greko tugged at Neoma’s sleeve while glancing at Veton worriedly. "Are you okay, Eomma?"

"No, Helstor pulled some shitty stunt behind my back," Neoma said, almost growling. She then looked at Paige Avery. "I need to return to the palace. Take care of whatever needs to be taken care of. And rein Lucien Attewell, too. It looks like that crazy kid would bomb the unaffected towers at this rate."

"I’ll take care of both the clean-up and the crazy kid, Princess Neoma," Paige Avery said confidently. "Can I say that the Imperial Family will pay for the damages?"

"Sure. Give a detailed report to Melvin Luchessi later," Neoma said, and then she turned to Greko. "Our maknae, check on the injured mages. Can I leave them to you?"

Greko beamed and nodded. "Yes, Eomma. I’ll take care of everyone here!"

"Good," Neoma said while patting Greko’s head, and then he turned to Lewis. "Let’s go, Lewis— Veton has a teleportation skill that we can use to return to the palace ASAP."

***

AH, our training at the Dead World was worth it.

That was Hanna’s thought as her Shadow Veil started absorbing the ’blood’ of the artificial minor god that tried to attack her earlier.

Yes, her Shadow Veil could do that now.

I only use the Shadow Veil as a barrier. But the Pirate Princess from the Dead World taught her a lot of useless things.

She still remembered what the Pirate Princess said to her at the time.

"You probably don’t know, but Darkness is starting to emerge and envelope this world. Just because we have Darkness attribute doesn’t mean we’re safe from it. Darkness isn’t inherently evil. But once ’Malice’ is mixed in, that’s when Darkness becomes evil and dangerous."

"Malice?"

"It’s the thing that the God of Eternal Darkness is using to turn Darkness into something harmful, especially to humans. As its name suggests, Malice is all the evil things in the world combined. I don’t know how they created Malice, but yeah. It’s the thing that makes Darkness deadly."

"Then how do we get rid of it?"

"We just do."

"What do you mean by that?"

"The Quinzels are the Malice’s natural enemy— we can purify it with our Darkness."

"We are that powerful?"

"Why do you think the crows tried to kill me when I was just a kid?"

"Ah, that makes sense. Can you teach me how to purify Malice?"

"Are you ready to be the enemy of the God of Eternal Darkness?"

"I accepted that fate the moment I swore my loyalty to Neoma."

"Malice..."

"What does ’malice’ mean in this context?"

"I learned from the me of the Dead World that Helstor mixed Malice with Darkness to turn Darkness into something evil and harmful to humans, Your Majesty. Apparently, Malice is made up of all evil things combined," Hanna explained to the former Emperor Nikolai de Moonasterio. "That makes that kind of Darkness dangerous even to the Quinzels."

"Ah, I see. Then step back. I’ll deal with it with my divine power."

"Your Majesty, I’d like to use the new technique that I learned from the other me. It’s a technique to purify the Malice from the Darkness."

"Alright," the former Emperor Nikolai de Moonasterio said. "Hanna Quinzel, now I understand why you and Neoma get along so well— you are both fearless. And stubborn. But you get things done, so I’m not complaining."

Hanna laughed softly. "That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard from you, Your Majesty. Thank you."

The former emperor just gave her a small smile before gesturing for her to do whatever she was planning to do.

And she did.

Hanna remembered that Neoma taught her how to gather Darkness onto her plate.

She closed her eyes while concentrating.

Which is actually my Core, but Neoma is a natural genius, so she doesn’t bother with the details she deems unnecessary.

Anyway, instead of using her Core— since she didn’t want to strain her heart, the ’home’ of the Core— she used the Shadow Veil to absorb the Darkness. But the more she absorbed the Darkness coming from the artificial minor god’s ’blood,’ the more her skin crawled from disgust.

Even without touching it directly, she could feel just how disgusting that thing called Malice was.

Now she finally understood what the Pirate Princess meant by then...

"You just have to spit out the Malice, you know?"

"Are you Neoma? Why are you explaining things in a vague manner, and expect me to understand it?"

"Hey, you’ll know. You’ve probably encountered Malice before. But since you didn’t know what it is, you didn’t pay attention to it. However, that just goes to show that you are, indeed, the natural enemy of Malice. For people like us, we just instinctively know if there’s something wrong with the Darkness we encounter. And even without knowing what it is, we just purify it."

"And how do we purify it?"

"I told you already— just spit it out."

"And I’m asking you— how do I spit Malice out?"

"You’ll know when the time comes."

Haaah.

Hanna didn’t want to admit it, but the Pirate Princess was right.

She knew instinctively what to do.

Let’s spit it out.

***

SSSZZZ...

Nikolai raised an eyebrow when he heard sizzling sounds around him.

Hanna Quinzel’s Shadow Veil was absorbing the Darkness coming from the fake minor god’s ’blood.’

But it didn’t end there.

Nikolai noticed that the Shadow Veil was purifying the Malice mixed into the Darkness.

He could just tell what was happening.

Probably because I still have Quinzel blood in me.

A few moments later, the smoke coming from the different parts of the Shadow Veil started to evaporate.

The ominous feeling that he felt earlier had already disappeared.

And Hanna Quinzel did that all by herself.

Gavin Quinzel— you are no longer the genius of the Quinzel Clan.

***

MONA looked at the door of the room where Nikolai and Hanna Quinzel were.

She felt the strange Darkness that spilled inside, but she didn’t dare open the door.

First of all, doing so would have been bad because the Darkness might escape once it saw an exit.

Second, and the most important thing of all, she had a feeling that everything was under control.

Hanna can manage it.

Moreover, Nikolai was there to protect the young duchess.

"Are you not going to help them, Mona?"

"No. I don’t think they need my help," Mona said as a response to William, and then she looked down at the poor thing in the Grand Spirit’s arms. "Gale— no, Mochi needs my help more."

She was talking about her former Wind Spirit.

Mochi now belongs to Neoma.

"There are only a few things that could hurt a High Spirit like Gale," William said, addressing Mochi by her old name, before handing the Wind Spirit to her. "The Darkness from the Ancient Period..."

"Yes, that seems to be the case," Mona said while cradling the injured Mochi in her arms. "The old Darkness has returned to the world, unfortunately."

***

AS SOON as Neoma returned to the Imperial Palace, Melvin Luchessi greeted her.

The Chamberlain looked nervous as he relayed the news that she had visitors from the Eastern Continent.

And then she was ushered to the fancy waiting room where her guests were staying.

Esther, the Snakewoman.

Aspen, the son of the God of Booze.

Faust, the half-Elf and half-Fairy warrior.

The news that she heard from Ruto’s subordinates increased her blood pressure.

"What did you say?" Neoma asked in disbelief. "Helstor wants Uncle Glenn and Aunt Brigitte’s babies to join the war? Has he lost his mind?!"

All the glasses in the room shattered when she yelled, making her guests flinch.

She didn’t want to be rude, but she couldn’t help it.

"Tell Helstor that if he insists on including children in the war, then he shouldn’t expect me to follow the rules," Neoma said through gritted teeth. "I’ll ascend to the Upper World and kill him with my bare hands."

***

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