Phaedra grinned but it was not out of satisfaction but rather a joy to inflict as much pain as she could on those who had tried to contend against her.
Hal had his brows furrowed at the sight and he wondered if this battle might be reaching its conclusion and if it might be time for him to step in and whisk Phaedra away.
Alas, the trio of ladies was not ready to throw in the towel.
The moment Rita hit the building below, a tattered-looking Marla was grinning while she charged an attack that she used to boost Karmen in hopes of catching Phaedra off-guard.
*Boom!*
The blast sounded and before it had even reached its crescendo, Karmen was already close to Phaedra and swinging her Broadsword Fiendish Armament towards the Devil woman.
Phaedra smirked and leaned back easily avoiding the sword strike so that Karmen just sailed past in front of her.
Before Karmen was completely past though, Phaedra grabbed her, pulled her close, and slammed a palm into her abdomen.
From the palm spread the circle of a Devil spell that materialized a large dagger that made to pierce right through Karmen.
The dagger poked through Karmen's stomach but was stopped before it got too deep by Fiendish fogs and the feel of resistance caused Phaedra to raise a brow in surprise.
Karmen then chuckled before she wrapped her arms around Phaedra and veins began to show beneath the skin of her arms as she used the full might of her strength to hold Phaedra in place as she unleashed her fiendish fogs with them all tapered at the end.
She struck the Devil woman with her tapered fogs while simultaneously imposing her Ordinance on the Devil woman's blood to render her just weak and vulnerable enough for the fogs to puncture through Phaedra's skin.
What Phaedra felt as the tapered fogs poke at her body, which was already quite exposed in her fairly revealing garment, was mostly annoyance and mirth at how useless this all was.
It seemed to Phaedra that this lady was yet to accept that she was way out of her league.
The fogs succeeded in drawing drops of blood from parts of Karmen's body before a blast of cultivation pressure from Phaedra forced Karmen's arms off Phaedra's body.
"Ack" Karmen groaned at the pain she was inflicted by the forceful separation.
Following the separation, Phaedra sunk a knee into Karmen's midsection, and the unmistakable sound of cracking ribs sounded and was accompanied by the spewing of blood by Karmen.
Following the knee to the midsection, Karmen received keep strikes to the jaw and multiple blows to the side of her face.
Phaedra then drew back her hand to cast a Devil spell that created a spike which she prepared to drive through Karmen's chest.
Before the spike could make contact though, a shield also formed of Devil energy appeared in front of Karmen's chest and easily protected her from the spike that was about to puncture her sternum.
There was a sort of ripple effect that was caused by a quick action that only Phaedra's Transcendent Beast eyes caught and Karmen was taken out of Phaedra's hold and was now snuggled again into Hal's chest.
Hal infused her with his regenerative abilities and she quickly began to heal from her injuries.
"You've had your fun. You did good" Hal said quietly to Karmen who snuggled herself even harder into her master's chest while mumbling,
"No, I can still do more. There are some things I haven't yet tried"
"I know but trying them will not change the outcome. Don't worry, it's clear how close you are. It won't be long now before you surpass her." Hal said with a small chuckle.
"Don't worry Karmen, I'll take over from here" Marla said with determined eyes that made it clear she had no sense of awareness of the magnitude of what she was attempting.
Hal shook his head,
"Oh no you don't," he said before grabbing her with a giant fist made of Devil energy... A fist meant to restrain her.
Phaedra scoffed,
"None of this was fun. I should have expected that though... The fact that I have been denied the pleasure of killing you pesky annoyances..." Phaedra began her boasting but was forced to stop when her instincts warned her of an incoming attack.
She cast a Devil spell and created a shield that intercepted and blocked the attack that was a flaming purple arrow.
*Bang!*
Her shield spell not only blocked the arrow but also dispelled any remnants but it was quickly obvious that this was only the beginning.
Rita was out of the rubble, she had been out for a long while and had just been preparing the barrage of arrows that she now let loose on Phaedra.
From all sides, flaming arrows that appeared to have all been shot from below simultaneously in a circle, charged at the Devil woman who quickly found herself encircled.
Of course, Phaedra made to escape the barrage of flaming arrows but wherever she flew, wherever she went, the arrows would always follow... Encircling her with the impact being unavoidable and imminent.
Even whenever she attempted to attack them and cancel them out or just cast blocking or intercepting Devil spells, things will just somehow reset and she would be back in the encirclement- only the arrows would have gotten closer.
Phaedra quickly realized that something was not right...
No matter what she did and what move she made, she always seemed to remain in the same location, and Hal, Karmen, and Marla who watched it all happen could see that this was indeed the case.
Whenever Phaedra made to escape, her form would just fizzle out and almost immediately, she would appear right back where she was... About to get shot from all sides.
The reason for this was Rita and her manipulation of Phaedra's destiny.
She had used her Ordinance to make it Phaedra's destiny to get hit with the arrow barrage and how the arrows had encircled her as though they had all been shot by multiple individuals, was also a factor of the Destiny tweak.
For the next second, Phaedra's destiny was tied to those arrows and any escape attempt was futile...
This sort of use of her ordinance had been quite time-consuming for Rita to plan and initiate and Karmen, who had not known about the plan beforehand had been quite instrumental in keeping the target occupied.
That said, for every one of Phaedra's attempts to escape this fate she had been written, Rita was continuously affected.
Every time Phaedra used her strength as a Transcendent beast to break free, Rita was forced to forcefully rewrite the target's destiny so things remained on track and for every rewrite, Rita got drained of Cosmic energy and physical energy.
The more Phaedra struggled and the more she used get strength in that struggle, the more affected Rita would become.
This was especially because Rita was a Cosmic Aurora realm expert attempting to warp the destiny of a four-star Transcendent Beast.
She was actually only able to keep it holding on this long because she was making use of her strength as a Lust Demon as well as her strength as a cultivator.
This was it...
This was the last attack that Rita was capable of and the moment it finally hit with a mighty explosion in the Sapphire city sky, her legs gave way as she fell to her knees while reverting to her human form.
*BOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!*
The explosion was spectacular...
It created a large mushroom cloud in the Sapphire city sky where all denizens of the city could very clearly view it.
For the denizens of the city, especially those who had been watching the battle, the explosion incurred hope that the enemy had finally been vanquished.
It took a full minute before the explosion fizzled out and when it did, it revealed Phaedra whose clothes were damaged in the explosion but still looked quite healthy.
Being a Transcendent Beast, Phaedra was very capable of tanking the explosion and that was exactly what she did, however, she had a pissed-off look on her face and was shaking while biting her lower lip as though to hold back a sound.
"How do you like that?" Rita said with a smile on her face and even though her voice was not raised, all those in the air heard her... Including the shivering Phaedra.
"You bitch...! Nnghh" Phaedra began with insults and a death stare but she was unable to stop herself from punctuating her words with a moan.
The physical combustion effect of the flaming arrows had been easy to withstand... The hard one to deal with was the sensual flames that she had not expected and had snuck into her body.
The sensual flames were now inflaming her lust and while she was attempting to fight them, Phaedra found that her inner thighs were quickly moistening.
"Mmnghh... I'm going to kill you!" Phaedra yelled and Hal who had flown down to grant Rita quick recovery said in a controlled voice,
"No, you will not.
This is now over. Your engaging my people in combat after letting loose your minions on my city is disrespectful enough.
The disrespect ends now.
I will return you to the Devil Tribe." Hal said in a firm voice.
Phaedra smirked as best as she could since her facial muscles seemed to want to express a more lascivious and cock-hungry expression.
"Oh please do. Nghhh... I need to hurry and inform my Tribesmen that you are in no way trustworthy. Mnnghhh... Your treatment of me is enough proof of that." Phaedra said obviously referring to her damaged clothes that were now more revealing than ever.
At some point, her hand snaked towards her inner thigh and she had to actively stop herself,
"Ohhh... Mnnghhh, By the gods! What sort of flames is this?!"
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺