Chapter 75

Winter has finally come.

The snow was up to Arya's ankles now and her cheeks were turned pale pink by the coldness.

Elijah and Arya were locked in a spar while Javier and Catalina looked on.

He channeled his mana and summoned his flames.

Bright, red and burning fire ignited in his hands and he sent them in Arya's direction.

Arya managed to dodge in time to avoid the fireball. She then prepared to counter with a good punch as she suddenly appeared in front of Elijah.

Elijah had a card up his sleeve however.

Flames brusted from his entire body and Arya had to back away before she got burned by the flames flickering off his body. A flame grazed her fist and the skin of her knuckle was nearly blistered and burned by it.

Clever, Arya thought, now she can't land a punch or kick on him without inflicting damage on herself. So close combat was out of the question for now and she'll have to fight from a distance.

It reminded her of Kanan when she first sparred with him.

She nearly got burned alive when a huge ball of fire glazed past her shoulders and set some trees on fire behind her if her fast reflexes had not saved her in time and she was able to dodge the ball of fire only to barely avoid another one that was launched at her. 

More and more balls of fire started to erupt all around her. Pillars of burning hot, bright red flames that threatened to melt off Arya's skin as she dodged all of them, her fast reflexes and nimbleness making it easy for her to do so. Every time she avoided one, another would take its place. She danced, dodging every single pillar of fire that appeared from nowhere, heating up the air to a boiling temperature.

Balls of fire rained down on her but Arya knew Elijah well enough to know that he was plotting something. This was just a distraction.

Then she saw it.

 Elijah condensed some flames into a small ball in his hands. 

He then unleashed all of the balled up power and the results were an explosion of burning flames that burned anything within a 20 ft radius.

"Ha. Princess, when did you learn how to fly?"

Arya had used her telekinesis on herself to lift herself into the air to avoid the flames.

"Take this!!!"

Arya literally ripped out some trees from the ground. Entire trees covered in a bright green light.

Before anyone could gawk or stare in awe of this display of power, Arya hurled them in Elijah's direction.

Elijah reacted by hurling balls of fire at them, setting the trees ablaze.

The trees quickly burnt up into ashes faster than normal which could just be a result of Elijah's manipulation of the fire.

As the ashes fell to the ground and smoke filled the air, Arya caught Elijah in a side hook that he was barely able to block with his sword.

Arya's fist connected with the metal but she showed no signs of giving up.

She twisted her body so she could aim a roundhouse kick at his face.

He backed up and her foot barely missed his face by a centimeter.

Catalina clapped and voiced her approval.

"That's my girl. Atta girl!! Show him what you got!!!"

Javier just politely clapped before he leaned over to whisper into Catalina's ear.

"She's good. Did you teach her yourself, Catty?"

Catalina had a big grin on her face.

"Yes, I did. She's the most talented student and my favorite."

Elijah launched a ball of fire at Arya but Arya dodged and landed a punch on Elijah's nose.

Not a hard one, Arya decreased her strength so the punch wasn't that hard.

But still, his nose broke with a loud and sharp crack and Elijah staggered back, holding his bleeding nose.

Yikes.

"Mr.Eli, please, please, I'm so sorry."

Arya rushed over to Elijah to assess the damage.

His nose was definitely broken alright.

Arya snapped to attention and, in her best commanding princess voice, shouted: "Elijah, lower your hands away from your nose before I make you!!"

Elijah grinned sheepishly before he did as he was told.

"My little princess is growing up so fast. When did you become so commanding?"

"I'm going to heal your nose now so stay still for me."

Arya felt the natural warmth and power of the healing abilities flow through her bodies and veins.

She channeled that power out of her hands and into Elijah's nose.

The broken bones inside the nose mended themselves and Elijah's nose was back to normal.

Arya stood back to check her handiwork.

She did a very good job if she said so herself.

Elijah's nose looked normal and like she never broke it except for the blood still on his face.

"Thank you princess."

"No problem, I'm going to go check on the others."

By others she meant the monster deserters who fled from the monster army and the human refugees.

It had been two weeks since this makeshift refugee camp was established and Arya felt the surprising levels of acceptance and peace between both humans and monsters. There was no fighting or hate. Just two groups living together as one.

Of course, there had been some issues at first because humans are scared of monsters naturally but once those fears and concerns were addressed, humans and monsters started to settle into a at first uneasy and awkward coexistence before this level of coexistence was possible.

It was lively and loud because of the laughter and giggling of the children along with the chattering and noise of people talking.

Monster children and human children played with each other and their parents seemed to be talking and hitting it up with each other.

It looked so peaceful and cheery that Arya almost forgot about the existence of the war.

But she knew that this story could not come to an end until the king was defeated.

She realized that she stopped moving as she stood in front of the refugee camp.

There was a place where she needed to be.

She headed towards the small mansion in the center of town.

She knew that the rest of the royal family would be hosting a war meeting there to plan out the next attack.

Arya dreaded what those plans consisted of but she knew that they couldn't sit around and do nothing while the enemy army was slowly regaining their strength and could be planning their next attack at this instant.

She pushed open the door to find a large group of people sitting in what looks to be the mansion's living room.

Freya, Assyrian and Ezekiel were all sitting in the armchairs while there were a few people sitting on the sofas.

Everyone else stood.

Arya saw a few familiar faces: Kanan, Jarek and even Astraeus.

Arya noted a girl with coppery red hair, gray-blue eyes, a splash of freckles across her cheeks and nose with a muscular and built figure, a pretty girl with soft pastel pink hair tied back in a single braid with pretty mint green doe-like eyes and pale skin who looked both delicate and tough at the same time, another girl with dark blue hair. 

There was also a boy with whitish-blonde hair that was long and flowing down his back with icy blue eyes that shone like diamonds and a tall, muscular boy with tanned skin, shoulder length dirty blonde hair tied back into a ponytail and gold eyes.

There was an empty armchair for her.

Most surprisingly, Lucifer and Lucinda were also present. Well, it made sense as this was a matter relating to the demon king and the demon royal family.

Arya took her seat and only then did the meeting begin if they were waiting for her.

Ezekiel, being the most powerful of the royal children(though Arya was just as powerful as him) and the Crown Prince, he opened up the meeting.

He slammed a hand on the coffee table.

"For too long, we were the ones trying to defend our kingdom on the defensive. It's tiring and left us with no way to attack. I propose that we launch an attack of our own against the invading army. A surprise attack to hopefully land a hard blow on them."