Seraphim Princess

Chapter 40 - Serpent's Fear

It was Astarot back in her human form and slowly the serpent set its new master down. It had a panicked expression on its face and once again rushed to apologize to Latia. "I'm sorry! PLease don't call the scary white haired Angel again!"

Latia opened her mouth to respond however Azril appeared behind Astarot his greatsword held high and ready to be brought down onto the serpent.

Thinking fast Latia pushed Astarot out of the way using wind produced by her fan and put her hand up blocking the Angels strike with a defensive barrier. The barrier cracked upon contact with the sword making Latia's eyes widen.

"Oof!" Astarot grunted falling onto her butt. Opening its eyes it saw Latia being pressured greatly as she struggled against the force of Azril's strike.

Astarot shook in fear seeing the white winged boy unable to even stand knowing that he was an Angel.

You see Astarot was indeed still young. She had finally lived for over one hundred years and achieved a human form just like her mother. She had thought "Finally now I can get revenge on those Angels for killing my mama!" Since a beautiful blonde haired Angel with 12 wings that had happened to be flying by smited Astarot's mother with a huge blast of Light Power killing her instantly while destroying their home.

Unfortunately this thought was incredibly ignorant as as she was flying around looking for a path to Heaven a girl with white hair and yellow eyes appeared on top of her head. She tried eating the Angel as her first step to revenge but in three minutes flat she was completely beat up!

Now Astarot knew that Angels were super super duper scary. She really didn't want to ever have to fight an Angel again.

Astarot looked on in terror as Azril pulled his arms back and swung again horizontally this time too quickly for Latia to properly react. The blonde haired girl was hit to the side sending her flying into the ash covered fields that were once rose bushes.

"URk!" She tried getting up but felt an excruciating pain from her side. While Azril wasn't crazy and therefore didn't create a sword that would cut her even while blunted, the Light Power was horribly potent and burned Latia intensely causing her to hiss in pain.

Azril turning his attention away from the blonde Devil points his sword at the Serpent. It glows with Light Power preparing to fire a beam at Astarot in order to finish the match cleanly.

Seeing this the young serpent scooted backwards terrified before Azril suddenly turned back around blocking a blade of wind with his Light Power greatsword.

Latia was behind him having stood back up painfully.

"Do you not realize that you're completely out matched?" Azril questions a bit sarcastically pointing his sword at Latia firing off the beam he had been storing for use on Astarot.

Latia thinking quickly released her Devil wings and flew up as quickly as she could just barely managing to dodge the attack.

She wouldn't be shaken by his taunts and wanting to counter attack Latia raised her fan and a large magic circle of the Astaroth clans symbol appeared.

"Take this!" She brought her fan down producing a large gust of wind which Azril was forced to defend against using his winds to cover himself. This wind didn't so much as make him take a step back much less deal any damage.

Latia flinched at this but landed in front of Astarot with her fan covering her mouth once again.

"To say that I'm completely outmatched is like saying that it's impossible for me to win."

"That's right. It's impossible for you to beat me." Azril confirmed with a matter of fact tone.

"It's the Devil way to make the impossible possible, you know? Don't go looking down on me Angel boy!" Latia exclaimed, pointing her fan at Azril daringly.

"What a waste of effort." Azril dismissed her pride as simple stupidity but Astarot looked at the back of the snake charmer with wavering eyes.

Astarot didn't believe this Devil could beat the Angel but the way Latia was standing in front of her brought back painful memories.

Just like her mother had once before Latia was trying to protect her, or so Astarot assumed.

"Astarot!" Latia suddenly called out to the serpent who was stuck in her thoughts.

"Y-Yes!?!?"

"I'm counting on you." Latia stated simply looking behind at the Yuxa from the corner of her eye just as Azril charged at her once again.

"Huh?" Astarot didn't have the opportunity to ask what the young Devil girl meant before she locked in another clash with Azril forcing Astarot to scurry backwards away from the Angel.

This time Latia defended with her fan now closed and engaged Azril in close quarters combat. This wasn't her specialty at all and she could only just barely clumsily block and defend most of his attacks.

This not being a deathmatch helped immensely as there were only a few places he could strike at making it easy to predict his attacks. Still however due to his superior skill a few strikes slipped through her defenses ripping her clothes and burning her in several places.

(If this continues I'll lose for sure!) Latia thought, her magic was clearly ineffective and her skill in close quarters was clearly not nearly good enough. Her only real option was Astarot and her venom.

It was a weakness of Angels but since Astarot was still so young it wouldn't be lethal to someone with as much Light Power as Azril luckily, this made it the only viable weapon in her arsenal to win the fight.

Just as Azril was going to swing again Latia opened her fan once again and stepped forward slightly into his guard producing a Astaroth magic circle under his feet.

"Away with you!" She swings her fan as hard as she can, producing a miniature tornado sending Azril into the air where he quickly recovers using his four majestic white wings.

"Haa, haa, haa." Latia was breathing pretty heavily, she wasn't used to using so much Demonic Power in such quick succession since she didn't fight very often really.

Astarot was panicking seeing Latia in her current state then as Azril charged at her new master once again this time with a far bigger sword she thought of a scenario.

What would the white haired Angel do to her if the person she gave Astarot to was beaten up?

The image that came to mind was positively horrifying. It was herself gagged and tied on a plate with the white haired Angel staring down at her coldly, her mouth drooling with anticipation as she picked up her knife and fork.

No!

Astarot didn't want to be eaten! She even had a name now! How tragic would it be if she were to be eaten a day after her 100th birthday!

Steeling herself using her greater fear of the white haired Angel Astarot once again transformed catching Azril off guard as Astarot charged towards him he only barely blocked her barbed tail, however...

A single spike did manage to cut his face, and it was more than enough.

–

"Good. Good. I knew the Astaroth girl had great potential, though it helps that that serpent is quite young and naive." Roygun commented. "Definitely better than that suspicious looking guy Diodora."

She was impressed by Azril as well, he was quite skilled at using Light Power and while all of his fellow Angels had a few glaring weaknesses due to min-maxing he seemed to be an all-rounder or jack of all trades with no obvious weakness.

He wasn't too fast but wasn't too slow.

He wasn't too strong but wasn't too weak either.

Though such a thing would only be capable of taking him so far since a jack of all trades is also a master of none. Soon enough Roygun suspected he would start falling behind the rest.

"Perhaps this will be a good wake up call for him. It may also teach him not to make a habit out of completely underestimating his opponents."

She turned her attention away from that fight already knowing what the result would be and focused in on Puriel vs Gadreel. Now this was quite interesting indeed, even in her long life she had never seen an Angel fight with another Angel.