Devouring Monarch: Rebirth of the Profane Phoenix

Then, in a small room, there was a sink with bloody bandages, needles containing a highly concentrated healing tonic, bandages, and gauze, and an entire room that seemed dedicated to serious first aid.

'Once again, she seems to have been fighting in the Barrim Kingdom1 underground arena...'

Lorem was looking at the abnormal state of Lucretia.

She began hammering the stone pillar with her fists and legs; skin tore, bled and bruised, yet Lorem didn't move. Lucretia focused completely on her target without blinking, their bloodshot sclera constantly darting around for each blow.

She had been doing this training since she began training under Lorem. It wasn't something Lorem forced her to do, but the extra training Lucretia insisted on doing.

'To become stronger, their words and fists will no longer hurt me. I will make my flesh harder than steel!'

Lorem became lost in a memory of the crying Lucretia with her body covered in bloody wounds and scars. No matter how much Lorem tried to persuade her, it fell on deaf ears.

In the past, Lorem had offered to let Lucretia use her special, makeshift healing tank, which, until now, was used to help keep her curse at bay and for one other person who recently appeared in her life.

"I want him. He has to become strong, too. His fists reached me even in the shadows!" Lucretia whispered and repeated the same words.

As if she had entered some kind of autistic or mental trance trapped in the battle with Asura, she continued to pummel the rock pillar until she dropped to the ground, with blood seeping from her knees, fists and shins.

They made the pillar she used for training with a special material that could withstand blows from a Stage Five Monster, which specialises in physical strength.

"Why are you so stubborn, Luci?" A soft voice came from the lips of the rough woman.

Her eyes were no longer like those of the strict and infallible instructor but like those of a caring elder sister as she took several vials from the drawers and gauze before performing first aid.

"Mmm..." Lucretia was already sleeping, which caused Lorem to shake her head. She regretted sending the younger Lucretia into battle before her mind fully matured and was ready for it.

Sitting down, she treated the wounds of her dear student and sister, feeling regret for allowing her heart to become this damaged and fragile.

"Had I been a normal knight... I could have followed you and protected you from those horrors."

The horrors Lucretia faced was the last great continental war just over twenty years ago.

Lucretia's first battle involved thousands of young children and innocent people who fell victim to execution and sacrifice by a group of abyss-worshipping cultists. They didn't care about morals. The battles used profane rituals and horrible spells, leaving most of the knights who took part with scars on their hearts and minds...

Most could no longer use their magic, filled with trauma, as the kingdom gave up on them individually.

'If only they let me come... I could have ended it all with just a simple snap of my fingers burning those bastards alive...'

This war triggered Lorem's wish to leave the kingdom, and before she met Asura, she planned to leave the academy to find something that could help soothe or heal the broken minds of those from the war.

'Seeing you all suffer like this reminds me of that night...'

Her eyes gazed towards the evening sky filled with stars, as a distant blue star twinkled with red cracks only able to be seen by Lorem because of her special eyes, those of a divine beast.

"The night we left him behind on that hell of a world..." With a scratchy and deep voice, Lorem hadn't realised that Lucretia was awake and listening as she began telling her past story.

It was a story of two women of distinguished Phoenix bloodlines and a boy who had nothing yet surpassed them in every way to win their hearts and with their foolish love and childish logic...

The boy ended up with both bloodlines and abilities.

Listening to the story, the intelligent Lucretia knew Lorem could be reborn should she die using the power of her bloodline. Then she realised a dark and macabre truth hidden in this story.

How did the bow with no bloodline gain both the bloodline of the red and black phoenix when there was no way to pass those on without profane rituals or being related by blood and born into families?

'Thinking back on it now... why did Helia never come to find me? We both took the same ship and crashed on this planet...'

'Did something happen?'

***

In the darkness, Asura's body tossed and turned as something trapped his mind—a memory of his past, a dark and terrifying memory that caused his soul to tremble.

While fully awake, they tied him to a table and sliced his body open. Thick tubes poured foreign blood into his body, causing his skin to burn and organs to melt. They forced him to suffer the torture of being burned alive from the inside out repeatedly.

How could a human adapt to the intense bloodlines of the two royal phoenix clans, not to mention the two heiresses?

The icy gaze of the doctors and nurses who cursed him pumped more and more blood as if to kill him completely to save their weakening princesses.

Only darkness remained... as his fractured memories became empty...

It shrouded the spirit palace in darkness inside his mind as if to show the chaos this nightmare forced upon him.

Helia stood on the balcony, close to the large Rebirth totem, reaching towards the glowing blue star now burning and fading in the stars. Maybe that was the reason their minds were focused on that day...

It was because today was the moment their homeworld vanished forever.

"Lorem... on that day, it wasn't just Asura who lost everything... You were the only one to get on the ship that left."

Helia's eyes seemed to shimmer as if she could see and hear the thoughts and feelings of Lorem... slowly she walked towards the back of the black Rebirth pillar.

'We should have never done that to him. They lied to us and used him as an experiment, taking advantage of his naïve affection and love.'

Lorem and Helia discovered early on about the world crumbling and exhausted resources, so the first thing they did was try to get Sura a place on their ship to escape. However, the only ones who were worthy had special bloodlines.

In their desperation, they turned to a church. But the church was a secret cult named The Rise of The Falling Sun.

Using the blood of the Abyssal Phoenix Empire and the Scarlet Empire's crown princesses was a miracle they couldn't resist creating their god...

They infused Sura with five bloodlines, and each sealed using their special technology inside his soul. They used advanced monoliths to keep the bloodlines at peak condition and constantly evolve them to make the supreme one rise.

Her fingertips typed a long 42-digit code into the back of the monolith as it opened.

The loud, gassy sound of a hydraulic pump squealing as it forced the air out and the familiar sound of bleeping with wires created by animal materials identical to the pod that healed Asura.

Unlike Lorem, who got wounds fighting against that cult that reappeared in the world after they landed, Helia submerged herself in the bloodstream the cultists created inside the monoliths, accepting the shame as long as she would remain beside him forever.

Originally, five female cultists were supposed to sleep in each monolith, giving him advice and raising Sura's future incarnation to follow the path of the falling sun.

They needed a cultist for each pillar. Otherwise, the abyssal taint of the foul void magic used to create the pillars would drain and devour the cultist.

Inside, a beautiful girl was floating in the green gel. Her pale skin and face were filled with the dark curses that Lorem suffered from—however, the curse completely devoured this girl's body.

"And this is the repentance we must pay for the pain we have caused him."

Tapping the small name tag revealed a strange language, but Helia knew this language well; it was her name before she came to this planet.

⁜ Helliana Vi Fenxia - Crown Princess of the Abyssal Phoenix Empire.