Absolute Depravity: Reincarnated with a lustful System-Chapter 296 - The Prince Of Darkness

"I supposed it's my very fault for coercing him into leading a decaying world," looking at the new lord of lust through a decorated golden mirror, held by a pair of enraged lions, Helga scoffed at her own powerlessness. "Even if I desire to take you down, leaving the world to crumble, at least just yet, would be far from ideal when there's still potential."

'Not to mention, I'm destined to bring the end not cause it with my own hands.' Despite the mask of neutrality towards the land of Atlas, the Valkyrie queen didn't want the world to fall, especially since it was the last of a few things the creator had made by his own loving hands. All alone in her expansive tent of pure white cloth, she leaped off of her chair and paced with angst.

'Why did he curse me to bring the world's end?' She questioned herself, assuming that voicing her concerns would help her mind to be at ease. In reality, it had quite the contrary effect, as the more she rifled through her thoughts for answers, the more her mind was consumed by unease. 'God! Why are they such handfuls?'

"My queen!" With harrowingly deep breaths, a guardian Valkyrie stormed into the queen's tent.

Pulled right out of her thoughts, Helga turned to the curtains separating the entrance and her private room deeper indoors. But instead of a reply, what she heard were hasty breaths struggling to speak, and a fit of coughs followed soon after.

"I asked, who's there?!" Moving out towards the entrance, Helga slapped the curtains to the side and was finally greeted with the blood-gushed face of a Valkyrie. "What in the…"

As her eyes met her pupil she noticed a reddened glow in her pupils, something she'd never seen in any other Valkyrie. With caution, she moved towards the girl while conjuring a spear of true holy magic in her hand in case something demonic had taken hold of her mind.

"T-The other!" Looking up, the guardian glared straight into Helga's eyes. "The angels u-under you! They've revolted!"

"A pack of angels did this to you?" Confounded by the flimsy logic, Helga stopped herself from approaching the Valkyrie any further.

"Yes! I swear I-"

"Then you're no Valkyrie, you hellspawn!" Before the corrupted vessel could finish her words, Helga plunged the golden spear right through her throat.

At first, the girl clambered onto the weapon and tried to take it out all the while her screams were drowned under her own blood. Finally, when her limbs went limp, Helga slid her throat entirely before drawing the spear back.

"Ahaha…" The head rolling on the floor laughed in ecstasy. "How?"

"You reek of hell, as always," Helga complained, letting her spear disappear into thin air.

"And you killed a girl based on that simple scent?" The grumbling voice asked, its eyes glaring at the queen with a cheeky smile.

"If she was a Valkyrie, she would've been revived at the fountain of life even if I killed her," The queen explained, her feet taking her toward a corporeal weapon on their own. Picking up a halberd from the weapon's rack, she gripped it firm before turning back to the head on the ground. "Another mistake that you made, princes of darkness, was assuming I'd keep any angels alive who served under a failed god."

'Except Melicia, she's-'

"Except Melicia, she's what?" The head read her thoughts and even spoke them out loud. "Go on, let me read some more, I'd quite an avid reader, but I'm not too fond of cliffhangers sweetheart."

Repulsed by having her mind read by the prince of hell, Helga clenched her jaws and moved the tip of the halberd right against his forehead.

"What do you want?" She asked, her fangs laying bare as a warning.

The head cackled once more, but this time along with its laughs, a screen of smog coiled up into the air. Masking the head and the rest of the body, it quickly conformed into a humanoid frame.

"This new god that you've elected without a cast of my vote," speaking as a legion of voices, the prince's eyes glowed a silver. Staring deep into Helga's eyes, he tried to put her into a charm but failed as miserably as ever. "When the creator assigned us our roles, I do not remember him mentioning anything about you possessing the last say."

"Barely a soul knows of your existence, it's easy to forget someone when nobody brings their filthy memories up," even more enraged by his attempt to charm her, Helga tried slicing through his body of fumes, but it passed right through the smog. "Ughhhh, you cheeky fucker!"

Taken aback by her foul language, the prince wondered if he'd stumbled into a different Valkyrie with the same name as the queen.

"I thought Valkyries didn't swear, was that a lie, or are you an imposter now that you've defied the lord's wishes yourself?" The prince kept trying to agitate her some more, but seeing through his mask, Helga refused to play anymore.

"So what if I gave him a chance? As if that mutt can become a real god!" She growled yet again.

"I don't know about god," turning to the side, the prince began moving around the room and checked everything that caught his fancy by picking it up and inspecting it by moving it closer to his eyes. "But he's surely on a path to give me some competition with those genocidal wars he's committed to."

For once Helga chuckled at the thought of Haruki replacing the prince of hell. To her, the prospect sounded much more agreeable than him actually pulling off a miracle to gain the title of a god.

"I guess that'd be the only boon to come out of this mistake then," chuckling some more, she raised her weapon and held it pointed towards the prince's back. "Now I'd suggest you be gone, you've amused me enough as a temporary jester, but even jesters in this world have standards."

"I suspected as much," clamping down on a gem he'd found laying on a desk, the prince turned his head to the queen with a gentle smile. "Besides, I'm not the only company you'd be having soon."

The moment he finished his sentence, an encirclement of spears tore into the tent's fabric and pierced through his body of fumes. However, instead of simply passing through, this time, the prince burst into a cloud of mist and disappeared like a popped balloon.

"Are you alright my queen?!" Rushing in from all directions, the Valkyries had come to their queen's rescue with spears, swords, halberds, and armor. "Are you hurt anywhere? Should we bring the fountain's water?"

Their voices faded into a mush of noise in the face of the last words uttered by the prince before he disappeared.

'More visitors? Who could that be?' With only Melicia and her choir alive in terms of angels, Helga couldn't imagine anyone else making it to Valhalla in any way possible. Isolated far away for even the gods, much like hell, only those designed to be there could ever set foot on these lands. 'As if it matters who it is, there's only one thing for me to do!'

"Expect more intruders soon and prepare accordingly!" Stomping her feet, the queen pulled everyone out of their troubled state of mind. Her stomp was so ingrained in their training, that at this point every one of them subconsciously got themselves into a chivalrous stance.

"If needed throw your lives away as many times as it takes, and remember despite the countless deaths you were designed to be triumphant!" With that order, the queen walked out of the encirclement and busied herself in preparation for whatever was to come their way.

Much like the queen, the soon-to-be intruders in the faraway feral lands were in for a surprise on their trip to find the dead god's body. Making it back to his people, Michael wasn't greeted with as much fanfare as Razor had expected, instead what he received was doubtful eyes and scorn. Much of which could be attributed to the fact that they had no clue about Atlas's death.

And thus to shoo off the suspected spies, the elves worked together over the days to find every clue about a disturbance in the realms. At the end of it all, the only thing they could find was the lack of spirits and fairies running through their forests.

"So we know literally nothing else than the fact that fairies aren't being born in these woods?" Asked Razor, following Michael through the woods.

"Think about it Razor, why would no new fairies be born all of a sudden?" Michael spelled him a question instead of what he was expecting. 𝘣𝘦𝑑𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝑙．𝑐𝑜𝘮

Tired of the mud and dirt, Razor was in no mood for riddles, and he let it be known with an annoyed grunt grumbling through his throat.

"Much like a bee hive, if the queen dies so does the entire colony," Michael's response puzzled Razor for a brief moment before he finally figured it out.

"The queen is dead," he muttered, knowing just enough about who the queen was.

"The emperor, he was talking about an heir, and guess who's the only one capable of birthing a god?" Stopping at an opening, Michael turned around to look right at Razor.

"Another god, who else?" As the realization set in, Razor's face contorted in rage. "No wonder Dominion was pissed off with him, he slept with the daughter of a murderer after all."

"That right, but forget about it for now, and remember your promise," reminding Razor of the promise they made, Michael peered upwards to the sight of a tearing sky. "Because our ride to that same daughter is here."

Following the elf's gaze, Razor's eyes widened at the sight of Melicia's bloody hands descending toward them with grace.

"How did you do?" Razor asked, his voice quaking with a nervous jitter of joy.

"I've killed enough to gain her favor once or twice," although the reply came from Michael, it was the dragon slayer who was truly speaking.