The Former Demon Queen Unleashes Her True Power

As the five Queen's Guard marched forward with their assault, Mary was immediately forced onto the defensive.

Armed with swords and spears, they attacked her relentlessly, forcing her to repeatedly duck, dodge, and sidestep strikes that would have ended an ordinary demon without enhanced speed very quickly.

Without her weapon, Black Steam, which she had lost during her fight with Emilia, mounting an assault of her own was practically impossible. The Queen's Guard were moving too fast, almost faster than she could react. All she could do was keep herself from being blindsided, constantly shifting her footing and weaving around their attacks as they came at her from every direction. One wrong move, misstep, or failed evasion could send her head flying off her shoulders.

"Resistance is futile," the group of demons said in that chilling unison of theirs.

"Vesperia, you are hereby sentenced to death for killing a member of the royal bloodline, Emilia Valakora."

That wasn't true. Emilia was simply in a comatose state, but to them, she might as well have been dead.

They continued to rush forward from all sides, trying to force her into a mistake and break through her defenses. But Mary, despite her injuries, kept on successfully evading.

She sidestepped another spear aimed at her stomach, bursting forward to avoid being boxed in, and keeping herself flying low to the ground. With their numbers, giving the Queen's Guard control of the skies would only put her at an even greater disadvantage.

However, she was soon knocked off course when one of the Queen's Guards came barreling into her from the side.

She went crashing near the forest but quickly got back up. With her back pressed against a tree, she narrowly ducked beneath a sword swipe that cut clean through the trunk, splitting it in half.

For a moment, Mary thought she saw an opening and considered striking with a well-placed punch to the lower stomach of her immediate opponent. But she held back. She needed a clean shot, and their armor made it difficult to land one.

So she simply rolled to the side and hurriedly got back up to her feet.

Her stamina was rapidly dropping as she continued tapping into her demonic abilities without fully unleashing them. Her speed was noticeably decreasing, and if it dropped any further, she would practically become a sitting duck. So, left with no other options, a full minute into the fight, Mary decided to swap tactics.

She began throwing punches and kicks whenever she saw an opportunity, hoping to at least damage their armor enough to reach the vulnerable points underneath. But it wasn't working.

Soon, like her sister Emilia, she became reckless. When she extended her arm for a punch, another Queen's Guard, one she wasn't actually fighting, spotted the opening. At the very last second, the demon flew forward and swung his sword.

Mary's arm was struck, instantly severed at the elbow. She recoiled and screamed out in pain before receiving a blow to the stomach that sent her flying backward. She eventually crashed into another tree, the impact cracking the trunk at its base.

She tumbled to the ground in a heap, struggling to catch her breath. Pain radiated throughout her entire body from the multiple injuries she had suffered, including the fresh wound to her right arm, and the gash in her stomach.

She felt weak. She couldn't get back up. She simply didn't have enough energy left.

The Queen's Guard flew forward and landed in front of her, giving her only a fraction of a second to come up with a new plan.

If she didn't tap into her full demonic abilities, if she didn't let the demon inside her take over, even for a second, she wouldn't be able to protect the people of Blendingbrook.

It would be over. These demons would execute her, and once she was gone, the people would die because she had failed to protect them.

She had no other choice. If she wanted to save them, she would have to become the very thing she had spent her entire life trying not to be.

As the group of elite demons, the Queen's Guard, raised their weapons high into the air to strike her down, Mary finally tapped into her full demonic abilities, allowing the rage and anger to wash over her.

Before the first sword could even come down, she instantly shot to her feet and disarmed the nearest guard with her remaining hand. She had instinctively activated her Void skill, pushing her speed all the way to ninety, moving so fast the world appeared to have come to a snail's crawl.

She might have managed this without tapping into her full power, but in her weakened state, there was no other way to get the energy she needed.

From her perspective, everything had come to a stop. The demons remained frozen in place, completely unmoving as Mary stood before them, her blood-red eyes radiating with absolute demonic aura, her body rapidly healing itself.

Using the guard's own weapon against them, she gripped the handle and swung the sword in a wide arc, striking all five members of the Queen's Guard in a single sweeping motion, separating their torsos from their legs. Even their armor wasn't strong enough to stop such a hard blow in her current state.

But this power, the one her mother had always warned her about when she was little, came with a cost.

Suddenly, it was as if something deep within her soul burst forward, surging through her entire body with overwhelming force. More horns began emerging from her head. The wings on her back grew larger and wider, spreading far beyond their previous size. Her limbs began mutating on their own, changing shape as her body became heavier, thicker, and more powerful.

Her teeth grew longer. Her hair continued to extend, stretching to an impossible length as it flowed behind her. Even her claws began to elongate, reaching far beyond what any normal demon should possess.

Mary could feel herself changing. Every agonizing shift, bend, and swelling of her muscles. Slowly, limb by limb, Mary, the person she once was, and Vesperia, her true identity, began disappearing beneath the weight of her new transformation.

And soon, there was nothing left. Nothing but a true, wild demon.

She roared through the night, her voice a mixture of anguish and fury.

Surprisingly, she still had some semblance of herself, though she could feel it fading quickly, replaced by a rapidly growing, primal urge to dominate and destroy. But while she still had this bit of control, she was going to do what she promised. Wipe out the rest of Emilia's forces.

She lowered herself, preparing to launch into flight. Her newly formed, powerful legs dug into the ground as she gathered her strength. Then she launched herself into the sky with a heavy thrust, sending a shock wave that rippled beneath where she had just stood.

She arrived at the town in seconds. And like a battering ram, Mary began tearing through every demon she found flying above the skies of Blendingbrook, striking them down with her newfound, overwhelming strength and ferocity.