Devouring Monarch: Rebirth of the Profane Phoenix

"Phew... sit here, Vela. I will set a barrier with the items my husband gave me."

"No... use these! They are from the royal vaults and can resist anything below Stage Six and work well in hiding us from assassins like the one from before."

"Hmmm? What is this strange black stone..." Mu Xue asked while turning the stone around in her eyes.

It was a milky-coloured black stone in an oval shape, with thousands of strange runes and shapes carved into the surface, yet it remained smooth...

"Place it at the centre of the cavern entrance, and it will block everything from the enemy, monsters, people and even those cameras that are watching us... You don't want other people to see your body, right?"

"Hmph! I'd gouge their eyes out! This body is for him alone!"

Vela giggled, then began to shudder and cough from the pain of her untreated wound, leaning against the wall... "what about the girls who see his naked body?"

"Only death!"

The moment she dug a small groove and slotted in the stone, a strange watery feeling expanded and erected a barrier of 500x500 metres wrapped around the cave for those watching on the monitor. They vanished completely even as the rock formation changed.

Finally, free from the gaze of others, Vela no longer needed to pretend to be the tough princess and dropped to the ground like a sack of rocks, her wound flooding with blood as her wind magic faded; her eyes looked at Mu Xue as she tried to apologise.

"S....sorry Mu Xue... I am holding you back..."

"It's fine. If you weren't here, the other person would have died. Only my husband might have countered before getting wounded..."

"Hahah... I envy your relationship with Asura... such an amazing master and lover..."

'Eh?'

This was a moment of change for the lonely woman who served Asura Fenix... She rarely received praise from anyone out loud before, so honestly...

'Maybe she isn't so bad...'

Mu Xue, for the first time other than Asura, showed a gentle smile as she grabbed a medical kit, tore Vela's clothes open and worked on the wound with a dirty green fluid oozing from the depths.

'Poison... damn bastards.'

"Gyaaaaah!"

She pushed a sharp needle into the wound, injecting a high-grade anti-venom and poison solution that Asura had made before the assessment...

'Can my husband tell the future? He... this is the perfect antidote to that poison!'

Vela instantly felt better once the needle penetrated. Now only covered in sweat and filth as her body began expelling everything.

The two women began speaking about Asura, which changed their relationship forever.

From enemies to something akin to sisters in Mu Xue's heart... her dull eyes were brilliant like stars shining in the night sky as Vela equally became interested in Asura, asking many questions about his past and how he was so amazing.

At the start of the classes, he pushed Mu Xue to make shallow friendships, but she felt a sense of happiness.

'I found a friend, master... please praise me when we meet again!'

****

⁜ Lorem POV

"Welcome back to the mother ship!" Lorem joked with her low voice, as they were watching some boring students after Asura and Mu Xue vanished.

"Oh?"

"Let's see how our Cedric is doing; the activity of mana in his zone is huge."

The next moment, they showed a horrific scene... Cedric was standing with his body heavily damaged, blood oozing from his left eye as monsters surrounded his body.

"What the hell is he holding!?" Lucretia asked... but they knew the truth.

It was a bloody mass of flesh...

There was something resembling a human... it was the remains of his partner.

'Why didn't he activate the emergency talisman!?" Lorem thought to herself, a feeling of unwillingness.

Although he was a bit of a flirtatious student... Cedric was talented and deserved better than this. She realised the area was close to Asura, and there seemed to be the remains of a broken talisman on the ground.

'Those FUCKING royals!!'

The people sent there to kill either Asura or Vela... had used a stronger item than the defensive talismans she had prepared for them...

A feeling of nausea and disgust welled up inside her stomach... looking at the screen as the monsters devoured Cedric...

"H-Help....H..... help me.....please.....ugh.... argh....!! My arm!!!!"

The image ended with his arm being torn off and him screaming for help...

"Forgive us, students... We have eliminated entry number 56... Let's switch the main screen!" Lorem's voice was soft...

But she felt defeated and sorrowful as she bonded with the ten students who took her training.

****

⁜ Asura POV

From one extreme to the next, a handsome male stood on an elevated pole with a foot's width and length for balance training.

In reality, it was just where one outpost had been destroyed, leaving only the support beam.

Asura was standing naked, his hands holding his long sword-lance while performing practice swings, his movements like a dance, barely moving from the spot with a deadly combination of attacks.

A dark mist flowed from his hands and feet as he continued practising as for the dragoness. He had spent two hours feeding his female dragon, and now she was completely satisfied and snoring in the bed, completely covered.

"Wow... look at that girl. She just got fucked for two hours and is calmly sleeping in bed."

"What luck," Lucretia muttered with a nasal voice.

"Ahem, I am surprised Asura Fenix still has the stamina to practise... but does he like to expose himself?"

"Wouldn't you if you were that hung?" Lucretia added, seemingly recording him using recording crystals.

While the two were looking at each other, the scene changed as Asura covered himself in a huge bucket of iced water before he snapped his right finger to create a black flame that dried himself.

'I think I'll turn off the commentary... these two women are such perverts...'

Asura changed into a skintight leather armour, his body movements with a slight creak before he covered the entire thing with his dragon scale armour chosen at stage one as his evolution.

Now, he was almost a complete dragon man, with two huge horns curved backwards, messy black hair in a wavy, fluffy mess and his thick black tail twice as large as Xavida's but a little less flexible.

"Well, let's get ready to continue; I want to become stronger!"

He began making some basic stretches. His muscles tightened and bulged as Asura leapt from the 50ft tower and dropped to the ground with his arms spread.

'Let's continue the hunt.'

Well, he had another goal... because he felt eyes on him since he came to this assessment, so he planned to draw them out, then kill and devour them.

"Sorry, Xavi, although I want you to be with me... I ensured you wouldn't wake up for at least six hours with that session."

Asura turned away from the watchtower and started to jog towards the north with his weapon ready.

He refused to let her get wounded or hurt even if he fell into the madness and became a devouring devil.

With light footsteps, his body shot through the darkness with more than ten hooded assassins chasing his body.

'It seems they are just testing me as they are all Stage Three, nothing able to overpower me easily.'

⟪Devil Arts⟫

∟Liberación -La Segunda Forma

With an explosion of Anima different from before, the moment his eyes opened, the forest floor, with each step, became gouged, forming deep craters.

He stopped running as his feet sank into the mud floor, with both eyes now black with golden pupils.

His left arm was a mixture of dragon scales, red devil runes, and sharp claws, his Devil Dragon bloodline. In contrast, his right arm was white, beautiful like snow, with black lines leading from a black sphere in his palm.

The lines went to his shoulder with three lines and then to each finger, creating razor-sharp claws as his white arm was a mixture of his Asura and the Devouring bloodline.

Twisting his body with a loud crack, his armoured body seemed to bulge one size larger, with black and white scales with glowing red gemstones in his chest.

His dragon tail was now sharp, with the tip forming a spear-like blade of scales merged.

This was his Second Liberation's true form after awakening his bloodlines.

"Shall we enjoy a moonlit dance? Gentlemen?" Asura's deep, distorted voice sounded as the assassins felt his mana density and stepped back.

Immediately after that, the assassin crushed a small red ball that exploded into a vast cloud of red powdery mist that seemed to crash the camera signals...

But was it to their benefit or Asura's?

****

⁜ Lorem POV

Back in the stadium, the students were making a scene... but the faces of Lorem and Lucretia become sullen.

"That's one of the Fallen Sun's special items... Lucretia, don't be stupid..."

Lorem turned to find that Lucretia's true body had vanished, and then suddenly, several of her fellow king's guards appeared out of the smoke and whispered in her ear.

"Lucretia has left the kingdom and entered the portal to the assessment area..."

"FUCK!"