"If you're trying to stop me, then it's a thousand years too late, Asbae! I've already won!"
The woman's voice echoed through the cavern. Her hands melded into a shimmering liquid energy that she launched with lethal precision. It struck my body, sending a gouge of blood splattering onto the stone and dirt beneath us.
I clenched my right hand in agony, cursing her under my breath as I screamed just loud enough to alert the kingdom's guards.
"You damn wretch!" I spat through gritted teeth.
An indescribable pain surged through my arm. A strange blue liquid now oozed from the wound, and as the seconds ticked by, my hand began to decay before my very eyes. Panic welled up inside me.
"I am the Prince of this kingdom! How dare you strike me?" I shouted, enraged, my free hand clutching the injured one. "You're mistaken if you think my men won't kill your sorry ass!"
I smiled menacingly, trying to convince myself she was cornered. But my bravado was quickly overshadowed by her maniacal laughter. Her golden hair began to levitate, as though pulled by some invisible force.
Not long after, I felt my heart beginning to slow. I worried, yet I held onto the faith that my trusty knights would arrive to save me. My foot dragged against the solid cobblestone, grazing the ground and leaking blood as I turned to retreat. My breathing grew undeniably shallow, while my left arm began losing color and its sense of touch.
"I warned you, hadn't I, you cocky Prince?" The tanned, long-eared woman tapped her foot rapidly. The force of it was enough to shake the very foundations of the kingdom above.
Chunks of boulders fell from the cavern ceiling in a chaotic rain. The woman effortlessly dodged or shattered them mid-fall, while several would have crushed me if not for the protection of my royal ring.
She looked at me then—the look of a child in a candy store. She grinned widely, one finger brushing against her cherry-red bottom lip.
"My, my, I must ask—"
Bloop! Fwoooshhh!
Before she could finish, I blasted a water ball at her to buy myself time to escape. Her provocative nature was instantly replaced by senseless rage; her eyes dilated at my futile attempt to fight back.
"Don't you see? It's pointless to resist. You're only human."
A mere flick of her index finger was all it took to knock me off my feet. I crashed into the shattered boulders, the jagged edges cutting into my left leg and pinning me to the ground.
"I'll have you hanged! My knights will protect me, I tell you!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, desperate to believe I would get out of this alive. But thoughts of being outmatched and slaughtered began to swarm my mind.
Am I going to die? No… she wouldn't kill a prince, right? Is it too late? Is she going to... eat my corpse? Skin me for some anatomy project?
My thoughts spiraled, each more horrific than the last. My body began to shiver, my fingers drumming against my leg as I searched for any way to escape.
The falling boulders suddenly subsided. She began to walk toward me with a sadistic grin that would have made anyone tremble. Instinctively, my body tried to crawl away in terror.
"H-hey, wait! We can talk about this—"
"So weak!" she interrupted, her voice dripping with disappointment. "So this is the Great Prince of Spade? What a joke!"
As the last of my consciousness began to fade, her laughter filled the air. The lighting in the cave dimmed drastically, leaving nothing but the sight of her glowing, blue lizard eyes.
The exit was so near—just behind the psychotic witch. I used my right hand to drag my body forward one last time.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Wooooosh!
Before I knew it, my head was gripped in her cold, hardened hands. Blood spewed like a spray from a hose. As the oxygen faded from my brain and my body went immobile forever, she left me on the floor with a final, haunting message.
"Such a failure of a prince. I'll tackle another."
The woman vanished that day, never to be seen again.
In the years following Prince Asbae's gruesome death, she was given the title of the "Royal Terminator." Whether she was ever captured, no one could say for certain. The Kingdom of Spade fell into a state of panic, its citizens mourning the loss of their prince.
However, Asbae's death was not entirely in vain. It prompted the three neighboring kingdoms to strengthen their defenses and made the inclusion of mages mandatory in all magic knight squads.
Under the pressure of these new laws, races such as Elves and Demi-humans were forced into service as protectors of the Spade Kingdom. This decision eventually backfired; the Elves and Demi-humans chose to defy their masters and challenged the kingdom for control. In the end, they were victorious, rising to become the new rulers of the Kingdom of Spade.