The Reaper King

Chapter 6: Enter, The Ruby Palace

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Vicious sounds of metal striking metal rang out in rapid succession throughout the dimly lit training hall. Amid the cruel shrieking of metal scraping savagely against metal, sounds of deadly combat could be heard emanating. A harrowing, clearly one sided fight slowly came into view.

"Huff, huff, huff," the ragged breaths of a girl grunting as she swung a heavy tungsten sword almost twice the size of herself. Her breaths came in ragged bursts. A tall man in a loosely buttoned, egg white shirt, wearing long gray slacks, parried her every blindingly fast, savage attack. All the while, he was being blindfolded, and was only wielding a butter knife.

The parried blows came reverberating loudly, like explosions in the girl's ears, as she struggled to find a way to break through the man's defense before she ran out of stamina... again.

Except, the tall man wasn't just any man. For the past week since her adoption, she'd come to learn a lot about the tall man that had adopted her. Firstly, he was royalty of some kind, a relative of one of the Great Disasters. Secondly he had a cool, detached and aloofly unbothered, outward personality. And a deeply sore temper.

He was usually cool and reserved, a large man of few words and a too-charming, studied disposition.

Finally, he was also a werewolf deity.

A mortal who'd ascended to divinity. A lord of a massive pack the size of an entire kingdom, even including its own few islands. He was a gentleman mage known as Amos Jeras, and an unholy force of arcane devastation the girl had later come to know, as The Ruby King.

He had inherited the nation as its supreme sovereign, as birthright from his grandfather, the great Iron Wolf, for completing the sacred were-being task of creating one's own art.

A feat, the girl had learned, was apparently a one in a billion possibility for even the pinnacle of most were-being mages.

The majority of the kingdom was hidden in a pocket realm, deep in the forests of Columbia. Its citizens lived life in abject peace and splendor. Not only were they hidden behind the deep forests of Columbia, teeming with viscous wildlife, and the portal gate that was both hidden behind a vast blanket of glamorous and traps. They were also protected by miles upon miles of transcendental magic woven by the many deities that resided within the nation in patriotic service to their country. The kingdom was known as Elorra, The Ruby Kingdom.

And a week ago, the girl Jessica, had become its one and only, Ruby Princess.

'He's also a massive asshole,' Jessica muttered to herself in thought, fighting through the screaming pain of her tired muscles, as she continued her barrage. Flowing through hundreds of forms and steps that had been ingrained into her over the past week, she attacked seamlessly, only stopping for mere seconds in between rotations to rest before continuing her assault. Despite the massive blade she wielded.

Amos was a creature of rigid routine, and as such Jessica's life since becoming a princess had been sectioned off and pre-planned for her long before she'd even gotten to the Ruby Palace. It wasn't all that bad she reasoned. After all, for the majority of the day Jessica was free to roam the palace as she chose. But, from the hours of 5pm-10pm every night, she'd be locked in brutal physical and magical conditioning with the divine wolf and his battalion of equally severe trainers, coaches, and sparring partners. It was during those moments, Jessica had come to learn to hate his cocky, know it all suaveness. It didn't help that this particular exercise was something Amos would only let her do against him. Not to mention that it would only stop the moment she hit him once. Allowing the entire training hall to witness her failure. It had been almost an hour and she hadn't even come close to grazing him once.