Chapter: 6. Keep Your Word (6000-Character Chapter)
“Eight Wings… Xue Fei! Eight… no, let me count again… one, two, three, four, five… ah, it really is eight wings!”
You can even count again amidst your shock.
It’s clear that you’re not very wise.
Xue Fei Ya casually pressed down her palm, signaling the Hero in front of her to learn to stay calm.
“Ah, I understand, I understand, don’t be so surprised; you are a Hero, you can’t be so easily startled.”
“How can I stay calm…! Xue Fei, do you know what eight wings represent?!”
“Ah? I really don’t know, what does it represent?”
“I don’t know either!”
“You don’t know, then what about a spiraling hammer creature?”
This wave of sarcasm left Xue Fei Ya quite exhausted!
But, but! Facing this situation, Xialet was truly at a loss for words!
Eight black wings extended and pressed against the top of the spacious carriage compartment.
At the joint where the wings connected to Xue Fei Ya’s back, there was a distorted space like an illusion, making it seem as if the wings had directly extended from the back of her dress.
The magically formed wings were not affected by the fabric, which was quite convenient~
Surrounding the wings was an invisible vortex of magic, deep and unfathomable, like a cosmic sea.
It was precisely because Xiya was the Hero… that she could feel the overwhelming pressure brought by the eight wings so palpably that for a moment, she even forgot how to breathe efficiently.
If it were a normal person facing this situation at such a close distance… they would probably faint instinctively.
Though Xialet felt a bit of suffocation, she quickly recovered and did not experience any further discomfort.
Aside from her own strength.
Another reason that Xiya was very clear about.
“Xue Fei… you’re intentionally concealing your aura, aren’t you?”
“Hmm, then what else? This carriage’s barrier looks quite unreliable… if it stirs up a ruckus, wouldn’t the people outside think I’ve started causing trouble again!? That would mean another performance, how troublesome! I’m not even an actress, and no one’s paying me for acting.”
“That may be true… but you actually say this barrier isn’t reliable… sigh, I feel like I’m getting a bit used to it.”
“Huh?”
Xue Fei, you don’t know.
Our carriage’s aura barrier is constructed using one of the three great treasures of the Human Race, the Divine Thread Chain! Even if a dragon unleashed its breath against the carriage at full force, it wouldn’t shake the compartment in the slightest.
While it can block a dragon’s breath—it doesn’t mean it can completely block the aura of the eight wings.
Xialet nervously swallowed and closed her eyes, activating her sensing detection magic to reach out to the human army behind the carriage.
Fortunately… it seems Xue Fei had suppressed her aura to a very low level; the army had no abnormal reactions.
Xialet stopped sensing, opened her bright blue eyes, and covered her rather ample chest, letting out a long sigh of relief.
“Phew… thankfully, the army is still moving normally without any disturbances. Thanks to you for being cautious, Xue Fei… otherwise, it would have been troublesome.”
“That’s right! I’m just a very cautious person!”
“Cautious people wouldn’t suddenly unfurl their wings! You idiot, Xue Fei!”
“Ouch!”
Xue Fei Ya was unexpectedly hit on the head and felt wronged, though it didn’t hurt.
After that, Xue Fei Ya curled her eight black wings around herself, wrapping herself up and shrinking onto the entire row of seats.
The silver-haired little one only poked her head out from the gap in her wings, blinking her eyes smartly as she looked at Xiya.
“Hey, that’s not fair! Can you blame me for unfurling my wings? You were the one who told me to prove my strength; am I not proving it now?”
“Um… then I apologize, but speaking of which, eight wings or something… I’ve read the general history of this world, and there’s no record of such a thing! Even the first Demon King had six wings. No… wait, Xue Fei, you Demon Race believes in the legendary Creator Demon God Tiyiel, doesn’t the description refer to eight wings?”
“Creator… Demon God? What’s that?”
“It’s the deity in your Demon Race’s faith! Ah, Xue Fei, seriously… have you not learned common knowledge in the Demon Race all these years?”
“Pfft… I was joking! Of course, I know what that is… that… that Tiyir!”
“It’s not Tiyir, it’s Tiyiel…”
“Same thing! Hahaha!”
“Ah… it’s simply unbelievable.”
Xue Fei Ya whistled, her gaze drifting to the side, no longer speaking.
She must know a thing or two, but having such dull classes in the castle when she was young… how could she have absorbed it completely!
Xialet looked up and down at the beautiful eight wings in front of her and tried to reach out to touch the magic-surging patterns on them.
“But the Demon God is ultimately just a myth… it’s incomprehensible.”
“Yah…?!”
“Xue… Xue Fei?”
To be honest, Xue Fei Ya’s cat-like adorable lament made Xiya’s heart tingle.
She quickly retracted the hand that had touched the wings.
Xue Fei Ya was tightly clinging to her black wings, curling up tighter than before, her face flushed with embarrassment as she extended a small hand from her wings, showing her small tiger teeth to protest!
“Why did you just touch me like that…! You, you, you… didn’t you study common knowledge?! The wings of the Demon Race are very sensitive, you know!”
“No… Xue Fei, I’ve never heard of such common knowledge… did you misremember?”
“Nonsense, how could I not know my own wings?”
Being stubborn, Xue Fei Ya insisted on her correctness, and the more she spoke, the more heated she became.
“Every time these wings unfurl, if they touch a wall or a door, they feel all tingly and numb.”
“That’s impossible…”
“Why is it impossible! That’s why I’m usually very careful! If I accidentally bump them too many times… it becomes quite uncomfortable.”
“How is it uncomfortable? Uncomfortable means…?”
“Hey, how can you not understand that! The kind of uncomfortable I’m talking about is… well, I curl up in the Demon King’s room and have to solve it myself a bit… Uh?! Are you trying to lead me into saying something?!”
“……”
I’m not intentionally leading you…
But… unintentionally, Xiya seemed to have heard some explosive information?
Showing a thoughtful smile, her eyes seemed to say—Xue Fei sometimes seems to be a bit shy.
This one look completely flustered Xue Fei Ya; she abruptly shrank into her wings, quietly complaining about how Xiya was being extremely underhanded.
What’s wrong… it’s natural to have curiosity about turning into a girl… plus with these uncooperative wings, is it wrong to handle things on her own?
We’re not wrong! We’re free!
Xiya didn’t intend to let Xue Fei off the hook; though she felt satisfied having heard this, she still needed to correct Xue Fei’s common knowledge error.
“However… I still want to say, could it be that only you have this situation, Xue Fei?”
“Hah, how is that possible?”
“Because think about it, if that were true, life for the Demon Race would be too hard, and if such a thing really existed, it would definitely be recorded in books, and since it isn’t, it means you’re a special case.”
“Is that true…” The sparkle in Xue Fei Ya’s eyes slowly faded, “Is it just me? Am I sick… Oh no, I’m doomed!”
“I don’t think it’s that serious…”
Xialet sighed deeply; her mischievous side pushed her to reach out and touch those beautiful wings.
However, rationality won out, and she held back.
“Let’s put this aside for now, Xue Fei, besides me, is there anyone else who knows you have eight wings?”
“Besides you… oh, there’s also my Father King and my Mother Queen. Aside from them, no one else knows.”
“The Demon King and Queen? Did they say anything when they saw the eight wings? Were they aware of anything we don’t understand, or… what was their reaction?”
“They vomited.”
“?”
Xue Fei Ya’s expression suddenly turned somewhat dazed.
As if recalling some unbearable bitter history.
Xialet paused for a moment, initially struggling to comprehend what Xue Fei meant.
But just a moment later, she understood.
Got it.
Earlier, Xue Fei had intentionally suppressed her magic, which was why she hadn’t been affected much.
And since she understood how to suppress magic…
It meant she had experienced the consequences of not suppressing it before!
Presumably, the Demon King and Queen had faced a terrifying magical whirlpool directly.
To the point where, in a state of complete unpreparedness, they fainted and vomited.
Xialet silently thanked the suffering but previously unacquainted Demon King and Queen… for allowing Xue Fei to understand restraint and saving herself from disaster.
You’ve worked hard.
Xue Fei Ya felt only sorrow about this.
Woe is me, my parents saw their happy daughter displaying her wings, and they directly vomited!
This incident left an extremely deep psychological shadow on her young heart!
Do you understand the weight of a parent’s vomit in front of their daughter!?
“However… since the Demon King and Queen know you have eight wings, can they believe you’re pretending to be captured?”
“Well, that’s not something I can control. Let’s take it one step at a time.”
“True…”
After a brief moment of silence, Xialet still wanted to ask about a question she had been concerned about earlier.
“But earlier on the battlefield, I clearly saw Xue Fei had six wings; did I mistakenly see it?”
“Oh, oh, you’re talking about that; you really did not see it incorrectly.”
Xue Fei Ya stretched out a finger from her wings and made a couple of circles in front of her.
The white-greenish tip of her finger sparkled with faint fluorescence like ripples on water.
The ensuing change—was that the wings enveloping her gradually faded into two wings in a blur.
And as the fluorescent light at her fingertip disappeared.
The six wings reverted back to their original eight wings.
Xue Fei Ya sighed with worry.
But with her adorable face, the sigh did not seem aged, and instead, appeared somewhat cute.
“Hey~ actually, when I need to unfurl my wings, I usually use visual-type magic to hide two wings. I haven’t seen the eight wings in the Demon Race all these years… I wasn’t born with eight wings. It only happened after I learned magic, which is quite a long story. But you know the saying, the first bird gets the shot, right! I also asked my Father King and Mother Queen to help me keep it a secret. If I didn’t do this, I would be overworked in the Demon Race until I die! Look, I was already busy enough before!”
“You definitely can’t find any other eight-wings… um… but I can understand Xue Fei’s feelings… as a Hero, I’m also busy every day.”
“Right!”
Xialet could fully empathize with Xue Fei’s reluctance to display her strength excessively.
After all…
The Demon Race has overly relied on their Princess over the years.
Ever since Xue Fei turned ten, she had always been at the forefront of the battlefield.
As long as she was there, the morale of the Demon Race surged like an unstoppable tide.
Speaking of which.
Xue Fei Ya’s curled eight wings gradually unfurled.
Revealing the silver-haired girl in her midst, hugging her knees.
In her deep purple eyes, years of entanglement and confusion suddenly swirled.
“Xiya… you say, in the war between the human race and the demon race, which side is right.”
“There’s no just side in war.” Xialet seemed to have anticipated she would ask this question. “This war began long before we were born; the human race coveted the wealth accumulated by the demon race, and the demon race eyed the expansive territories of the human race. Who moved first… is no longer easy to investigate; even if we could find out, it wouldn’t matter.”
“Is that so…”
Yes, the answer is definite.
It’s said that initially, it was shrewd human merchants who introduced fine crafts into the Demon Territory.
This should have been a good thing; trade between species would indeed be convenient for both sides.
But with strength being paramount, the wealthy Demon Race was not that cautious.
They underestimated the malicious greed of the human race.
By the time they realized it, they found that currency that could originally buy a bag of grain in the Demon Territory had depreciated to the point that it could not purchase even a spoonful of rice.
The Demon Race was enraged.
Meanwhile, those human merchants were complacent, having already made a fortune and returned to their own human kingdoms to boast to family and friends about their achievements in the Demon Territory, how much money they made, and laughed at those foolish demons for being idiots.
They even laughed while calculating how many demons their “great achievement” would starve.
From that moment on, war became unavoidable.
When the Demon Army set foot on the first inch of human territory.
The guilt of those individual merchants was already transferred onto the heads of all humans.
Innocent or not.
You say, isn’t this unfair? Or fair?
No… it has nothing to do with justice.
Once war begins, the reasons behind the conflict cease to be merely about revenge.
But rather, a race sees a broader starry sea… an endless ambition for war.
The greed of the human race is indeed evident.
But the desires of the Demon Race have long been boundless.
Xue Fei Ya, who remained curled within the torrent, had the brightness in her dark purple eyes gradually dull.
“So… I want to leave the Demon Race like this, as a ‘defeated person,’ to find a place… to live a normal life… I don’t want to see the battlefield anymore.”
“Even if Xue Fei could change everything about the Demon Race with brute force… making them dare not think of war again?”
“I can’t change their minds, nor do I want to.”
Xue Fei Ya continued to lower her head against her knees; though her voice was small, she still exerted effort to share years of unspeakable bitterness with the only person she trusted in this world.
“Because… why should I… why should I be this ‘traitor’ who changes others’ thoughts with brute force? Xiya… if I really did that, don’t you think… it’s very unfair? Even if I changed them, they would only scold me for meddling. Everything, apart from this identity of the Demon Princess… what does it have to do with me?”
“Then follow your kind’s wishes and keep attacking the human race until the war ends?”
“The war won’t end… as long as desire exists, there will never be an end.”
Xue Fei Ya was increasingly coming to understand now.
The nobles of the Demon Race initially said they only wanted to occupy a corner of the human race’s land and intimidate their greed.
But later, they collectively demanded that the Demon Royal Family issue orders to press in deeper, taking advantage of the Demon King’s might to advance.
Now, they had their sights set on the capital city of the human kingdom.
The righteous side has long been labeled with some sins, and the side holding territory cannot be deemed entirely upright either.
So, what happens after the capital of the human race falls…?
There are still many starry seas in this world, and they cannot reach the end.
And everything will accompany the slaughter.
Coincidentally, Xue Fei Ya did not have such ambition.
She only thought about one day sitting by a mountain spring with someone she cherished, listening to the birds sing and the water flow.
—This was the origin of Xue Fei Ya’s escape plan.
Since no matter what, they would become either a “traitor” or a “killer.”
Then I choose to be “defeated and captured” in a certain war.
That way, everything won’t be my fault, right?
“Xiya.” Xue Fei Ya’s expression held a touch of helplessness, “Can you understand… this feeling of being caught in a dilemma?”
“Mm… I understand, I completely understand… Xue Fei can relax a bit now…”
Xialet reached out, silently holding onto the fingers Xue Fei Ya had placed on her legs.
The voice of Hero Xialet was gentle, like spring water.
It was as if at this moment, she was a Hero belonging to no one but Xue Fei Ya, immensely pampering her.
No… in fact, she had always hoped to become a Hero that belonged to only her.
“Xue Fei has felt wronged all these years, right… everyone’s expectations of you, they long for you to lead them to slaughter… to conquer, presuming that you also have those grand ambitions, constantly echoing in your ears are their so-called lofty rhetoric and profound principles.”
“Xiya…”
I understand.
Because Xue Fei… we are actually quite similar.
Sometimes, we can’t help ourselves.
Clearly only wanting to quietly enjoy the blue sea and sky, yet in the blink of an eye, because of so-called “great justice,” we rush to the battlefield, gripping blades.
Of course, you could choose to say you don’t want to go.
But saying that would guarantee scornful looks and bear all the unjust accusations and pressure.
“Right…” Xue Fei Ya suddenly felt a pang in her nose; she realized she hadn’t had anyone to talk to about these feelings for many years, “Even my Father King tells me… I need to try harder, saying that the future of the Demon Race is on my shoulders, but… but I really don’t want that kind of future!”
“Mm… if you don’t want it, then cast it aside.”
As she gripped her fingers, her palm unconsciously continued forward, wishing to embrace the strong yet fragile Xue Fei.
While Xialet was leaning her body forward…
The eight black wings surrounding Xue Fei Ya gradually transformed into dark glowing dots, scattering.
Xialet embraced Xue Fei Ya’s trembling petite frame without any obstruction.
Golden hair replaced the dark radiance wrapping around Xue Fei, her words tender and warm.
“Xue Fei does not want to go to the battlefield… there is no value in its existence.”
Xue Fei Ya rested her chin on Xialet’s shoulder.
Her eyes sparkled with glimmers of light.
She truly couldn’t hold back anymore!
“Xiya…! I have been trying hard all these years…! Every time I get to the battlefield… I try my best not to kill them, but they! They all come at me recklessly…! I can’t help it!”
“Mm mm… Xue Fei has really worked hard… truly impressive.”
“Waa…!”
Xue Fei is really gentle…
Perhaps this is where the title of the “Disaster Princess” Xue Fei Ya on the battlefield comes from.
Those human warriors who feared Xue Fei would never expect… Xue Fei Ya actually had many powerful spells that could take them out in one hit.
—Yet she chose to invoke disasters that would create the greatest “impression.”
Thunder roared but didn’t strike down on the wilderness.
The wind howled but never scattered souls.
Each disaster was just Xue Fei wanting to create such a scene to terrify the enemies, encouraging them to surrender and thus reduce casualties.
Such a child, yet she received the most notorious evaluations from the human race…
This world truly isn’t fair enough.
Xialet tightly embraced her shoulders, allowing the wounded princess to gently cry in her arms.
She didn’t know how long it had been.
Xue Fei Ya finally slowly stopped trembling in this warm embrace.
She slowly lifted her head from Xialet’s chest, her dark purple eyes sparkling with tears.
And what she said this time… made Xialet shiver all over!
“Waa… I haven’t cried like this in a long time. Thank you… sister.”
“Mm… it’s been a long time since I heard Xue Fei call me sister… so nostalgic.”
“But I still want to ask, what on earth did you eat to grow up to be this soft!”
“Ah…?! Xue Fei! What are you feeling without permission!”
“Hehe…! Sorry, sorry~”
Xialet’s face suddenly turned red, scolding as she gently patted Xue Fei Ya’s back.
However, Xue Fei did not break free from the embrace.
Xialet did not drive Xue Fei away either.
The atmosphere in the small carriage compartment was the most comforting temperature in the world.
And just at that moment…
Both of them felt some subtle changes outside the carriage.
Xialet gently snapped her fingers, and the barrier enveloping the carriage was temporarily lifted.
At the same time.
Outside the carriage, the roaring cheers rose and fell without any obstruction.
“Long live the Hero!”
“Welcome the Hero’s triumphant return!!”
“Peace!! Life!!”
Xue Fei Ya and Xialet exchanged smiles, coming to a conclusion together.
—It seems we’ve already arrived at the capital city.
Xue Fei rubbed her cheek against this softness a couple of times and teased,
“Did you hear that, Xiya? The crowd is welcoming you back~ You captured me, this time your achievements are quite large! Get ready to receive your reward!”
“Hmm? Is it just welcoming me? Perhaps everyone is also welcoming you.”
“Hah? What are you saying, they must almost hate me to death; how could they possibly welcome me?”
“Well… if the welcomed me welcomes Xue Fei’s arrival, then how about that? Everyone welcomes me, and I welcome Xue Fei; if we calculate it this way, doesn’t it mean everyone is also welcoming Xue Fei?”
“Eh…? What kind of logic is this…? I can’t possibly be dumber than Xiya… weird…”
Mwah~
Taking advantage of Xue Fei’s moment of confusion.
Xialet slightly leaned down and placed a light kiss on Xue Fei’s forehead.
Even the most enthusiastic cheers seemed to freeze; time flowed solely for the two.
Xue Fei Ya dazedly touched her forehead, disbelief reflected in her slightly dazed expression.
Yet, Xialet’s smile had already blossomed.
“Xue Fei, come home with sister, in the future… please take care of me.”
“Waa… okay…?”
Let the world mock, I stand alone in your heart.
The mountain roar of welcome, even if not for you, I’m willing to replace those cheers and offer you all the beautiful things in the world.
Suddenly, a sharper glint appeared in Xialet’s eyes.
Arriving at the capital… some challenges have just begun.
Don’t worry, Xue Fei.
Sister is willing to protect the life you desire.
Speaking of which, I will keep my word.
