That night--shackled at the top of Tianwu Fort--Nuan Yulong gazed at the moon through swollen eyes, wondering if this punishment was truly just.
Her body hung motionless above the fortress's infamous chasm. After an hour of relentless beating, her once-pristine skin now bore a canvas of bloodied sh marks and purple bruises. Through one eye, nearly sealed shut from her injury, she sought soce in the celestial night.
The Crane Fortress perched above a bottomless pit where she could see no end. Its chambers and corridors wound upward like a terrifying spiral, each section manned with so many guards and weapons that made escape nothing more than a fever dream.
Bathed in luna’s light, Nuan lifted her gaze from the dizzying void below to the starlit heavens. She tried to smile through the heartbreak. This was right, she thought. This was just. She deserved this fate.
Her mind drifted to simpler times, before her journey down a blood-soaked path. Once, she was just a six-year-old girl who wanted nothing more than to make her teacher proud. But she hadn't known any better then. Her talent had soared too high, her progress too terrifying. Everything they taught her, she mastered with frightening speed. Whispers began to circute that she might become the next Martial Queen.
She could have stopped there. She should have.
But in her youthful ignorance, she had pressed on, ascending to the rank of master by age eight. Her smile back then had been radiant, untouched by the shadow of what was to come. That innocence shattered on her first battlefield.
Bodies piled like a small mountain. Blood drenched the field like water in a rice paddy. The stench of death and cries of crows haunted her, refusing to fade even years ter. She stood there, eight years old, hands wet with the blood of fellow humans. Empty of everything but power.
And it only got worse.
Venomous gossips spoke of an inhuman monster in the guise of a girl creeping through pace halls. Lack of friends her age had only deepened her ache every time she looked into a mirror. Alone and used, she climbed atop a dueling arena, challenged by her jealous half-brother.
Her father's words hung in the air—'Will you surrender?'—but her answer came as a tear-streaked fist that burst through her brother's chest.
And thereafter the Emperor never gnced at her again, and Nuan didn't look at him for guidance anymore. With iron in her blood, she took on every challenge. Her spine was born to be wielded and muscle meant to reap the life of her enemy. The girl had become a Massacre Princess, a tool akin to a butcher knife meant for sughter.
And all tools would be discarded once its purpose was reached.
She should look up at the beautiful light above and smile, but her mouth could only twist in ugly pain. Tears bubbling into her eyes, the inner eight-year-old resurfaced from the grave Nuan had buried her. Her weakened body shook from the strain of her wailing.
"I-I don't want to die," she sobbed incoherently. "I want to live." Once more, she turned to look at the starry night with none of her dignity remaining. "Please, anyone, help me!"
The heartfelt cry rang to the heavens amidst the quiet rattling of chains.
"Why can't I ugh with other people?" Nuan gnced back down and begged any god that might listen. "I just want to be happy."
"It is fine to ask that sometimes," said a voice that was eerily simir to her father. "There is nothing wrong with just quitting an unwinnable battle, but I guess your old man couldn't properly teach you that lesson given he sucks ass at crifying his position."
Bound in misery, the young maiden lifted her gaze upward. There, silhouetted against the moon, stood a familiar man in a billowing b coat, his presence seeming to eclipse the night itself.
Ciel observed the mechanism holding Nuan, "A paralytic poison-ced chain, and naturally high drop plus a garrison. Quite shoddy."
"What are you doing here?" Nuan squeaked, not knowing what to do or feel.
"I am here to get you out of here," replied her rescuer, getting something that appeared to be a uncher of sorts from his coat.
Aiming the rifle downward, he pressed the trigger. With a muffled bang, a metal bo spun through the air, its connecting wires gleaming in the moonlight before wrapping around her wrist with a precise click.
Seeing his target secure, Ciel spoke into a cylindrical metal cylinder, "I have secured Nuan, go ham."
Hearing the signal the co-conspirator stepped from the protection of stealth technology and unleashed their getaway distraction.
WHITE MAGIC RANK V: WRATH OF SOL
In the sky above Fort Tianwu, the night was cut. A gap flowing with blinding glow illuminated all below its gaze, a sound of shattering erupted as multiple comets of glowing radiance rained upon the fort. Each ball of light smashed upon the earthen ground, burning all that it touched and sending thick smoke floating through the air.
Gongs of arm rose. Alongside the furious call of the arm came the assembly of men dressed in heavy armor, marching thunderously up the tower to secure the prisoner. Wicked bdes in hand, ready to sever anyone who got in their way, and grim anticipation of combat lined their faces.
But they found nothing aside from the cnking empty chains.
---
Six hundred meters from the carnage, Ciel reappeared in the distance catching the transferred Nuan in a bridal carry.
Studying her features in the moonlight, Ciel noted that Nuan's mother carried the lion's share of the genetic burden; even battered and bloodied, traces of beauty persisted beneath the bruises. Unfortunately, her usual fragrance was now buried beneath blood and sweat.
Her weight surprised him: far too light for a warrior of her caliber. Still, her slight frame banced perfectly in his arms. A masterpiece of nature now tattered by injury, clearly time for immediate maintenance.
From his coat, he produced a clear syringe he uncapped with his teeth. And wasting no time for Nuan Yulong's opinion, he impaled it in her arm and injected the contents into her bloodstream.
"Ouch!" she yelled at the jab. "What is that?"
"Healing stimunt," Ciel replied and began picking up the pace. "We need to run."
Nuan immediately felt the conflict. One half of her pumped with gratitude upon the knowledge that she was saved. Another tried to process this information with bafflement and something akin to guilt.
"But why?" she asked in an attempt to mediate her cshing emotions.
"Didn't you yell about wanting to be saved back there?" Ciel made a break for it.
Heart thumping, Nuan forced out a compint, "But I am your enemy, aren't I? Why do you want to save me of all people?"
"Enemy?" he snorted. His ears picked up on the frantic yelling of the guards who had spotted their suspicious movement. "My enemy wouldn't be crying like a damsel in distress."
"I-I am not crying," refuted the young maiden, still red from puffiness.
"Anything you say, Princess," Ciel snarked, unfurling his coat and getting out several drones lined with automatic seeking systems. He let loose the weapons, and never turned back.
The assembling guards rushed toward the disturbance only to meet the suicide bombing devices head-on. The explosions tossed them over the building like straw dolls, obliterating everything below with the roar of an avanche.
Nuan gaped at the smoke and fire. "Those are Yulong Empire's facilities!" She tried to get the man rescuing her to stop. "Stop it! You are picking a fight with the overlord of the Southern Continent."
"Led by an idiotic buffoon called Mandrake," Ciel roared as he dashed out of the camp. "That alone disqualifies them from even thinking about stopping me."
"Just stop," Nuan pleaded in despair. "I am not worth all this." She tried to give herself more excuses. "I tried to kill you, remember?"
"Your father stabbed me in the back and I still consider him my responsibility," he ducked an arrow whizzing past his ears, feeling the wind as it passed and grimacing. In his relief, the illusory drones he had deployed would already go to work.
"But I am just a tool. I am already discarded, so why should I—"
Ciel picked that moment to knock some sense into her with his only avaible weapon: his forehead.
A "bonk" sounded and his vision doubled. He almost questioned if he had just headbutted metal instead of a human skull. Just how hardy could one girl be?
Nuan, utterly unharmed from that attack, looked at Ciel in shock. "Are you okay?" She asked her swaying attacker, who needed to stop and regather his marbles against the building wall. "Did you hurt yourself?"
"I am fine," he shakily tried to blink away the dizziness from his eyes. He looked into the girl's eyes. "Don't you want to be happy?"
Taken aback, Nuan absorbed the sight of the handsome face as explosions from one of Xia's destruction spells shone in the distance. Something in those steely eyes mesmerized her. The heart drumming from adrenaline danced to another beat she could never imagine.
"I will admit that life under that idiotic excuse of a father must be hard, especially in the court of snakes he accidentally surrounded himself with," Ciel spoke, getting up and doubling their speed toward the ride he had positioned for this escape. "However, no matter how much the past rhymes with the future, the content will not be the same. Nuan, you might have been a weapon for most of your life, but this is an opportunity to be something more. You want to be free, don't you? So just trust me when I say I will take you to that freedom."
Hearing that, alongside the drum of her beating heart, turned Nuan's face a hot shade of pink. Part of her felt grateful the nightly contrast with the orange of fming structures hid part of that expression.
"You are the worst," Nuan whispered, avoiding looking into his eyes. "How could you say that to a girl?"
"Say what?" The clueless Union Lord cried.
"Everyone's set ready," said the Princess of White who had already made it to their getaway car. "We are leaving."
The following morning, Fort Tianwu had gathered its marbles from the surprise attack st night. Upon discovering the missing prisoner, the empire-shaking news spread throughout every town and city. Bounties were issued and courts were summoned to deal with the event dubbed 'The Massacre Princess' Homecoming.'