Riches and Bitches: I have a gate to an isekai and leveling-up system!-Chapter 280: Turning point (11)

'Now then… what goes next?'

Etaria took a deep breath and closed her eyes, making use of the tranquil silence that came after her powerful attack.

It was never her intention to buy herself this space and time to think things through… But now that she found herself alone and without a single sound to bother her, Etaria willingly indulged herself in the moment, taking some time to sort her thoughts out.

'There's Madam stalling for time, Zanba knowing far more than he ever allowed me to know, their strange connection…'

The princess squinted her golden eyes.

'No, not their connection. Our connection to this forest,' Etaria corrected herself, slowly but surely piecing together all the scattered pieces of information she received in this impossible and incredible encounter.

The princess closed her eyes and raised her chin, taking in a deep breath and keeping it in her lungs for a long while, before slowly, slowly breathing it out.

"Okay then," Etaria muttered before gathering just a single sliver of her mana and infusing it in one of the spell frames she was most familiar with.

For how simplistic it was, the spell she prepared was one of the few that only the golden lineage got access to. A convenience-class spell that was as simple as it was specific, exclusively aimed to work on those conditioned to notice it.

'Here we go,' Etaria thought, pulling out a small dagger from the belt at her waist before cutting the inner palm of her hand open. A mere second after she wounded herself, Etaria took a look at the blood seeping out from the wound.

'It's still not golden,' she thought, gritting her teeth in silent frustration for a short moment before raising her injured palm as high as she could, anchoring her lineage-exclusive spell right in the small puddle of blood forming right above the injury.

'Go!'

The mana surged forth into the frame of the spell, turning it from a mere concept into a phenomena factor.

The blood on Etaria's hand bubbled up as if it was boiling… before suddenly growing lighter and lighter in color, all the way to the point where the over-infusion of mana caused it to turn golden.

But the moment Etaria's blood took on the color of her lineage, it also reached the limits of how much energy it could contain. But the flow of the princess's mana didn't stop.

Quite contrary, Etaria continued to infuse more and more of it into the anchor within her blood, quickly turning her golden blood thicker and thicker… before it had no other choice but to start to take the shape of the spellframe she prepared in advance.

WHOOSH!

Upon reaching its maximum saturation point, the thickened, golden blood suddenly shot up, forming a simple, extremely light spear of roughly three meters in length. But this wasn't the end.

As soon as the blade formed at the very end of the spear, its upper part started to bloat. It grew fuller and fuller, all the way to the point where it looked like even a single gust of wind would suffice to break the structural balance and cause the top part of Etaria's golden spear to shatter…

Yet, the bloated part continued to grow as Etaria pushed more and more of her mana into the spell's frame.

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And then, instead of shattering all over and spilling whatever made it bloat like that all over the place, the spear's top split open in a single, perfectly straight rift of a perfectly third of the spear's total length.

"Here we go," gritting her teeth to use the slight hint of pain to maintain her focus, Etaria continued to feed her golden spear more and more of her mana… All the way to the point where her golden blood spewed out from the rift within the spear, turning into golden threads that woven themselves into a golden griffin, the heraldic mark of the golden lineage.

"The imperial banner calls you forth!" Etaria spoke out the traditional formula before swinging the weird spear in a small circle and then lowering it ahead, in the direction she could sense both Zanba and Madam's power echo from. "Men of the Empire!" Etaria raised her voice, allowing the pathos of the ritual to get the better of her, "FOLLOW THE BANNER TO COMBAT!"

Etaria's voice lingered in the air for a second, the banner spear in her hand vibrated as if resonating with her voice…

Only for the golden banner to crumble into dust, starting from the blade at its top, through the imperial banner, and all the way to the two-meter worth of its long handle.

'So it's done,' Etaria thought, glaring at the dust that fell down and then scattered on the air, diffusing back into its true form of dried-out and used blood.

The princess then turned her eyes towards her palm, using just a whisker of her mana to close the wound. And as she looked up…

"My princess!"

One of the Golden Legion's officers ran past the trees and arrived in the area opened up by the explosion from before.

"The legion heard the call of the banner! We are at your service!"

By the time the officer fell down to one knee and lowered his head, more and more of the legionaries rushed out from between the trees only to follow suit and fall down on one knee.

'What is the most important thing right now?' Taking a look at her loyal retainers, Etaria took just one more moment to consider all her options and circumstances.

She then closed her eyes once again, keeping them shut for merely a second.

"I've got news of a great danger looming deeper into the forest," Etaria spoke out loud, opening her eyes only to reveal a renewed determination burning up from the very core of her soul. "We are hereby scrapping the initial goal of this campaign.

For now, though, I need some of you to go and rush the rest of our army," Etaria ordered while turning her eyes to one of the officers she remembered to be quick on his legs.

"On it, my princess!" the officer in simple, golden armor lowered his head as he shouted, only to jump right back up and rush back the way he came.

"As for the rest of you…" Etaria turned her eyes over to the rest of the legionaries gathered nearby. "I believe you should be able to sense the mess up ahead."

The officers looked at each other, before closing their eyes and turning silent for a short moment.

"Indeed, we do," the man bearing the highest rank among those gathered took on the burden of speaking up for all. "What are your orders, your highness?"

Etaria took a deep breath.

"Go and slaughter them all. But be careful, for there might be a force in waiting that you might not be able to challenge."

The officer's eyebrows moved up so high, Etaria noticed it even with the man's helmet obstructing most of his face.

The princess could almost hear the question that he and his colleagues wanted to ask.

And yet, they didn't.

"To hear means to obey," the officer spoke as he lowered his head for a second, only to rise up and turn to the rest of the legionaries gathered on the spot. "You've heard our lady! Pick up the damn slack and get a move on!"

The officer turned around while unsheathing his sword and quickly fixing the position of his helmet. He then moved forth without any spare words, only lowering his head and throwing a short, "my princess" as he passed by Etaria while already moving in the direction the banner called him forth.

"May your fight be glorious and honorable," Etaria silently muttered the usual formula before turning her eyes in the same direction and taking a short moment to glance out into the distance.

With the trees blocking her view, she couldn't really see much… But by reading into the flow of mana of the world, she quickly managed to pinpoint the location where Zanba clashed with Madam.

'It's time for me to go too,' she thought, gathering the mana into the spell's forms embedded into the mana stones sown into her pants before releasing her hold over her mana and rushing ahead, supported by a series of tiny spells that made her step longer, lighter and nearly free of gravity.

A single step allowed her to cross the distance her men would have to run for a while to cross. And this same step gave her twice as much momentum as an average legionnaire would have while sprinting at his full speed.

Step by step, Etaria cut through the forest like an arrow. Thanks to the anti-weight augmentation spell, she didn't need to bother with any of the trees obstructing her path, as she simply walked up and ended up rushing above those.

Step after step… and just like that, Etaria arrived on the scene, where Madam just fell down to the ground, shaken by some sort of a powerful attack.

'Zanba! Where is he…?!'

Still some distance away but close enough to see everything that happened, Etaria quickly noticed her mate rushing towards the place where it seemed all the forest folk had gathered for their last stand…

'But what are those…?'

A group of strange-looking men held some weird, black sticks that continued to flash red as if lighting up several times a second…

Only for Zanba to walk out of the forest, all battered, clearly struggling to walk ahead when faced with… what exactly?

'Shit, no time to think too hard about it!'

Aware of just how much time she's already lost, Etaria gritted her teeth and gathered up her mana, ready to finish this fight in one, decisive strike. Yet, as soon as her mana filled the form of the powerful piercing spell she prepared, the area of the enemy army…

Suddenly vanished from her mana sense, carved out of the world's natural flow of mana by some sort of sophisticated barrier.

Opening her eyes, Etaria saw the whole area within the barrier suddenly covered with thick smoke that even her golden eyes couldn't penetrate. Yet, just before this smoke could cover all of those inside, her eyes landed on one, extremely specific person.

'So you are here,' Etaria thought, her eyes squinting as she rushed forth to add physical momentum to the power of her spell.

For a second, their eyes meet. But just like Madam did before when she had to pick whether to stop Zanba from invoking the taboo or defend from Etaria's attack, the princess pulled her attention away from the man, allowing him to escape into this unnatural smoke.

'I need to deal with that damned fox first!' she thought, gritting her teeth as she finally reached the most convenient spot, just to the side of the clearing where the locals made their last stand.

"I'm going to end it now," Etaria whispered to herself, gathering all of the energy she could muster… and dropping with all the power she gathered right into a random spot of the barrier.