Mirror Princess: A LitRPG Space Fantasy (Sword of Asteria Book 2)

by Eddie R. Hicks

  The Nox Knight just laughed. “You are in no position to be making demands.”

  “And you don’t really want us dead,” Nijana spat as her captive, likely the Assassin Vix, held her in his grips. “If so, you could have done it already.”

  The Nox Knight grinned at Nijana. “Oh no, princess?” Then he swung his blade of darkness at Synaria. The druid backflipped away, landing perfectly on her feet. She retrieved her blades and aimed for the Nox Knight.

  The Nox Knight who idled to cast a spell—

  “Hey!” Vix yelled, stopping the Nox Knight. “We have a nonaggression pact with the people killers. Do not kill her.”

  Synaria snorted. “Ha! I have the power!”

  “Or do you?” Vix said. He waved the dagger he had held to Nijana’s throat. She would have fought him off if her class and level had given her the strength to do so. “I can kill this pixie quick. She is not at a high level. After that, I can permakill her—”

  “You will do no such thing!” The Nox Knight said, his blade aimed for Vix’s head. “The fae is not to be harmed.”

  “Oh,” Vix said to the Nox Knight. “Is that why you wanted to come along, Serzax?”

  Serzax nodded, “You are holding princess Averyl Autumnfall.”

  Nijana opened her eyes wide. They believed she was Averyl, and it didn’t make sense. Why would a human care? An imperial, she would understand, but some human Nox Knight? I guess Serzax is connected with Wylume and the Autumnfall Empire.

  Synaria shook her head. “No, she is not Averyl,” Synaria said. “That lass there is—”

  “Who then?” Serzax demanded. “If this woman is not Averyl, then who is she?”

  “Syn . . .” Nijana called out, her voice tuned to the delicate nature of Averyl’s. “Don’t. It’s fine.” Except for the contraction use. Damn, I keep fucking forgetting the land-dwellers here don’t like them for some reason!

  “Okay.” Synaria sighed and sheathed her Marauder’s Dirks. She held up the soul crystal to Serzax’s delight. “I will give it to you. Just, can I get one thing from her? She has something of value to me in her inventory. Let her open it to give it to me first, then you can have this crystal. Hell, you can have her too.”

  Serzax snorted. “What makes you think I want her?”

  “She is Princess Autumnfall,” Synaria lied in her reply. “You had Vix grab her first, not me, for a reason. You need the princess, and you want to know why she had a Nox Knight soul crystal.”

  “An observant one, aren’t you,” Serzax said, his voice sounding impressed.

  Synaria smiled. “Comes with the job. Now, can we?” She waved the crystal once more.

  Serzax stared at Synaria, then at Nijana, as Vix held her hostage. He then turned back to the druid with the crystal. “Fine.”

  Synaria faced Nijana. “Open your Inventory screen, lass.”

  Serzax nodded to Vix. The dark elf loosened his grip, allowing Nijana to create the floating screen ahead. With both hands holding the soul crystal, Synaria looked at Nijana’s screen and pitched it.

  The soul crystal soared through the air to the shocked look on Serzax’s face. It spiraled and twirled toward the opened Inventory screen and vanished within it.

  Obtained: Wylume’s Soul Crystal

  The screen’s contents updated. Nijana had just stored the crystal.

  “Close it, now, lass!” Synaria yelled.

  And with a wide grin, Nijana tapped the close option, shutting the screen. They’d have to kill Nijana to get it from her inventory now.

  “You, bitch!” Serzax raged and gripped his blade.

  He swung for Synaria fast, cleaving her three times before she even had the chance to pull out her twin blades. Had neither of them been afflicted, Synaria would have died right there. Instead, she just lost a lot of HP, shrugged off the follow-up blade strikes, and rearmed herself. The tiny woman lacked the strength to parry Serzax’s combo. His blade was too big and his level too high. The last strike flung Synaria like a rag doll into a dead tree. She got to her feet just in time to see the raging Nox Knight slash the ground below, releasing a shockwave made of dark elemental magic.

  Synaria laughed, used Stealth, and vanished from sight. Her vanishing form was a reminder of the words she had uttered to Vix days ago. She could do that trick too.

  Of course, while all that went down, Vix grabbed Nijana and held her with both hands. He couldn’t kill her so long as they believed she was Averyl.

  What they planned to do with Nijana when they learned she was a fake was a thought she tried her best not to think about.

  “Want me to chase?” Vix asked Serzax.

  Serzax put his blade to rest on his back. “Do not bother,” he said and strode to Vix as the dark elf held Nijana steady. Serzax gawked long at Nijana, grinning at her with perversion in his eyes. “The crystal is in her inventory now, and we have her. The good princess will come to her senses soon, hand it over, and admit that she did not run away from her home. She was merely kidnapped by the star-dwellers.” Serzax crossed his arms and leaned his face closer to hers. “Is that not right, princess?”

  Nijana sneered. “Fuck you.”

  “Now, now, princess,” Serzax said with a wince. “Who taught you such language?”

  Serzax waved for Vix to follow and vanished within the mists. Vix held Nijana, dragged her unwilling body to move with him, and followed where Serzax had gone through the swamps. He carried Nijana to a clearing an hour out where an airship had landed, bearing the flag of the Night Order. No, that wasn’t right.

  The airship waved the flag of New Svartálfar. New Svartálfar’s flag and the Night Order flag looked the same.

  Two faes stood guard ahead of the New Svartálfar airship, a Berserker and Ranger. The fae bowed when Serzax approached.

  “Leafblade, Emeraldal,” Serzax said to the fae, respectively. “Inform the captain that we are ready to leave.”

  “Yes, milord,” Leafblade said and fixed his eyes on Vix’s hostage. “Ah, welcome back, princess. We have missed you.”

  Chapter Fifty

  The New Svartálfar airship cast its shadow down upon a section of the white mist that enveloped the marshlands below. The enormous vessels soared above and away from the mists, then idled with a cluster of airships, waving the flag of a sword stabbing the moon. Nijana had to convince herself three times that she hadn’t returned to the Faeheim she knew.

  A fleet of ships waving flags like that was a sign she and her pirate crew had to sail away or risk being boarded and executed for piracy and treason. The only thing that anchored her thoughts in reality were the sounds of the airship’s propellers as they rotated to keep the flying boat in the air. Airships were rare in the Faeheim she knew.

  Nijana had found herself imprisoned in one of the airship’s quarters. It was dark inside, and not a single candle was available for her to light. There was a glow of sunlight coming through the window. But not much. The large curtain ahead blocked most of it.

  The door behind unlocked and opened. The Nox Knight, Serzax, had entered, shut the door behind, and walked toward her, his eyes fixed on Nijana’s figure, no doubt still convinced that she was Averyl Autumnfall.

  So Nijana played her part and mimicked the type of words the princess would use. “You ought to release me before my father finds out.”

  Serzax erupted with a quick stint of laughter. “Your father was the one who ordered us here. My son was to marry you, and now he is dead.”

  “Sorry for your loss.”

  “Now, I am the one who has to finish his job.” Serzax nodded to the bed in the corner. “Freshen up, my lady. I shall plant my seed in your womb, then when we are finished on this world, I will bring you back to Faeheim and make the marriage official.”

  She gazed at the bed. Serzax wanted to fuck and come inside her. Nijana angled her flushed face to him. He wanted to fuck her. She didn’t know what to say. Serzax looked a good twenty years older than her, and unlike older men she
knew, he kept his body in top-tier shape. If it came down to it, it wouldn’t be a big deal. He was attractive enough, and she hadn’t been fucked in a long time . . . Not since she came to the strange Faeheim and took Averyl’s identity. Nijana wasn’t against it; she was just against having his child.

  “Shouldn’t it be the other way around?” she asked. “Shouldn’t we return to Faeheim, get married then . . . uh—”

  “Time is something that is not on our side.” He patted her belly and Nijana leaped back instinctively. Now he was just a fucking creep. “You need to produce my offspring, now more than ever since my boy is gone. Which brings me to that soul crystal you refused to hand over.”

  The soul crystal Synaria gave back to Nijana by throwing it into her Inventory screen. It was the soul crystal of a Nox Knight . . . the same class as Serzax, a rare class few people had ever seen. She remembered the name of the poor kid the crystal came from and put things together.

  “Wylume was your son,” Nijana said to him.

  “Yes . . . you already know that,” Serzax said with a perplexed tone. “The Paladin killed him and took his crystal. I want it back. It is the only thing that remains of my son now.”

  And it was in her inventory. Serzax couldn’t physically take it from her. “I refuse.”

  “I figured so.”

  “What are you going to do? Kill me to loot it?”

  Serzax stepped toward her. “That is one way.”

  Nijana kept her distance. “Good luck impregnating me, then.”

  “I could have you resurrected afterward,” Serzax said, his stride continuing to force Nijana to back away. “But your father would disapprove of me killing you, even if we could resurrect you. Bad enough, you have become afflicted by the reality corruption. He will be upset to learn that, too.”

  “Well then, you’re stuck.”

  She hated the limitations the affliction brought on her. Nijana was a low-level Cleric and lacked the strength and vitality stats needed to fight Serzax off. She barely remembered how to use a sword, despite learning to do it back in her days as a pirate. As far as the corruption was concerned, low-level Clerics weren’t meant to fight with swords, so it erased that experience from her mind. If the corruption never existed, Nijana wouldn’t have ended up in this position. She would have fought off Vix, took his blade, and made him bleed. She could even decapitate a big man like Serzax with one swift stroke. But no, game rules stated that she was a weak singing Cleric about to be manhandled by the man with long, flowing silver hair—

  And the bed behind stopped Nijana’s backtrack. Serzax had backed her into it.

  “No,” Serzax said, laughing. “You are the one who is stuck now!”

  He grabbed Nijana’s wrists and pushed her to the bed. She tried everything to get away, but it was like being pinned under a brick wall. Serzax was too strong and wasted no time stripping her naked, tossing her Cleric robe and garments onto the floor. She refused to scream during the ordeal. That wasn’t what the princess of pirates would do. Instead, Nijana did what someone with her charisma would do.

  Serzax pinned her shoulders to the bed as her fairy wings spread out over the soft material. She looked at him as he examined her perky breasts and pink nipples pointed to him.

  “You don’t want to do this,” she snarled up at him.

  He just grinned and lowered his face to lick the side of her neck, up and down. He came up and licked her taste off his lips, curled into a grin made of pure evil.

  Nijana repeated. “You really don’t want to do this.”

  Nothing happened. Serzax lowered himself to her again, kissing her chest, inched his mouth to her left breast, and tickled the nipple with his tongue. He wasn’t obeying her command. Was her charisma not high enough?

  She tried again, this time speaking in a more pleasing and alluring tone. “You should wait until I’m in the mood, at least.”

  Nothing.

  Serzax’s mouth grew bored with her left nipple. He backed off and peeled his armor from his body, tossing it on the floor next to the bed.

  What the fuck? Is it because I’m naked with no charisma gear?

  She reviewed her charisma stat.

  Charisma: 49

  Fuck, I forgot I’m a low-level Cleric, not a Bard main. My charisma is nowhere near as high as it was.

  Nijana was powerless now. She’d leap off the bed and run to the door if he wasn’t stronger and faster than her—

  Something caught the corner of her eye, something she wasn’t expecting to see.

  Serzax was naked, his stiff cock raised and ready to enter her. He grabbed his prick and gave the shaft a quick stroke up and down to prepare himself. As Serzax stroked his cock, Nijana eyed the tattoo on his lower abs. It was the insignia of a sword stabbing the moon.

  Nijana pointed at his tattoo. “The Night Order . . .”

  Serzax let go of his cock, winced, and raised his eyebrows at her. “How did you know about that?”

  She showed him why. Nijana laid on her side, unveiling the same tattoo marked on her pale thigh. “Because I’m from that faction too.”

  “How did I not notice that.” He shook his head. “Impossible.”

  She sat up, and he didn’t object to it. Serzax just stood away from the bed, his firm penis still pointed at her. He crossed his arms across his hard chest and gave her a deeper glance.

  “I came from a different Faeheim,” Nijana revealed. “There was no such thing as an Autumnfall Empire or the Firethorn Kingdom there. Dark elves had hunted light elves to extinction, and humans had complete control over practically every world. The chaos created a perfect opportunity for piracy.”

  “I believe you,” Serzax said without hesitation.

  “Why?” Nijana asked as she sat at the bed’s edge, crossed her legs to mask the red fuzz between them.

  “Must you ask? You are like me. I came from a different universe too.”

  “I’m not Averyl Autumnfall,” Nijana revealed. “My name is Nijana Celestina.”

  “You must be Averyl’s alter ego,” he said. “The version of her born in another universe. Since the Autumnfall name didn’t exist in that universe, your father named you Nijana instead. You are a dark fairy, Nijana. And like the dark elves, your origins are not from this universe.”

  “The dark elves here . . .” She narrowed her eyes at him.

  “The dark elves in this universe came from our universe thousands of years ago, after wiping out the light elves there. They used ancient machina devices to bridge our two universes together and crossed over. I imagine you came here using the same device, likely the same one I used.”

  “I don’t remember how I got here,” Nijana said. “I was the captain of a pirate ship in . . . our universe. My ship was caught in a storm and capsized. When I woke up, I was on the beach of the Faeheim of this universe.”

  “You need to take me to the place your ship encountered the storm,” Serzax said. “Well, this Faeheim’s equivalence of it.”

  “I don’t remember it well. The Lumina faction had sent boats to pursue us. In our haste to escape, we sailed into the storm and weren’t exactly paying attention to where we were going.”

  Serzax sat beside her at the bed’s edge. She stared at his prick and noticed it was still hard. He still wanted to stick it into her cunt. And, after learning more about him, she kind of wanted him to do it.

  He looked at the adjacent wall . . . and looked at it for a long time before he finally spoke. “I yearn to return to the dark universe.”

  “As do I,” she said. “Now that I know what happened. I can only pretend to be Averyl and steal her belongings for so long.”

  “Join me then.” He tilted his head to her. “With the two of us working together, we will find a means to return to our true home in the dark universe. The ancient machina that teleported you here must be on Faeheim and still active. And it was Faeheim, my son and I arrived on when we appeared in this universe.”

  “You came to t
his universe by accident, like me?”

  “No, it was intentional.” Serzax conjured his Inventory screen and pulled a soul crystal from it. She looked at his Inventory and noted the stacks upon stacks of soul crystals inside.

  He twisted the crystal in his hand around and around, eyeing its glow and shape. “The universe we are in is currently the only place to harvest these types of crystals,” Serzax said. “I need as many as possible.”

  Nijana looked at the soul crystal, then back at him. “For what purpose?” she asked.

  “I must travel to Earth. I plan to give humanity their homeworld back.”

  “By murdering people of this universe?” Nijana said, her voice full of confusion. “And these soul crystals, they’ll make that magically happen, then?”

  “No. It is complicated to fully explain right now, but the soul crystals are just the building blocks to create the path to Earth,” Serzax said and put the crystal into his inventory. He tapped the screen and made it vanish. “What I need is the Paladin’s sword. Without it, I cannot cross that path. My son died trying to capture it for me.”

  Things were making sense now. Guy, the owner of that Paladin sword, fought with Serzax’s son, Wylume, who was trying to deliver it to his father. He killed Wylume instead and pocketed his soul crystal. Guy held a sword that Serzax valued more than anything.

  Nijana saw a business opportunity.

  “So . . .” she said, trying to hold back her wicked grin. “Asteria’s Sword, it’s worth a lot to you then?”

  He nodded to her. “It is.”

  “If I gave you that and your son’s soul crystal, what will I get for it?”

  “Riches far beyond your imagination.”

  “Good.” She held the grin. “Because I’m going to need that if I were to return to our universe. I’m pretty sure my ship and crew are gone. I’ll need to buy a ship and hire a new crew.”

  “You shall have enough money to do that and more if you did that for me.”

  Nijana laughed, and laid back on the bed, spreading her autumn-colored wings across its white sheets. There was one last thing Nijana needed to know. She cocked her finger at him enticingly.