Amelia and Ophelia: The Former Grand Duchess and Saintess.

"So. We failed then" Roimir asked as he and Emilio sat inside the mage's personal quarters in his magic tower

"No shit" Emilio replied as he angrily stared at the diagram of the cathedral being displayed by the magic crystal 

"And the bounty hunters we hired?" 

"Exterminated by the paladins...FUCK!" Emilio shouted as he swiped everything off the table in front of him in a fit of rage, all the while Roimir watched 

As the elf stood up, he walked over to the window overlooking the still-smoking city of Scaneth, his eyes looking at what remained of the carnage below. Corpses upon corpses of soldiers, rebels, and civilians littered the blood-soaked streets. Buildings were in shambles or smoking and what remained was nothing more than a ghost town, at least in the sense of it being devoid of any nonhuman life, as Roimir saw that only humans walked the street as well as the occasional elf who was part of the Imperial Army. He knew that his people were in a binding pact with the Hillsbrooke Empire, with the many elven conclaves scattered across the country aligning themselves and swearing loyalty to whoever was on the throne, and it seemed to him that his loyalties were now to Crown Prince Visnet regardless of his feelings. All of them bound by the elven code called the "Tome" 

"Do you find it weird that there are no more nonhumans around?" Roimir asked

"I expected it to happen sooner than this due to Visnet's policies. Many of the mages of the towers were nonhumans and it seems they all fled when the fighting broke out" Emilio replied 

"All of this happened under our noses and we were none the wiser. Shows how secretive it was" 

"No shit. It also drains our nation of so much manpower and resources.....fuck" 

"I hear that the Elven Enclaves have already sworn their oaths to Visnet....are you going to follow them as well?" Emilio asked as he glanced at the elf

"No....I don't believe so. But I think I have to" Roimir replied as he thought of his family back in his enclave 

"Hmm...I have an idea if you wish to listen" Emilio voiced as he stared at the ceiling

"Go on" 

"Let's say hypothetically, you do swear your oath to that bastard...but you also act from inside, feeding me precious information I can sell to the rebels...and who knows, maybe when an accident occurs that kills him, you and your people will finally be free from your duty to the throne" 

"Mhmm. And what do you get out of this?" Roimir asked as he turned around and looked at the mage 

"Me? I get to kill the bastard and his deplorable siblings. And I will have the power to rule the empire. As you see, my family has ties to the Imperial Family, and what better emperor would the people need than one who is a master of the arcane arts and a visionary? Plus, I would cut back on the many, many laws and policies that have driven off our nonhuman friends" Emilio replied as he walked closer to Roimir 

And although Roimir did not trust him, what Emilio said was true as his family, the Veshtappen Family were distant cousins to the Imperial Family via their great-great grandfather. 

"But wouldn't you have to listen to Visnet?" 

"At least for now" 

"Hmm....I see your point...the ideal of no longer being bound to his whims and finally removing him from our sight is very tempting....you have yourself a deal" 

"Excellent" 

.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Sitting atop the throne in the Imperial Palace, Visnet looked at the soldiers and generals assembled before him. Men and women and elves clad in steel plate armor that shimmered with a silver color, each of their pauldrons emblazoned with his personal insignia, a red lion over a field of gold. His smile was captivating to those who looked at him, his crimson eyes boring into their soul. As he rose from his throne and descended down the stairs with Merwick and Nerwick walking beside him, the troops at the foot of the stairs all knelt before them. 

"My loyal soldiers of the empire" Visnet began 

"It seems treachery and deceit has spread across our beloved nation. Soldiers and civilians turned against us and now parts of the empire have split off and declared their independence, defying the throne that ruled over them for so long!" He added 

"We must restore order and bring our empire back under one rule, one unified rule. My rule...will you help me, my beloved soldiers?!" 

"FOR THE EMPEROR!" The soldiers replied as they stood up and raised their arms in support

Visnet and his brothers smiled at their response, they knew the road ahead was hard. The sudden and violent betrayal of their own nation scarred their hearts and so they were determined to make them pay, make every single traitor and coward pay. Whether it was by dying on the battlefield or by torture, execution, or anything gruesome, whether they were a child or an adult, no one would escape their wrath and if the neighboring nations dared stop them, they would crush them too. They would reunite their shattered empire by iron and blood in the ways of their grandfather and great-grandfather, and along the way, they would cleanse their lands of the nonhuman and non-elf filth that populated it and bring them under their heel like their ancestors did before. 

"Then march my soldiers! March with the strength of a hundred men and crush those who seek to defy us, to defy me! We will purify this land of the filth and the traitors!" 

"URAAAAAH!"

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Winding back a little bit to when the eclipse was in effect, to Sharon and her family making it out of Hillsbrooke territory and entering the Kingdom of June. 

The carriage rattled slowly from side to side as the surroundings around them darkened, although they were not directly under the eclipse, the surroundings were still very dark despite the torches that the knights lit up. And as they strolled on forward, Sharon's eyes continued to scan the darkness for any signs of movement. Her magic was gone yes, but she still had access to all her abilities and skills that did not rely on magic. 

"Sharon, we are fine and safe, stop being so tense" Ilena said as she patted Sharon on the head

"Your mother is right sweetie, it's only for five minutes in the dark then *poof* our protective magic shielding will be back up and active again" Pyotr added with a smile 

"That is what I am worried about...we are defenseless without those magical shields and I am confident that the nobles of this kingdom want us dead" 

"Its ok Big Sis!" "Yeah! We are safe!" Yulen and Yulan said as they both kissed Sharon on either cheek, with her smiling as she patted their heads and kissed her parents. 

But as her eyes were scanning the knights defending them, each of them on a horse and carrying a torch, her eyes saw several of them instantly fall of their horses and their torches go out. 

{!}

"FUCK! ASSASSINS! Driver get us out of here now!" Sharon yelled as she signaled to the carriage driver 

"On it Young Miss!" The carriage driver responded as he began making the carriage go faster 

"Everyone keep your heads down now!" Sharon told them and just in the nick of time because as they did, several arrows punctured the carriage and shattered the windows, with the family screaming as the arrows struck the frame of the carriage. 

Unfortunately for the Halfriva family, the carriage driver got shot in the neck by a stray arrow and the carriage rolled over onto a ditch at the side of the road, unable to move anymore. Meanwhile, the knights began fighting the assassins in the dark, the sounds of metal striking against metal and the shouts and screams filled the air.

"Is everyone ok?!" Sharon asked as she looked at her family and the carriage, checking if any of them had been impaled by an arrow, and to her relief none had. 

Yulen and Yulan began to cry as they were scared and rightfully so, Ilena and Pyotr comforted them as Sharon opened the carriage door and hopped outside. She saw the large number of knights in the distance succumbing to assassins in the dark, she could not tell how many were there but she knew they had to be much more than her knights in number. The few knights that were left retreated back to her and their carriage and formed a defensive circle around them. 

"Guard my family with your life!" Sharon roared as she lunged forward into the darkness ahead of her. 

"Sharon!" 

"NO!"

""BIG SIS!"" 

As Sharon got far enough, she activated a skill she had obtained from Amelia called <Domain> activating it gave her the ability to plop down a barrier tied to her life that surrounded her family, thereby shielding them and the knights within its protective wall. As long as she was alive it would be activated, giving her all she needed to face the assassins head-on and all alone. 

"You will not harm my family your deplorable scum!" She roared into the darkness as her eyes shifted and her senses finely tuned

"If you want their lives, you will have to go through me!" She added as she brought out her twin halberds, 

And it was not long before she felt the presence of many assassins surrounding her, all of them barely visible to Sharon as they all wore dark clothing that nearly blended in with the eclipse's darkness. Activating her helmet within the armor that immediately covered her face, she began the fight. 

"RAAAAAGHHH!" 

With a defiant roar, Sharon swung at the barely visible shapes in the dark. Her first horizontal swing scored a hit as it cleaved an assassin in two, while another swing killed another assassin out of view. It went on like this for the full five minutes of the eclipse, with Sharon roaring as she swung her halberds at the shapes surrounding her, moving across the dark field without any knowledge of where she was going, the only thing helping her was her heightened senses that gave her roughly where her enemies were and she would swing, all the while tanking stabs, slashes and strikes from the assassins that penetrated her armor. One assassin managed to stab her with a poisoned tip blade that pierced her side and struck her ribs, she roared in pain as she managed to land a kick on the assassin's leg and then swung her halberd cleaving him in two. Another managed to run their blade through her helmet and it ran through the right side of her face while another assassin managed to drive their sword through her chest and another was able to fully destroy her helmet by slashing upward, destroying her left eye in the process, all the while Sharon screamed in defiance as she swung her halberds and killed them in retaliation. All of this was shocking to the assassins as they were not expecting her to tank and endure their attacks, neither of them could read her stats so they were all in the dark as she continued her onslaught. 

Her skills <Resilience> and <Iron Skin> truly shined in this engagement as the poison-tipped blades of the assassins failed to do their job in delivering the highly potent killing agent, and her skin while being pierced, caused a lot of trouble for the assassins as they struggled to pierce through it and deeper into her flesh.  All the while as she had large cuts and gashes all over, bleeding profuse amounts of blood that could kill anyone else who was below her, the skill <Paladins Perseverance> was what kept her alive. This was a skill that no one else had encountered before, it was a unique skill she acquired one day in the academy without her knowing why, but its effect was what kept her going for as long as she had the will to fight and live, she could not die unless she felt like it or if the blow was too much even for her. 

"IS THAT ALL YOU GOT YOU SPINELESS FUCKS!?" She roared as she continued her carnage, running around the field and swinging away, cleaving assassins in two or three while taking and absorbing the blows that came her way. 

Sharon could feel the blood flowing down her wounds, and the pain was searing through her and making her feel as if she was on fire. But nothing was to stop her in the name of her family and she would not stop until they died or she did. And as the five minutes passed, the light of the sun came back to fill the world with its heavenly glow. And when the sunlight came, so did the magic, and when the magic returned to Sharon, the blessings instilled to her by Amelia activated immediately and boosted her, her sight now filled with the corpses of the assassins strewn across the field, all of them in bloody, chunky pieces. She saw the remaining assassins try to escape past the dirt road but she would not have it and she closed the distance and brought down her halberds one final time, exterminating the last of the assassins. She saw a crystal ball hanging on the hip of one of them and picked it up, it was inactive but she was able to access the numerous calls that the crystal ball made and her mind filled with images of numerous nobles from across the kingdom. 

"I am coming for you" She muttered as she crushed the crystal ball and walked back to the dirt road, before collapsing onto her knees. 

A/N: Hello! So here we are, part 2 of the Aftermath Chapters. And I must say, despite all of my equal love for my characters, Sharon is by far one of the best I have written in my thoughts. Anyways, the next one will focus on Amelia arriving on the new continent and perhaps a look at a new villain?? Hehehehehe. As always Stay Safe and Enjoy Your Day! Oh and if you have comments or questions, feel free to leave them down below!

P.S: Genuine Question. Should I rewrite my first few chapters?