She Belongs To The Devil

He decided to tease her and shouted loudly, "Ade, why did you bring all your guards? I thought we were going to sneak to the market and have some dumplings."

Adeline widened her eyes and raised her brows in disbelief. And she scolded him while mouthing and madly gesturing at him, "Do you want me to get punished even more? Don\'t say such stupid things and put me in a difficult situation!"

She turned around to look at her guards and ordered, "All of you can wait here. I will be practicing right there so I guess, you all can see me from here."

The guards bowed their heads and then stood right where they were.

Raphael was covering his mouth to control his laughter but his shoulders were moving violently. He was really enjoying the drama.

Adeline reached in front of him and then swiftly took out her sword. Then she poked Raphael on the breastplate of his armor. And she whispered aggressively, "Stop it, Raph! Do you want me to poke a hole in your chest?"

Raphael took a few deep breaths in and finally stopped chuckling. And he apologized, "Alright! Alright! Sorry. But you have to tell me where you ran yesterday. Else I am going to say a lot of fake stories to your guards and make them latch onto your all the time."

Adeline narrowed her eyes and asked in a monotone, "Since when did you become a blackmailer? Are you even my brother?"

But Raphael countered her with his own question, "And since when did you start to run off on your own? You could have invited me as well." He asked in a more disappointed tone, "Am I just your fighting partner? I thought we were also the partners in crime."

Adeline pressed her lips into a thin line. She shook her head and said, "You have really gotten better in emotional blackmailing." She patted on his shoulder and spoke in a consoling tone, "I shall invite you if I ever plan to do that again."

"Now that\'s more like it." Raphael smiled and drew out his sword from its sheath.

Adeline was also ready to face her brother. They were now standing in the middle of the training ground and were facing each other while holding out their trusted swords.

Both of them were in their battle armors because they were not going to fight with a fake or relatively blunt sword as they used to when they trained before. And they were also not going to restrain themselves while facing each other. Both of them were going to give their best and that meant fighting against each other as if they were real enemies fighting in a real battle.

They started doing this because General Osmond had suggested to Adeline that it was better to get accustomed to fighting a real fight using real props and wearing real battle armors. If they did that every day, then they wouldn\'t be having any difficulty while fighting in a war as they would already be used to it.

"Pretending to fight and actually fighting for your life are two different things," that was what General Osmond had told Adeline.

And as she was already the chosen one, he had suggested to her that it would be better if she prepared herself for possible war. It was not just Lillian who knew about the rising number of dissatisfied families. General Osmond was also well aware of that matter.

He cared about Adeline and she would also constantly ask for his advice. So he had told her, "Wyverndale is a peaceful Kingdom right now and its allies are also not acting out. But there is always a possibility that they might go against the treaty and try to lead an uprising. So you should start preparing yourself for the worst."

"Until now, you had trained yourself with one goal, and that was to fight for the position of the Future Ruler. You have successfully achieved that goal. Now, the new goal of your training should be survival. There might come a time when you will have to lead a war. And as the ruler, it will be your duty to survive the war. If you can survive, then only you can win."

His words motivated Adeline to be cautious and well-prepared for whatever was to come in the future.

"Are you ready?" Raphael asked Adeline while taking his stance.

Adeline smiled and replied, "I was ready the moment I walked inside the ground."

And without delaying any further, both of them charged towards each other. A loud sound echoed when the metals clashed against each other. The clashing then got intense with every passing second.

The guards were watching in awe as the two of the Royals were fighting against each other. This was the first time that they were seeing Princess Adeline fighting. And they now knew where all that courage to run out of the Palace alone came from.

After about five minutes, Prince Raphael was already on the ground. His sword was on the other corner of the fighting arena and Adeline was pointing her sword at his neck. Adeline had a wide grin on her face. And her guards were very proud of the Princess. One of the guards even clapped after the match was over but quickly stopped himself as the squad leader glared at him.

Raphael then complained while breathing heavily, "I liked defeating you so much. I had already caught up with you. But somehow, you managed to surpass me again."

Adeline proudly smirked and gave a hand to her brother. She was proud that even without her demonic powers, she was starting to do well against her brother. There was a phase when she would get defeated daily. She used to feel so depressed because she didn\'t even know what was wrong with her.

Now that she knew what had caused her to lose her power drastically, she was glad that she didn\'t give up. She was glad that she was able to increase her strength. Her strength was not yet on par as she used to be but she had definitely improved enough to defeat a full-grown man with great ease.

Adeline pulled Raphael from the ground and waited for him to pick up his sword. And when he was ready, she warned him, "Alright! Here I come again."

And they both clashed again. Adeline wanted to increase her inner strength as much as she could. She knew that her body could perform better.. And she was going to push herself to achieve that.