Chapter 952: Battle Maid

Isabelle’s brow furrowed in confusion."What do you mean? I...I don’t understand."

Cassius shook his head. "I can’t explain it clearly. But what I can say is this—your wish has been granted. Just as you desired a moment ago, you can now fight to your heart’s content."

Isabelle gasped, panicking slightly as Cassius began gently pushing her out of the thicket toward the open clearing.

"W-Wait! Darling, stop! What are you saying?! I don’t have combat training! I don’t have mana! I don’t have physical strength! I’m just a normal maid!"

"Trust your husband, Isabelle!"

Cassius commanded smoothly, his voice laced with an absolute, infectious authority that left no room for doubt.

"Walk onto that field. Think about what you want to do to those wolves, throw your hands out, and let it happen."

"I promise you, not a single hair on your head will be harmed. You are about to become their savior."

Isabelle stared at him, utterly terrified, but seeing the absolute, unshakeable confidence in his icy blue eyes, her trembling stopped.

She trusted Cassius more than her own life.

Taking a deep shuddering breath, Isabelle straightened her posture and stepped out from behind the thicket.

Cassius watched her eagerly as she emerged onto the battlefield.

—

The warriors saw her at once—a woman stepping out of nowhere, extraordinarily beautiful, and yet looking so frail and delicate.

Panic rippled through the formation.

"WHAT THE—?!" An Ogre veteran bellowed, his eyes bulging in sheer panic. "A CIVILIAN?!"

"LADY, RUN!" A Beastkin spearman screamed, wildly waving his arm. "GET BACK INTO THE FOREST! IT’S A DEMONIC WOLF PACK!"

The soldiers, driven by their absolute, ingrained duty to protect the innocent, immediately tried to help her.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The Ogres slammed their heavy shields into the dirt, shouting as loud as they could to draw the monsters’ attention away.

"LOOK OVER YOU DIRTY DOGS!"

"DON’T YOU DARE TAKE YOUR EYES OFF US!"

But despite the distraction, Isabelle kept walking.

Her heart hammered against her ribs like a caged bird.

Her palms were slick with sweat.

Every instinct in her body screamed at her to turn and flee.

But she kept walking. Because Cassius had asked her to. Because Cassius believed in her.

And then it was too late.

One of the Shadowmane wolves, a massive, scarred brute near the edge of the pack spotted her approach.

"Grawhhh..."

Its lips peeled back from rows of obsidian teeth. A low growl rumbled from its throat. And then, with a howl that split the air, it launched itself toward her.

Easy prey!

"GODS DAMN IT! NO!"

"RUN! RUN AWAY!"

A mage hurled a fireball—but the wolf twisted in midair, dodging the blazing projectile with contemptuous ease.

A beastkin spearman launched his weapon—and missed by a hair’s breadth.

One of the ogres ripped herself out of formation, shield raised, charging forward in a desperate bid to intercept the wolf.

But she wasn’t going to make it in time.

Isabelle herself, who could see the wolf bearing down on her right before her eyes, was absolutely terrified.

She had never faced anything like this before.

But she remembered Cassius’s words.

’Think about what you want to do to those wolves, throw your hands out, and let it happen’

So she thought. The only thing she wanted right then, as the wolf closed in, was for the beast to be smashed away—slapped out of existence.

And in the instant she thought it, the air around her distorted.

Before anyone could react, before anyone could even see what had happened, the wolf mid-leap was struck by a massive, invisible force, as if a giant hand had swatted it aside.

BOOM!

The impact was so sudden, so absolute, that the wolf’s trajectory reversed in an instant. It shot sideways like a stone from a catapult, smashing into the trunk of an tree with a sickening CRACK that echoed through the clearing.

The tree splintered. The wolf’s body or what remained of it fell to the ground in two separate pieces.

Silence.

The warriors stared. The ogres stared. The mages stared. Even the wolves, for one frozen moment, stopped their snarling and stared.

"WHAT IN THE—"

"DID SHE JUST—"

"IN A SINGLE INSTANT—"

They couldn’t believe their eyes.

This fragile-looking woman who had stumbled onto the battlefield like a lost lamb had just annihilated a fully grown Shadowmane wolf without so much as lifting a finger!

The wolves on the other hand recovered from their shock faster than the humans and their humiliation curdled into rage.

Their brethren had been killed by what should have been the easiest prey on the field and they couldn’t accept it!

"AWOOOO!"

"AWW! AWWW! AWOOOO!"

A chorus of furious howls rose into the sky, and more wolves peeled away from the main pack, converging on Isabelle with murder in their glowing eyes.

But Isabelle had felt it now.

That strange power. That invisible force responding to her will.

And now they were hers to command.

Realising this, her fear evaporated and its place bloomed something she had never truly felt before—the exhilaration of power. She was excited!

She looked at the wolves rushing toward her with a fierce, gleaming gaze. She raised a hand—and pushed it down.

"AWOOO?!?!"

One of the wolves was smashed flat into the earth with a horrible cry, crushed into a pancake.

The warriors stared in disbelief.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!"

"IS SHE A MAGE?!"

"I DON’T FEEL ANY MANA SIGNATURE!"

Isabelle didn’t stop. Her hands moved like a conductor directing an orchestra of death.

She extended both arms toward the second charging wolf, then pulled them apart in a sharp, tearing motion.

The wolf split!

It happened in an instant—the creature came apart at the middle, blood spraying in a crimson fan across the battlefield.

Two halves of wolf tumbled to the ground in opposite directions, trailing viscera.

The third wolf tried to veer away. Too late.

Isabelle made a grabbing motion in the air, and the beast was seized by an unseen force.

"Aww?! Awoo?!"

It yelped, legs kicking uselessly, floating in empty space. Then Isabelle pulled her hand back like a pitcher winding up for a throw—and hurled it forward.

Whoosh!

The wolf rocketed into the sky, howling in terror, and disappeared over the treetops. A distant crash echoed through the forest moments later.

The warriors could only watch in awe.

"Am I...am I seeing this correctly?" Whispered the fox-eared beastkin, her spear hanging limp in her grasp.

"That fragile little girl just...she just..."

"She threw that wolf like it was a pebble."

"She’s tearing them apart. She’s freaking tearing them apart!"

But Isabelle was barely aware of them. She was lost in her own joyous discovery.

Because she realized this wasn’t just any random ability—this was Cassius’s ability, his blessing!

Those strange, tentacle-like appendages of his, invisible to everyone else, could be used in combat.

And even though the others couldn’t see them clearly, she could—great invisible tendrils whipping around her, guarding her on every side, tearing wolves apart in a frenzy of motion.

She had her husband’s blessing. She had power. And she was going to use it!

A wolf came from the right—a tentacle seized it mid-leap and slammed it into the ground with enough force to leave a crater.

"AWOOOO!"

Two wolves attacked simultaneously—the tentacles caught both, wrapped around their throats, and squeezed until the satisfying crunch of vertebrae echoed across the clearing.

"GRHHH!"

A massive alpha wolf, larger than all the others, tried to flank her.

But Isabelle didn’t even turn to look.

A tentacle whipped outward, caught the beast by its hind leg, and swung it like a flail into three of its packmates. All four went down in a tangle of broken bones and pained whimpers.

She was adapting faster than she could have imagined.

The tentacles weren’t just weapons—they were extensions of her body, responding to her thoughts with perfect fidelity.

She could strike, grab, throw, crush, tear.

She could defend and attack simultaneously.

The battlefield had become her canvas, and she was painting with the blood of her enemies.

The warriors of the Blood and Iron Brigade had stopped fighting entirely.

They simply stood there—shields lowered, spears drooping, spells fizzling out mid-cast and watched in slack-jawed awe as a woman who looked like she belonged in a noble’s drawing room systematically annihilated an entire pack of wolves with movements so graceful they seemed almost choreographed.

"What..." One of the beastkin whispered, his fox ears flat against his head. "What is she?"

"I don’t know." The ogre beside him rumbled, her voice thick with something approaching reverence. "But whatever she is...thank the gods she’s on our side."

The mage who had earlier tried to analyze her "spells" had given up entirely. His mouth hung open, his staff dangling uselessly at his side.

"I don’t understand." He kept muttering. "There’s no mana signature. No spell structure. No verbal component. No somatic gestures matching any known school of magic. She’s not...She’s not doing anything detectable. And yet—"

"And yet she’s slaughtering them." A ogre finished. "She’s slaughtering them all!"

"She’s not even winded." A beastkin stammered, lowering his spear. "She’s...She’s enjoying it."

And she was. Isabelle smiled brightly as another wolf fell before her.

She had finally found the strength she had always been denied, and fought the battle she had always wanted to fight.

The rage of her parents’ words, the years of being told she belonged in a kitchen and not a battlefield, all of it burned away in the flames of her onslaught.

And somewhere in the bushes at the edge of the clearing, hidden from view but watching every moment with a proud, knowing smile, Cassius murmured to himself:

"That’s my wife."