Claimed by the vampire prince Chapter 513

The queen’s soldiers began breaking formation.

Ragnar saw the fear spreading and drove forward rcilessly.

With one hand, he swung his weapon into a soldier’s shoulder, shattering bone.

With the other, he commanded his shadows while still gripping the reins tightly. Dark tendrils erupted beneath a cluster of enemy soldiers, wrapping around their legs and dragging them screaming into the ground for his n to finish them.

His army surged behind him. The montum of the battle shifted hard.

Then Aeron saw Circe and his face darkened further.

"What kind of vile creature are you?" he spat. He turned and began cutting his way toward her. If he couldn’t kill Ragnar, he was going to kill her instead. Her death would put an end to the grueso undead as well.

Several reanimated corpses lunged for him, but Aeron hacked through them savagely.

He reached Circe just as another corpse rose behind him.

Circe looked directly at Aeron. Then she smiled faintly.

And every corpse nearby turned toward Aeron at once.

The realization of what she had done hit him imdiately. Fear finally entered his eyes.

The dead descended on him all at once.

Aeron fought viciously. He hacked apart the first corpse that grabbed his arm before kicking another backward hard enough to crush its ribs inward. A third climbed onto his horse and tore a chunk of flesh directly from the animal’s neck.

The horse scread and collapsed.

Aeron hit the ground hard.

Then the corpses sward him. One seized his leg. Another latched onto his sword arm.

He roared in fury as he hacked one apart at the shoulder but three more imdiately replaced it. Hands clawed against Aeron’s armor, forcing him down into the bloodied snow.

One corpse ripped into his face and Aeron scread in pain. Another wrenched his left arm backward until it made a sickening crack.

Aeron scread loud enough to echo across the battlefield. The dead pulled him apart slowly, without rcy. His remaining hand clawed desperately through the snow while corpses pinned him down and ripped flesh from bone piece by piece.

One buried its teeth into his throat.

Another dug fingers into his stomach and pulled. Blood sprayed across the snow in thick waves.

His screams beca wet choking sounds.

Still the corpses kept tearing at him. Until finally nothing recognizable remained.

After sending multiple assassins to end her life, it was only fair that he died by the hands of creatures of Circe’s making.

The soldiers who witnessed it recoiled in horror but it was short lived. The queen’s remaining forces scread surged forward harder than before.

The battle was far from over.

Ragnar drove his army forward without rcy.

The battlefield had already beco unrecognizable beneath the carnage. Blood soaked everything now, thick rivers of red spreading beneath fallen bodies while broken weapons and severed limbs littered the ground like discarded scraps.

The fighting only grew worse.

The queen’s remaining soldiers attacked with the desperation of n who understood retreat was no longer possible.

They crashed against Ragnar’s advancing forces again and again, trying to overwhelm them through sheer numbers.

But Ragnar t them head-on. His bloodied weapon swung through the chaos with brutal force, smashing through bone, and flesh alike. One soldier raised a shield just before Ragnar struck him, only for the impact to shatter the wood apart entirely before the spiked iron crushed through the man’s skull beneath it.

Another soldier lunged toward him with an axe.

Ragnar caught the strike against the shaft of his weapon before shadows erupted beneath the man’s feet. Black tendrils coiled around the soldier’s legs and dragged him violently downward into the blood-soaked snow. Ragnar brought the morningstar down a second later, silencing the man instantly.

He barely paused before moving to the next target.

Around him, soldiers scread over the endless clash of steel. Horses crashed into one another. n disappeared beneath stampeding hooves. Arrows cut through the air while the dead continued clawing their way across the battlefield under Circe’s command.

And through it all, Ragnar kept searching for her.

Even in the middle of slaughter, his eyes constantly found Circe within the chaos.

She stood farther behind the frontlines now, magic twisting around her while corpses obeyed her every command. The dead sward across the battlefield in unnatural waves, attacking the queen’s soldiers with horrifying persistence.

But the enemy had begun noticing her. They knew the woman commanding the dead was the true source of their terror.

A group of royal soldiers broke formation suddenly and charged toward Circe through the chaos.

Ragnar saw them imdiately. His eyes darkened with fury.

Black tendrils shot across the battlefield with terrifying speed before wrapping around the soldiers’ throats and limbs. Several were ripped violently from their saddles. One man barely managed to scream before darkness forced itself into his mouth and crushed his windpipe from within.

Another reached Circe anyway.

The soldier raised his sword—

Then a shadow rose behind him like a living creature and drove straight through his chest.

The man froze.

Blood spilled from his mouth before darkness violently tore him backward and slamd him into the frozen ground hard enough to break bone.

Circe did not even look at the corpse.

Her attention remained fixed on the dead surrounding her.

More magic spilled from beneath her skin as another wave of corpses staggered upright from the battlefield. So were missing jaws. Others dragged shattered limbs behind them. One still had an arrow lodged deep through its eye socket.

Yet they kept moving.

The queen’s soldiers were breaking faster now. Fear spread through them like disease.

Ragnar tore through their collapsing lines aggressively, fighting with everything he had. Blood covered his armor so heavily now that it was impossible to tell which was his and which belonged to the people he killed.

Then suddenly sothing moved overhead. A shadow streaked across the sky above the battlefield.

Ragnar glanced upward for only a brief second. Large dark wings flew across the sky.

His breath caught instantly. It had to be the sa winged creature he had seen during the battle against the fenrars. The sa unknown being that had descended from the sky and saved his life when death had already been monts away.

He could not make out a face. Could not see anything clearly through the distance beyond the massive wings stretching across the sky. But he knew he was right.

A soldier charged him from the side and Ragnar reacted imdiately, snapping back into the fight just in ti to block the incoming strike and retaliate.

Ragnar forced himself to refocus, distraction here ant death. So he made himself continue forward.

His shadows tore through enemy soldiers with monstrous brutality while his army fought the queen’s remaining forces. Everywhere Ragnar moved, bodies followed.

Then fresh chaos erupted. A deafening roar split the sky above them.

Soldiers looked upward in confusion just as fire descended from the sky. A massive torrent of flas crashed directly into the queen’s army.

The explosion of heat was imdiate and catastrophic. Fire tore through enemy ranks in sweeping waves, consuming soldiers so quickly many barely had ti to scream before vanishing beneath the inferno. Armors turned red hot from the unbearable heat while the n trapped inside were cooked alive where they stood.

The fire spread violently across the battlefield.

Entire sections of the queen’s forces were decimated beneath roaring walls of fla as if they had been made of dry paper.

"Fall back!" Ragnar shouted to his n instantly.

His army pulled away as fast as possible while flas consud everything behind them. Several soldiers stumbled through the snow in panic trying to escape the spreading inferno.

The heat alone was unbearable.

Even from a distance, Ragnar could feel it scorching against his skin. Yet sohow the flas avoided his army. The torrent descended only upon the queen’s forces.

Soon it was over. The flas eventually died down, leaving behind little more than scorched earth, lted armor, and blackened corpses scattered across the battlefield. The few surviving royal soldiers that remained were quickly hunted down by Ragnar’s n before they could flee.

Victory had finally co.

But not without cost. Bodies covered the battlefield from end to end. Ragnar’s own soldiers had suffered losses as well, though nowhere near the devastation inflicted upon the queen’s army.

Circe slowly lifted her gaze toward the sky.

Far above them, the winged woman disappeared into the distance. Circe watched her leave with a thoughtful look settling across her face. The sight only further confird sothing she already knew

Ragnar followed Circe’s gaze briefly but by the ti he did, the figure had already disappeared.

There would be ti for questions later, he thought to himself.

Right now, the capital still miles away.