Divine Luck: SSS-Rank Battle Maid Harem

Yanael knew her place. It was by Zach's side. That was her home and where she belonged.

It had been different before she became a familiar, but that was irrelevant. Her past was of no consequence to her present, and only her present would influence her future.

She knew in the depths of her mind that she was Zach's right arm.

But she did not logically understand what that meant.

What was she supposed to do?

Who was she?

Where was she supposed to go? Where does she put down her foot when taking the next step?

On the surface, she was supposed to protect Zach. But it was such a shallow statement, one that wasn't even accurate.

Zach was more than capable of protecting himself. He didn't have to rely on her. He relied more on the contract skill he got from their contract than he relied on her. It wasn't because he didn't trust her.

He did. He trusted her and the other three with his life.

But then, why had he refused to let his body wind down and relax on the way back to the capital?

Was it because he wanted to deal with the aftermath of the war and the Hydra's emergence?

Yanael did not think Zach cared enough about either to force his body to stay awake that long. It wasn't like he had been needed for anything important. The only thing he got by staying awake were things he could have gotten after waking up later. They were also things that he didn't care much for.

Was she just supposed to stand by his side and watch him? Was she supposed to help him act recklessly? Was she supposed to stop him?

Yanael was at a loss. She felt like asking all of these questions, none of which had a clear answer, was only making her more confused.

But she needed to ask them. She needed to sort herself out before Zach faced the next opponent that would force him to tread the fine line between life and death again.

She didn't understand her place in the world. But she knew one thing.

She was not going to let Zach die.

She was going to find the strength to answer all the questions she had.

For now, that meant retraining her basics from the ground up. Flair, finesse, and flashy techniques weren't enough to defeat something like the Hydra.

The only things that could beat absolute strength were greater strength and the skill to cut through such absolute strength.

Amassing the strength to overpower the Hydra, who wouldn't stop growing herself, would take time, something Yanael suspected they didn't have.

That meant she had to acquire the skill to cut down anything that stood in Zach's way. To Yanael, that sounded a little more doable.

She already knew what the first step was.

It was to throw away everything she had learned and start from scratch.

Everything she had learned wasn't enough to beat a damn skeleton, much less touch the toes of the Hydra. It was not good enough. That meant it was as good as useless. Yanael had no interest in it and discarded it.

It wasn't easy. She had spent countless hours studying and learning her current sword techniques and footwork. And everything she had learned since she became Zach's familiar was built on a foundation from her time as an angel. Hours, days, weeks, months, and years of improving upon a foundation laid over a time that couldn't be measured.

Her swordwork from when she was an angel wasn't the most advanced or the greatest Heaven had to offer. But it was similar to the ideology behind the swordplay of the Imperial Army's footsoldiers.

It was simple enough that everyone could learn, and it was good. It couldn't be called flawless. No sword techniques were.

But it was still the most common sword art of Heaven for a reason.

Yanael didn't know how long she had spent learning that sword art, nor did she know how much time had gone into developing it. But she knew a lot of time and effort from angels as or more talented than her had gone into it.

Still, her mind was free of doubts as she cleansed her body of traces and habits that the sword art had imbued into her. Her body was free from the memories of wielding a sword, a sword that couldn't cut everything that stood in Zach's way.

Her sacred energy was free from the memories of hugging a sword that could not bring down the sky should Zach ask for it. It was free from the memories of strengthening a weak sword. It was free from the memories of following the steps of a swordswoman who did not know what she was doing.

Her sacred energy was pure. Her body was pure. Her mind was pure.

Her vessel was pure. Her essence was pure.

Yanael entered a state of enlightenment as her vessel and essence reached harmony and equilibrium.

It wasn't evolution. It was simply an elevation of her condition. It was more like a plant growing and developing a budding flower than it was a plant evolving over countless generations to something entirely different.

Her presence illuminated the training grounds she had borrowed. Any knight, servant, butler, maid, or cat close enough to bathe in the sheen of her enlightenment suddenly found themselves on their knees.

The enlightenment of an angel was something a person could go through a hundred lifetimes without witnessing.

Right now, half a palace was seeing it.

The effects were impossible to estimate.

It wasn't as simple as the witnesses just falling to their knees in apparent worship.

The light of Yanael's enlightenment was proof of a higher level of existence. Those witnesses had touched it.

However, it was only for a moment before it faded.

Suddenly, the world seemed a little duller than it had before.

Yanael opened her eyes, a golden light flashing through their depths.

She held out her hand.

It was time to soil the purity she had just reached with the sword again.