17.1
“Ahhh~ Is it not wonderful, girls? Even you non-succubus could taste the abundance of his vitality. All we needed was to let the filthy wolfkin to spout his crap.” Prishine, still in her demonic succubus form, declared as she moved from behind to John and approached Aurelius’ now still body.
“The woes are far beyond...”
“...when he lost his family. Truly remarkable.”
“Meh…its average,” Erin shrugged as she pulled her spear out of Aurelius before kicking the wolfkin’s body to the ground.
Thud.
Prishine’s three attendants were connected to herself and was able to feed on John’s vitality—the devastation they caused to him—but that did not mean that their level of enjoyment were the same.
Knowing Erin was not as elated as she was, a wicked thought came to Prishine.
“If we kept him enchained and continuously subject him to trauma, we could theoretically feed on his vitally for all of eternity just imagine—”
“Ahahah-ha…ha…”
John’s voice cracked, his breath was unsteady, his body trembled. But laughter escaped his throat as warm, undiluted tears filled his eye sockets.
“Ahahahahahaha!!! Is that what you fucking bitches all think of!? Is all of this just entertainment to you!? Ahahahaha!!!”
His heart hurt.
His body cried for help.
His mind screamed to be done with everything, be done with the pain, be done with the suffering, be done with Aurelius who lived a life that on a countdown wasted his precious time on someone like John.
And in the wolfkin’s last moments, John did nothing but shouted and criticized his friend who thought of him as a brother, as his own family, as people who he never had.
Family just like how the Harvest regarded him as.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!” the tears that he never thought still had in him all came down like a stream, his nose clogged.
“It should’ve been me… It’s a-all my fault… IT’S ALL MY FAULT!!! I-I s-shouldn’t have…I-I…”
A huge grin crawled upon Erin’s face, the female knight moved to John before grabbing John by his hair, relishing in his broken spirit.
“Now this, Lady Prishine, is more satisfying. If you can get him to show this pathetic face to me every day, that would give me more pleasure than absorbing his distasteful vitality.”
Prishine in her grotesque form nodded, obliging Erin’s words. The demon succubus then addressed the two twins.
“I’ll leave the two of you to handle his torment. Assist them as you wish Erin.”
“As you wish…”
“...Lady Prishine.”
Saeza and Theza nodded.
“Now, now, John… It’s about time I pay you back for what you did to me countless times!!!”
Erin, given permission by Prishine, had a fire lit up in her eyes.
“First, I’ll strip you off your clothes, then I’ll carve your body. And as blood is drained from you shall receive the only pleasure you’ll ever know from Lady Prishine!!! And when she is done with you, I will cut your tool of pleasure, dismembering it. If you use your pesky magic to heal yourself, I’ll make sure that I will be there to dismember you as quickly as you—”
“Shut up.”
In a quiet voice, John spoke.
What had been his trembling body earlier, his swollen eyes, his shaky state of mind had been washed over by a wave of cold, emotionless persona.
His eyes still flooded with tears, his body still trembling from the sheer realization that he failed to give all his attention to Aurelius moments before Aurelius’ death.
Even with his body displaying the pain that staked his entire being, by sheer will, John ceased his incessant crying.
A familiar resolve washed over him.
The vert resolve that had almost had its seeds planted in his heart on the very day that Raina Valindra Eridi was to be raped before his very dying eyes.
The resolve of broken man, someone who lost everything he knew that was right, someone who lost his sense of self, someone who had nothing else to hold onto.
Someone whose morals and ideals were ripped apart from him.
A man devoid of purpose.
A man who was null of love.
A man in a world that had long forsaken him.
“Haaaah?! You pipsqueak, you dare talk back!?”
Pang!!!
With her armored fist, Erin landed a punch on John’s face, causing a loud crash.
“That’ll teach you some...manners?”
Erin’s eyes grew wide when her fists were found to be a full inch away from John’s face, blocked by a translucent barrier made of dark energy.
“Pathetic male—”
“Erin, Saeza, Theza, retreat!”
“Lady Prishine, I was this close to teaching him obedience. I’ll make sure he respec—”
Shooom….
When Erin moved to thrust her fist at John once more, her body became frozen in place.
Leaving the short hair female knight to stare downwards in bewilderment for the cause.
“What—” her voice cracked as she felt even her head to stiffen up.
Along Erin, Saeza and Theza’s body, eerie dark substance crawled to her from the base of her shadows.
An unidentifiable void-like matter latched onto all Prishine’s three underlings.
A matter that swallowed all luminescence along with its victims’ bodies, engulfing them into a cocoon made of dark magic.
Dark magic that spanned from John Sarvod.
Erin watched helplessly as layers and layers of the dark magic wrapped itself around her, forming an ever increasing shell that she had no chance of escaping—
“[Seismic Expulsion]!!!”
Prishine fired a spell at John, a loud thunder blasted the air splitting both the ground and the connection of John and the dark magic around her girls.
And most importantly, to kill John.
Thud, went a nearby tree as John’s body crashed against it.
Though his connection to Prishine’s three attendants severed, the black cocoon on them still remained, completely intact from [Seismic Expulsion].
“Theza!!!”
Prishine screeched as she dug her elongated crooked claws into the nearest cocoon she could find, tearing away at the void like substance with the strength the Demon Lord of Ruin granted her.
The void like substance tore away easily.
And Prishine wished she had not done so.
What laid underneath of the cocoon that Theza had once been, was now a set of skeleton with a fraction of the flesh that once constituted the person known as Theza.
Even Prishine, the demon succubus, clamped up for a moment upon such a view. Her skin crawled as the skeleton of one of her attendants showed herself to her.
“No!!! This can’t be!!!”
Roaring in denial, Prishine leapt to Saeza and Erin’s cocoon, ripping the void like substance around the two of them without wasting further time.
Gasp!!! Spurt- splat!
Erin’s loud inhale entered Prishine’s ears, followed by a wet sloshing sound falling to the ground.
“L-Lady P-Prishine...w-we have to—”
“Kaaaaarrrrr!!!”
A piercing screech came from beside Erin as the female knight became paralyzed at the crimson figure that fell from the cocoon next to her.
It was Saeza, covered in blood from head to toe, her clothes had been dissolved away, hair no longer on her scalp, even her eyes were partially dissolved….
“No…”
Prishine’s voice trembled.
Saeza, unlike her sister, had yet to be reduced to death.
Unlike Theza who is only left of her skeleton…
The epidermis layer, known as the protective skin covering the flesh of a person’s body functions as a protective membrane that separated the vulnerable flesh and the harsh outside world, shielding the raw flesh and vessels underneath from the infection and trauma alike.
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Saeza was not covered in blood.
All of her epidermis skin removed.
At the fraction of a second.
Each nook and cranny of her once perfect body has had its flesh exposed to the elements.
Like Prishine, Saeza shared the rapid regeneration abilities she had, as they were her underlings, whatever the accursed succubus was capable of, the underlings were just as equal.
But not even the rapid regeneration from an underworld being like her could fix what was done to Saeza.
“Gkkkkkrrr!!!”
It would have been better if Prishine just left Saeza to die inside the cocoon that John enveloped her in to die like Theza.
“...Lady Prishine, Lady Prishine!!!” Erin’s voice brought the demon succubus out of shock. “I’ll help Saeza, you attend to Theza!!! We have to deal with Sarvod before—”
Screeee….
The sound of metal being scraped across stone echoed throughout the compound. Heavy steps reverberated against the ground as Prishine and Erin turned in the direction where John was last seen.
A man, whose body frame arched, whose eyes as dark and empty as the magic that swallowed Prishine’s three attendants, a man who trudged his steps as he approached the demon succubus with the remaining strength he had in him.
John had Convictus drawn on his left.
His broken gaze locked on the succubus.
He needed not to speak to declare his intent.
“Sarvodddd!!! You will pay for this!!!”
Erin sprag into action, bolted from where she was, wielded her spear and—
Rattle, rattle, rattle.
A figure far faster than Erin’s speed tackled the female knight before she could get close.
“Ahhhhhhh!!!!!” her screams escaped her the moment the figure showed its face to her.
As pale as the whitest dirt, as hollow as a dried-up watering well, as grim as death itself.
It was Theza.
The skeleton that once used to be Theza.
With its phalanges, the skeleton squeezed at Erin’s neck, pushing Erin against the ground with a force so overwhelming that it robbed her of all her strength.
Then, with its other hand, the skeleton dug its fingers into Erin’s skull, lifted her head in Prishine’s direction.
Screee…
“[Death Demise]!” a foul blast came from Prishine.
The attack struck, but the same protective layer appeared around John, scattering the spell from the succubus as quickly as it hit him.
“N-no… S-stay away!!!” the succubus tried to distance herself away from him but fell instead. “[Hollow Unmaki…”
John stopped before Prishine, his dark scorn was enough to make her concede.
“You’ve proven your point… I am indeed a filthy whore whose lust knows no doubts.”
“...”
“But can you BLAME ME!? I AM BORN AS A SUCCUBUS!!! IT IS MY NATURE TO USE MY CHARMS TO CONSUME THE VITALITY OF MEN!!!”
“...”
“A-and you...remain to be unaffected by me no matter what I do. I WILL ADMIT!!! You are much more fitting of a demon than I am, you happy!? Are you happy you killed Theza like how I killed your mutt of a friend!!!??? Are you happy that I feel loss the same way as you do, you heartless monster!!!”
The longer John stood in silence, the more her body screamed for her to tear her gaze from him, from John who she could not tear her eyes from.
It was as though Prishine was experiencing the effects of her own magic. Her body did not move, her mind was blank.
All that she felt were the crystallization of her very own blood as John stood before her.
Her own mouth spouted whatever words she thought she could use to appease him, to stop whatever magic he had used on her, to free herself from him.
But she couldn’t.
For the scornful man before her had consigned her to where she was.
His absolute will, his damning magic, his broken mind, his torn heart.
His empty gaze.
As this moment, Prishine was enchained by the man she wronged.
From his sheer presence.
“I-If it weren’t for you!!! I would have never resorted to such extreme tactics!!! T-that’s right, i-if it’s not for you, y-your pathetic friend would not have died to Erin’s petty spear!!! If you want anyone to blame, it’s YOU John!!!”
“...”
Prishine screamed and screamed, but all her efforts to evoke pity, guilt or even just a hint of emotion from John had utterly failed to hit her mark.
Witnessing what happened to Theza and Saeza spoke of the horrors that the man before her represented.
An ancient fear.
A fear that surpassed her understanding.
For she knew, this person, this demon, this monster— No, this being who stood so empty before her was something she could not comprehend, something that had been foretold since the ancient times.
This power alone, made the Demon Lord of Ruin’s power pale in comparison.
But that did not stop Prishine’s resolve.
If John was a demon— No, if John was something far more than she thought of him to be, Prishine would have to take John down this moment, for he has yet to fully grown into what his powers offered.
For he was only a fraction of the Immortal Empress. A human whose body was vulnerable to harm.
“[Heart’s Corruption], [Bellowing Demise of Hell]!!!”
The tentacles that she previously grew on her body returned, this time quadrupling in the numbers that she previously summoned, of which all launched themselves to John as the fires of [Bellowing Demise of Hell] engulfed John.
Cling-clang.
Convictus, John’s sword fell to the ground as the tentacles wrapped themselves around him. The flaming red magic blast that contained [Bellowing Demise of Hell] swirled around John’s body, indicating the curse was in effect.
The magic that held her to her place was undone.
“This is as far as I will tolerate your humiliation!!!”
Prishine then closed her fist, indicating for the two tier 6 spells to converge on John, overwhelming him at once as to eliminate him before his arms could reach her.
If she could end him, she too could obtain power like Loirmeil and take over John’s mantle as the—
Plash!!!
The tentacles instantaneously exploded, all the magic used to sustain the tentacles had been suddenly nullified and whisked away.
And the flames from [Bellowing Demise of Hell]…
…vanished in the air as soon as the tentacles withered.
He stood as he was, whatever magic that made contact with him simply, vanished.
John, with his two empty palms, placed them around Prishine’s temples, tilted her head to meet his empty gaze, confined her into a state of paralysis once more.
“W-what are you—”
Spurt!
Before Prishine could say yet another word, two thumbs pressed hard into her eye sockets, crushing her eyeballs as he slowly but steadily ensure the tip of his distal phalanges entered all the way into her skull.
“LET ME GOOO!!!! GAHHHH!!!”
Prishine let out a deafening scream, lodging her claws at John’s body in erratic moments, tearing away John’s flesh as much as she could to get him to release his hold on her skull.
Unfortunately for her, he felt nothing.
The pain on his body was only akin to mosquitoes’ bites compared to the one in his heart.
The dark aura around his body regenerated his injuries as though [Heal] would, rendering all the damage she inflicted null.
John released his hold on her head when only gooey flesh leaked from her orifices. dropped the succubus where she proceeded to wail like the hapless demon spawn she was.
“My eyessssss!!!”
Prishine, having blinded but freed from his paralysis magic, sprouted her demon wings, flapped them in haste to make her escape.
As her black wings caught the air, a hand grabbed them.
“!!!”
Her body was brought slamming to the ground.
Thud!
“…”
“Let me— AHHHHH!!!”
Crunch!
John stomped on her wing as he crouched to her face.
Raising one of his arms in the air and forming a fist, he delivered a hefty blow to the succubus' neck.
Gasp—
Thump!
Before Prishine could inhale from John’s strike, another blow found its way to her neck, and another, and another.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
There was no time for the succubus to gather her strength to resist him.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
With each passing strike, the succubus’ neck became bloodier, her breath shallowed, and her body no longer had the strength to flinch.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Prishine, the demon succubus simply, resigned to her fate.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
“…”
We he had enough, John unfurled his fists.
Then, his hands grabbed one of Prishine’s black wings, moved his other to the very tip of her wing, held it like he would a branch.
Snap!
With a jolt of his arm muscles, Prishine’s wing made a loud crunch. The succubus’ body jerked. She tried to make a sound, but the injuries John had inflicted on her vocal cords held her back.
Crack! Crunch! Snap!
“Stop this!” Erin, who was still under Theza’s skeleton’s subjugation, forced her words on John.
“Just end her…l-like you ended Theza!!! If you want to torture her, do it to me instead, you coward!!!”
“…”
Her words prompted John’s attention, only for his hollow glance to detach from her with the flick of a wrist at Erin’s direction, dismissing her.
“!?”
The impossible arm lock Theza’s skeleton exerted on Erin became undone, immediately freeing Erin of the painful struggle of sitting idly as John tortured Prishine.
“Sarvod!!! I’ll show you!!!” Erin charged, but Theza’s animated skeleton blocked her. “Move, you released me, I—”
Sprackkk!!!
With blazing speed and ferocious tenacity, Theza’s skeleton thrust a bone arm straight at Erin’s open mouth,, fully passing through her throat and appeared out of her nape.
Erin’s eyes shot wide open from the impact, trembling as she could not conceive of what had just happened.
“I…” Erin tried to speak but with her mouth utterly destroyed in just one swift thrust, only incoherent noises came from her. “The...zar…huai...har...u...doin...dis.”
The skeleton did not flinch at Erin’s bewildered expression.
Instead, it mechanically moved its other free hand and thrust in all the way into Erin’s mouth just like the other arm earlier.
Erin fell to her knees as the second bony arm appeared from her nape, crimson tears flowed from her like her Lady Prishine.
This was her end.
Like Prishine, whom she loved and served, this was where she would have her last moments.
Her eyes returned to Theza’s skeleton, meeting her comrade for one last time as all her life flashed before her eyes, memories of her traumatic childhood, her struggles in the dreaded barracks of Dezarith Empire before Prishine found her…
And most importantly, she should have heeded the words the Immortal Empress had left for Prishine and the three of them before dispatching them to Moxnet Academy with two objectives.
First, they were tasked to do was to keep the hero Scywell Shatterstep under surveillance. As for the second…
Her eyes focused on the pitch black aura that was coated upon the skeletal frame of Theza that protruded from her mouth cavity. The commanding austere nature that binds an inanimate object and subject it to its controller’s will.
John Sarvod, as of now, confirmed the Immortal Empress’ discovery of the incident that had taken place six months ago in a human settlement on the outskirts of the Empire.
The incident where the Forth made his apperance.
The final Demon Lord to come to existence, the last piece of the puzzle for the reign of an idyllic world to come to an end, the foretold return of the demons to take over this world filled with human and lowly races.
“Der…Deh…men…Lorh…of…Cor…sig…na—”
Krackkk!!!
With the enhanced strength that was in its bones, Theza’s animated skeleton crossed its arms, splitting Erin’s head into two halves, ending Erin as her flesh and blood splattered across the stone pavements.
“…”
John paid no heed to the female knight nor the skeleton he animated from Theza’s remains.
All he knew of this very moment, that he was to execute upon his own will no matter what stood in his way.
His conviction to eliminate the sultry woman.
His back strained, his neck burned from how long he had spent from looking downwards while he broke the succubus’ wings by his own hands, rendering her means of escape impossible.
She was bruised, blinded, and barely breathing.
It was still not enough.
For what she had done deserved no mercy from him.
His friend, the last living person to see the best in him, was robbed by her.
She had taken the life of Aurelius.
All because of her sick sense of values.
His heart thumped as his fingers curled around the soft leather grip of Convictus that he left on the ground.
He was not one who believed in destiny, but the cruel turn of events that haunted him told him otherwise…
The moment this sword came into his possession, his world had become infested by a dark twist of fate.
The Harvests died, he pushed away Ephinelyth, Team Rectiser suffered, the empire sought to enslave him, the succubus toyed with him, Aurelius…died.
His mythril sword was there for him when he fought the eternal decays, Prishine and her underlings, the blood-cullers, and the vampires.
The name, Convictus, was supposed to urge John to forge on a path away from the sorrows that plagued him, for him to truly strive for what he so desperately wanted to have.
And now, he shall defile everything Convictus stood for.
For John’s salvation was no more when Aurelius died.
John brought Convictus to his chest as he approached Prishine once more, this time with the full mindset of a cruel dictator.
Prishine’s body wailed about as she heard John’s approaching footsteps. She tried to get to her legs, but with the weight of her her broken wings and injured body, she could only struggle as she tried to make her last attempts at escaping.
“He...alp… S-S..eeza… E-E...rin…”
Between his steady, scornful stride and Prishine’s pathetic sprawling on the ground, John caught up to the demon succubus. Planting the base of his boot on her ankle, he halted Prishine from moving yet another inch.
Shing!
A glimmering arc shone in the air as Convictus passed through Prishine’s right thigh, slicing out a fist sized portion of flesh from her grotesque body.
Black blood oozed from her wounds, staining both his weapon and his clothes, but John was unfazed.
He raised his sword again.
Shoom!
John thrust Convictus straight into her abdomen, twisting his sword 180 degrees, grinding whatever flesh Convictus contacted into in bloody pulps before removing his weapon from the demon succubus.
“M-Mer...cy…”
Prishine pleaded, unable to sustain her demonic form, her grotesque body shrunk in size and returned Prishine to her feminine body—a maimed and bloody version of it now that John had personally tortured her.
“I...I…” Prishine stuttered, “S-she...can...bri...ng… Auh...relius… bak… Let...me...liv...a-an...”
John bat not an eye and raised his sword high up in the sky and swung downwards at Prishine’s chest, fully slicing off her female mounds, expurgating her status of feminity.
“AHHHHHHHHH!!!”
He needed not to hear her words to know the succubus was all crap.
False promises and flattery meant nothing to him.
He mistakenly let her lived once.
For that, Aurelius had paid the ultimate price.
His sword aimed at Prishine’s groin.
John pulled his weapon to his sides.
This was the most suitable end to the succubus’ life.
To utterly destroy her by driving his sword through her female genitalia.
The very tool of the succubus that had ensnared the essence of many men, that had inflated her ego to the point where she thought the lives of others simply served to entertain her sick sense of values.
I’m sorry, Angeline.
With Convictus in his right hip John jolted forwards.
The mythril weapon traveled in a straight trajectory as the entirety of John’s weight propelled the decisive strike, passing through Prishine’s body as her flesh and bone split the succubus from her crotch to brain.
Ding.
Convictus made an uncomfortable noise at Prishine’s death.
Hairlines of cracks appeared along Convictus’ body as John’s grip on his trusty weapon loosened.
His body, stained with the blood of the succubus who killed Aurelius, compared to the sorrow that plagued his mind, John no longer saw purpose in his actions.
Aurelius’ death was repaid in kind to Prishine.
Yet, he felt no release.
If anything, he wished he had done none of this.
He wished he had simply died to Prishine’s magic on him.
Like everything in his life, this act of brutality was meaningless.
John, in the last of his waning strength trudged to Aurelius’ lifeless body, placing his hand on the cavity in the wolfkin’s chest as he felt the dark aura magic waned with his desire to fight.
The least he could do was to ensure Aurelius corpse was whole.
The wolfkin’s chest cavity was filled with the remaining magic on John.
It was not flesh that filled in the gaps, for John was not using [Heal], [Heal] did not work on Aurelius’ who was gone.
He was filling in a gap with the dark magic that he had, that was all.
“F-forgive me… E-even...a-after I told myself…t-that no one...should be...hurt...because of m-me… This is all m-my fault… I never meant for you to suffer, I d-didn’t mean to say those w-words t-to you…”
He lowered his head as the cold breeze brushed against his skin reminding John of the cold night that the demon magic appeared to him.
“I’m sorry… Aurelius. I’m sorry, f-for being born...this way...”