Elinus was completely fired up, happily hurrying towards his own birthplace. He barely remembered the days from his childhood, growing up within the Brightseeds' courtyard. Whenever he tried to recall those days, his head always hurt, and even though pain always brought him great pleasure, that kind of pain was different from any other for some reason. It was without the accompanying pleasures he always felt… and it was the only pure agony that he could feel. And that frightened him. This was one of the three reasons he was eager to finally take over his family. To see if it would solve the issue of the only pain that did not bring joy. The second was also related to his own memories. Before the day he was released from the Spire of Corvux, every day was nothing more than a continuous mass of memories mixed together. He could not place them in order or connect them to any moment of time or event, feeling like everything that happened up to that point was a dream. A nightmare if someone else would remember the same things as he did. The continuous experiments, the pain, and the weird joy his mind got out of it after a time. He could not tell to this day when it happened, but somewhere amongst the memories when he was dissected, dismembered, and then put back together once again, it just clicked for him. The pain must be the only reason to be alive… and to enjoy being alive, you must experience pain. His third reason was simple: to make his own family share the same 'joy' he went through and spread it to every offspring he was destined to bear. He was juggling ideas about what to do with Veponia after arriving home. Along the street before him, from the night's darkness, Ariana's figure slowly rose up.

"Oh my! I was thinking about you just a few minutes ago!" he stopped in his tracks, laughing leisurely.

"Coming from anyone else's mouth, I would be flattered."

"Ahaha~ So… are you here to play with me again? I'm fine with it; it would be a great warm-up!"

"No. I am here to kill you."

"Oh, that made me hard~" he moaned, licking his lips and thrusting his hips forward.

"Hmf… My Master warned you, yet you ignored it. Now you die."

"Yeah, yeah… yet she is still not here!" he rolled his eyes, and as he did, Ariana was already behind him the next moment. She was reaching out from his shadow, stabbing a real, curved dagger into his back. "Ah! Deeper baby!" He laughed, looking back at his shoulders, sending an elbow strike backward, but Ariana had already merged back into his shadow. She appeared further away, holding the broken hilt of the dagger.

"You have such thick skin…" she threw it away, watching the uninjured Elinus strip as he tore off his upper garment, revealing his perfectly healthy torso.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" He spread his arms. "It is the work of a master sculptor! Did you know I did not even cultivate for a moment?"

It was hard for Ariana to listen to his voice, but it made her flinch for a moment. No human could do something like that… Not cultivating but having such a strong body as a demon…?

"Are you even human?" Ariana asked by reflex.

"I don't think so." he shook his head, "Are you?"

"I am!"

"Humans can't fly. Can't swim in others' shadows. Can't live hundreds of years. Therefore you are also not human."

"I am human because I still have the morals that make us different from animals… yet you already lost it," Ariana replied and summoned a metallic, small, buckler-like, round shield on her left hand and a long, silver spear inside her right, speeding forward, aiming at Elinus's heart.

"Again? You did not learn the last time?" Elinus sighed, letting the spear's tip hit him straight at his chest, sending sparks everywhere. It was accompanied by a shockwave, blasting apart windows, showering the street with glass shards. Soon, multiple homes' lights lit up as people were shaken awake, not panicking because Ariana had already spread her tendrils along every building, calming down their minds. She was guiding the people out of the area where they fought.

"I did learn," Ariana answered, grabbing the spear's shaft with two hands and twisting it. A clicking sound rang out right as she did it, and in the next moment, violet electricity jumped out from the spearhead, shocking Elinus's body. It drew cries out from his mouth while he was skidding backward. His chest was burnt by the attack, leaving red burn marks in the shape of little lightning strikes throughout his torso.

"Ouch! That was such a pleasant attack!" He gasped for air, watching Ariana, who was still holding the flickering spear inside her hand, unaffected by her own Master's powers. "My turn!" He rushed at her, aiming a punch forward, expecting her to dodge. "Huh?"

Yet when his fist arrived, Ariana was still not dodging, just raising her hand with the shield fixed onto it. Suddenly, a bright, blue energy field lit up before her, forming a circular energy shield in the air. It blocked Elinus's incoming attack without effort. When his fist landed, it sent another shockwave outwards, making the houses and street below their feet rumble and shake, but Ariana stood perfectly still, watching Elinus's surprised eyes.

"Isn't this the same kind of shield you sold today? But it is even smaller and stronger!"

"So what?" She swung her spear, hitting Elinus once again, sending him flying, right into a house on their left, blasting through its walls. "Previously, I only relied on my own powers. Realizing I can't do that against you, I am not afraid to borrow others."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Hah…! Borrowed strength or not, still not enough to hurt me!" He climbed out from the smoke and rubble with a laugh. His sides were still flickering with purple lightning from the spear strike. "It tickles~" he patted his own hand and ribs where he took the brunt of the attack.

"As I said before, you are going to die here and now!" She attacked him, again aiming at the same spot on his chest. By that point, Elinus finally raised his hands, grabbing onto the spearhead, letting it spew lightning everywhere and burning his hands. He managed to block her from striking at his heart at the last moment. "What happened with your bravado?" Ariana flashed a slight smirk watching his expression.

"Girl, you are going to birth me some fine successors!" Elinus whispered, leaning closer towards her as he tried to lick her with his quickly flapping tongue.

"Be careful, I can be spicy, and you may burn yourself…." Ariana answered, now reining in her own feelings of disgust, not letting it freak her out like last time. While speaking, her left hand reached towards her belt, grabbing a small piece of paper from her pouch, drawing a finishing touch with a pricked finger onto the formation.

"Hm?!" Elinus raised his eyebrows, but what he saw was a bright, red flash as a fireball hit him head-on from point-blank range, blasting the two apart.

Elinus flew through the same house as before, making it crumble down finally, burying him below it. Ariana, on the other hand, was shielded, literally, by the artifact on her hand. Watching the rubble settle down, she let out a sigh, happy that it was already empty and no innocents got buried alongside Elinus.

"Still not enough, huh?" She picked out two other Instant Fire notes, completing them with a swipe of her finger.

Elinus just crawled out from the rubble, his body badly burnt; it seemed like, even with his strong resistance, the point-blank impact of the spell left him badly scarred. Just as he emerged outside, facing two new, incoming, flaming spheres, he just laughed out.

"Cold-hearted bitch, I love you!"

"Pervert." Ariana snorted as she stabbed the spear into the ground and around the collapsed house; from the shadows, a black veil appeared, surrounding it entirely before the explosion could expand outwards. From the outside, it looked like looking into an oven through black, tinted glass, while inside of it, a firestorm raged, melting the rubble and engulfing Elinus completely. It was droning out his constant screams.

When finally the fire started to die down, Ariana redrew her powers, sweating heavily as containing the forces of two Instant Fire took a lot out of her. Walking close to the now completely melted and conjoined mound of rubble, looking like an elephant's foot, she was shocked at what she saw.

"You… give me… my life's greatest… pleasure… girl…" Elinus moaned as he was still alive. If you can call his current type of existence that. His naked, burnt body was stuck in the cooled-down mass of rubble like a mosquito in amber. His limbs were sticking out, badly burnt, resembling only black bones, while his skin and flesh were falling off from them like flakes from an overdone toast. Half of his torso merged with the melted stone soup, and the other half that was visible resembled that of a burnt chunk of wood. Ariana could barely make out his facial expressions as he had no eyes left, neither did he have any nose or lips, only moving his exposed jaws and still white teeth, maybe even forming a grin, but it was hard to tell.

"How can you still be alive?" Ariana whispered, stepping onto the mound and aiming her spear at his head before, once again, flinching, seeing how Elinus's body slowly started to regenerate before her eyes. "You…" She took a deep breath. "You smell similar to Uncle Leinor… and similar to some demons I have met…." She mumbled as she watched the corpse-like remain of Elinus trying to fix itself.

"I had… a lot of… things… put… into me…" He replied painfully yet with a cheerful voice, "Are you… giving me my… final… orgasm… girl?”

"..." Ariana just sighed, raising her spear, stabbing it down at his head, saying nothing but Elinus could feel the wind push against him before the tip of the spear.

"You are… the… best!" He moaned one last time before her weapon stabbed straight through his skull and brain, drawing a final moan out from his body, making Ariana shiver, listening to him.

"Damn it… a freak until the end…" she pulled back her weapon after being sure Elinus was dead, jumping off the rubble and putting away her spear and shield.

…

….

…..

Inside the Wonder Emporium, Rabout and Ren were sitting at a table entertaining a guest who was none other than Keina.

"My people followed Corvux back to his Spire. Something is not right," Keina explained with a serious voice.

"Something is not right with him, that is for sure, " Ren said with a chuckle.

"No, I mean-" but she just stopped, sighing. "Never mind… I should not even bother with it, should I?" She flashed a defeated smile at Ren, knowing her strength.

"No, no, I appreciate it!" Ren waved her hands, "I am more than happy to have allies instead of enemies!"

"Allies?" Keina leaned back in her chair. "I am happy if you look at me like that! Even after our not-so-smooth first introduction to each other!"

"I'm not one to hold grudges against something trivial like that if the other party can step over it too! Oh?" Ren flinched. "It seems you finished? That was quick!"

"Yes, Master!" Ariana said as she appeared before them from nowhere, emerging from the shadows inside the room. It surprised Keina, who now got a good reading about her aura that easily matched her own.

"Finished?" Keina asked, looking at the two of them while Ariana walked behind Ren like an obedient maid.

"I sent her to kill Elinus. He was about to massacre the Brightseed family."

"I see…" she crossed her arms, thinking about her actions' consequences.

"Are you going to take them over?" Rabout tilted his head.

"Brightseed? I may." Ren scratched her chin while answering.

"That is an impossible task." Keina shook her head, "They are literal slaves to Corvux. You can turn any family in Rozex, but not them! They are brainwashed!"

"What if they have a cure for brainwashing?" Ren flashed a grin at her.

"A cure…? Wait… they were the ones who bought it?!" Keina blinked her eyes rapidly, realizing her words' meaning.

"Yep!" Ren laughed softly. "I am about to visit them as she did not present it to Corvux. I got her message, so to speak!"

"When will you go?" Rabout leaned forward with a curious gaze, and when he asked, Ren's figure suddenly flickered, making Ariana smile and answer before her Master could.

"She is already there. This is just my Master's clone~."

"Hehe…" Ren giggled, looking at the two Lords. "I am already inside their courtyard~."