Lewd System: Every Scream and Moan is EXP Chapter 393: A Lesson Before Class

"There’s no denying you walked through hell for me, and I do respect that," Jax said. "But the truth is, we were never meant to be together in the first place. We come from two entirely different worlds, and you just couldn’t see that. Not in this obsessed, foreign-powered state of yours."

Ashrah couldn’t speak, couldn’t make out a single word of it. But she read it plain on his face all the same, that he meant every word. That the apology was sincere.

Jax caught the way she was looking at him and winced. "Don’t stare at me like that. It makes me feel guilty."

He sighed. "Well. I was guilty. For using you and then tossing you aside. But you’re no better, are you? Your crimes stack up far higher than anything I’ve done. So really, that just makes the two of us equals."

He glanced down at her wrecked body, half of it likely only still working thanks to that seasonal power. "And killing you was the kinder choice. You’d have drowned in pain either way, and your end would’ve come the moment whatever’s holding you together finally burned out."

He let out a long breath. "Gosh. I don’t even know why I’m sitting here justifying myself to a woman who can’t catch a single word of it. But still... I wanted to say it out loud anyway. Maybe for my own sake more than yours."

Seeing her eyes begin to slip, losing their hold, Jax reached up and gently drew her lids closed with his palm. "Rest now. You fought harder than anyone had any right to ask of you."

His voice softened. "I hope the next life is kinder. I hope you find someone who loves you just as much in the next life... as long as that someone isn’t me. I’ve had enough of your love for one lifetime, thanks."

It was, finally, over.

The moment Jax rose back to his feet, he found Delphine standing there, staring at him with both hands planted on her hips.

"What? Just because I said a few words to a dying orc, I’m suddenly crazy? If showing basic respect to someone who’s already dead makes me lose my mind, then you’re the one who’s missing humanity here."

He wiped his blade clean. "And if you think I’m some bad guy for backstabbing a woman obsessed with me, then count yourself lucky, because this was the very lesson I’d lined up to teach in tomorrow’s class."

He gestured down at the body. "The lesson on how obsession, and love, will destroy both you and your goal. So not only are you getting the class a couple of hours early, you’re getting a practical demonstration along with it. See it for yourself, how even the mightiest forces end up eating dirt the moment someone learns to make use of that weakness.

"And it’s not just her, either. That necromancer from earlier, what was his name, ah, Harry, that poor soul got fooled and played the exact same way. All over a girl he loved from one side only."

Delphine sighed and slapped a palm to her forehead. Then her eyes caught her mother dragging herself over to lean against a nearby tree, and she took off running toward her, worry stamped across her face.

Sianna showed not the faintest flicker of pain, even as the raw flesh of her leg wept where the stones had scraped the skin clean off, leaving deep scars and shredding most of her stockings into tatters.

Delphine dropped to her knees beside her. "Mother, we need to hurry and call the medics. Give me the communication rune, I’ll let Nadia know the situation."

"It broke during the fight," Sianna said. Then she added, "Do not concern yourself. They should already be on their way. As for me, I am perfectly fine."

And as those words left her mouth, Jax, who had only just reached them, sank to his knees, pulled off her shoe, and began peeling away the red, ruined stocking.

Sianna twitched, just for a second. Delphine’s head whipped around. "What do you think you’re doing?"

Jax ignored her entirely. He drew a few things out of his ring, set a healing potion down beside Sianna, laid her injured left leg across his thigh, and started tearing cloth into strips to bind over the open wounds.

As he worked, he talked. "I’m sick to death of nobles like you. All tough, all cold, all carved out of stone. You think it makes you look strong? Nah. It just makes you look stupid."

He kept wrapping. "You’d have lost this leg. Or bled out and lost a whole lot more than that. And here you sit, talking like it’s the most ordinary thing in the world, all because some prideful noble can’t stand to show a scrap of weakness in front of a commoner. Or her own daughter. It’s honestly one of the most annoying things I’ve had the pleasure of watching."

He tied off the final strip and looked up at her face. "So next time? Just say it hurts. Instead of playing the unbreakable statue. Trust me. It won’t kill your pride."

Silence settled over the three of them.

Then Jax broke it again, eyeing the potion sitting beside her. "What now? You waiting for me to feed it to you mouth-to-mouth or something? Or are you just worried I’ll charge you a fortune for the service, seeing as it’s an emergency and all?"

A small smile touched Sianna’s face before she tipped the potion back and drank it down. And Delphine, catching the whole exchange, felt the horror come flooding right back in.

’So it really was true,’ she thought. ’He’s already gone and charmed mother somehow. That’s exactly why she was out there throwing her own life on the line for him.’

Every thought, and every story her poor overworked brain kept stacking on top of it, only made things worse. Her cold, man-loathing mother, letting a man touch her bare skin. Smiling at him, even. All of it should have been flat-out impossible.

But then her eyes landed on Jax, who had gone strangely still, his usual teasing grin draining clean away into something serious.

Jax stood. ’Echidna. You’re certain it’s her?’

’I’d stake my beauty on it,’ Echidna said.

’Then let’s go and end all this,’ Jax thought, already turning to walk.

"Wait." Delphine scrambled up. "Where are you going?"

"Just scouting the area for danger," Jax said.

"You shouldn’t," Sianna said. "It’s dangerous out there. Wait for my faction to regroup, and then we can—"

Jax cut her off. "Relax, I won’t go far. Delphine, you look after your mother, and don’t let her pull anything stupid until she’s healed up."

And with that, he turned and walked off into the dark.

Some time later, Echidna’s voice slid through his skull. ’I’m sensing celestial energy just up ahead. Tread carefully.’

And the moment Jax reached the place, he stopped dead, stunned by the sight waiting for him.

Several Hundreds of bodies littered the ground, the dead and the dying tangled together. Most of them wore the colors of the mage tower’s factions.

And there, kneeling in the heart of the carnage, was Archmage Rashida, one of the most powerful beings on the island, brought to her knees and screaming. "Athanasia, please, stop this and run! You cannot fight him!"

At the sound of that name, Jax turned toward the girl locked in battle with a man floating high in the air. The lone force, it seemed, behind this whole massacre, and Athanasia was throwing herself at him head-on like it was the most reasonable thing in the world.

"I won’t stop," Athanasia threw back at her grandmother, "not until he feels every last ounce of the pain he forced onto my mother. And onto me. I’ve waited far too long for the chance to kill my own father with these two hands."