Lewd System: Every Scream and Moan is EXP Chapter 407: Together, to the End

What followed was a nightmare with no ending in sight.

Athanor never got the chance to close a single one of his wounds, never got a breath to tend to himself, because a whole hunting party was baying after his family.

So he ran instead.

Bleeding, shielding his wife and daughter with his own ruined body, exhausted past the point men were built to endure, killing everything that got close enough to try for them.

And it was the same for Lysia. She ran hard after that brutal match with their daughter crushed to her chest, one arm locked tight around the small body while the other shoved low branches and broken walls out of their path.

Her own injuries screamed with every stride she took, and she never once loosened her hold. Little Athanasia’s face stayed buried in the crook of her mother’s neck, too frightened even to manage a cry.

They moved through the dark like a pair of wounded animals.

The army came pouring after them in waves. Torches flared to life between the trees. Shouted orders in the distance crept closer with every passing minute. Arrows hissed past their heads.

Twice, Athanor spun and cut down the nearest pursuers, buying Lysia a few more precious steps, and both times he paid for it in fresh blood.

His finished body kept moving on one thing alone. The desperate, stubborn will to keep his whole world breathing.

There was only a single path left that promised his wife and child would live, and he threw every last scrap of himself into reaching it.

He turned to Lysia, whose pace had begun to drag under the weight of her exhaustion. "Lysia. Just ten more minutes. Hold on for ten more minutes. After that... you won’t have to run anymore."

Lysia tightened her grip on Athanasia, and she gave it everything she had left.

[10 minutes passed]

A pained smile of victory broke across Athanor’s face as it finally sank in. He’d done it. He dropped to his knees, chest heaving, and waited for the gate to appear.

And after a moment, it did. A shimmering gate, opening a road straight to the human realm. The deadline on the contract between Lysia and Athanor had run out at last, and the gate blooming into being was the proof of it, the one that would carry Lysia home to her own world.

Athanor forced himself painfully back onto his feet at the sound of the bushes rustling, and he understood the hunting party was nearly on top of them. And this time, he could feel a dense, crushing aura settling over the area, which told him one thing.

She was here.

"Now, Lysia," he said, the words tumbling out in a rush. "Take Athanasia and go back to your world."

Lysia’s face flooded with tears. "I’m not going anywhere without you. I would never leave you behind, and you promised me that too, so please. I’m begging you. Come with us."

"Don’t be stupid, Lysia," Athanor shouted. "Didn’t we talk this through? If I come with you, these people get the permission to descend on your world, and they can track me down there without any trouble at all. And you know exactly what that means."

Lysia sobbed harder, and little Athanasia watched her mother beg her father for something the child couldn’t begin to understand.

"We could fight it together," Lysia pleaded. "So let me stay by your side. Come with me, and we’ll get through this together. We’ll fight them in my world. My mother holds a good position there, and when we explain everything to her, she’ll help us. I know she will."

Athanor closed the last of the distance and gripped her shoulder. "We can’t fight them. Not even your entire world could stand against them. Understand me, Lysia. Don’t let your emotions stand in front of your life and death. In front of our Athy’s life and death."

His voice cracked. "Take her, before the gate disappears. I’ll stay here and make sure not one of them gets through it to hunt the two of you down."

Lysia understood. She sobbed through it, and then, at last, gave a small nod.

He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead, then one to Athanasia’s, before turning to face the Zeus corps that had finally forced their way through the trees.

"I’m sorry," he said quietly, "for not keeping my promise of never leaving your side."

Lysia couldn’t bear to see her man broken like this. So she ran into the gate, and it sealed shut behind her after a minute.

A smile touched Athanor’s bleeding lips. His golden halos flickered into being at his sides, but several of the rings were blinking now, guttering, and some had already vanished into nothing.

And that was the moment the ranks ahead of him parted, clearing a path for the woman walking up from behind them.

It was Athena. One of the strongest figures the realm had ever produced, her power great enough to rival the very heads of all four houses.

And yet she was Zeus’s dog through and through, carrying out every filthy task he handed down to her with the blank obedience of a machine.

She raised her long sword. "Duke Athanor. You stand guilty of treason against the heavens, and of violating divine law. As the appointed executor of His Majesty’s judgment, I have come to carry out your sentence. State your final wish."

"I don’t think you could ever fulfill my wish," Athanor said. Then a sarcastic smile crept onto his face. "But I do have one thing to ask, something you actually can make happen."

He paused to spit out a mouthful of blood. "Try to give love a chance."

He tipped his face up to the sky, smiling, and let himself remember every last thing that had ever put color into his life.

"I can see the path you’re walking right now. And how could I not? Because there was a time I walked that very same road myself. A life with no colors. No warmth. No reason in all the world to disobey."

His voice softened. "And then something beautiful found me, and it ruined my life. She taught me that people aren’t born carrying a reason to live. Sometimes... another person just quietly becomes that reason, before you even notice it’s happened."

"She taught me that happiness was never once hidden inside victories. It was hidden in having someone waiting at home to complain when you came back late."

"She taught me that coming home could become the happiest part of an entire day. That an ordinary dinner could feel like the grandest feast ever laid. That silence was never empty when there was someone to share it with. And that no throne in all of existence could ever compare to the sound of your daughter calling out to you with a smile on her face."

He looked at Athena, and something in his gaze was almost gentle. "I can see my own past self in you. Living as a hollow shell for more than six hundred years now, my lady. So step off this path. And walk the beautiful road that lies ahead of you instead."

Athena stayed silent for a long moment before she spoke. "Don’t you have any regret over your foolishness?"

Athanor laughed. "Regret? Why would I ever regret it. I would throw my life away a million times over, if it meant living just five years in the brightest light, rather than two hundred years lost in the dark."

Athena lifted her sword, her expression flat and unmoved. "I see. But sentiment is no shield against divine judgment. The sentence has already been written. I am only here to carry it out."

After a while, Athanor lay sprawled across the ground, wholly and completely defeated, breathing in ragged heaves, and still, somehow, smiling. Athena leveled the point of her sword at his throat and swung it down to finish him.

But before the blade could land, a burst of void magic slammed into the back of her head, sending her stumbling three full steps forward.

Athanor caught it through his blurring vision, and there she stood. Lysia. Her eyes blazing with fury. And he understood at once what she’d done, that she had used her Void Link skill to mark this very spot before she left, so she could leap straight back into her own death.

He wanted to curse the stubborn girl with everything left in him. But he couldn’t force out a single word. Couldn’t even hear the things she was saying, nor a syllable of whatever passed between her and Athena.

All he could do was lie there and watch, helpless, as Lysia was beaten down somewhere in the distance.

Athanor began to crawl toward her, dragging his broken body across the ground. And Lysia did the very same, crawling back to him. Only she was smiling as she did it.

Seeing that, Athena lifted Lysia up and carried her over, setting her down beside Athanor, granting the two of them their final farewell.

Lysia propped herself against the trunk of a tree, and Athanor’s head came to rest in her lap.

Athanor finally managed to speak. "Why... why did you come back? I told you to go."

Lysia laid a finger gently over his lips, seeing how he struggled for every word, and coughed up blood of her own. "Shut up, dummy. Even if our marriage was never official, the vows I made during that kiss were real. I vowed I’d stay right there with you until the very end, didn’t I? We live together, and we die together. So I’m only doing my duty as your wife. Don’t you dare lash out at me for it."

Athanor put everything he had into the next words. "Why? And wh... ab... Athy?"

"Athy is safe," Lysia said. "I entrusted her to someone I trust. He’ll deliver her to my mother."

She drew a shaking breath. "And as for why I left her, and threw my life away back here? Well. I didn’t want you to be the only one making the sacrifice for us. I knew they’d keep coming after us no matter what, because I know that bastard Zeus. So I needed to cut ties with our Athy, to make certain she’d be safe as the only one they recognize is me not her. It was the only option left."

Both of their bloodied hands reached for the other’s neck. Lysia lifted his head, and Athanor drew hers down, for one last kiss before the breath finally ran out of them both.

Some time passed. Their eyes had closed, their breathing had gone still, and yet they held onto each other even now, still locked together in that kiss, though it had loosened at the very end.

Athena, who had stood watching the whole of it, saw that it was finally over and started toward them. Then she stopped, and her eyes swept the surroundings, wary.

She caught a presence. And she broke into a dash toward the dead pair.

But before she could reach them, a green cloud bloomed up out of the air, and Loki stepped out of it. She wore that mischievous little smile of hers. "Sorry, big sis. I’m going to have to take your proof of victory."

And with that, she was gone. And the couple went with her.