Lewd System: Every Scream and Moan is EXP Chapter 416: A Promise Doesn’t Expire

’As for the orcs, I’d say she put them on my road to show me exactly how far Sianna’s loyalty runs. Or to find out what I turn into when survival is the only thing left on the table.’

He looked out at Sianna, fighting shoulder to shoulder with his students and Rora.

’Look at it. Everybody out there is fighting together. The magic tower, who have been at the academy’s throat and Claude’s for longer than anyone can remember. The assassin guild. Clans and families who wouldn’t have shared a table an hour ago.’

’And none of it happens without her. They won’t be the last either. More factions will come the day they work out that their missing people, the husbands and daughters they’ve spent years mourning, were dragged up there and put to work as slaves.’

’A war that was supposed to be mine alone, and now every one of them will be pushing at my back for my own goals. Even after the truth about me being a champion comes out.’

"Stop it, you’ll have me feeling like some kind of saint," Loki said. "Don’t think so highly of me."

"A saint doesn’t leave behind a graveyard with thousands of people in it, Loki." Jax’s voice stayed level.

"You’re evil, exactly the way the world says you are. I’m only starting to get a sense of what you’re actually reaching for. So I won’t waste time on your games, and I won’t insult either of us by asking for your help, because I already know you want Ravana brought down by my hand."

An explosion went up behind him and he turned toward it. Zia lay flat out on the ground with flames still eating the air around her.

"Fine. You win." Loki sighed. "It isn’t as though the contract gains me anything now, since the whole thing goes null and void the moment they strip me. So I’ll send you across, and I’ll buy you what time I can to get your woman out."

"But you’ll remember this favour. And when you come back, you’ll help a powerless woman who is going to need it."

’Jax,’ Echidna said softly. ’May I ask you something?’

Then her voice went straight through the roof. ’How in the hell do you plan on beating Ravana, you absolute fool?’

’Because the gap between you and that man isn’t measured in power. It’s measured in impossibility.’

’Who said anything about fighting him?’ Jax pulled a gauntlet out of his ring. ’I’m going to gut him from the inside. Walk onto his own ground and take Beatrix off it with this.’

’I’ll eliminate her myself. Then I’ll stand there and watch that bastard come apart at the seams until the portal opens.’

"Shall we begin, then?" Loki asked. "I can put you down more or less where Beatrix should be. It’ll save you a great deal of time."

She smiled at him while she said it. Jax didn’t smile back, he only nodded, his face cold enough to cut on.

-x-X-x-

The contract was struck, the binding ritual done, and a portal tore itself open in front of him.

He never got to step through it. Rods of purple mana came down out of the sky and drove into the ground, and a cage stood between him and the light.

"Where do you think you’re going?"

Jax knew that voice, so he didn’t bother turning around. "I’ll be back before you even notice I’ve gone."

"Then I’m coming with you."

"Sorry. You can’t."

"Your voice is doing that thing it always does right before you’re reckless," Astrid said, faster now. "And if you’re refusing to take me, then wherever you’re going is dangerous. I don’t know what new mess crawled out to make you stand next to that enemy, but I am not letting you..."

She never finished it, and she never got to attack either. Jax plucked one rod out of the cage and threw it, and Astrid stumbled and went down hard on her hip.

It wasn’t a threat. That was the part that landed on her. It was resolve, and looking at it told Astrid the thing she had refused to think about until that second, that she no longer held anything strong enough to turn this man off the road he had already chosen.

"Whatever it is you’re chasing," she said. "Does it need you more than I do?"

"Or is it worth so much that you’d raise your hand against me to reach it?"

Jax summoned Malice at his side. "It’s worth exactly as much to me as you are. So if the cost of protecting it is you hating me, then I’ll carry that too."

Then he stepped into the portal, while Malice held her ground at the entrance and let nothing come near it, and a few seconds later she was gone along with the light.

-x-X-x-

In a garden somewhere else entirely, Beatrix sat alone on a long bench beneath a broad tree, staring up at a silver sky that had absolutely nothing in it to look at.

"Excuse me, miss. You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find my world’s greatest gem? Breathtaking, unfairly hot, pretty hard to miss."

"I had solid intel she’d be around here, but so far all I’ve turned up is one depressed pervert stalking the sky."

Beatrix turned, and for a moment her whole face came back to life. Then the panic caught up and she was on her feet with his hands in hers, eyes darting past his shoulder.

"Jax, what are you doing here? How did you even... no. Get out, right now, before anyone sees you. This isn’t a game anymore, it’s..."

"Relax." He held on. "Breathe first."

Then he pulled her in against him and held her there, while she went on trying to talk over the top of him, the words coming apart faster than she could get them out.

"Sorry I’m late," he said. "But it’s fine now, because I’m here. I know what they’ve been doing to you, and therefore I’m taking you out of this stupid game. And none of it gets to slide either. Ravana pays for every last day of it, I swear that to you."

Beatrix pushed back off his chest. "Jax, this isn’t as simple as you’re making it sound. These people are godlike beings. What they can do to you is worse than anything you’re imagining."

"Godlike being, actual god, I don’t care which one." His voice didn’t move an inch. "The moment they put their hands on something of mine, they signed their own death warrants."

"I’ll bring him down, and every single person who had a hand in what they did to you. I’m not strong enough for that yet, so it’ll take time." He raised his arm. "But there’s one thing I can do right now, and that’s eliminate you with this."

He pulled the gauntlet on. "It’ll sting a little. Then you’ll wake up back home in Aeroria."

Her fist closed at her side while the tears came loose. "Why are you risking your life for me? If Ravana finds out you took me from him, he’ll spend an eternity making you regret it."

"Why?" Jax flicked her forehead, which brought her eyes up to his.

"Have you forgotten the promise I made you? The day I chose you, your happiness became mine to keep, and your pain became mine to carry. It was a promise about a future in Aeroria, sure. But a promise doesn’t expire just because the world changed underneath it."

Beatrix wiped her face and laughed. "You were serious? All this time? I thought it was some obsession a growing boy would grow out of."

Jax frowned. "So that’s the story you’ve been telling yourself?"

He clicked his tongue. "Idiot."

Then he steadied himself. "You took everything I felt for you and filed it away as childish..."

Beatrix sealed his mouth with hers before he could get the rest of it out. She held on tighter this time, and there was nothing careful left in the way she kissed him.

"I’ll be waiting for you," she said. "And rooting for you."

Then her smile went sad on her. "Though I’d honestly rather see your name turn up on the eliminated list. I don’t want revenge, and I don’t want you hurt. So if it comes to that, I won’t mind at all if you take yourself out of this game."

Jax already had mana pouring into the gauntlet, the crystal set in its back glowing brighter by the second, and her words put a grin on his face. "You could just say out loud that you can’t wait to have me back in your bed. Pervert."

He pulled her against him and bit down on her neck, one hand sliding under the back of her gown to take a firm handful of her ass cheeks, and she twitched hard against his chest.

Then, from somewhere across the garden, applause.

Both of them turned at once, and Ravana was standing there.