Lewd System: Every Scream and Moan is EXP Chapter 418: The Debt She Paid

[CAUTION]

[Foreign Authority detected.]

[Unknown external force has breached the Host’s body.]

[Initiating contamination purge...]

[...]

[ERROR]

[Purge unsuccessful.]

[External force exceeds system authority.]

[Attempting forced suppression...]

[...]

[WARNING]

[Suppression failed.]

[Host synchronization has become unstable.]

[System integrity compromised.]

[Corruption Level: 10%]

[...]

[Corruption Level: 25%]

[Host life functions falling outside acceptable parameters.]

[...]

[Corruption Level: 50%]

[Critical damage detected.]

[Emergency protocols activated.]

[System authority unable to contain foreign influence.]

[...]

[Corruption Level: 70%]

[WARNING]

[Core functions collapsing.]

[Host compatibility approaching irreversible failure.]

[Recommendation: Immediately reject external authority.]

[...]

[ERROR]

[System command ignored.]

Echidna forced out a laugh, and for the first time in her long existence it came out hollow. ’Tch. I can’t even hold onto my own power anymore. I offered you half of me and you’re pulling my entire existence out through the seams, you greedy bastard.’

’Seriously. Curse you, moron. If I ever run into you in the afterlife, I am beating that stupid grin off your face with both hands.’

’Still...’ The laugh went bitter on her. ’I’d rather not watch your journey end in a place like this one. So I’m hoping some ridiculous miracle comes along and saves your ass, the way one somehow always does for you.’

’Prove to me that what I’m giving up wasn’t the worst decision I ever made.’

’Until then, goodbye, you hopeless idiot.’

Jax didn’t hear one word of it.

He was somewhere else entirely by then, standing in a world of his own with a mirror in front of him, and the thing wearing his face was telling him to burn down every part of the world that had ever made him suffer.

[Corruption Level: 98%]

[Corruption Level: 100%]

[System is shutting down]

And when the noise finally stopped, Jax opened his eyes.

There was nothing in them of the calm that used to define him, and nothing of the cold indifference he wore into a fight either.

What looked out at the world was worse than both, a rage so complete that every ounce of hatred he had ever buried in himself seemed to have clawed its way up and out at once.

That wasn’t Jax anymore. That was the monster living inside him, and it had murdered its host and taken the wheel.

Ravana had both forearms up across his eyes, struggling against the burning storm pouring off the boy. "How. What is this... no. Wait. I know this power."

His voice thinned out. "This belongs to the Witch of Calamity. But how. How did you..."

He never got the rest of it out, because Jax started walking toward him. Ravana threw a punch to answer it, and the force behind that swing tore a full grown tree out of the ground by its roots.

Jax didn’t move an inch. The damage landed all the same, blood running from his nose while what was left of his clothes came apart, so that he walked the rest of the way naked.

Ravana punched again. Jax caught the fist and crushed it in his hand.

Then, while the man was still screaming, Jax took a fistful of the hair between those horns and drove his fingers down into the skull, got his other hand around one horn, and pulled until the head came away from the neck.

He kicked it across the garden.

Ravana’s body turned to golden light and stitched him back into existence where he stood, whole again, and whatever else that light restored, it left something behind that had never been in him before.

He wheeled on the war maidens and the Valkyries, and the panic in his voice was ugly. "Why are you all standing there?!"

"Attack him!"

Not one of them moved. They stood looking at the thing in front of them with sweat running down into their boots, every one of them already picturing exactly how it would go.

A few imperial soldiers had come running by then, drawn in by the aura bleeding out of the Queen’s Quarter, and one look was enough. They swallowed and stayed where they were.

Jax didn’t have that problem. He walked into the faction that had decided to run, and he took them apart one at a time.

The ones who actually ran got worse than the ones who didn’t. And the worst part, the part that kept feeding him, was that every single one of them came back to life on the exact same patch of ground they had died on.

They spent those deaths cursing their own celestial blood, cursing the immortality that wouldn’t let them stay dead, while a mortal boy walked them through it again.

The cycle went on until his eyes found Beatrix, standing there with fear and worry fighting each other across her face.

He grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back, and his fist came up over her wet face.

"Jax... why..." She was crying too hard to get it out cleanly. "What’s happening to you. Please, come back to your senses."

The punch stopped.

But still he shoved her, threw her away from him, and turned toward the target he had built up far more hatred for. Ravana.

Everything in him came out on that man. He killed him hundreds of times over, and every method was worse than the one before it.

Beatrix went down on her knees and sobbed into her hands. Meanwhile several asuras had spotted their chance and were sneaking for the walls, but then all of them dropped where they stood, out cold.

Then a woman was standing beside her, and Beatrix knew that face. "You. All of this is because of you. Because of that skill you pushed me into choosing." Her voice broke. "Look at what you put me through, Witch of Eternity."

Tempris rested a hand on her shoulder and smiled at her, and the smile hurt to look at. "Be honest with yourself, Beatrix. Even if I had never put that invincibility skill in your hands, do you truly believe Ravana would have let you go?"

"I’ll admit it. I’m the reason you and Jax have both suffered. But you have to trust me, I am on your side. This was the only road where you survive, and where he..."