Lewd System: Every Scream and Moan is EXP Chapter 426: What Exactly Do You Plan to Kill

"It won’t be as simple as whatever happened in that cell, though," Dianna added. "Her bloodline keeps her hungry, yes but don’t you dare read that as weakness. She is sharper, unpredictable and considerably more dangerous than anything you have met so far."

"And if you fail the task, she will kill you in the most painful way she can invent. If you somehow live through her afterward even after failing, I’ll make certain you die by my hand instead."

Jax looked straight into those hazel brown eyes, and then he started walking toward her without a trace of hesitation anywhere in him, closing the room down step by step until there was barely an inch of air left standing between them.

His expression turned into a smile. "A painful death from her. A painful death from you. What exactly is that supposed to do to me? Frighten me?"

The smile went out. "I woke up in this place with no past behind me. No memories, nothing to mourn, nothing left to miss. You’re threatening to take a life away from a man who doesn’t remember ever being given one."

"Death needs something breathing to be afraid of it. Pain needs something whole to break. And you’re standing in front of an empty vessel waving a sword at it."

"So tell me, Princess. What is it you’re planning to kill? The body? It was already face down on the ground when they dragged it in here. The mind? That was hollowed out before I opened my eyes."

"So what does that leave you holding? A man who doesn’t fear death, and a man who wouldn’t much mind it showing up early. Take either one on its own and the world sleeps badly. Put both of them inside the same body..."

He let the silence carry the rest of it.

"...and there’s no chain built for that. No threat designed for it either. Because every threat anyone has ever made rests on one assumption, that the person listening wants to live. Take that away and your words are noise."

"The only thing I have left is my ego. It was the one thing sitting there waiting when everything else was gone. No memory left it behind for me. No god set it down as a gift. It simply refused to leave even after all the mess I would have faced."

His voice stayed quiet. "And when nothing itself couldn’t finish it, what makes you think you can?"

"So think very carefully about where you put your next step with me. Because the ruin that lives inside a man who welcomes his own ending doesn’t burn in one direction. It burns in every direction at once, and it does not check who’s standing in the radius."

Then the grin came back. "And lucky for me, I can already tell it isn’t you holding the leash on my life. It’s me holding one on yours. I can’t say yet what it is you’re chasing, but those eyes give it away. All that desperation you’ve got tucked in behind the cold."

He closed the last of the distance and dropped his voice to a whisper. "So what happens if I ruin your plans on purpose? Or let’s be precise about it. What happens if I crush your last hope?"

Dianna was furious, and not a line of her face moved to show it.

A moment later the collar lit up.

The pain went through Jax like something prising him open from the inside out, veins standing up hard along his arms and his neck, and his knees hit the floor with his fist clenched tight enough to shake.

The thing was pouring his own mana straight back into him, his own celestial essence, everything the orb had been quietly hoarding since they put it on him, and it came in bursts with no rhythm to brace against.

When it finally let go of him he was on all fours coughing blood onto the polished floor. The grin was still sitting there where he’d left it.

"Are you finished now?" Dianna asked.

Jax looked at the blood sitting in his palm and smiled at it, and there was nothing pleasant anywhere in that smile. "You’re going to regret this decision."

Dianna begin. "Let me make it simple enough that we never have to hold this conversation twice."

"You can threaten me as much as you like. To me, threats are air, and I have been breathing air this poisonous for a very long time."

She turned and started walking toward Amane. "So sabotage me. Go ahead. I’ll carve another road around the wreckage, and you’ll simply die without having gained one thing from it."

"Do you know what you remind me of? A rabid dog somebody dressed in fine clothes and brought to a dinner party. Loud. Unstable. Foaming at the mouth, and genuinely convinced that showing its teeth makes it look powerful instead of sick."

Her steps were slow and even. "But there are two things a rabid dog never works out. The first is that it was bought for exactly that violence and nothing else. The second is that it’s a tool, and tools get replaced, and the leash around its neck can always find a different neck the day its master gets bored."

"The same goes for you. Positions get refilled. Plans get rewritten. Only two things in this room are certain."

She kept walking. "The first is that I will win, because I have to. The second is that if you sabotage me, you’ll get that death you’ve been flirting with all evening."

"But ask yourself whether it’s worth it. Dying without ever learning who you were. Without ever finding out who put you here in the first place."

Silence sat over the whole hall after that, and it held there until she reached Amane, and then she was the one who broke it.

"Commander of the 13th Unit. I’m placing his training in your hands, so understand me clearly. If he fails, he does not die alone."

"Use every scrap of authority I’ve given you. Every person in this palace, your unit, the maids, the staff, anyone who has served this house long enough to be trusted with it. Supervise all of it yourself, and work alongside the Bedchamber Instructor I brought in."

"Force feed him the broth made from the titan’s testicles we bought. And one more thing." She didn’t look back. "See that he gets his punishment tonight for the little rebellion."

Amane nodded and fell in behind her as they left the dining hall, and on her way out she ordered the girls of her unit to take Jax to his room.

Later, while she was helping Dianna work her hands into a pair of long gloves, Amane finally spoke. "Your Highness, aren’t you being too hard on him? He doesn’t look like a man in his right mind. What if he actually does sabotage us, and..."

"Then let him." Dianna flexed her fingers into the glove. "I know exactly what he is. A bomb with the timer already running, and that is precisely why I emptied everything I had to buy him."

"He’s unstable, yes. That is the entire reason he’s right for this. When the moment comes, he won’t look at my stepmother and see a queen."

She pulled the second glove taut. "So stop feeling sorry for him and do your job."

"But we have no time left to replace him if this goes wrong." Amane’s voice tightened. "Before I arrived, word came that the Royal Quarters that primordial gods made an announcement. House Mayavesh has been chosen to hunt down a specific champion from another world."

"And with the throne still empty, there’s no clean way to decide who volunteers for it. So the succession war that was supposed to be a month away is happening in ten days."

"Most of your siblings are already moving. Your nephews and nieces too. Every one of them gathering whatever forces they can find for the bloodbath over that throne."