Take Up the Cross – CH9: Up the Castillo in Twenty Minutes – Cold-Warming Touch ☆

His left hand throbs, even without holding the cross, the pain riding it all the way to his brain.

There is an image.

{This woman has her head to the ground facing away from Adris. She’s turned to watch behind her as she pulls her panties to the side. Adris brings his cock to her pussy, free to use her as he wishes.}

Adris shakes his head violently, trying to shut it out.

{Lycia is crying out in pleasure, promising to serve Adris for all eter-}

Adris puts his hands on his head to fight the pain, but finds it not working.

His head is suddenly gripped, firmly, but gently. He opens his eyes to look at a woman before him.

“… Are you okay?”

The woman named Lycia looks at him with uncertainty, interest, and… concern.

(Ah. She’s… still a genuine person.)

The longer he looks at her, the more his desire grows. Even now, he wants to feel the leg beside his head.

(The thought that she’s a “genuine person,” where does that come from?)

{Lycia is naked and bound, offering herself like a whore-}

Lycia strokes his head with cold hands.

The images vanish as she comforts him. Adris feels hot, the manipulating power of the cross blocked by his own neglected needs.

It’s difficult to think, but as long as it’s about Lycia, he can reject the images.

Having seen Lycia in his own mind, naked and inviting, is far too much, however.

(These… monsters seem to be enthralled with carnal pleasures.)

The situation.. should dictate his actions, or so he thinks in his hazy state.

Adris relaxes a bit, content to express his feelings about this woman, now.

(It’s not like she’s unenjoyable.)

Her personality needs to own him, but she does understand the back and forth of word games, and also of playful deceit.

Adris feels comfortable with her, a familiar feeling to the way she acts and the looks she gives.

She’s attentive and manipulating, but she seems to be fond of him…

Rolling her eyes a bit, she looks at a distant place while thinking, smiling a little naughtily before speaking.

“Yeah, if little brother would be willing to, say, help sis with understanding that cross- Huh?”

Lycia’s eyes go back to Adris as he creeps his head forward. Silently watching him, she doesn’t appear to understand his intentions.

(Honestly, I’d rather her than the other woman…)

Adris pulls his head free of her hands, her letting go reluctantly, as he leans his face in.

A small tongue darts out to lick her silk-covered leg, then he moves his head towards the middle of her pants.

“Ah! What are… y-AH!” She cries out a bit as Adris licks directly onto her pussy through her panties.

The musky smell boiling Adris’ mind is coming from here.

(This is how to make her mine…)

Adris is drunk as he puts his face against it.

He grabs onto her thighs softly with his arms and pulls his face into the embrace of her crotch.

She twitches as he begins to lick. Letting his nose rub against the fabric, he pushes his tongue against the silk, pressing into her lips underneath.

At no point does she stop him.

He rubs the back of her thigh, the leg still up, increasing the pressure with his tongue. Finding himself suddenly desperate to locate the pearl above her engorging lips that should be there, he breathes more deeply and intensely.

The warmth of his breath causes a bump to become more apparent under the moistened panties. He puts his tongue directly to it.

“HYAH~♥!” Lycia gasps a bit, enjoying the sudden affection.

Adris is confident in his service now, as the cold-feeling woman warms to his tongue’s touch.

He can even smell the musky scent growing, as the panties themselves slowly become wet with more than just the saliva from his tongue.

Two hands with a calloused touch come to grip his head through his hair.

He looks up, concerned. Seeing shining-green, gold-speckled eyes staring back, the slit irises loose, he realizes her demeanor is completely different.

Her tongue is between her lips as she looks at him, then retracts into her mouth as she opens it to speak.

“… You… want to do this?”

She asks the question with a lustful voice, naturally sultry now; but, her eyes reveal her total confusion at Adris’ actions.

(Didn’t you want me to obey?)

Adris’ pants are now far too tight.

Rather than answering, he reaches up with his hand to roughly pull to the side the thin fabric of her panties, eliciting another gasp.

(If I’m going to give myself to someone, I’d rather it be a good, “bad” woman.)

This Lycia has yet to show him any true maliciousness.

Though she might betray or hurt him later… for now…

Even with the thought of Serras betraying him, and what she meant, his lust and desire for having another fill that space is enormously strong, coming from a place of need he can’t identify.

Thrusting his face into her now bare crotch, he brings his mouth and tongue to her alluring, exposed, engorged lips.

He licks along them, before putting his nose against her and sucking on the lips with his mouth.

“Why… you are…?”

She moans lightly, while trying to resist with more questions.

Adris dips his tongue in between her lips, darting it about.

Serras had always enjoyed this, when she felt comfortable with it.

Now, someone else will.

He increases his ferocity, the thought of owning… or being owned by another the strangest idea, but also exciting.

“Haa … yeah, right there, boy.”

The woman’s grip grows tighter, pulling him against her as she moans, her voice inexplicably powerful and demanding in contrast to her previous anxiety.

Already shifting to give him better access, she gives herself to his willing service. The juices cling heavily against his face as her arousal increases.

Adris can’t breathe easily as he sets his tongue to her, finding that she’s unwilling to let him leave, physically holding his head close with her death grip.

When he feels the urge to breathe, he pats her thigh. She releases her grip a moment later, a subtle whining sound let out in disappointment.

Adris breathes, and then latches onto her now-revealed pink button lightly, licking on it gently and flicking it with his tongue.

He moves his free right hand up to her pussy, thrusting a finger in slowly to scrape against the upper, interior flesh.

She spasms as he does this, her grip getting tighter again as she rubs him against her pussy, her body bending a bit.

“HAH, HAH, … why is little bro… so dedicated… so…?” Adris hears her lick her lips.

“… loving and thorough…?”

Adris can feel her muscles shake with his touch.

Though she’s speaking, her body apparently won’t last.

(She was also holding back? Am I not the only creature affected by this place…?)

Time passes as she quakes before him with the touch of his tongue.

The faint music is drowned out by his slurping; her, moaning in the candlelight, as he pulls on her lips with his mouth.

An eternity of a moment leaves him locked in this wet embrace, his own discomfort a silent tease as he longs to put his dick between the lips he is servicing.

Yet, the task at hand is its own reward. Tasting this teasing woman and stealing her breath, Adris feels empowered, as if he’s winning the struggle now that he couldn’t win earlier.

(The flesh is soft. She’s…)

Tasty.

His tongue washes over her lips and dips inside as he continues. Other men might hate this, but Adris has always found it an interesting exercise.

Always appreciating little details, Adris is ever attentive. Every sigh and movement is an indication of how to proceed, how intense to make the experience right then.

(As far as I know, it’s always appreciated.)

There is no bad taste or smell, though the feeling of coldness from her thighs does unsettle Adris. The texture of her socks on her legs makes him forget the coldness.

“Hah, you wanted to taste me that badly?” She moans out, goading Adris on, establishing her dominance over him.

“Why does a boy like you know, HAH, how to move your tongue like that…!? No, don’t answer, just keep doing it~! A delicious thing like you… giving AH, everything… is… so very…~”

She changes tone as she speaks, her voice too loving to be merely appreciative of him.

“… Perfect~. You’re exactly the sort of little brother I needed!”

(Do women lust for boys like I appear to be? I’d somehow felt that was only a thing a man would do…? It’s… strangely satisfying, but also frightening.)

Adris moves his whole face against her pussy and skin, the strange feeling only adding to his lust, as he is forced to breathe her in so deeply that he feels like the smell will be etched into his brain.

She never lets his tongue stop for even a second, any sign of Adris slowing down accompanied by a change in her grip to reproach him. Moving her hands through his hair, her touch urges him to dedicate himself to her even more than he already has.

(In what way am I “perfect” for her?)

Adris is momentarily worried.

“AH! You can worship it~! I’ll let you have it! I won’t take it away, as long as you, HAH, promise to keep doing it~!”

She keeps talking while moaning. The strength seems to fade from her grip on his head, but none of the need subsides.

Adris can barely think as he surrenders to the warmth of her juices on his tongue and fingers.

Scraping inside of her as deep as his knuckles, the woman moves her hips in time with his assault on the pleasure point he concentrates on.

Her clit is already extremely hard, bigger than he remembers Serras’ being.

The woman moans, but it seems like a conscious effort. Rather than a regular panting, she doesn’t breathe often, though her body is just as animated even if she remains breathless.

“It’s strong, right there! Pay attention to it~! Make me feel it!”

He feels her rising tension, and answers it by gripping her clit between his tongue and lips, crushing it gently.

As he harshly tastes her clit, he increases the intensity within, until he pushes strongly against her wall with curving fingers.

The tightness of her muscles clamping feels like a vice on his smaller fingers.

The thick sound of wet slurping wars with her strangely paced panting. Adris drinks up juices as they gather.

There is heat from her now, even sweat appearing on her pale body. It makes Adris feel that she’s being filled with life as he pleasures her.

The deep embrace is overwhelming Adris’ mind, the rewarding experience of successfully pleasuring her making him unwilling to quit for any reason.

In this moment, she’s showing him love that he would never expect from her, even as she demands his attention in return.

Her engorged clit is what she obeys, his tongue circling it as she shivers. All of her manipulating ends as she seeks to answer her own needs, letting Adris serve her.

Then, she tenses, and her hands…

Crush around his head.

Adris feels trapped as he struggles against this pressure, losing his grip on her panties and being ground against her crotch as she shudders, her rubbing his face forcefully against her pussy.

Only the chair keeps him from falling over in the awkward position she holds him in. The woman treats him like a tool, Adris’ previous thoughts of supremacy disappearing as she outright uses him.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!”

She releases a bestial, growling scream. Adris is fearful that the wild woman’s prodigious strength will kill him by crushing his head like a fruit.

(I always seem to die in ridiculous ways.)

Though, technically, one time is not a pattern.

As juices cling to his abused face, Adris is left to fall back into the chair.

The woman collapses onto the ground in an awkward, kneeling position, her breasts bouncing as she lands.

Her face is a mess, a sloppy expression on it. She looks almost dead, as Adris drunkenly watches her.

Then, she oddly returns to life, gaining power back to her body all at once.

“… Hm… you…” She tries to speak, but has no breath in her lungs to expel.

Adris goes to say something himself, but is obstructed as the mature woman suddenly reaches her face in, kissing him on the lips.

She’s not even the second woman Adris has kissed, yet her passion is certainly the highest.

Adris feels something like love from her tongue as she slips it in. Even if he wanted to resist the affection, her grasping hands don’t permit it.

After tasting him inside, she begins licking his face, lapping up her own juices and his spit that collected by his efforts. When she does it…

(It’s… erotic…)

Adris strains against the feeling of his imprisoned erection, her hand on it as her neediness mounts, instead of subsiding.

(She doesn’t seem like the kind of woman that shows real affection…)

Adris is surprised by the embrace, but secretly longs for it. Even now, she seems to move to release the loop holding his pants up, getting ready to reach in.

She goes to kiss him on the neck, reaching in and sucking… far too hard.

(Painful!)

He pats her shoulder to stop, the pain a bit much. She pulls back suddenly, looking at him with a hungry, severe expression, before she suddenly puffs her cheeks with a flushed, relaxing face.

“You… why did you do that?”

“… Was that not what I was supposed to do? Didn’t big sister want me?”

He puts on a smug grin, trying to appear confident with his response.

She’s shocked, horrified, then…

Deeply curious.

“You wanted to taste me? Without any compulsion? It was of your own free will?”

She licks her lips, traces of her own juices still clinging to them from their kiss.

“You desired me?”

Adris blinks, finding it difficult to understand why she asks the obvious.

(Why does the idea that I would do that willingly seem like the deepest mystery to you?)

“You sound a little too cheeky saying it like that, but it’s not untrue.”

“Absurd, you’re not even a Chosen…” She gets up swiftly, picking Adris up to hug him, burying his face in her breasts as his engorged penis uselessly rubs against her wet legs.

(Whoa, wait, that’s… tender!)

Adris can’t speak as she embraces him, left to swing like a favorite toy being crushed by its playful owner.

“Okay, okay~! I’ll help you! I was planning to leave, anyway! How could I not help such a wonderful brother who knows how to properly exchange favors~!”

Adris is startled by her sudden, obsessive voice. She coos at him, as she grips his butt with a free hand, his covered penis still rubbing against her.

“Nooooo, don’t be scared, little bro, big sis will protect you. I promise.”

She winks her left eye at him with a comical smile.

“I wouldn’t leave you to these…”

She puts him down and collects her gear while humming cheerfully, an awkward twitch to her movement as she bends over.

“… other monsters~.”

(You… suddenly want to help me a hundred percent after hearing that? Is willingness for these creatures a valuable commodity?)

“Hey, hey, where did you find that cross of yours…?”

Lycia now sweetly asks questions Adris plans not to answer.

Running through the halls, Lycia avoids numerous dangerous situations with only her outlandish speed.

They pass through rooms so fast that Adris can’t pick out details: bounding over empty pits, avoiding ensnaring chains, ducking disembodied hands that reach up from the darkness of the floor, and surviving other odd traps that Adris likely wouldn’t be able to avoid.

With her cloth box in her arms before her, Adris hangs from her neck like a satchel bag.

Her waist is gripped by his legs, an action which doesn’t reduce the woman’s speed in the slightest.

(General appearances aside, she is truly inhuman underneath.)

Adris is glad that the woman seems content to help him, even if it carries risks.

(Is it possible that she’s stronger than most of the creatures here?)

“A boy like you would be eaten up immediately~.”

She muses at an intersection, an octagonal room with a silver, irregular chandelier with flashing crystals looming overhead.

Mirrors on the wall reflect the light, a brightness that seems almost mesmerizing.

Four statues of various humanoid creatures watch the room while sitting in front of the intersecting entrances to it. Adris feels as though they could come to life at any time.

“[Pocket Belmont!]”

Lycia pulls a cylinder from her leg holster after she sets the box down, an item which morphs into a flying, metal, spiked chain as she flings her arm toward the chandelier.

Her weapon shoots past the werewolf-like statue in front of them and strikes one of the center crystals of the hanging light source.

The chandelier shatters in a great cacophony of falling pieces when the spiked head glows red with fire while striking. The pieces all crack noisily on the ground as she whips the chain back, returning it to its original form with a hearty, metallic grating sound.

The lingering presence from the intersection vanishes.

The cylinder releases steam before going totally inert, and Lycia deposits it back into her left thigh satchel.

“There’s not many options for you to escape the upper levels. We’re a little safer because there’s almost no pawns patrolling above the second tier. I can’t conceal you, though. You smell too… wonderful.”

Adris fights back his lust, his erection still rubbing against her back through the thin silk of her shirt.

As she adjusts him while still humming, his member jabs against her back.

She seems to shiver.

“Oh, are you enjoying your perch? Or are you… thinking about getting caught~?”

“You sure do have interesting gadgets.” Adris says, trying to deflect from his penis.

She tenses, but then relaxes.

Adris feels her free hand slap his butt.

“You are a flirt~.”

(What did I say?)

Adris clings on tighter, pulling at the woman’s neck.

“Choosing my neck instead, are they not supple enough…?”

The woman idly teases him with a throaty whisper, Adris head on her right shoulder.

(As if I could grip your tits and control myself. How would I hold myself up?)

“No, your aura tools really are interesting.” Adris tries to deflect once again, but is still genuine in his appreciation.

(They all seem… self made. Sadly, I am not your equal in this…)

Adris has only ever had the talent and resources to make a few aura tools in his life.

Like his self-made fog tool, the rest were quite average in utility.

“Is that so…? They’re quite standard… a bit too mundane, even.”

Her voice is dark as she dismisses his compliment. Adris smiles internally, finding the dismissal cute.

“I’ve never seen anything as spectacular as the cannon that shot exploding stars.” Adris continues.

“What do you do here in this place? Are you…?”

(Like the others…?)

“Hm? Ha, ha! No, I’m a bit of an eccentric.”

Lycia seems to hear the doubt in Adris’ voice, reassuring him that her future designs don’t include what would be the norm.

“The others are all looking for ways to breed themselves a super weapon. Mother’s private struggle is amusing~, but… that’s not… a viable option for me.”

Her voice is calm, but low.

The environment becomes a blur again, as Lycia bounds down the left passage.

“Individuals like me are not regarded highly within the Works! We focus on more practical research, rather than long-term eugenics or other carnal studies~!”

(Eugenics? Like aura blood lines?)

Adris thinks of the families who mingle blood, believing that aura use is determined by lineage.

“I spend more time outside of the Works than within…” She sighs while running.

“Taking my prototype [Starshooter] outside to show it off, you forced me to expend one of my expensive reloaders.”

“… I can’t pay you back.” Adris preempts her.

“Lies~. You can’t right now, but you will be able to later!” She cheerfully assures him of her belief in his value.

Adris struggles to ask his next question.

“Why did you help me?”

She stops suddenly in the long hall they’re in. Adris wonders at the reason, as she’s been able to talk while effortlessly running.

“… Well, a debt is a debt. You saved me from Ishia, right? Then you pre-paid me in another way ♥.”

She whispers the last part.

(Except, that’s wrong. You saved me first when you shot the monster, and you know it, so the balance is actually…)

In your favor.

“Why are you so worried… I happen to like you well enough.”

Her voice is cheery as she resumes her movement.

“I won’t hurt you, you know…”

Cheery, but inviting.

Seductive and cloying.

Seeking his trust, her voice is a weapon against him.

Adris clutches onto her as she continues to run, thinking about their relationship.

(This woman isn’t planning to leave me alone.)

He can see how she views others. It is something Adris can intimately understand.

(This woman thinks I’m… an interesting subject.)

What’s more, she seems to possess a principle of repaying debts, and expecting repayment for his.

Adris’ thoughts are dark as he realizes her unspoken motivations.

Even if he gets free of this Castillo, it doesn’t change the fact that something about him has caught her interest, and she intends to seek compensation from him for her help.

“Is having no magical power considered an oddity?”

Stopping abruptly like she’s overcome by something, she asks her own counter question with a very serious tone instead of answering his.

“Is having a silver cross that can knock out someone in a single blow…”

Footsteps loud, she completes the somewhat grave question while tearing through darkness once more.

“… considered an oddity?”

(Shit.)

“Well, don’t worry about it! All your questions I will be more than happy to answer after we get you out!”

Lycia seems amused again, speaking brightly.

“We’ll get to know each other over a long time!”

Adris tries to remain calm, but finds that hard.

(“Don’t let go of anything useful.” In the end, to this woman, I’m a mystery to be solved, not a potential partner.)

Adris is only a possession. At best, a favored one.

His mind threatens to shatter, as an image takes over his entire sight, leaving him unable to see or hear the outside world.

{Adris is leading Lycia before him. She is naked, chained by the neck, moving on all fours.}

(Stop.)

{He walks down the halls of this demonic mansion, everything in his path bowing, until he comes to a room with spectators. There, Lycia readies herself, whining, begging for him to-}

Adris holds onto her tighter.

When his mind clears a bit, he feels her stiffening, then relaxing when he stops gripping so tightly.

Suddenly, her attention moves from him to something else.

“Okay~! We’re almost free~!”

She races up a winding stairway she comes upon.

Lycia comes to the top of the stairway, entering an arched, palatial landing with multiple exits.

The walls are covered in wallpaper depicting four seasons, the subject of the wallpaper ever a golden-haired girl wearing a white dress playing among desolate fields and an empty town.

Decay has eaten into the borders of the paper, the whole room dripping with moisture.

(How is it even creepier than the Works? Who the hell is this girl?)

The rust-covered, iron walls glow with blue lamps, and the flooring is a single piece of marble covered in dark-gold, ruined rugs that make paths between the rooms.

Chairs, drawers, and other furniture are organized in the landing, in haphazard collections near the doors to the other rooms here.

A blue, quartzite hallway with white flagstones and the same embellishments as the rest of this mansion is before them, leading into another large, open area where Adris can hear rushing water coming from.

“[Cascading Water] connects to many areas in the Castillo, though it’s not an average way of traveling. All we have to do is go down the right drain and we’ll save a trip.”

Lycia speaks softly, but with enthusiasm.

(How do I breathe in water?)

“When you make it to the end, do not rush off. Wait for me. The right path is where we need to go. Only I can get you through there. If you go down the left, you’ll regret…”

Lycia makes an error as she moves toward this exit, going quiet suddenly as she hears something.

To the right of it, walking out from a separate room, a creature appears.

A short woman with deep-blue bat wings for arms walks out. A black, tight-fitting bodice, with a blue-gold neck tie, covers her small breasts, and a light mini-skirt barely hides her juicy bottom.

The frills and style of it make it appear like a maid uniform, though its disrepair and ad-hoc fitting fit with her strikingly inhuman features. Clawed, half-human bat legs, covered with black stockings held by lace ties, scrape the floor as she walks out.

She’s holding onto a pot-shaped device with one of her clawed wings. Her blue, medium-length bobbed hair obscures her eyes, but her young face gazes at them with her mouth locked in an “O” of surprise, her bat-like ears angling towards them.

“What is this? I thought I heard something! Intruders!?”

Lycia holds the box with her left arm, as her open-fingered, leather-gloved right hand comes up in a claw-like gesture in defense.

The girl notices the blue coat Lycia is carrying wrapped around her box.

“Eh, you’re from the Works? Why are you here? An inspection of Cascading Water isn’t due for…”

The woman tenses when she focuses on Adris. Tilting her head quizzically, her mouth then curls into a smile, a cute, pink tongue peeking out from between her sharp fangs.

“Oh! Have you perhaps… brought a [Guest]!? My, if you wanted to share a visitor, then I won’t say no~!”

The bat-winged woman sets the pot down on a silvered push cart holding other cleaning tools, then begins to sway lewdly as she walks towards Lycia with a hungry expression, her clawed feet still scraping against the floor as she moves.

(This damned hood!)

Adris’ hood had fallen back as they ran, leaving his face exposed.

“gEt YoUr OwN, pAwN.”

A deep, bestial threat rolls out from Lycia’s throat.

Adris can’t see Lycia’s expression, but the air is clammy and his stomach tightens when she speaks.

The cute woman falls back, her mouth quivering in terror for a moment, before she sneers while shaking.

“Huh, you thought you could come up here to eat alone? That it’d be abandoned? Sorry~! The Great Mistress has plans for this area! A little bookworm like you has to listen to us~!”

Before Lycia can move, the woman breathes in a great deal of air and then expels it all from her mouth with no sound issued, yet Adris can hear speech.

“INTRUDERS! COME AND GET THEM!”

Adris is unsure of what is happening, but Lycia wretches at these unspoken words, before jumping forward in the air and slamming her booted foot into the woman’s cowardly face.

The bat girl unwillingly flies back into the room she came out of with golden particles spraying from her face, ramming into the desk within the room and tumbling over its cracking wood, while screaming bloody murder the whole flight.

Loud voices respond from adjoining rooms.

“Ferthia, there can’t be intruders this high up~!”

“If it’s stupid, I’m going to rape you.”

“Trouble?”

Adris hears stomping feet.

A door in the landing opens, as a tall, black-ponytailed woman wearing a butler’s gray uniform enters the room.

A full figure with curvy mounds, the uniform meant for a man is tight to her body. A great, blue-gold scarf hangs over her front and back, covering her neck and some of her body, giving her the look of a hunter during winter.

Old stains cling to her outfit, which bears sliced tear marks in places and is frayed in many spots.

Her slight, catlike features seem sharp on her fine face as she focuses on Lycia, her black cat ears and twin cat tails straight and confident.

Sizing the situation up in an instant…

“I see, someone brought recreation.”

The woman’s orange, cat-slit eyes narrow threateningly, though her expression remains gentle and her pleasant voice confident.

From her waist, she pulls out a contraption with a sawblade. It folds out with a snapping sound into a black, serrated, crooked sword as she whips it to the side.

Two more people show up from other rooms.

One is a huge, muscled man with curved goat horns and brown hair, his tiny bell-boy hat comical in comparison to his ponderous size.

His body sports a gray, sleeveless, porter’s uniform jacket and long pants. Very little is left of his outfit, it mostly ruined by mud and abraded holes.

Barely able to leave the room he is in, he has to turn sideways to walk out.

His square face and jaw show mad, brown eyes as he clenches his teeth. He pulls his stylized, cracked, black-iron-padded gloves tight as he enters.

“Oh, why rape Ferthia? You’re cuter.”

The last responder is a woman whose partially covering body fur looks cream colored. She wears a faded, green robe with emblems of falling creatures embellished on it, looking as if they are plummeting to their doom from the open sky.

Rabbit ears rise up from where human ones should be, going up beside a small, green hat that drapes most of its top behind her head.

It looks like a bed cap, but ends in hanging, brass trinkets that threaten to pull it off her head.

Her feet are human like, black-leather boots going up inside her long robe.

She smiles with a slightly ditzy expression, her face having an adorable, pert nose and sharp incisors for her front teeth.

Adris notes her ditziness is a total deception, as her pink eyes blaze with a cruel intellect. A slowly-writhing, obsidian rod and a bound book are clutched jealously close in her hands.

“Heeee, intruders there are, there are! How… strange.”

“Che.”

Lycia dismisses them, flinging Adris and herself toward the blue hallway.

The blue stones shift in color as they run through.

Adris looks behind to see the robed bunny girl pop out of thick, greenish smoke right where they were, her rod coming up lazily.

“Eyes that view from beyond, see my foe and peer deep within, share your sight and render them insensate.” [Transfixing Green~!]

The rod collects an emerald fire. Lycia is still running, trying to outpace the threat.

A ray bursts out with a scattering of a green eyes flaring up around it, its beam inexorably flying toward them.

(Their barriers were no defense.)

Adris grabs his cross in an instant, interposing it between Lycia and the ray.

The ray sings as it flies, striking the cross… and reflects back with an arc, running across the white tiles as it returns to its sender.

The glittering sound is replaced with a low, maddening drone.

The bunny girl clicks her tongue, sweeping her rod and striking the ray, dissolving it in an explosion of green particles and sickly smoke.

“Nice work, little bro.”

Lycia bursts into the new room carrying him. Before he can respond, she pulls him in front of her.

Putting something up to his mouth with lightning speed, she cracks it and clamps it over him.

“Breathe~.”

Lycia holds her hand over his mouth and nose, forcing Adris to inhale a foul, herbal-smelling smoke. His lungs feel as though he has fluid on them, like when Serras wounded him.

As he has a coughing fit, he looks at the room around him.

Like its name, the entire room is full of coruscating and cascading water.

Up above, a gargantuan, blue, serpent-like leviathan lies within a massive, crystal-glass tank.

It is held in place by a slate, herculean statue, noble-looking and clad in flowing robes. Four great supports come from the walls to meet the statue’s base.

Water flows out from a long gash in this seemingly dead creature’s length, the endless gush of water flowing down intricate chutes and slides.

It flows into and fills other tanks in the room, tanks holding waters of various colors and opacities, with things like stones and crystals laid within them.

The waters obey a complex system of gravity and direction control, flowing past open walkways and down glass tubes, to empty below in an equally complex system of drains.

The tanks read different descriptions, the closest saying “Second Tier, [Grand Collection]: Fresh Water – Neutral Alkalinity.”

The rush of water that should be deafening is muffled a great deal by the crystal glass enclosing the falling streams.

The light in the room comes from the dead creature above, no darkness allowed as its presence controls the whole room.

Adris notes that the moist walls squirm a bit, being the only surfaces not brightly lit by the leviathan.

Lycia runs up a walkway, her eyes searching for something, but she has no time to act as a green cloud erupts to her right.

The cloud grows solid and reaches out to restrain her as she ducks it, leaping back towards the entrance of the room.

She tosses Adris to the nearby wall gently, rolling him safely to come up beside it.

Lycia aims for the cloud with a monstrous leap, whipping her uncovered box to hit the appearing bunny girl in the face.

The attack strikes a whispering wall of air to the smirking mystic’s left side, vibrating in the air as it’s held by the invisible screen.

The catgirl butler streaks into the room, faster than Adris’ eyes can follow, flanking Lycia with an overhead swing.

It bites into the intercepting wooden box, with the blade’s serrated edge sending sparks as the butler retracts her strike.

The blond scholar dances away, jumping on the railing and running. She retreats to stand before Adris in a defensive stance as he looks up, crouching low.

The goat man trundles into the room, staring down at Lycia as he towers over her, before looking to Adris and preparing to charge the boy.

Lycia growls and jumps toward the robed bunny once more out of desperation, arcing through the air with her box held overhead with both hands, gripping it like a tree-trunk-thick club.

The bunny’s passive grin becomes a devilish one, as her rod goes up in the air with a swish of her hand and is then whipped down to the earth.

The faded, green robe’s falling creatures become colored, frightened, rotating images on the waving cloth.

“What is up must now return, even birds will be undone; you who soar with graceful joy, a sure defeat is now begun.”

“[Falling Down~!]”

The space around the airborne Lycia contorts, sucked above in an instant.

Adris is mystified when she streaks up into the air, as though her whole form stretches towards the ceiling, and is then flung to the ground at terminal velocity like a snapping band.

Her body strikes with a grotesque, meaty flop accompanied by cracking sounds, shards from shattering white flagstones flying out as her bones shake and rattle.

Before the assembled attackers can act, Lycia’s body moves inhumanly, a clawed hand grasping the ground and yanking.

She flings herself toward Adris, as she awkwardly rolls into a standing position.

With all three arrayed before her, Lycia doesn’t act, patiently waiting to counter any attack.

Gold fluids leak from her mouth and spots on her bruised body.

Adris is surprised she is still active, but glad. Brandishing his cross secretly, he readies to attack them when she does.

“While not allies in the strictest sense, what reason exists for greed?”

The black-ponytailed butler woman speaks amiably, while letting her saw sword hang low against the ground.

“I don’t wish to take your meal, only share at your table. Why escalate to a formal test of arms when we could be as brethren?”

“Yeah, there’s no reason for fighting, yeah! Why, why would you fight~? A delicious boy can be shared by all, riiiight?”

The rabbit girl energetically speaks, contrary to her sleepy style.

“The Wondrous Works has plenty of Guests. Why hog the ones that make it here!?”

The girl glares at Adris, her pink eyes sinister.

“This lady wants to ask where he comes from, while entertaining him~.”

“No women if share. Do I fuck Ferthia? Sounds boring.”

The man grumbles, disillusioned at not being allowed to rape Lycia.

“I wouldn’t fuck you for any reason, you ugly giant!”

The bat girl flies into the room, flipping overhead and landing on a railing above, looking down at the bleeding Lycia.

Her nose is red, with a bit of gold leaking from a nostril. She looks quite angry as she glares.

Underneath her mini-skirt… a bald, clamshell pussy is proudly displayed to Adris as she perches.

“But, I certainly deserve a taste of that cute penis after putting up with you, old ghoul lady.”

Adris pales, certain that they’re doomed.

Lycia is strong, but these three, disregarding the bat girl, look powerful, too.

As he tenses…

… a box drops, and a sweeping hand grabs him by his jerkin, pulling him up and pinning him against the wall.

Roughly pushed up against it, his breath is forced out by the impact.

“We shall not take the first bite, so enjoy your portion. The newcomer shall dine first, while we graciously host.”

The butler has a congenial smile with closed eyes, content with the changed dynamic.

Adris looks at the woman before him.

Lycia’s eyes are opened wide, a blazing green, the frightening radiance returned to them.

Her mouth is pulled up into a cheshire grin, all of her pointed teeth gleaming as she wipes away the golden blood with her free hand.

A madness is set to her face that he’s never seen previously.

It forces him to recall that she isn’t human.

“Sorry, it’s a little too hard for big sis to stop these guys~!” She says, before she cackles disconcertingly.

“Might as well taste you while you’re still fresh.”

Adris’ throat goes dry.

She reaches to his pants, then, loosening the looping belt as the voyeurs snicker or whistle.

“Like I said, little brother...”

She leans in with her mad grin and dark, monstrous voice, breathing roughly.

“lIkE I SaId!”

With a deathly rattle, she moans words into his left ear with her face beside his, her eyes closed in appreciation of his scent.

“YoU jUsT sMeLl ToO gOoD…”

She then kisses him deeply, using her tongue to seize Adris’, pulling his rapidly expanding penis out from his open pants and holding it in her hand, as she prepares to ravage him.

Characters:

Glossary:

Chapter 8         Table of Contents          Chapter 10