"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
I asked, looking down at Lilith convulsing on the ground.
She was screaming.
With pleasure. Not pain.
Her back arched, her pale face flushed, and her voice trembled with twisted delight as the Agony Thorn pulsed like a weird alien tree rising from her abdomen.
"Ah!" she moaned, her body shuddering with pleasure. "That feels so good!"
I stared at her for a moment, very confused and very much at a loss for words.
I bloody stabbed her, and she's reacting as if I just gave her an aphrodisiac.
If she continues like this, the whole genre of this story is going to change.
I shook my head and stepped away from her as she writhed on the floor, engaged in imaginary intercourse.
"Bloody masochist," I muttered, standing before the wall through which she came in.
Ignoring Lilith's weird noises of pleasure, I quickly examined the wall.
Yep. Rock solid. From what I had observed, only daemons and anything they hold could pass through it.
Well then. Let's blow it up!
Blood, glowing a bright crimson, rapidly swirled on my palm, forming a Blood Grenade.
I closed my fist around the dense, swirling sphere and punched the wall with full force.
The explosion shook the room, fragments of stone flew in the air, and a crimson mist rolled over me.
It immediately dissipated, revealing a jagged, gaping hole that opened to a long corridor that seemed to stretch forever.
My left hand was severely mangled from the Blood Grenade, skin hanging like burned cloth and bones poking out of shredded muscle.
I could've just chucked the Blood Grenade at the wall.
But giving it an explosive punch felt a whole lot better, to be honest, even if it meant blowing up my fist.
Yeah, I've gone insane.
I activated partial Blood Reconstruction. Veins slithered back into place. Muscle stitched itself together with grotesque speed. All of this was wrapped up by skin that crawled over it.
It looked like a scene from a horror movie.
I flexed my newly healed hand. The pain of Blood Reconstruction no longer bothers me. I had experienced worse agony in this desolate hell.
"You sure about this, love?" Lilith's voice asked from behind me.
She was sitting up on the floor, the Agony Thorn still embedded in her abdomen.
Gone were the screams and pleasure, replaced by an uncanny calm that sent chills down my spine.
Her serene purple gaze shimmered unnaturally, staring deep into my soul. There was no pain or betrayal in them, just a sick amusement.
Our eyes met, and my lips curled into a grin.
"Catch me if you can, Queen Lilith."
She smiled back. "Let the hunt begin."
Cupping her face lovingly, she cooed. "I'll be waiting for you, my love."
Just as she finished, a crimson spike of blood, sharp and serrated, pierced her face.
Her head jerked back violently, and black blood sprayed all over the wall behind her.
"Toodaloo!" I said, sticking out my tongue and leaping through the hole
Incarni! Launching that spike into her face felt so good!
I sprinted down the seemingly endless corridor. Ten years of being dragged around these halls had made me familiar with this place.
I turned a corner and saw two shadows lunging at me.
Elite daemon knights clad in black armor, each of them a Master A ranker.
I immediately pulverized them, driving one into the ground with a powerful fist to the head and disintegrating the second one with a lethal spinning kick.
Sensing more daemons rushing toward my position, I paused.
So, the hunt had officially begun. Lilith sure works fast.
"Well, this is a pickle," Iris's hallucination walking beside me like this was a casual stroll, her bright blue eyes staring into the darkness beyond the corridor.
I couldn't help but chuckle. She always used those words whenever we were in trouble.
"You must get out of this corridor quickly," she said, turning to me. "Unless you want it packed full of daemons."
"Exactly my idea," I replied, leaning forward.
Let's use that S rank speed.
My surroundings blurred as I took off, wind tearing past me, the corridor flickering by like a strobe-lit nightmare.
A minute later, a black wall loomed ahead of me with split passageways on either side.
Just then, the daemons emerged from the right.
I grinned. I needed something to slow down.
Immediately jumping, I kneed the first daemon in its helmeted face, driving its head into the black wall, shattering it.
Hopping back, I unleashed my blood appendages upon the remaining daemons.
The crystallized serrated tips of the crimson tendrils tore through the chests of the daemons, destroying their black hearts in a single strike.
I retracted the crimson appendages and turned to the left corridor. If I remember correctly, this leads in the direction of the Tear.
"So that's your plan?" Iris crossed her arms, looking a bit disappointed. "You spent ten years cooking up this?"
"I spent ten years contaminating the Agony Thorn with my blood, manipulating so little blood every time and so slowly that Lilith wouldn't notice," I replied, launching into a full sprint.
"Let me guess," she said, keeping up with me somehow, "you needed a distraction to finally remove it."
"Exactly," I nodded. "The Thorn's linked to her mind. I had to flood it with something so overwhelming that she wouldn't feel the Thorn slipping out."
Iris blinked. "Hence, the opening up and terrible flirting."
"It's ingenious!" I protested. "A way that can only be crafted by someone as beautiful as me!"
"And there's the narcissism," she chuckled, and then her expression shifted.
She frowned.
"But I must say, I'm not exactly pleased with your approach. How could you do that with her when you already have me?"
I winced. "Sorry, love, but that was the only way I could escape."
"But still!" she pouted. "But still! Did you have to get that close to her face?"
"Lilith is obsessed with me, and filling her mind with me is the only way to let her guard down," I replied with an apologetic smile.
I rounded another corner and ran into another group of elite daemons.
Activating Haema, I stretched out my left hand. Blood swirled around the arm, shimmering a bright crimson.
It hovered before my open palm, swirling rapidly and elongating into a rapidly spinning projectile with a barbed, crystallized tip.
{Haema: Scarlet Ballista}
Bloodfire ignited at the end of the projectile, launching it like a rail gun, straight into the daemons.
It exploded upon contact, releasing a fireball of Bloodfire.
I jumped into the flames, using my senses to locate the daemons that were already healing from my attack.
My blood appendages unfurled, and they honed in on the hearts.
Soon, I emerged from the flames, black ooze dripping from the serrated tips of my crimson tendrils.
I frowned. The daemons I've encountered so far may be elite guards, but they are at best intermediate A rank.
"Lilith is stalling you. She is preparing her stronger troops once you exit the palace," Iris said, her form beginning to glitch.
"Yeah," I agreed. "I bet I'll encounter the commanders as well."
I clenched my fist.
I could handle Genisix and Asphodel, but Naberiax is the problem.
If Lilith uses poor Alisax.
And if all of them jump me at the same time.
My jaw tensed.
Well, I'll be cooked, garnished, and served on a silver platter to Lilith.
Even now, I could sense multiple daemons converging on my position.
Iris peered down the hallway I was facing. "You sure that is the right way to the Tear?"
I smirked. "Fortunately, I'm not directionally challenged like a certain someone."
She rolled her eyes. "Bloody prick."
I chuckled and ran along the length of the corridor.
Still, something felt really off.
It is quite weird. Lilith imprisoned me in a tower, yet I am sprinting down a long corridor.
This palace really is a weird, nightmare-inducing place.
Eventually, the hallway opened up, and I found myself on an exterior corridor with one side overlooking the inner courtyard.
The white stone of the courtyard stretched for a huge distance, tarnished only by the massive pit, a yawning black maw that plunged deep into the ground.
A cold realization washed over me as I stared at the massive black hole.
I had run in the direction opposite to the Tear.
"Ah, fuck," I swore.
"What were you saying, love?" Iris's smug grin was plastered over her face. Her bright blue eyes mockingly darted between me and the massive abyss.
My eye twitched. "Not a word."
She stuck out her tongue. "I don't need to. Pretty sure I made my point."
Still grinning, she said. "Well. I guess I'll take my leave. Your opponents are quite ready."
With a wink, she glitched and faded from existence.
"Yes, they are," I muttered and took a step back, just as a black spike attached to a chain pulverized the floor before me.
The chain recoiled and flew back into a shadowy arch on the far side of the exterior corridor.
"Mordred Pendragon," Genisix's distorted voice grated in my ears as he emerged from the shadows, flanked by multiple elite daemons.
Multiple black chains ending in spikes floated around his jagged, lanky body, his massive serrated claws clicking as they unfurled.
The black flame forming his head flared, and his fiery purple eyes burned. "You are a particularly difficult one to tame."
I looked at him and sighed.
I was disappointed.
Really, Lilith? This is the best you can do?
Igniting a ball of Bloodfire on my palm, I sighed again.
"You might as well show the way to the Tear."