Chapter 153: I am the Reaper

The black-haired Succubus stood outside the door for a few more seconds, her eyes moving back and forth between Erik and Elowen. Her initial shock gradually faded, replaced by a very strange smile, as if she had just found something more entertaining than the mission she had been given.

"How interesting." She raised a finger to her lips and giggled. "I imagined so many scenes when I found you. You running away in panic, you kneeling to beg, or that beautiful fiancée of yours desperately protecting you. Yet here you are, sitting there kissing her. I lose. I never could have guessed!"

After saying that, she clapped twice for herself.

Elowen blushed, but this time, she did not continue hiding behind Erik. She looked at the monster shadows standing motionless behind the female soldier, her uninjured hand slowly reaching for the bow beside the stone slab.

Erik also noticed something strange. He remembered that she had once stood among the ranks of newly arrived female soldiers, loudly demanding that he go to the most dangerous section of the defensive line.

Back then, there had been nothing especially remarkable about her: black hair, balanced features, the horns of an adult Succubus, and an ordinary military uniform. Now, her appearance was unchanged.

Only the black veins bulging along both sides of her neck were different, spreading down to her wrists and disappearing beneath her clothes. They twitched rhythmically like worms crawling beneath her skin.

What made Erik even more uncomfortable was her gaze. She looked at him the way a wealthy child might look at a new toy, full of curiosity and greed, without the slightest concern for whether that toy might be broken.

"Aren’t you supposed to be stationed at the western checkpoint?" Erik asked calmly.

"Oh, you even remember my assignment?" The woman clasped her hands against her chest and put on a touched expression. "I’m so honored!"

Then she lowered her hands, her voice turning ice-cold.

"But I got bored."

Erik did not reply immediately. He discreetly moved Elowen farther behind the stone slab so the wall could shield her injured shoulder.

"Bored of your assignment?"

"Bored of standing guard. Bored of watching foolish female soldiers run around. Bored of hearing them talk about Erik, Erik, and Erik again." She pouted, then suddenly smiled brightly. "So I decided to come and see whether you are really as interesting as the rumors say."

"Just to watch?"

"For now, yes." She looked at the spear in his hand. "But if you disappoint me, I may change my mind."

Erik tilted his head slightly. He had no intention of believing any of that. The monsters behind the woman remained lowered and still, completely unlike the instinctive urge to attack that he had witnessed in the forest.

Moreover, every time she changed expressions, the black veins twitched a beat early, like strings being pulled hard by someone far away.

He had seen similar traces of corruption on Saraya before. But the thing before him seemed far deeper than an ordinary curse.

Erik called up his status panel in his mind.

[Realm: Black Iron Rank 10]

[Emotion Energy: Continues to increase]

[Accumulation Progress: 97%]

[Reach 100%: May attempt a Bronze breakthrough]

The number made the tension in his back ease slightly.

Not enough.

He knew energy was still flowing into his Heavenly Gate through the feelings people had for him, not only from those around him but also from the Succubi outside. But being so close to a breakthrough did not mean that he immediately grew stronger.

Right now, he was still only Black Iron Rank 10, while that woman could command an entire pack of monsters.

Erik closed the status panel. He needed more time, but he could not let his opponent realize that.

"You speak as though you are not afraid of the army coming after you," he observed. "The captain will hold you accountable for abandoning your post."

"The captain?" She froze for a moment, then burst out laughing as if she had just heard the funniest thing in the world. "Oh, that brown-haired woman. Do you think she can find her way here? I could make her run around this forest for three more days while she still thinks she is walking straight!"

Elowen frowned. "You created the Dark Mist?"

"You ask too many questions, little girl." The woman glanced at her, and her cheerful expression suddenly turned cold. "I am talking to your man. Can’t you sit there quietly like a good girl?"

"Don’t call her that." Erik stepped half a pace forward, blocking Elowen from his opponent’s sight. "If you have something to say to me, say it directly."

The female Succubus tilted her head, looking at him with interest. "You are not angry? I just insulted your fiancée."

"I heard."

"Then why don’t you rush over and hit me?"

"Because I want to hear you finish talking."

She stared at him intently, and her smile suddenly twisted. A black vein surfaced at her temple, tight as a thread. For an instant, pain flashed in the female soldier’s eyes, utterly at odds with her arrogant tone from before. But just as Erik was about to ask, she raised a hand to cover her mouth and laughed again.

"Ha! You really are not like the ones I have met."

Erik looked closely at the hand she had raised. Her fingers bore the calluses of someone who trained with weapons, yet her gestures were too soft and theatrical, entirely unlike the female soldier who had stood in the plaza.

It felt as though someone else was borrowing her body, deliberately playing a role they greatly enjoyed.

He tested her further.

"Then who exactly are you?"

The woman suddenly fell silent.

She lifted her chin and slowly spread both arms, like an actor stepping onto a stage. The black veins running over her neck immediately stood out, but her face remained beautiful and normal. No extra horns appeared, and she did not transform into a monster.

"You ask for my name?"

"I’m asking the one speaking to me."

A strange light flashed in her eyes. She tilted her head until it nearly touched her shoulder, then smiled with an inappropriately sweet expression.

"I am the Reaper."

She lowered one hand and slowly pointed a finger at Erik’s chest.

"The one who came to harvest your life."

The moment she finished speaking, the woman giggled again, seemingly delighted with her introduction.

Erik did not laugh along. He only asked, "Does the Reaper need to borrow the body of a female soldier?"

Her smile froze.

"...What did you just say?"

"I said, if you are truly that powerful, why didn’t you come here yourself?"

A moment of silence passed. The black veins on the female Succubus’s neck all swelled at once. She gritted her teeth, but an increasingly bizarre delight appeared in her eyes.

"Are you trying to make me angry?"

"You tell me."

"Fine!" She clapped her hands. "I like this game!"

Her clapping hands suddenly spread open. Dark Mist surged up from the ground and wrapped around her wrists in dozens of black tentacles, then twisted tightly together. In the blink of an eye, those strands wove themselves into a glossy black curved blade, its edge so thin and sharp that it nearly vanished into the air.

The blade swept sideways.

Erik was startled by the bizarre sight before him, but he did not dare remain stunned for long. He immediately lowered his center of gravity, and the spear in his hand crashed against the attack with a shriek of metal.

The impact shoved him backward, his heels carving a long trail across the damp ground. His arms went numb, but he did not let go of his spear. Instead, the moment the blade passed over his head, he twisted his wrist and drove the spearhead hard toward the gap beneath his opponent’s arm.

The female Succubus startled and stepped back.

"Oh?"

She only had time to lean aside, letting the spearhead tear through part of her sleeve. Before she could regain her balance, she had to raise her other arm to block a punch coming straight at her. A heavy impact rang out, forcing her back two more steps.

Erik did not recklessly pursue her. He immediately pulled back his spear to hold the line before the stone slab where Elowen was, watching to see whether the black strands had latched onto his weapon.

"You are stronger than I thought!" The female Succubus laughed. "Black Iron Rank 10? Really? I thought someone had made a mistake in your records."

"You haven’t tested enough yet."

"Arrogant!" She sounded as though she were scolding him, then happily shook her head. "But I like it!"

Her wrist jerked sharply. The black blade dissolved into several tentacles that slithered along both arms, gathering into long claws, jagged like weapons grown from the shadows. Her body did not change shape. Only the mana clinging to her hands continuously shifted form.

Whoosh!

The woman lunged forward so fast that the movement itself made the wind howl.

Clang!

Erik blocked the first slash with his spear shaft, tilted his shoulder to avoid the second, then drove his knee into his opponent’s stomach. The female soldier’s body jolted. He immediately turned his hips and rammed his shoulder into her, sending her crashing against the edge of the wall.

Crack!

A stone fell from the wall. The female Succubus coughed and looked at the dent in her breastplate, unable to hide her astonishment at last.

"You... you actually intend to fight me?"

"I don’t want to fight a woman, but you do not seem to be a woman." Erik looked at the writhing tentacles beneath her skin, curling his lips in contempt.

Elowen did not miss that opening. She drew her bow with her uninjured arm. The Wind element gathered around her arrow before she fired directly at the tentacles preparing to crawl toward Erik’s feet.

The arrow pierced through three black strands and lodged in the wall’s crack. They twitched before snapping apart, forcing the female Succubus to twist away.

"Did you forget about me?" Elowen said, trying to keep her voice steady. "He is not fighting alone."

Erik glanced at her, the corner of his lips lifting slightly. "Beautiful."

Elowen’s ears reddened slightly, but she immediately nocked another arrow.

Inside Erik’s mind, the status panel trembled again.

[Accumulation Progress: 98%]