[Spirit of Lust] Chapter 155: Final push. (Patreon)

Okay, then. Hit and don’t get hit. Fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Easy enough.

Yeah, right. Like Will could fight like a professionally trained boxer all of a sudden. He felt more relaxed than a moment before, but approaching Jack was still akin to walking up to a swaying wrecking ball. He might be able to touch it, but could he avoid the retaliation? Well, the good news was that Jack didn’t seem like a professionally trained fighter, either.

A deep breath. Small, short jumps to loosen the legs along with rotating the shoulders. Leave the Evocation magic to Ishtar. Keep moving.

Jack shot his last stone at him without warning, but Will was out of the way in the blink of an eye, this time with more grace than before. His body felt light and strong, yet he felt clumsy, still unused to the sensation. His body was capable of far more than his brain understood, and that dissonance made his movements awkward.

Purple haze oozed off of him like heat, leaving a trail as he ran at Jack. The big man was already drawing back his arm, readying the sledgehammer again. He did not want to get hit by that again.

Will charged without losing any momentum and shoved his shoulder against Jack’s exposed side. The man grunted, but his feet were still firmly rooted. It was almost like charging at a rock.

The sledgehammer came down, but Will’s body got in the way of a full downward swing. He got hit on the back with the underside of Jack’s closed fist. It felt heavy, but nowhere near as painful as the last punch.

Will took that chance and punched Jack on the stomach with a compact blow. Ishtar would take care of the Evocation magic, so Will simply punched with his aether-strengthened body. But when he made contact, he felt a sharp pain inside his own arm, like his blood or something else rippled inside and wanted to get out even if it meant making holes in his skin and bones.

“Gah!” He grunted and pulled away, holding his right forearm. It looked fine, and the pain was slowly fading away.

‘Sorry! Sorry! I fucked up. This is harder than I thought…’

‘That was such a good chance, too. Fuck, that hurt!’

‘I said I’m sorry!’

‘Can you get it right next time?’

‘I know what I did wrong. I can get it if I lower the output at first. Don’t expect a big boom.’

‘So long as I don’t lose my arm.’

‘Stop whining. And look out, he’s getting more stones.’

Will flinched. Jack was bent over and picking up more stone from the ground, more projectiles to shoot at him. But he was bent over. Smirking, Will dashed forward as quickly as he could, grabbed Jack’s head and kneed him on top of the skull with all he had.

Jack recoiled from that, staggering as he tried to pull back from Will, shooting him not with stones, but with a knife-like glare.

There was no sign of Evocation magic, however.

‘You caught me off guard! That was too sudden! I wasn’t ready!’

‘We need solutions, Ishtar, not excuses.’

‘Slave driver!’

Will wasted no time. Jack was staggering from a heavy blow to the head, and this was Will’s chance to continue the onslaught. He stepped forward and punched Jack across the face, and his face turned along with the blow. He punched Jack in the stomach again, and Will felt his own blood rippling again, this time with only a fraction of the pain, just enough to ignore it in favor of holding Jack by the shoulders to knee him in the stomach.

It was like hitting a rubber tire. The blows were landing, and the barrier on Jack’s body prevented most of the damage from getting through. But the blows weren’t useless. Some damage was getting through, that much was clear from Jack’s face, distorted in pain and fury. Will just needed to keep going.

Adrenaline pumped in him. Memories came back with every punch, every kick. This was the guy who mind-controlled Aoi. This was the guy who made Jeremy his tool. This was the son of a bitch who mistreated Cynthia. This was the son of a bitch who sent Jeremy after Reina and Ruth.

Will sent another left punch across Jack’s face, but this one felt different. Again, he felt something inside him ripple, and there was something like a small burst of compressed air along with the impact of his fist.

Jack’s eyes widened in pain, and Will caught some blood spilling from the guy’s mouth.

‘Don’t stop!’

Gritting his teeth, Will swung his right arm. The same sensation was there at the moment of impact, only… stronger. He elbowed Jack in the stomach, and this time the burst of compressed air could be seen as a faint explosion of purple aura. Jack bent over with his eyes almost popping out, his jaw dropping and drooling.

Determined to finish this, Will grabbed Jack’s head again and kneed him full in the face, the aura burst bigger this time again. Jack grunted and fell back, his face bruised all over and his nose bent and bloody. Yet his eyes were still fully awake. His aura oozed from him, those eyes full of fury staring daggers at William.

“You don’t need… to fight me, boy…” Jack gasped. “I can give you… everything you want. Let’s work… together…”

Will felt a chill on his back, or more like dozens of needles trying to force themselves down his spine. His vision blurred, and for a moment he forgot where he was, why he was there, and what he was doing.

How long did that last? It couldn’t have been longer than a minute. Will shook his head and the aether inside him burned with more intensity. The needles were pushed back, the haziness went away, and he knew exactly where and why he was there. But as his senses returned, he saw Jack running away at full speed in the direction of the building, where the way back to their world was. Jack was one sway away from tumbling to the ground. He looked pathetic.

“Trying to mind control another Higher Spirit?” Will said, amused. “Or just buying himself some time? No matter. ARIANA!” he shouted.

Will followed at a walking pace, calming himself. The incubi picked up their spears and dusted themselves. Aoi let out a soft sigh as she sheathed her sword, but didn’t dismiss it from existence. They all walked behind Will in the direction of the building, where only a kilometer away from the entrance, Jack had been caught, pinned to the ground by two creatures bigger than him.

The two oni were each two meters tall and with huge, muscled builds and intimidating long fangs. One had red skin, long, messy black hair and two horns on his forehead curving back. The other had blue skin, long white hair and a single straight horn on his forehead.

Those two had Jack Evan’s pinned down by the shoulders, and looking down at him, with her foot on top of his crotch, was the succubus Ariana.

“This is hilarious, Lord William, Lady Ishtar,” Ariana said, giggling with a hint of sadism. “He kept trying to use his powers on us.”

Ariana herself had very high magic resistance, she claimed, and it seemed to be enough to let her brush off the mental attacks of the very weakened Jack Evans. She had all her defenses up, Will could tell. Her aura was visible and strong. Unlike Will, who had been caught off guard for a moment, Ariana didn’t give the man a chance.

As for the oni, well… Ariana had assured Will that they would not turn on them. Why? Because they belonged to her.

“Good job, Ariana. He didn’t give you trouble, I hope?” Will asked.

“You beat him up real well. Most of his strength is gone. Any of us could put an end to him now.”

“Good thing I left you here to guard the entrance,” Will said. He order Ariana, her oni, and the other succubi to hide when Aoi and Jack came, and to guard the entrance after they were gone. Both in the case of unexpected reinforcements and to block his escape, should he try to. It was a good call, thankfully. He was nervous about leaving one of their strongest out of the main conflict.

“So, my lord? What do you want to do with him?” Ariana asked, stepping on Jack’s crotch a little harder.

“That,” he said, turning back to look at Aoi, “is for her to decide.”

Aoi grit her teeth. Her fist tightened its grip on the hilt of her sword. She stared at the man on the ground. His eyes were glued to the reddish sky, and he didn’t move a muscle in retaliation.

Then everyone heard it. A soft chuckle. They all turned to look at the man on the ground. Jack Evans was laughing.

“Amazing. He gave up,” he said.

Will felt a chill, like a shift in the air, in the aether all around.

“The coward truly gave up. I’d laugh more if my face didn’t hurt so much.”

That… wasn’t Jack Evans.