Enforcing a deal

Seth’s eyes widened with Ava’s words, but it was too late for him to do anything about it. His plan of leaving her unconscious before using his perception energy on her went up in the flames of his lust.

Ava tried to stand up, but her mind turned fuzzy, and she fell forward, falling unconscious over Seth’s body.

Seth quickly pushed her to the side, pulling out of her and turning her face up. Seeing the mark already starting to appear on her womb, he put his hand on his forehead and began rubbing it in frustration.

“Why did you do this to me?”

He couldn’t figure out why his lust source would choose to mark her now when it didn’t even mark Rebecca on their first night, but the more important question now was, should he try to use perception as well?

“Well, what’s done is done…” muttered Seth eventually before putting his hand on her forehead, starting to use his perception energy.

His perception energy barely left his hand when a jolt of pain came from his penis, making Seth recoil. Wincing in pain, he put his hands on his family jewels and crouched forward.

“FOR FUCK’S SAKE.”

The body’s pain wouldn’t be such a big deal, but his lust source acted up and attacked his soul.

<1% soul damage.> The notification delivered by the system was like the cherry on top, making Seth want to cry.

It was evident to him now that the lust source had its plans, but the main problem was that it would not brainwash its target.

As Seth looked at the unconscious Ava, he knew that his plans would have to change. After he managed to soothe the pain from his lust source acting up, he started wondering what he should do now.

“Should I kill her and be done with it?” he asked himself, but at the same time, it didn’t feel right. He even wondered if he could do it without his lust source acting up again.

Until it was almost morning, Seth stared at Ava’s naked body, considering his options.

He had cleaned her up to remove the traces of his pink sperm, but other than that, he didn’t make any other move. When she finally started looking like she would wake up, he was no closer to figuring out a solution.

Ava’s eyes opened slowly, and she looked around in confusion. When she spotted Seth looking at her with a troubled face, she frowned and placed her hand on her womb.

She started remembering she had a great time with Seth until a sudden burning pain assaulted her womb. Everything after that was foggy, but at least the horrible pain she had felt was now gone. In fact, she felt highly refreshed right now.

Sitting up, she looked at Seth’s expression and asked teasingly: “What are you looking like me like that? You wanted more?”

Seth looked into her teasing eyes before sighing and pointing toward her belly. Ava looked down and just now noticed the weird mark on her stomach. Moving her hand to try and wipe it, she was even more surprised when she saw it seemed to be a part of her skin.

“What is this?” she asked with a frown.

Seth sighed again and seemed slightly annoyed as he said: “Trouble. Nothing but trouble….”

Ava was even more confused by his words but then spotted the sky outside was starting to brighten through the room’s window.

“Oh shit, I’m already late.” Sitting up from the bed, she picked up her panties and started dressing up as quickly as possible.

“Are you not going to ask about the mark?” asked Seth, noticing her strange panicky behavior.

Ava continued getting dressed as she replied. “I couldn’t care less now, and Dan will be angry if I’m late.”

Seth continued looking at her and tried using the soul link to communicate directly with her soul.

‘Your partner’s anger is the least of your problems right now.’

Ava’s hand trying to grab her shirt paused, and she looked back at Seth in astonishment.

‘Yes, it is me.’ repeated Seth.

Ava frowned and asked: “What are you?”.

Seth could feel her destruction source starting to spin, ready to attack at a moment’s notice.

‘Don’t tell me I slept with one of them.’ Her thought quickly became clear for Seth to hear.

‘You did not. I’m a human. Well, not exactly. I’m an ascended, just like you.’

Realizing that her thoughts were heard, Ava moved back, giving up on grabbing her top. Her breasts bounced with her swift movement as destruction energy gathered in both hands.

“Who are you?” she asked, stagnant energy starting to spread out of her source to cover the entire room.

“Why don’t you sit down so we can talk…” said Seth, closing the soul link again.

Ava frowned and sent a probing attack toward Seth. Still, before her attack could even have the chance to materialize, a horrible pain came from the mark on her belly, and she fell onto her knees.

Looking at the mark on her belly, she noticed it was shining bright pink, and the pain was so intense that she couldn’t even focus on gathering her energy.

Looking up at Seth with hatred, she asked: “What did you do to me?”

“Hey, don’t look at me like that. I’m sure that if I attacked you, I would be in the same situation.” Said Seth with a shrug. “I already told you. Things are now extremely complicated, so sit down so we can speak.”

Ava gritted her teeth and tried to attack again, but the pain assaulted her even harder, and she started feeling like her womb was going to go up in flames.

After seething in pain on the floor for a few more minutes, she said: “Fine. We’ll speak. Make it stop.”

Seth chuckled and said: “I already told you. Don’t blame me, and I’m sure that if you didn’t intend to attack me as soon as the pain stopped, you wouldn’t be - “

Seth’s laugh stopped as he noticed the mark on her belly crack. Ava started pushing herself to stand up despite the blood leaking from the corner of her mouth.

Restoring the soul link, a horrible pain assaulted him again as a voice filled with unwillingness started speaking in his mind.

‘I won’t. - again. - again. I -slave - another -.’ The voice kept interrupting, and Seth knew she was breaking the link.

As much as he wanted to know if she could do it, he also knew how much trouble that meant for him.

Sealing the link again, he said: “Listen to me, please. This was not my choice but something my source imposed on us. If we end up fighting, I will have no choice but to kill you, which would not serve our interests.”

Ava looked up, showing her bloodied teeth into a gruesome smile, and said: “We’ll see who does the killing in the end.”

Seth sighed and said: “I can break your master’s energy inside your source.”

“Haha, trade one master for another? No, thank you.”

“I’ll not use you as a slave. We’ll make a deal. I’ll break the seal for you, and you do something for me. Can you listen to me?”

Ava grinned and ignored his words, the mark on her belly already starting to get erased slowly, bit by bit.

With another sigh, Seth disappeared from the bed and grabbed her by the neck, teleporting deep inside the mountains.

Ava was stunned to find herself appearing in a completely different place, but before she could work things out, Seth threw her against a cliff, and a mouthful of blood flew out of her mouth.

Seth also fell to his knees, his lust source starting to churn inside him.

‘She will never listen as things are now. Stop acting up, and let me solve your mess. I won’t kill her.’

Surprisingly, the pain started to lessen after Seth’s words, and Seth looked toward Ava. It seemed that the pain she was feeling also started to go away as the mark on her belly turned dark again.

Ava, realizing she could use her destruction energy again, was about to attack Seth when he disappeared again. He appeared right in her face with his hand on her left breast.

His eyes flashed dark red the next moment, and her source was drained of all energy besides her master’s.

Ava suddenly felt powerless.

Seth grabbed her neck and looked into her eyes: “Do you still think you can beat me? I drained your entire source of energy in a tenth of a second. Now that you are powerless, can you be a good girl and listen to me.”

A hopeless expression appeared in Ava’s eyes; even the mark on her belly stopped disintegrating. She had tried to push Seth away using her energy, but as he had said, she was utterly devoid of power.

Seeing her hands fall hopelessly, Seth said: “I could kill you now as easy as one would swat a fly, but I need you to listen to me. I told you before killing you would do me no good, so I want to make a deal. Can you be reasonable and listen to me?”

Ava stared into his eyes before sighing and nodding silently. What could she do? She couldn’t even kill herself now.

Seth also heaved a relieved sigh and released her neck, sitting down in front of her. Changing his body to his ordinary looks, he smiled and extended his hand toward her.

“As a show of good faith, I should properly introduce myself and apologize for deceiving you last night. My name is Seth, and I’m the King of Endora, the kingdom both of you are targeting.”

Ava was stunned by the revelation, finally understanding a little of what was going on.

The king of Endora was already aware of their plan and had explicitly targeted them. Looking at his outstretched hand, she asked: “So this mission. It was doomed to fail from the start?”

She knew that since he knew about her, he must know about their entire plan. Also, with how easily he took her out, attacking him would only end up in defeat.

Seth nodded and said: “Pretty much. I’ve already dealt with Arseus, and he’s now working for me. You two were next before I head to deal with the one from Death.”

“Working for you?” asked Ava, looking at the mark on her belly. “What did you do to him?”

Seth shook his head: “It is not the same as what happened with you. You getting marked like this was outside of my expectations and also a great pain in the ass.”

“That doesn’t matter right now. What matters is the deal I’m offering. You start working for me and stop the attack, and in turn, I’ll release you from your enslavement.”

Ava lowered her head: “So you want us to act as if we’re still going to complete the contract before betraying it at the last moment? That’s why you didn’t kill us but instead tried to get us to your side.”

Seth nodded: “Indeed. Then I will have a fair reason to strike back since they made the first move.”

Ava lowered her head and said: “Even if I agree and work for you, Dan will never betray the Life Kingdom. Our master is his father, and even if he has his father’s energy inside his source, compared to the rest of us, he’d rather die than betray Life.”

“That’s fine. I need you to bait him away from the traveled paths, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

Ava fell into deep thought and asked: “What will you do if I don’t agree?”

Seth didn’t even blink and said: “I’ll kill you, even if I have to force my source into submission and work things out after that, but I must admit it would mess up my plans, so I hope you will reconsider.”

“And if I do as you ask me to… will you truly allow me to go free after that?”

“I’ll destroy the energy inside your source and do the same with the others, but I can’t allow you to return to Life. Not until I have dealt with them. This will make Soren figure out someone has found a way to free his minions from his grasp, and he’ll stop at nothing to wipe me out.”

“I’m not scared of him, but him unleashing all the ascended on my Kingdom will cause too much trouble, so I plan on having you hide in Endora after that. You’ll be free to do whatever you want, and I’ll even allow you to study in our academy. The destruction knowledge there is without any error, so you’ll be able to make progress faster.”

Ava sighed and nodded: “I agree, not that I have much choice anyway.”

Seth nodded and created a replica of her clothes using his creation source since they were destroyed during their small brawl.

“Good. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you won’t regret your decision.”