Chapter 37 – Griscent’s Wrath
Slade quenched his lust for Griscent, overdosing on sex until only disgust was left (good ol’ post clarity nut).
He planned to reject Griscent through the system window. But she got up and transformed into an eldritch abomination to mess with his brain.
“What am I supposed to do with my love?” Griscent asked, holding up Slade’s collar.
Tentacles wriggled out of her gaping chest, tightly wrapping the man.
“If my femininity doesn’t work, I will just have to use force!”
What do you mean by your femininity? You’ve got nothing but boobs to show for it!
Thin tendrils invaded his ears.
“Hmmmmf!” His screams were muffled by Griscent’s limb shoved in his mouth.
He felt a stake of lightning traversing his body, incinerating from the inside. His body trashed in vain.
The pain receded, but its memory lingered like an excruciating ember left in his soul. His limp neck dropped his head down and tears flowed out.
Griscent caressed his back drenched in sweat.
“As I thought, I have to control everything to be happy!”
She didn’t want to obey a kind sovereign, yet she was ecstatic about controlling him.
Slade groaned, infuriated by her hypocrisy.
“You might be defiant right now, but don’t worry. Once it’s finished, you will beg for my love again.”
Are you kidding me? Slade’s heart sank, losing the faint hope that she would release him after that first discharge of pain.
“I will make everything work according to the plans. I can’t wait to see you how much you’ll love me for it.”
His eyes rolled up as he screamed. “Hmmmmbf!”
She would not let him go that easily after all.
Not knowing when he would be freed from this suffering, the fear tore Slade’s will into pieces.
Oh god! he prayed, sobbing. He couldn’t withstand anymore of that pain and wished for someone to rescue him.
“Don’t worry, you can’t die from this illusion. The worst that could happen would be your mind breaking. But that’s what you get for trying to dump me.”
A slender index traced his cheek. His shocked eyes stared at her in anxiety, expecting her verdict.
“So, do you get why I am mad?”
Slade nodded.
“Are you sorry?”
He nodded.
“Will you follow my plan?”
He nodded again.
“You little… Did you think you were good at lying?”
Slade couldn’t hide his furrowed eyebrows, his tense smile and all the distorted features that screamed his hatred for her. The burning rage consumed his pounding heart.
And so, her wrath smote him for the third time.
Fuck you...
Enduring the sharp pain coursing through his whole being, resentment held his mind together. I swear I’ll make you regret it!
Through his blurry vision, distorted by tears, he saw the system window behind Griscent’s face.
That’s it!
Perhaps it could help him escape the prison of illusion since he had carefully listened to Griscent’s point of view before forming his final decision.
Slade clung onto the idea that the system would force him to obey Griscent if he surrendered but would free him if he refused.
He lifted his arm, struggling against the tentacles.
“Hmmm!! Hmmm!!” He mustered all his physical strength towards his only hope.
His teeth sank into the gagging tentacle. Tears and drool trickled as his body screamed in pain.
Fuck you, Griscent!
But his struggle was all in vain. His strength receded, his burning arm turning into lead.
Griscent turned around. “Oh? What is it?”
The system window was still visible to everyone, as he showed it to his younger self.
“Wonderful! You finally changed your mind and decided to surrender to me!”
As if!
“Allow me to help you.”
Her tentacles wrapped around his hand, lifting it towards the system window.
“Hmm?”
His hand moved towards the checkmark ✓ of the system window, but it stopped halfway through.
“Hmmm!” Slade’s eyes were about to pop from pressure. He was giving everything to stop his finger from reaching for the button.
Griscent rubbed her face against his cheek.
“You wouldn’t have to suffer that much if you simply surrendered to me,” she whispered.
His arm wavered, inching closer to the button.
“I will let you off the hook, if you push the button."
Her offer cleared out the crushing doubt that he would be tortured for eternity.
Why was he fighting so hard? He could just give in and be done with it.
He didn’t need to suffer. Instead, he could enjoy a limitless harem.
She jubilated as Slade gave her control of his limp arm. “Good… Very good.”
Right before hitting the button, his hand jerked sideways. Griscent corrected its course in a panic and avoided the ∅ button.
She slapped him, running out of patience.
He smirked even though he failed to thwart her plan.
“Why do you keep doing this to me? Explain so that I can understand!”
His resistance stemmed not from willpower, not from greater calling, nor from Violet’s love... Instead, it was destiny, for he was a simple minded man.
It was a simple truth; he was just too petty to give up.
“HONK HONK!”
““Huh?!”” they blurted.
Through a spatial rift of previous memories, a truck surged in the cave at full speed. At its wheel, a teenager screamed at the top of his lungs.
“ISEKAAAAAIII DORIFTOOOOO!!!”
The astonished woman took the truck’s bumper head on.
Tentacles yanked Slade, sending him tumbling along.
When his battered body came to a stop, he glanced up at the crash.
The truck was embedded in a wall of the cave, its front completely crushed. Tentacles and human limbs stuck out from the impact zone, slightly twitching in a pool of blood.
Its driver opened the door. A teenager, squeezed by an airbag, slipped his arm out to make a victory finger sign. "It’s ya boi, Truck-kun!”
“You fucking MVP!” old Slade yelled as he limped to him.
The illusion of his younger self struggled with the seatbelt and crawled down from the truck.
A blood-chilling scream of rage echoed. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Tentacles wrapped the truck and wrung it apart.
“Run!” the young man hollered.
It was too late. The tentacles caught his younger self, wrapping his torso.
Old Slade threw himself forward to rescue him.
The boy's arms and legs disappeared under the layers of coiling tentacles. “Don’t come! Use that system window and run away!”
“But-”
The wriggly tentacles covered the face of its prey.
Griscent’s body spread like cancer, covering the wall of the caves and swallowing the rifts.
I swear, I’ll avenge you! Slade thought.
The young man swallowed his bitterness and slammed the button on the status window.
[You have listened to Griscent and rejected her proposal. Your understanding of Beholders has increased. Skill: Prison of Illusion learned.]
The impression of the cave suddenly changed. He realized that the dream was like a part of Griscent.
He tried to activate his skill. “Prison of illusion… please?”
White flames clad his body, moving like an extension of his body. It slowly burned away Griscent’s presence around him.
“Faster!” Unsure of what he was doing, he tensed up as if he faced a month-long constipation.
A ball of flame shot down, consuming the ground.
“Shi-” His footing disappeared, and he fell down in an infinite void as if clipping through a virtual floor.
“Ugh!” Griscent groaned as she emerged from the ball of tentacles.
She had finally closed all the rifts, and got rid of the traumatizing truck.
“No more interference- Huh?” she blurted, looking for Slade.