Chapter 125: Trying To Reduce The Competition
"Hey! You said that you would accept them!" Bane growled as he pinched the bridge of his nose. This was annoying for him, but not the worst case scenario.
"That was a lie. You are mine," Zerynthia yelled from the edge of the cliff.
Bane rolled his eyes and walked over to where the Slave Ring was still sitting on top of Blood Crystal. 'Have you figured out how to break this yet? These games are getting really annoying. I have half a mind to just throw that woman off the edge, but she is a bird, and it should make our travel much faster. Sooner I am done, the better,' Bane thought to Onyx, ignoring Zerynthia, but sighing from within his mind made Bane pause.
'She is completely made out of fire, and has little to no flame control. Pretty useless, and basic compared to the creatures of the Nine Heavens, or the ones from the other realms of Dominion Online. As far as demons go, she is pretty impressive, but only compared to demons.'
While Onyx explained this, Bane slowly turned, and then began walking towards Zerynthia. Seeing that he was finally coming to his senses, the demon phoenix opened her arms, but Bane disappeared the moment that she did.
"You know? You might actually be not bad if you weren't such an annoying bitch," Bane whispered in her ear, and her eyes widened.
"I'm not a bi-!"
Before she could finish, Bane had her by the wrist, and then spun above him at high speeds. Bane whirled the creature's human body above him with one arm until she was nothing more than a blur of pale skin. Once Bane felt that he had gathered enough speed, he let go of her, aiming at the hot lava below.
"You were saying?" Bane asked, but he winced at the impact she made, forcing him to create a bubble of demonic energy to protect himself.
Directly below him, hidden under the cliff in a fluffy black burning cloud, Nia and Elexis clung to each other screaming as lava crashed up into them. Both of them expected to suffer a painful death, but no matter how much they screamed, none of the lava was reaching them. Finally after the lava had calmed, the women stopped screaming, and then looked at each other in confusion. This was the second time they had escaped death in a matter of minutes.
"Are we really still alive?" Nia asked, and Elexis slapped her, making Nia cry out. "Why did you do that? Why is everyone hitting me today?! I want to go back to being a ghost!"
Elexis slapped her again. "Shut up. You asked if we were alive, so I hit you, and you felt it. Case solved. Still, I never expected him to save, and protect us... He seems so...?"
"Unapproachable?" Nia suggested, and Elexis thumbed her lip.
"Yes, but in the best way possible. How many demons could or even would try to resist our charms?" Elexis explained, and then pointed up. "What do you think would normally happen to us if a demon didn't want us for pleasure?"
"We would die," Nia said, and then smiled. "So he is strong, and he doesn't want us to die, but why?"
Elexis shrugged. "I think he really just doesn't know where to go, so we are his guides."
"We? But why would he need two guides?" Nia responded, but Elexis didn't have an answer for her.
There could be reasons for trust, but both women knew how foolish it would be to lie to such a powerful being. There was no rational answer for why he chose to save them both, but wanted nothing to with them sexually. It was a perplexing matter that neither of the girls had ever been forced to think about.
Above, Bane was standing before the ring again.
"Are you done yet? Jesus, aren't you supposed to be smart?" Bane muttered, but felt a sharp headache that went away as fast as it began.
'I have been done since the last time you were standing here, dumbass. You just decided to stand here like a jackass, and didn't bother asking me what I figured out. It wasn't even difficult.'
"Well? Spit it out," Bane said, and then a sharp pain pierced his brain, forcing him to his knees.
"You are not a very kind master. Is this how you treat all your slaves?" Zerynthia's voice called, but Bane could hear her voice echoing through his skull.
"Turn that bitch off! Jesus, I thought that was you pricking my brain like that," Bane growled with winced eyes as he grabbed the side of his head. "Didn't I just kill that bitch? Why can I still hear her?"
'You threw a phoenix into fire.'
"And?!" Bane growled, not knowing anything about burning birds or the like. He understood it was a mythical bird, but that was as far as he knew.
'You threw a phoenix into fire.'
"You just said that!" Bane snapped, but then a bunch of information about phoenixes followed into his mind. "Oooh, hmm, I guess that does make sense. Being made out of fire? Man, for once, I have the displeasure of actually feeling stupid. Go figure."
Onyx let out the longest groan Bane had ever heard from him, and then there was a moment of silence.
‘You really have no idea what it is like for me and the rest of the world watching you,’ Onyx sighed, his tone clearly displaying how much of a loss he was at right now.
"Hey! I don't do that much stupid stuff!"
'Just don't. Neither of us has the time for me to go over all the illustrious choices you have made in both your lifetimes.'
Bane rolled his eyes and reached his hand palm out to the ring. Before he could get close, an array of magic symbols appeared. Bane smiled.
"Let me take the wheel for this. You can seal it back up after, but I think I have a pretty good understanding of how array layering works, and I recognize all the symbols here from Lysia's... Man, I miss her... Anyways, just let me fuck around with it, okay?" Bane asked, but felt his control over his mana extend outside of his body, brightening his smile. "Oh, you dirty little array! It is time to behave for Papa!"