NOVPUBDASCHELLE SILENTLY KEPT to watching Rafel as he went towards the creek to wash. He moved first. Really, he knew he had to.
It had to be just two minutes after their joint orgasm and the girl still had his cum warm within her. She felt still the strokes of his man-flesh. Rafel returned shortly—just as soon as he'd left her; marching back to where she lay utterly lazy and sweet-eyed, he picked her up.
"Aww! You are such a gentleman, daddy." She giggled as he carried her effortlessly from the dirt bank to the rushing water. Rafel liked it when she laughed. But he only told her, "you need to stop calling me that."
And he tossed her right in.
Splash!
Dash hit the water hard.
"Aah—"she frowned as her head came up to the surface. But couldn't hold it and she began laughing and splashing around. Rafel kept her to the shallow parts of the river: upstream. He himself stood in the water, buck naked, and taking huge cups of the cool water in his big hands, he gave his body a quick shower. Daschelle glued her eyes to the sculpted planes of his body.
In her eyes, he could do no wrong.
"Wash yourself." Rafel commanded her.
She dropped away her gaze at the quiet authority in his voice and calmly dove under the water.
Rafel felt the sting when she started doing laps right under his nose; of course she could swim. The helpless little countryside gal was all an act. Some of it at least. He knew he might've just made her into a woman, but it didn't change the fact that she was still a teen.
Rafel strode out of the water, yanking his clothes on.
When he turned back, she had a smirk—and she was doing butterfly strokes.
"Finish, and then get back into the house. Playtime's over!" He ignored her sugar smile.
"Yes daddy."
Rafel for the first time let her see the flash of [Death-grip] in his eyes. It briefly swamped out the gold of his iris, blotting out all the light, like the blackhole of a quasar. "I'm serious," said Rafel, "do not call me that." She nodded. He wasn't satisfied. "I need to hear you say the words. Got it?"
"Yes sir."
Rafel met her luminous fairy-blue eyes one last time before he turned and started his jog—really resumed it, twenty hot minutes after the fact. And it was because of a pesky little girl. As he climbed up the wood-bridge again, Rafel heard her light splashing in the water below but didn't sneak a peek anymore. His little brother felt nourished some. He debated that women sometimes didn't even know the power they had over men.
Peitho must have known he had come into the right headspace for a system's debrief because she went to reminding him she was still here.
[DING!]
[Lord host has being provided with four RAAKAN GEMS from the LEGENDARY Arcane Shop.]
[Completion of Boss-level Quest!]
"Wait! Bedding a virgin is a hidden quest? Or was now I guess?"
Since there wasn't anyone around in the foliage he passed Rafel talked aloud to Peitho. As usual, his dutiful system had an answer for him:
[Yes, Lord host.]
[As a Hellion, every sin you commit has potential rewards. Essentially, deflowering a fourteen-year old girl is a sin. One might argue a capital one.]
There wasn't any judgement in Peitho's voice; she was only telling as it was. Rafel contradicted her final statement though. "Nah, Peitho. I have met the Seven Deadly Sins, and trust me, breaking a virgin is not one of them."
[A minor?]
"There are no minors in Hel."
[This is earth.]
"I am a demon."
[Irrelevant to the argument, m'lord.]
Rafel had reached a circle of ancient pillars; the blue and gold flag of the Republic rose in the midst of it. Upstanding. Gallant. And flowing with the wind. It reminded Rafel of the things mortal men fought and died for, things like duty, honor. Things he didn't give a shit about. Rafel stopped jogging to admire this symbol. As his eyes rested on the swinging banner of House Romanov, he deigned to reply his smartass [Subservient].
"—what I meant is as a devil, I do not abide by the laws and covenants of the realms of man. You know very well a nine-year old ain't a virgin where we come from."
[True, Lord host. Forgive my forwardness.]
Rafel smiled to himself. "I couldn't find a more loyal S.I.N. I mean that, Peitho."
He continued small talk with his system. She told him he had gained a million new points to his [Arcane Rune], just by pile-driving Dash, and he was looking at possible ascendancy to the Sixth Infernal Ring if he continued bagging soul coins. Rafel was happy. Even if finding the roots of treachery in the Empire hadn't turned out as he wanted he had something to show for his journey over here.
The Capital loved him. The West adored him. His System wanted to fuck him.
These days there was no one he wanted to prove himself to; he had damn near proved himself and his indispensability to the whole earth.
The ones who ahould've taken that honor of pride in him—his entire frigging family—were locked up in a chamber of ill, by his own hands.
Damn! Even he admitted that was quite brutal. What could he say? He put the D and 'evil' in Devil.
"Ambassador!" A suave voice called from beyond. Rafel quit staring at the flag and got to jogging the rest of the way to the first security lines put out front of the Gray House. It was a distance of twenty yards. Uniformed Republican cops saluted as he literally hopped the military hurdles. It was the Legata who stood waving at the other end.
Dash's mum.
Rafel gulped. He only felt tensed when he thought of Ravenna, his [Redeemer] – the whole world's Redeemer – and the fact that he didn't want to go back into her arms with nothing to show for it. When he looked at Ravenna, he had the same feeling of a western soldier facing the blue-and-yellow.
Yearning.
Hope.
And without atomic doubt, love.
He hadn't yet told the young Empress this.
So Rafel didn't want any other person making him feel that way, not even the Lily of Roa with all her alien sinfulness and her hot young-blood daughters; he squashed the tension away as he got nearer to the magnificent home.
The [Legata] of Rocasus, Her Excellency, Ursula Romanov stood above on an imperial balcony that overlooked the serene beauty of her country estate. Rafel didn't bother with the door.
"Grim Arts: AMPHIBUS!"
He filled up his mana core, like a lungful of air and waited for the greenish aura of light to possess him. The second it did, he lunged forward on his front feet. It was a simple jump, but the [Leapfrog] ability sent him soaring the twenty metres it took to the balcony. Rafel landed easily as if he had little wings on his ankles. Ursula said nothing about it but her serpentine eyes were clearly impressed. 𝚗o𝚟pub.𝚌𝚘𝚖
"I missed you at breakfast, Ambassador," she began.
"Well then, good morning to you."
Rafel arranged his shirt from the flight up as she gave him her usual flirty onceover. She was good at it. She was smooth like that. She had swagger. If Ursula were a man she'd have BDE. Her slippery sexy voice joked: "Let me guess, sparring?"
[--and fucking her daughter.]
Rafel coughed off Peitho's comment. He gave Ursula a smile and nod.
"Hmm," the Legata chuckled softly. "You have always been humble, Ambassador… which surprises me frankly. Your kind aren't know for virtue. In fact the exact opposite I hear. I'm not a religious woman. My kids are though."
Rafel had the chance to stretch his smile. "I wonder where they got it from."
"Probably their dad." Ursula nodded.
Rafel didn't press on that topic. His devious mind instead diverted to telling unambiguously to her of his encounter with Dash by the stream in the woods—in case any hidden eye had seen; so it would not seem weird if that little information were to fall into the ears of the Legata. He said, forming a careless tone, "I did see Daschelle on my way back, at the bridge over the…the uh…"
He snapped his fingers like he was really trying to remember, prompting a naïve Ursula to finish for him,
"Coldcreek?"
"Yeah, the cold creek. That's it."
Ursula grinned a mother's pride. "Yeah. That's about my little Dash. She loves playing in those woods, no matter how it icks her poor governess." Ursula added, "She definitely needs a Pride ASAP. I'm even considering the possibility of mate."
Rafel said nothing else. He wouldn't breach that topic to save a drowning puppy. What he definitely didn't tell her was that 'little Dash' was considering him for that position.
It was Ursula who shifted their conversation. She steered it towards something Rafel wasn't expecting at all. A thing hideous and definitely compelling. A break in the case.
"Walk with me," she told him.
Ursula led the way into a hall which looked like it doubled as a Summoning Chamber—for blood-letting cults. The hanging curtains looked very philistine. Only one other person was in the monotone hall with them: Yuki.
"Darling, please get the thing." Ursula held out her left hand to Yukima, her firstborn daughter.
The princess heir was in her stout cop colors as Police Chief of the Republic; she stepped forward without words in her shined shoes. She still said nothing as she handed over a fairly big screen to her mother. It was two feet across. Without looking at it, the Legata passed it over to Rafel. His guess was she'd already seen what was on there.
He picked the tablet off her hands and peered down.
The image he saw was instantly horrifying.
Downright appalling.
Diabolic. Very cult-y.
It was a carefully arranged, prepared in very fine circular order… a dismembered body.
A mass of human limbs arranged in the most grotesque art.
Twisted. Clean-cut; the work of a person who had the means, skill, and time.
Rafel's gold eyes darkened. "What the shit am I looking at?"
"That's the corpse of the LIghtlark pilot." Ursula gently replied.
"I cut that motherfucker to pieces!" He growled back.
"Precisely, sir." Yuki stepped forward, "his PIECES had been arranged like this when we got to the crash site. Someone was there before us."
Ursula pointed to the tab. "You are looking at a photograph taken from the wreckage. There! The pattern forms something; a word. Read what it says."
Rafel's grip tightened on the screen as he brought it closer to his face. He was glowering. Still, he did make out the gnarly, bloodied pieces of human being into alphabets.
R I S E
H E L C H I L D
"Rise, Helchild." He read it aloud.
Ursula and Yukima drew near. The daughter said, "from what I gather, sir, YOU ARE THE HELCHILD. This sick work is a message. . .for you." The mother whispered into his ear. "So perhaps you stop looking to faraway cities for your great adversary…perhaps, you look closer to home."
