Chapter 272: As Long As Possible

Chapter 272: As Long As Possible

Xenia stood at the entrance of the cliffside cave with a smirk on her face and sea breeze rustling through her beautiful black hair as she continued to scan the cave with her ki.

“Only 10 men await me inside? What a shame. But it will have to do.” Xenia began a leisurely walk inside the dimly lit cave descending down a sloped ramp made of rock. She knew if only 10 men stood guard over something so important, they weren’t the ones guarding it at all as she continued to muse to herself, “A team stationed for communication no doubt. A team to alert a greater force when needed. Or maybe a team to ensure other defensives and safeguards remain in proper working order.”

She smiled to herself with amusement and excitement as she reached a fork in the cave with many different openings, “A very nice passive defensive tactic to thin out intruders. Though I think the occupiers of this cave will find I am a very hard girl to fend off.”

Having already scanned the cave with bloodbending ki, she continued down the path towards the men after grabbing a torch to light her way.

As she leisurely strolled deeper into the stronghold cave, a sharp hiss sounded. Xenia held out the torch to see the pathway filling with a dark green gas. She took a deep breath in, inhaling with her entire lung capacity before then slowly breathing it back out.

“Poison gas. Sharply poison at that.” Xenia felt a twinge of pain and a hint of paralysis before the passive healing of her body cleared the toxins almost as fast as they entered her body.

Meanwhile, deep within the cave, a red flashing light began to blink on a control panel monitored by a soldier, “Hey! The poison gas has been activated!”

A table of soldiers turned around laughing, “Those damn sea rats have been setting it off all week.”

Another soldier quipped, “I like the tingling of their meat on my tongue after they’ve been saturated with poison. Tonight, we eat good, and tomorrow we will reset the gas.”

The men cheered and laughed without a worry in the world. They knew no one was foolish enough to invoke the ire of their boss, and they also knew no one was foolish enough to think themselves strong enough to breach the shield surrounding the mana stone.

While they had set the various traps and kill switches within the cave, the shield surrounding the mana stone had stood since the cave had been discovered. Speculation abound suggested a god-like ki user had placed it there as no one had ever been able to breach it.

Elsewhere, Xenia moved forward along the hallway which had long since been filled with green toxic gas to such a degree that she could hardly see the torch in front of her. She paced forward until she stepped down onto a slope with a splash of water from her boot. She took another step, and another, and as she continued each step led her deeper into the water until she was waist high.

She scanned the cave again confirming her path was righteous, “An underwater pathway. How creative.”

Xenia tossed her torch aside and dove head first into the pathway which curved downwards and filled with water. She began to swim with haste, and her strong form and powerful motions were hardly slowed by her heavy leather attire and boots.

After swimming at a pace exceeding even gold-medal Olympians, Xenia came to the conclusion this pathway was intended to be taken with the aid of diving gear including oxygen tanks. As she swam gracefully through the pitch-black tunnel submerged in cold water, she thought to herself, “Unfortunately for them, it will take much more than a long underwater tunnel to take my breath away.”

After swimming for more than five minutes, she finally came to an upward slope leading out of the water. She slowly ascended until she found her footing on the ground and took slow, strong steps out of the submerged tunnel as water rushed off of her sleek black hair and leather attire.

The tunnel emerged into a well-lit, large cavern where ten soldiers suddenly turned their heads to watch Xenia arise from the water pushing her drenched hair back like a swimsuit model as she emerged. The movement of her hips and allure of her figure-hugging outfit captivated the men with lust. Furthermore, her appearance paralyzed them in confusion.

Thoughts raced amongst the soldiers, “Who is she?”N/nêw n0vel chap/ers are published o/n n0v/e/(lb)i(n.)co/m

“How is she here?”

“Is she alone?”

“Did the boss send her?”

The ranking soldier at the control panel recalled their mission parameters stating, “If a person, known or unknown, arrives without prior notice... kill them.”

He snapped out of his disbelief and slammed his hand down on a big red button.

A massive tree trunk log with a large diameter and frightening tip sharpened to a point came swinging down from the ceiling.

Xenia smiled at the swinging spear with anticipation and excitement. Given her situational awareness and reflexes, she had ample time to block, dodge, or destroy the pathetic death trap; however, instead, she found herself in a playful mood.

To the surprise of the other soldiers, she lifted seven men into the air all at once. She then lined them up in a row and sent them flying into the spear tip, each man crashing into and impaling upon the spear.

She clapped her hands and hopped with glee, “Eight in a row!” She then turned around and pointed at the two remaining men, “Nine. And ten.”

She lifted one of the men into the air with her bloodbending and called out to him, “Okay number nine! Are you ready!?”

As the man began to answer, she flung him into the spear head first skewering his body from head to toe on the spear in a perpendicular orientation to the other dying men along the spear.

The ninth man’s long orientation along the spear occupied the remainder of the real estate on the spear, and Xenia turned to the last man standing, “I apologize. I know you really wanted to be on that spear with your friends. As consolation, you may choose how you die.”

“I- I- I- I don’t want to die. Please! PLEASE! I can tell you information! PLEASE!”

Xenia thought to herself before saying, “Hmm. You’re telling me you want to live as long as possible?”

The man nodded, “Yes, I beg of you!”

She smirked to herself, “It’s not often a man begs me to live as long as possible. I admire your request, so I shall grant it.”

She pushed him backwards into the table and then lifted him up laying him flat upon the table surface. She crawled atop him, straddling him before ripping his clothes off from head to toe and removing the knife from his belt.

She looked down at him with an evil smile and licked the blade cutting her tongue, “This will kill you, but oh so slowly. You’ll live as long as possible. I promise.”

She then made a shallow incision down the middle of his chest and used her fingers to lift up on the free flap of skin creating tension between the skin and the underlying subcutaneous tissue. Next, she took the knife and barely touched the blade to the tensed connections between the skin and the underlying tissue.

The man screamed in agony as she began to skin him alive. She smiled at the sound of his screams, “Save your energy. As requested, this is going to take as long as possible. And once I’m done, you can sit and watch me take your precious mana stone.”

The man grit his teeth and managed to speak through the pain, “Good luck. You may be powerful and cruel, but not even someone like you can breach the stone’s shield. Even our boss has tried and failed.”

“Shhhh. We’ll see about that in time. For now, just look at your skin gliding off your body. The knife barely does any of the work. The touch of the blade disintegrates your connective tissue as I pull up on it.”

She removed the entire flap of skin covering his right pectoralis major and held it up and licked the bloody underside of it before tossing it to the ground, “Oh I just couldn’t help myself. I could do this all day.”

Xenia then inched up his body and leaned over his neck and face, “I am going to flay every inch of skin off your body over the next few hours. The most painful part is going to be your neck and your face.”

She dangled the knife over his neck gently dragging it up his neck and then over his lips. She then pulled up on the loose skin at the superior aspect of his pectoralis muscle where she had left off, “You see, the neck and the face don’t just have subcutaneous soft tissue like small vessels, collagen, and fibrous tissue anchoring the skin down. They also have an exquisite network of subcutaneous sensory nerves. Tiny little things capable of delivering immense pleasure and immense pain.”

She stopped for a moment leaning down to kiss his neck for a prolonged period of time giving him a sensual and succulent hickey, “The reason that feels so good, other than my perfect lips, is because you have so many sensitive nerves on your neck. That’s the immense pleasure. But now I’m about to cut these nerves very... slowly. From here on out, it will only be immense pain.”

Xenia continued meticulously skinning the man’s neck and face like Michelangelo sculpting the Pieta. After a painstaking hour, she finally tossed the final piece of his scalp to the floor.

As she looked down at his face of meat and two white eye balls, she smiled at him and ran her finger across his cheek collecting blood which she then sucked off her finger with a ‘pop’ of her lips as she pulled her finger out of her mouth against the suction of her lips.

She then moaned and leaned down making out with his face as she got his blood all over her lips and cheeks. She then leaned back up and wiped her mouth with her forearm, “Don’t worry, I’m having too much fun to let you bleed to death.”

She picked up the knife and glided the tip of the blade over his left chest, “Okay, back to your chest then. You’ll hardly feel the remainder of your skin being cut away now that your face will be pulsating with exquisite pain the entire time.”

She laughed as she picked up the loose skin of his chest again, creating tension for the knife blade, “You really should thank me.”

As Xenia resumed meticulously flaying the final man’s body, a silent alarm triggered as the latest check-in had come and gone with no one available to respond.