Chapter 71: Touching You Was Always The Goal

"Hahahaha."

Laughing boisterously with her voice quickly filling the room, Lordess Renan turned away from Evian and approached one of her shelves. She stroked the spines of the arranged books before pulling one out and flipping through it,

"It says it right here. Well documented by Adventurers who have faced and battled your kind;

-Almost uncontrollable hunger for souls that leaves no room for anything else."

Reining in his released Eldrich energy and ignoring his wide-open shirt, Evian stepped towards the Lordess to pull the book aside and stare into it.

It did say 'Wraith' at the top of the page but while Evian could understand the writings somewhat, the manner in which they were written, the harshness of the scribbles made them almost a pain. No joke, he was getting a headache the more sentences he read.

"You wrote this?"

Frida shook her head,

"No. I battered for it just like I battered for almost every other one that lives in this Shelves."

Evian pushed through the ache and he confirmed what Frida had read out. There were even illustrations of haggard-looking Wraiths with sickly-looking bodies, gaunt and hungry, with eyes wide with the greed to devour.

'Assistant, is any of this true?'

[You will have to purchase a Manuscript for that.]

'Be serious!'

[The book you are reading appears to have been compiled by a scared bystander or maybe a Victim.]

'But is it true?'

[Some of it.]

'So, I'll end up looking like that. Sickly? Ugly?' Evian asked. It might be vain but he loved looking good and the image on the page looked even worse than he had been better his death.

[That form, while true, is a choice.]

Evian let out a sigh of relief.

[You shouldn't be scared of it though. It's a sign of power. The Gauntier you look, the more you have progressed on the Path of Decadence.]

'But it will always be a Choice?'

[Yes.]

'That's all that matters. What about the lack of 'amorous bliss' as Frida put it?'

[Ah, that is non-negotiable for a Wraith. Or at least, it should be.]

'What do you mean?'

[You are an anomaly... It appears you have always been. A Wraith's first instinct is to feed. When young, you are supposed to lack the self-control to hold yourself back.

Remember your time with the Exorcising Witch? I told you, you should have killed her.]

'That would have been foolish.'

[Perhaps. But it would have been 'right' for a Wraith. Your kind lives to feed. Getting stronger is just a bonus.]

'But Daria is stronger than I am. Subduing a sexually frustrated lady is very different from taking her on in combat. If I fought, I would have died.'

"What was so secret, you wished to keep from anyone else?"

"Ah, that. This is why," Frida said while driving even more of the Purity that coated her hand into Evian's body increasing the quantity of Eldritch energy he released,

"I felt something when this energy touched me. I have heard rumors of such but they don't compare to what I felt."

"And what did you feel?" Evian asked, his voice soothing and his hand rubbing up and down the Lordess' arm while he still squeezed the overflowing mass of her tit in his hand.

"I felt death," Frida said.

"Care to elaborate?" Evian asked.

"How is it not clear?" Frida said, "I crave eternal life, I work towards it, diligent in Cultivation, breaking through bottlenecks with that as my goal, but sometimes, I wonder what's on the other side. When I felt your Eldritch energy... It excited me.

The cold creep of death, the ceasing of life- It's exhilarating."

"You paint a peculiar picture," Evian said.

"You think me strange?" Frida asked with a smirk.

"You have a Death Kink," Evian said in a very succinct answer.

'It's very strange,' he added in his mind.

Frida shook her head,

"It's not a Kink."

"Are you sure?" Evian asked her as he placed his second hand on her other breast and squeezed while drawing his spread-out Eldritch energy close- concentrating it around the Lordess' mature body.

Frida smirked as she looked down at Evian's flexing fingers,

"There's nothing sexual about it. Death is the state of being devoid of life and all Its pleasures. Your hands on my breasts have no effect on me, however, do take them off.

I won't be manhandled in my own home."

"And I won't be used to feed your kink," Evian told her with a smile, "At least not for free. Touching you is me proposing a compromise."

"You think you have a choice?" Frida asked and then chuckled, "Laughable."

As though to hammer home how much of a power imbalance was between them, the Lordess let her pressure flare. Like a little tease of what she was capable of.

As a bead of sweat started to form on his forehead, Evian still kept his smile even though his lips twitched.

"Intimidation won't work, Lady," he said, "Think of it this way;

You brought me here to perform a service... This is my payment."

Frida paused,

"You came here to ask me to participate in the Turf war... Why not ask for that as payment? Why insist on a perverted act?"

Evian chuckled as he rubbed his hand over the warm smooth skin, and squeezed both funbags in delicious unison,

"I'll be honest with you, asking for your help was all a rouse. Granted, it would be easier to end Herbert's rule by trapping the Larnak Territory from both sides but it's not essential for my plan to work.

I came here to see you. Touching you has always been my goal."

---