Collide Gamer

Chapter 218 – Unshaded

“Urgh,” John let out a sound of exhausted annoyance as he pummelled the last enemy to death.

 It felt very wrong. One, because it had the shape of a beautiful woman, two, because he actually had to kill it instead of knocking it out, and three, because he was not used to punching things. Although that last point was rapidly changing thanks to a little something.

This was one of the two Attributes that Purgatory had that made John love the item. Well, to be exact, this one was also on the rings, but it hadn’t worked before he got the set complete. Best thing was what happened once it went all the way up to maximum though. Which he was about to hit. Second best thing was that it scaled with his level. Actually, that was the best thing about it, seeing how it would continue to be relevant for pretty much forever.

The last enemy finally dissipated into a cloud of smoke and dropped some sexy underwear. John quickly dumped it in his inventory as he waited for the inevitable boss spawn. ‘Are you done pouting yet?’ John asked in the meanwhile. Siena didn’t answer. He had allowed her to move again the moment they had entered their first dungeon. So far, she hadn’t taken the offer.

John punched a wall. Not out of frustration, no, he simply wanted to stack Echo of Destruction a bit more. Also, it felt nice to flex muscles he had no business having with his current Stat line. Not that the buff made him physically more muscular, he just felt stronger.

‘Come on, Siena, you can’t be this offended by someone giving you shit for a change,’ John talked to the shadow spirit, ‘or did your mother spoil you that much?’

‘Mother never spoiled me,’ Siena hissed, missing most of the usual sexiness in her voice.

‘Really now?’ he couldn’t help but doubt that. ‘Correct me if I am wrong, but she rescued you from Gaia, didn’t she?’ No answer. ‘Then she fed you victims while you were locked up so you wouldn’t be too bored.’ No answer. ‘Finally she sent me over to get you out of there, knowing that I would treat you well.’

‘You are taking my freedom from me,’ Siena pointed out, ‘that is hardly being spoiled.’

‘You could roam free if I could trust you to not act against my interests all the time,’ John reminded her. ‘Instead, you insist on throwing rocks in my way.’

‘As you deserve,’ Siena told him after a little pause, ‘someone of your happiness should just…’

‘Are you still driving that narrative?’ John asked. ‘Siena, if your prime motivation to torture and kill people truly was that they are happy, you wouldn’t have leaped at Janna like you did. For all we know, she could have been an impoverished mother who took the spying job to get out of her miserable situation.’ John wrestled down his own bad consciousness for a moment, the muffled screams still haunted him; ‘You know what I really think your deal is?’

‘…’ John’s shadow twisted. He was about to continue when the window finally popped up.

The boss descended from the night sky by circling down a metal pole. She was wearing nothing but a sexy, red negligee that did nothing to hide her curves. John noted that she missed the succubus trademarks of horn and tail, but she did have wings.

John sent out his mental commands to everyone. One by one, he told them exactly what he wanted them to do in this fight.

‘This strategy is crazy, Master,’ Aclysia, finally recovered but still horny as hell, told him. ‘We should at least kill it once before going through with that.’

‘Nope, this is what we are doing,’ John announced and, with slight hesitation, his elementals scattered away from the spawn point, leaving John to fend for himself.

‘Mhm,’ Siena let out a disappointed moan, not only had she been isolated from all of the conversations, but John also hadn’t told her to do anything. ‘No orders for me that I can ignore?’

‘No, you will do exactly what I want in this battle,’ John spoke firmly and then charged the succubus, who had started to channel some sort of spell. ‘Which is: nothing.’

The Gamer threw a punch. It wasn’t even close. The succubus was faster than him, but not by enough for him to be unable to keep up. Nonetheless, she got the first hit in with ease. John simply lacked the practice in melee, and so her foot connected to his left side and threw him through the air.

‘Going in without protection?’ Siena giggled as he smashed against a wall. He didn’t answer her but simply pushed himself off the wall and blocked the incoming attack from the succubus.

“You are such a bad, little boy,” the demoness spoke as her fist was caught by John’s gauntleted hand, “We could have lots of fun together, just let me feel you up a little.”

“Sorry, but I am not looking for additions to my harem right now,” John said, pushing against the succubus’ superior physical power with desperation, “Kind of past my limit of what I am allowed to handle.”

The boss smiled sweetly and pushed harder, feeling the legs of her victim buckle and slowly give in. A drop of sweat rolled over John’s face as he counted the seconds. A Mana Ray hit the boss in the shoulder and caused her to screech in pain as she pulled back that arm. John followed that up with a quick Arcane Explosion that blinded the boss.

That manoeuvre allowed him to retreat out of melee range, but as the boss was meant to be a challenge for seven people, he alone was no match to it. While the succubus regained her concentration, John plucked a sign off the ground and threw it at the boss. Her seared shoulder slowly healing, the succubus simply smacked the sign aside. John threw another one.

‘What mindless strategy are you following?’ Siena wondered, ‘I can’t even feel those other familiars of yours.’ Her summoner just smirked, everyone was in position, it was all going according to plan. Concentrating on masking everyone from Siena was a bit of a strain though.

He threw the last sign he had in arms reach. The succubus simply side-stepped the slow projectile. By the time it crashed and scattered over the ground, the boss had reached melee range again.

She did not expect the flaming fist coming for her. Sure, it was a sloppy sucker punch, but if there is a burning obsidian dragon claw coming for your head, even a boss would flinch away. The succubus jumped to the side. That turned out to be the smartest move as the fire was catapulted off his fist and flew another two metres forwards.

‘Man, upping my Physical Stats for this glove is so tempting,’ John thought.

The fact that he wore the glove on his left-hand while being right-handed made aiming with it slightly harder. That fact was diminished largely by the amount of Agility he already had, slowly turning him ambidextrous, but it remained a slight annoyance. More Strength would allow him to catapult the fire further. He had done tests to verify that already.

‘But alas, I am quite happy with being a mage,’ John thought and quickly rolled under a spinning kick from the succubus. She landed gracefully while he struggled to get back on his feet.

Instead of exploiting that opening, the boss chuckled, “You are a funny little boy. At first, I thought just killing you would be the best, but maybe you have quite a bit more to offer.”

The air was suddenly filled with a sweet aroma that made John’s head dizzy and his loins burn. The succubus was obviously tired of making this a physical contest. Seemingly defeated immediately by his own lust, John fell backwards upon the hard floor, unable to move.

“I…” he stammered.

“Yes?” the succubus said, stepping closer until she was next to him. She brought her lips close and kissed him. His shadow stirred as Siena let out a possessive hiss into John’s thoughts. The succubus didn’t notice, she was too infatuated with John.

“You want to tell me what? ‘I love you?’ is that it?” she wondered.

“I…” John shrugged, “…always wondered if you monsters know that you are creations that my ability creates and not actually alive. Once I die, you do too.”

“Silly boy, what are you talking about, once I kill you, I become real,” the succubus purred and put him deeper under her spell.

‘Huh, now that’s interesting. Sadly, I will never find out if that claim is true or not.’ The curious thought, among the rest of him, was wrestling with the sweet influence the boss had on his mind. ‘Considering that I would need to die for that knowledge.’

‘So, when is that plan of yours finally moving into motion,’ Siena asked, trying to sound as uncaring as possible. John knew better, however. Siena desired him in two ways: she wanted to kill him and she wanted to fuck him. This succubus was currently acting against both of these things.

‘Well, about that, seems like it failed,’ he told her. ‘Looks like this is the end of the line. Any last words to me?’

‘What in the shadows are you on about?’

“I will make your last moments wonderful, you have my word,” the succubus started to fidget with his trousers. John couldn’t really have that. Quests before thots and all of that.

He rammed his knee against her beautiful face, and the succubus hissed. He really didn’t want to fail the no sex part of the quest now. “Doing this the old fashioned way then!” she announced and greedily pushed her lips on his. The moment they touched, John could feel his life force draining away. One HP after the other, quicker and quicker, they were siphoned off.

‘Basically, I sent everyone away so that you will have to help me,’ John explained.

‘…Excuse me?’ Siena asked.

‘You heard me. Either you help me here or I die by another woman’s hand,’ he stated. Stunned silence. John maintained his calm, despite the slow ending of his life. He had never enjoyed a kiss less. ‘You know what I really think motivates you to kill? After actually looking through your memories like you looked through mine? It’s not that it surprises your victims. Many of the thugs you had killed by egging on prostitutes knew they would die by another person’s hand, it was part of their line of business. It’s not the people that have it too good that you hate, it’s the people you can’t dominate. Those who you can’t do with as you want. Rather than living with them, you get rid of them. At the same time, you fall in love with the fact that you can’t control them, and so the only person that is allowed to kill them is you. You are obsessed with those you can’t force to kneel, the rest you kill without care.’ The voice of his thoughts was slowly getting weaker, ‘And now there is me. I know that you love me right now, because I was the one who outwitted you and dragged you out of the shadows. You are seriously twisted.’

John slowly raised his left hand, it was about all he could manage to do at this point.

‘Now you can either listen to that love and save me or listen to that hate and let me die. Will you actually show that you are worth something more or will you become a full monster? I’m tired of you skirting that line.”

‘…’ Siena waited until John’s health dropped under 5% before she answered, ‘You better satisfy me after this.’

In a storm of darkness, Siena attacked the succubus from below. The boss had anticipated the companions she had seen on her entrance to pull some stunt. Something jumping out of the shadow the forced couple cast onto the pavement was not on her list of expected things, however.

Bladed tentacles penetrated the flesh of the boss monster, and Siena forced her to break her kiss with John who quickly threw the succubus off him. ‘NOW!’ he shouted in his mind and the street suddenly caved underneath them as Gnome, having used all the mana John had to spare, removed the dirt from underneath.

Even with Siena, John would have had no chance against the buffed succubus, but the boss fell through like everyone else. Underneath, the rest of John’s group was just waiting to kill the boss. Planning to take to the air, the succubus flapped her tiny wings.

“Nah, this is my playing field, you stay on the ground, okay? Okay!” Sylph giggled and sent a strong gust that pressed the succubus down, making it impossible for her to dodge as Gnome and Aclysia grabbed onto her, the latter ramming her sword through the demoness’ chest. As a group, they jumped the immobilized boss.

John watched as they slowly grinded down the boss, getting healed by Undine who he had, as planned, landed on. Immobilizing the enemy and then defeating her with a flurry of attacks was still the easiest and most successful strategy he could think of.

“…You lied to me,” Siena commented once the fight was over. She didn’t sound particularly angry about this, just annoyed (but with her usual sexy undertone restored), “You were never really in danger; you had this whole back-up plan ready before you let yourself get caught…”

“I thought I’d repay you for past headaches. Thanks for playing along with my plan though,” John smirked. Perhaps overly cocky from his victory, he added, “You may try to kill me for the next minute, as we agreed earlier.”

“Giving me such a golden opportunity, how nice of you, Master.” She sunk into the shadows. She was right, in addition to his personal exhaustion, they were now in a deep depression in the ground, with almost vertical walls, in the middle of the night. She could attack him from basically every angle right now.

He jumped from one foot to the other, always turning around to give Siena little time to attack his back. The attacks never came. ‘I will keep this for another time, however,’ she spoke after he stayed defensive for a whole minute. At the very least she had wanted to keep him on the edge for that time, it seemed.

“Huh?” John grunted and dropped his hands, standing relaxed. The order had run out so he was safe. He had wanted for Siena to attack him and estimate by the intensity with which she attacked him how much progress he had made in their relationship, if any. Seemingly, Observe would need to help him with that one once again.

‘Because you have been a good girl right now, when I get to fuck someone later, it’s going to be you first,’ he promised her.

‘My, my, my, what a succulent offering,’ Siena sighed in her usual lusting tone; ‘I will take it.’

John left the barrier in a happy mood. He wasn’t under the impression that Siena would stop trying to damage him, that would take a lot more conditioning than just a singular incident where she decided to not make it easy on herself to kill him. What he knew, at least, was that there was something in there that cared.

He could work with that.