Chapter 35
Eve seemed far too calm for this. It meant she had other plans, and I had a good idea of what she was thinking.
That thought occurred to me, and I grinned. "You know the Demon Lord is going to come to take the power you've already taken."
"He can try," Eve said, pulling herself to the edge of the hot spring and smiling at me as if I might find it attractive. All I could see was something inhuman with glowing green eyes, like a monster wearing a human for clothing.
"You're disgusting," I told her to her face.
"Of course. So then, is this the part where we fight?" She paused and smirked. "Oh, wait. This is where you need to run off and go deal with the Demon Lord, isn't it?" she said, tapping at her lips as if she'd just had the thought, only for a grin to spread across her face.
"You think you've won," I said.
She nodded at my accusation. "Because I have. You have bigger problems than me right now. But I wish you luck. The skill isn’t perfect.
Right now, I’m bursting with energy, but that’s part of the problem.
It feels like I could take on the world, yet I might explode in doing so.
Whatever skill he gave me, who knows what flaw it might have that the Demon Lord hopes to exploit.
" She pretended to shake and grabbed at her shoulders.
"I'm just terrified with him out there. If only someone motivated to take down the Demon Lord also had this opportunity to deal with him… "
I could hardly believe what I was seeing and hearing before me. "And so you want me to take care of your biggest problem, after you just murdered your entire sect?"
She held up a finger. "I did not murder them.
Their lives were already mine. Well… most of them.
I brought them up from nothing, brought them into this sect, and trained them until they were able to go out on their own and farm instances without my help.
After the Demon Lord explained how it all worked, I spent significant effort expanding my sect, growing it into a very rewarding harvest. Like plants, only the seeds were larger and required far more effort," she said simply as a nearby leaf spread towards her, wanting her touch.
"This wasn't that different from working a garden.
Seed it, fertilize it, and then ultimately let nature take its course.
And of course, when everything is said and done, you harvest a rich field of crops for your own nourishment," she emphasized her final words.
I shivered in repulsion. I would have called her out on it if I thought there was any humanity left in her to listen.
"Where's the Demon Lord? If you want me to deal with him, then I bet you already know where he is," I prompted. Eve was a problem I could deal with later, but if she wanted me to take care of the Demon Lord, then she had to know where he was.
Given that Eve looked like she was about to burst, the same as the Demon Lord who had run away, I wondered if the absorption was incomplete at the moment.
She gave a short, succinct nod. "I knew you'd see it my way, once the whole of it was explained.
" Eve beamed. "Deep within the jungle, he's made something of an altar.
It's a hideous, garish thing. My suspicion is he needs it to solidify whatever gains he's just reaped.
He's there now, kneeling before it, and in enough concentration that, if you were quick, you might just be able to get him before he finishes. " Eve smiled. "But only if you hurry."
I froze, genuinely torn between staying to remove the vile woman before me from the face of the earth and wanting to rush toward the Demon Lord. I knew he was technically the greater problem, but there was something to be said for not leaving problematic people behind me.
"Where?" Merlin asked, her tone just as sharp as I felt.
"Oh, right, the teleporter," Eve said, only now realizing that there were others in the room. "You only seem to be able to go where you've already been. If you'll trust me, Bran, I can send you there quickly."
"No," Merlin said beside me. "Send me, and then I'll bring Bran there if it's safe."
Eve pouted, but a massive flower bloomed beneath Merlin before closing down on her, swallowing her, and opening up to reveal it was once again empty. Shadows leapt from where she had been a moment earlier, and Merlin reappeared.
"It's safe," Merlin said. "You go on ahead," she said in a strangely cautious way. I realized after a second that she intended for me to go alone or with a very limited group.
"Of course," I said, accepting as the shadows swallowed me.
In the same moment, I saw more shadows extend from Merlin, and Simone's figure rose from them, a small tilt to her head as she regarded the situation in the room I was now exiting.
Her eyes spotted me disappear into my own shadows, and she gave me a saucy wink before turning to face Eve.
***
"Well, now, this is a surprise," Simone said with a smile, her eyes fixing on Eve despite the sudden teleportation. She trusted Merlin implicitly, which is why, when the shadows crept up beneath her, she didn't resist and simply let them carry her away to a strange place.
All Simone knew was that Merlin needed her. But the second she laid eyes on the woman before her, she had a good idea who she was dealing with.
"You must be Eve," Simone said with a smile she didn't feel as she stared at the woman, glowing green veins bulging underneath her skin. At once, Simone had an intuition that this woman was meant to be killed.
"Who are you?" Eve asked, lifting her eyes to meet Simone's.
"I'm Simone. I'm Bran's Saintess. I've been a little too busy to come down here, but I'm gathering very quickly that you're a problem to be solved." Simone smiled as the woman stiffened.
"She sent Bran off to deal with the Demon Lord after the two of them slaughtered most of the people in the region," Merlin informed Simone from behind.
"Oh, of course." Simone bobbed her head along.
"It's important that Bran go deal with the Demon Lord.
Perhaps we ladies should deal with his other problems. We wouldn't want him to come home to a messy house, now, would we?
" Simone said, keeping her voice light and airy, as if there were nothing between her and being a threat.
Eve relaxed, but there was a thread of caution as she eyed her.
"You seem to have become incredibly powerful recently," Simone observed with wide eyes as the woman in the hot spring sat up straight.
"Of course. Though Bran has still rejected me," Eve stated.
Simone waved a hand. "Nonsense, nonsense. There must have been something he didn't understand. As members of his harem, it's up to us to help him, even when he's making mistakes. Don't you agree?"
"Deeply," Eve said, her eyes glowing even more vibrant green with her words.
"Good, good," Simone cooed, stepping forward even as she felt some of the others behind her having strange reactions. "They brought me here because when it comes to the harem, I'm — as you might say — the lead woman. And even if Bran said no, my opinion holds significant weight."
Eve kept nodding, and Simone was happy to play along as she stepped up to the water.
Her feet dipped in, the hot spring slowly soaking her dress from the very bottom, the water climbing up and making her clothing even more scandalous.
She would have to think about using that later with Bran.
She could get white robes, dip just the bottom in, and, in a slow striptease reveal, let it grow more transparent by the second.
Her thoughts started swirling, but she had to push the fantasy aside to instead remove a problem for Bran.
She focused on the woman who needed to die before her.
"The glowing green lines you have," Simone asked, tracing a finger over the details, "could the rest of us get them as well?"
"Almost certainly." Eve grinned, looking past Simone with a smirk. She was exactly the kind of woman unable to see things from others’ perspectives. If she was greedy for power, then everyone else must be, too.
"Really? And what do I need to do?" Simone tilted her head.
"Simply have people willing to become your harvest. Though their willingness at harvest isn't necessarily required," Eve coached.
"Oh," Simone said and nodded along. Everyone else was waiting patiently behind her, but that was fine.
"This is the same harvesting the Demon Lord is currently solidifying," Merlin filled in the gaps.
"Oh, yes. It's not your strength… That does tend to make it a little less reliable." Simone nodded along. "And if that's the case, why don't you bring the others, Merlin?" Simone asked with a smile. "We should have everyone meet our newest harem member."
Eve grinned like she’d won; those red lips were pretty, Simone had to admit. Sadly, they were poisoned, and Simone would tolerate no poison in the harem.
"Of course." Merlin seemed slightly confused, a frown on her face as she summoned Winnie, Circe, and Gloria to join them as well.
None of them was particularly happy about the sudden teleportation; however, upon seeing the whole harem assembled, none of them uttered a single complaint.
In fact, they all froze, as if waiting to see what would happen next.
"Sisters," Eve said, and Simone opened her arms.
"We have another potential sister before us, but she's gotten a power that she hasn't stabilized yet.
" Simone clicked her tongue. Very few words had been said about the situation, but she had good instincts.
Bran trusted those instincts, as did the rest of her family.
"We should help her understand her power, so that perhaps in the future, she may share it with the rest of our family. "
Someone who would harvest power from other people was the same kind of person who believed others would want the same. Narcissists rarely believed others could do better or choose better.
Simone grew close to Eve, then hit her with Wracking Pain.
The ability was more dangerous now that she'd become a monarch designed with Syssy. She’d had to give up her own spirit stat to borrow Bran's massive spirit stat. But while Bran merely used it for a few skills, spirit was Simone’s bread-and-butter stat.
As a result, she could create unimaginable pain in someone.
She had quite frankly scared herself with it the one time she'd used it before.
Some abilities were simply best left unused, but there was always a time and a place.
And in this case, it was necessary when an ally turned out to be a dangerous and misguided woman who lusted after your man for all the wrong reasons.
Eve's scream tore through her throat, loud enough that the water around her rippled and shook from the force of it, and that was clue enough for the rest of their group to pounce on her and take advantage of her distraction.
Simone threw up a barrier the second Eve recovered from the pain and flung her hands out as plants shot from every available surface, trying to latch on and grab members of their group.
Eve, even with her current power, couldn't break through Simone’s barrier.
Winnie, the best fighter currently present, swung her icy scythe back and forth through the growing tangle of plants, freezing and breaking them off into small, brittle shards.
Eve could clearly barely function. Rather than attacking in any coordinated manner, she simply flung plants in every direction, struggling under the Wracking Pain to do much more than throw spells. But even then, with her strength, the spells were dangerous.
Simone danced out of the way as the pillar around her exploded into marble shards. Her Veil of Netherlight wrapped around everyone present. With over thirty thousand spirit, it protected everyone from the blast.
Everything simply vanished as Eve flexed her power and threw it about blindly in bright flashes that stripped the earth clean.
Merlin whisked them all away, hiding them in shadows and keeping them beyond Eve's ability to directly target them.
"Strong one, isn't she?" Simone said with a laugh. She had felt those blasts against multiple of her spells and was in a wonderful mood. As Bran’s most devout lover and Saintess, she reveled in the idea that his spirit flowed through her and protected her as well as the rest of his harem.
It was like Bran’s massive arms were wrapped around her in protection. She held back a small girlish squeal and remained poised.
"What are you going to do now?" Merlin asked. They were outside the decadent palace now, the whole place having become a rampaging, very angry greenhouse as Eve's power flooded around, exploding in pops of color and bright green bursts.
"I'd hoped she would go down a little faster," Simone admitted with a pinch of her fingers.
"But I think the ultimate end here will always be her death.
The question is, how do we make that unstable power of hers less stable?
" More of the sect exploded around them as she spoke, chunks of marble finding their way into her hair.
"Good news is that I have all of you." Simone beamed.
"And I doubt you're going to let me down. "
They all looked at her like she had said something wrong.
Simone paused. "The plan was to fight her, right? I didn't ruin anything?" Simone asked quickly, and several who'd been in the group before the fight went sideways rolled their eyes.
"Of course. Bran's going to deal with the Demon Lord, and we'll deal with this massive bitch," Merlin confirmed.