My Cuckhold System

Seraphyra moved almost playful, slithering between attacks with a smile that belonged nowhere near such a dangerous battlefield.

Her eyes glowed, and three creatures that met her gaze froze mid-charge with their bodies turning gray and stony as petrification spread over them.

Seraphyra’s tail whipped out, smashing the first petrified creature hard across the side.

Bang!

The impact rang out like metal striking stone, but instead of shattering, the creature only cracked slightly and skidded across the ground.

Seraphyra blinked, genuinely offended. “Oh? Even as statues, you’re stubborn?”

She hit another one harder. This time its shoulder broke apart, but not enough to destroy it completely.

West saw that and adjusted immediately.

“Petrify them, don’t waste energy breaking them. Leave them immobilized and move on unless they block the path.”

Seraphyra pouted. “Master, you take away all my fun.”

“I’ll buy you something sweet later.”

Her expression brightened instantly. “Acceptable.”

The battle dragged longer than West expected. The creatures weren’t especially intelligent, but their bodies were built perfectly for this environment.

Fire strengthened them and heat reinforced them. Every time Jax froze a limb, the ice hissed and weakened almost immediately.

Every time Nina created a heavy construct to crush one, the creature’s armor took more punishment than seemed reasonable.

Even West, with his enhanced strength and Guardian Sword, had to be accurate with his attacks. Wild swings wasted energy while clean strikes through exposed points ended fights.

One creature broke through Gor’thala’s vines and charged straight for West.

It’s cjaws opened as its tongue shot toward his chest.

West leaned aside, caught the tongue with one hand, and wrapped it around his wrist before yanking hard. The creature stumbled forward, and West leaned in, driving his knee into its jaw with a thunderous crack.

The strike didn’t break the skull, but it stunned the creature long enough for Nina to draw a heavy hooked blade into existence above it.

With a chain attached directly to it, the construct dropped, wedging into the side of its neck. West finished the job by dragging the Guardian Sword across the same wound, carving through tendon and bone until the head sagged loose.

By the time the last of the first wave fell, the ground around them was littered with corpses, black blood, broken tongues, and scattered fragments of volcanic scale.

Jax leaned on his katana, breathing harder than he wanted to admit. “I officially hate fire ruins.”

Nina wiped sweat from her forehead. “You hate anything that doesn’t let you show off properly.”

“I like fair conditions.”

West rested the Guardian Sword against his shoulder while scanning the terrain ahead. “There are no fair conditions in ruins. That’s the point.”

They continued forward, stepping over bodies and moving deeper into the fiery landscape.

The path narrowed between two rough ridges, which occasionally gave off internal heat.

Every few seconds, the mountains in the distance released rings of fire that expanded outward like burning halos before dissolving into the air.

The deeper they went, the more the ruin seemed to breathe around them. The ground rose and fell subtly beneath their feet, as though they were walking across the back of something enormous and sleeping.

Minutes later, the second wave emerged.

This time, the creatures didn’t rush in blindly from ahead. They climbed down from the ridges on both sides with their claws digging into stone anx their bodies glowing brighter than the ones before. They were slightly smaller, but leaner, faster, and far more coordinated.

Some carried spiky stones fused to their forearms like crude blades, while others spat small balls of flame that exploded on impact.

“Formation,” West said.

Jax and Nina moved instantly without hesitation. Jax took the left flank while Nina fell slightly behind West, and Gor’thala raised a barrier just as the first volley of flame came crashing down.

The fireballs struck the greenish shield and burst apart in waves of heat that washed over them.

West charged straight through the fading flames.

One of the smaller lizard creatures leapt at him from the side with their forearm blade swinging. West parried with the Guardian Sword causing sparks to explodw from the clash.

He proceeded to twist his wrist and slam the flat of the massive blade into the creature’s knee. The joint buckled but before it could fall, he drove his elbow into the side of its throat and finished with a downward slash through the exposed neck gap.

Jax fought more carefully this time. Instead of trying to freeze entire bodies, he focused on momentary ice points.

He coated the ground beneath one creature’s feet for half a second enough to make it slip. The moment it stumbled, he dashed in and stabbed through its eye with the ice katana. Steam exploded outward as the blade pierced into the skull, and Jax twisted hard before yanking free.

“Okay,” he muttered while ducking beneath a flaming spit attack, “small freezing. I can work with small freezing.”

Nina’s brush three small beast constructs into existence around her. They were adorable in shape but vicious in movement.

They looked like little horned foxes made of ink and glowing lines, and they darted between the lizards’ feet, biting at ankles and distracting them long enough for Nina to create heavier weapons above.

A spiked mace dropped on one creature’s head, stunning it. A cage formed around another, tightening until it pinned its limbs awkwardly. The creature struggled as its scales cracked under the pressure, and Gor’thala finished it with a spear of green flame through the open mouth.

Seraphyra had stopped trying to smash petrified enemies completely. Instead, she used her gaze to freeze key targets, turning the battlefield into a maze of stone obstacles that disrupted the creatures’ movements.

One charging lizard collided with its petrified ally and fell. Aurethia wasn’t present in this fight, but Seraphyra seemed determined to make up for that absence by being as theatrically useful as possible.

“Look, Master,” she called while coiling around a petrified lizard and using it as a shield against incoming fireballs. “I made furniture.”