Chapter 373: Twin Resonance (P-1)

Ryan closed his eyes for a brief moment and focused on regulating the flow of his internal energy, making sure the same thing that had happened to Chloe in the past didn’t happen again. She had been attacked and gravely injured by a pack of giant wolves.

Ryan knew full well that releasing so much magical power all at once just to wake Sophia up would bring unwanted consequences.

It would quickly attract the attention of the people outside.

’But I still don’t understand what’s really going on with her in this place,’ Ryan thought, frowning as he kept his eyes fixed on the woman’s unconscious body.

He tilted his head slightly, processing how strange this sudden encounter had been.

’I couldn’t sense her presence until I knocked her unconscious just now.’

When Sophia finally opened her eyes, she instantly looked up at the ceiling. The woman rested both hands on the floor and leaped backward with agility, immediately putting her guard up.

Sophia bent her knees and raised her fists to face level, completely on high alert against any threat.

"But you are..." Sophia said quickly, narrowing her bright eyes to look at him much more closely.

She turned her head from side to side, looking around with utmost attention and tension in her neck.

Realizing there was absolutely no one else present in the spacious room, she relaxed her combat stance a little. Sophia slowly lowered her fists, letting out the breath she had been holding with obvious, deep uncertainty.

"You really are..." Sophia added, stopping mid-sentence as she felt a rough knot in her throat.

She brought a hand to her neck and coughed a couple of times to clear her parched voice. "Ryan...?"

"Can you recognize me that easily despite me changing my appearance?" Ryan asked, looking at her with genuine curiosity.

Ryan walked toward her slowly, taking short, measured steps so as not to frighten her.

Sophia backed up a bit more, dragging the soles of her sandals against the floor.

She kept looking around with extreme caution, silently evaluating all her limited escape options.

"Relax a little. I didn’t come here to cause trouble. I won’t fight you, Guild Master," Ryan said, stopping his advance.

He raised both open hands to chest height to show he was unarmed.

Ding!

[Automatic debt collection initiated.]

But long before Sophia could process the young man’s words or utter a single syllable in response, her body reacted.

A very sharp, wet, and involuntary moan escaped directly from her mouth, cutting through the tense silence of the room.

Sophia’s eyes widened, and she brought both hands to her own lips in complete disbelief.

"Did I... make that sound...?" she asked in a whisper, feeling a sudden, intense heat rising up her neck.

Her pale cheeks flushed immediately, taking on a very obvious, deep red hue.

The woman’s body stopped responding to her rational commands, losing all muscular strength in her limbs.

She stumbled forward with very clumsy, shaky steps, desperately seeking something to lean on in the room so she wouldn’t fall.

Sophia ended up placing her trembling hands on the hard surface of a wooden table near the wall. She hunched forward slightly, supporting a large part of her body weight on her arms.

"You say... you firmly say you don’t want to fight," Sophia complained, gripping the thick edges of the table until her knuckles turned white.

She looked up slightly, breathing heavily. "But right now you are attacking me with magic..."

Ryan lowered his arms and tilted his head, observing the pitiful and strange state of the proud woman in front of him.

"I wouldn’t exactly call this an attack," Ryan replied in a very calm, neutral, and confident tone of voice.

Sophia turned her face toward him, giving him an intense glare full of suppressed rage and deep embarrassment.

"Then what do you call this?" she demanded to know, breathing through her mouth to try and calm the inexplicable fire inside her.

’I wouldn’t know what to call this situation either,’ Ryan thought, shrugging slightly at her complaint.

Sophia began to pant heavily, letting out quick, small puffs of hot air into the room.

"Delia told me all about this a while ago. You did the exact same thing to Delia and Alina in the past, didn’t you?" Sophia said, swallowing hard and gritting her teeth in frustration.

Ryan raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised to hear those names come out of the Guild Master’s mouth.

"Did they really dare to tell you that?" Ryan asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Sophia nodded, maintaining her firm grip on the table so she wouldn’t lose her balance and fall to the floor.

"Yes, they did... Their unusual and persistent hatred toward you seemed very strange to me. So I bribed them. They urgently needed some relics, and I was the only one who could provide them."

Ryan let out a long sigh, shaking his head as he confirmed the woman’s low, manipulative tactics.

"How twisted of you. It seems you haven’t changed your ways at all, Guild Master."

Sophia could no longer support her own weight and slumped onto the edge of the old wooden table. She let go of the wood and let her arms drop to her sides, surrendering to the complete lack of muscular strength in her legs.

Driven by a deep instinct she couldn’t control, she slowly spread her legs, completely breaking her usual posture of strict authority. When the soft fabric of her expensive dress rode up from the sudden movement, a large portion of her skin was exposed.

Her white, firm, and well-toned thighs were completely displayed before Ryan’s attentive eyes. And the wet trail those thighs marked straight down to her crotch was a very interesting sight to stare at.

Ryan kept his gaze silently locked on that area, noticing the constant, slight tremor in the woman’s knees.

"Ah..." Sophia let out another soft, involuntary moan as she felt the young man’s intense gaze.

She quickly averted her eyes toward the nearest wall. "It seems I can’t say the same for you. Ryan..."

From Ryan’s calm perspective, Sophia’s vulnerability was overwhelming at this exact moment. The strange and relentless system never had any mercy regarding anyone’s high status, power, or reputation.

Sophia’s long fingers, trembling with rage and strong, involuntary arousal, moved clumsily toward her own legs.

She began to slide the edges of her flawless dress down, uselessly trying to cover herself while her breathing accelerated even more.

The massive and unyielding pride of the most important woman in Lunar Veil was clashing head-on with the absolute magic of the debt system.

Even though Sophia tried to look away in the opposite direction with all her might, Ryan’s magic acted immediately.

The system forced her to turn her face forward, compelling her to lift it and look him straight in the eyes against her will.

The Guild Master’s delicate face was completely red, covered in a thin, shiny layer of sweat. She was breathing very heavily, displaying a strange mix of fury and submission that made Ryan’s heart race.

And for the first time since he met the proud and manipulative Guild Master, he noticed something very different.

Ryan clearly heard the genuine fear vibrating in her unstable tone of voice.

"Ryan... please stop this," Sophia pleaded, letting a small tear of frustration and embarrassment form in the corner of her eye.

"You should already know perfectly well that Delia and Alina are completely immune to the deity’s control," Ryan said, taking a slow step toward the wooden table.

He uncrossed his arms and looked down at her with immense superiority.

"This is for your own good. Stop resisting already."

Ryan spoke firmly, a faint smile of satisfaction playing on his lips. He remembered very well how she had tricked him and his group into extremely undesirable situations on more than one occasion.

The Guild Master had forced them to take on very dangerous missions and questionable jobs using blackmail and guild rules.

Although he didn’t see this as personal revenge, it was an ironic and poetic situation that he could enjoy in silence.

Sophia pressed her lips tightly together, noticing the subtle mockery and arrogance in the young man’s expression in front of her.

"In that case..." Sophia began to say, suddenly changing her weak and pleading tone of voice.

She tensed the muscles in her slender arms and rested the palms of her hands on the wood of the table to stabilize herself.

"If I can’t convince you to stop this with simple words... I will make you feel exactly the same as I do at every moment... Ryan."

The young man frowned immediately, very confused by the woman’s sudden and threatening change in attitude despite her obvious physical weakness.

"What do you mean by that?"

Without answering his question directly, Sophia looked up at him.

Despite having a red face and ragged breathing from the intense pleasure, she forced a very familiar expression onto her face.

Sophia formed that typical cold, calculating smile she always used whenever she wanted to trick some unwary person in the guild.

"Twin Resonance," Sophia said with absolute firmness, unleashing her own skill directly onto the young man.