Chapter 1263: 20. Hard to Coax

“After this, I absolutely have to teach that guy a proper lesson!”

Once again making up her mind, temporarily suppressing the anger and irritation she could not resolve, Ariel raised her eyes and looked at the black-clothed man not far away.

“You’re the enemy this time?”

“Hmm? At a time like this, there’s actually still someone in this city with enough strength left to come over here?”

The black-clothed man, or rather, Jonas, the second-in-command of this Evil God believer squad, looked surprised. At this moment, the other members of the squad had already gone to hold back that Adventurers' Association branch president and the Eye of the Nineteenth Prophet. According to his calculations, this city should already have had nothing left except some small fry.

That mysterious person who had suddenly acted just now and saved all the ordinary people had already given him quite a headache. He had not expected another one to appear now.

“Cut the crap, just tell me whether you’re the one causing trouble and that’s enough.” Ariel tightened her grip on the Skyfire Greatsword. In her frustrated mood, she had also lost much of her patience.

“Causing trouble? No, no, no, I’m merely letting them return in glory to our Lord’s embrace and experience what true love is.”

Jonas looked Ariel up and down. When he saw that delicate and pleasing little face which, although covered in dust, still could not conceal its beauty, his eyes lit up.

But as his gaze gradually moved downward, he shook his head in disappointment.

“What do you mean by that?” Ariel clenched her silver teeth, her gaze gradually becoming dangerous."

“Don’t misunderstand. I only think that you also seem to be someone with love in your heart, and you have excellent qualifications to receive our Lord’s favor.”

Jonas shook his head and directly extended a hand toward Ariel:^

“Since that’s the case, don’t care about this tiny physical deficiency, come over to my side. Our Lord’s love is equal. They would absolutely never, because of such a tiny flaw......”

“Fuck your grandmother! Who are you calling this a flaw?”.

Before he could finish speaking, Ariel instantly erupted in fury, drew her sword, and slashed.

Running into a certain scumbag had already been enough to make her angry, but unexpectedly, she was now even being mocked by an enemy?/

Do all of you look down on me?

“Die——”_

Blazing fire illuminated the sky, and the fierce sword intent seemed capable of piercing through everything. This unexpectedly ferocious offensive caused Jonas’s expression to suddenly change. Unable to care about anything else, he pulled a fleshy tumor from inside his clothes.

The tumor throbbed like a heart, but it had already lost even the basic shape of a heart. It was completely formed from disgusting blood vessels and rotten flesh tangled together.^

And now, the fleshy tumor suddenly split open. A blood-red pupil appeared in the very center of the tumor, as though it came from some unimaginable existence. That blood-red pupil carried a strange sensation far beyond the level of ordinary human life, coldly staring at Ariel as she launched her attack.

Jonas almost instantly became visibly thinner. At the same time the fleshy tumor opened its blood-red eye, it directly drained a large amount of his blood essence, but the effect was also extremely astonishing. Ariel’s movements froze in place, as though someone had pressed a stop button."

“Eh?”

Her stopping was of course not time stopping. Instead, a layer of blood-red suddenly covered her vision. She subconsciously stopped her attacking posture and raised a hand to touch her face.^

A stream of warm blood was flowing from the corner of her eye, quickly dripping onto her tattered skirt armor and staining it crimson.

Ariel swayed. Her body was struck by an intense feeling of weakness, to the point that even the strength needed to raise the greatsword in her hand was rapidly disappearing.

“This is......a curse?”

She immediately realized the source of this power.

Just now, she had been thinking the entire time about a certain hateful blond, to the point that she had done almost no preparation or analysis for this battle, much less expected this guy to be hiding such a sinister move.

Of course, under normal circumstances, she would not have been hit so easily, but this time......

“You’re too exhausted, Ariel.”

Peles’s serious voice sounded in Ariel’s mind: “After fighting that Truth-Rank bronze golem to the death, you were already on the verge of complete exhaustion. Add in how emotionally agitated you were just now, and right now, forget fighting, even standing is something you’re only barely forcing yourself to do, isn’t it.”

Weakness and powerlessness assaulted her together. After Ariel had broken through that ruin, the reason she had hurried into the city overnight in the first place was because she wanted to get a proper rest. Who would have thought that on the way she would actually run into Muen......no, run into that hateful blond being all lovey-dovey with the evil dragon.

Her intense emotions had covered up her weakness and had even allowed her to erupt with enough strength to suppress Muen, to the point that only when she was about to fight did she realize......right now, she seemed to have very little strength left for battle.

“To actually consume this much of my blood essence, it seems I underestimated you, reckless little girl.”

Jonas panted heavily, a vicious smile on his face: “But under our Lord’s mighty power, you are nothing more than a pitiful sacrifice.”

He did not know just how weak Ariel’s current condition was. In his eyes, Ariel was in such a miserable state entirely because of the curse of the blood-red pupil, and so he no longer had any doubts or vigilance. Drawing his longsword, he walked upside down toward Ariel.

Ariel wiped away the blood that kept flowing. Drip, drip, as though counting down the approaching crisis.

“Retreat first.”

Peles advised: “If you want to leave, you can still get away. As for the enemy in front of you, let that guy......”

“That guy has his own opponent too, right.”

Ariel interrupted her teacher: “Hmph, I already said it, I won’t forgive him so easily, and I don’t need any help from him either!”

“Then......even if that guy can’t spare the time, there’s still the calamity......”

“Even less acceptable!”

Ariel bared her teeth: “Teacher, are you telling me to ask my own enemy for help?”

“......Then what do you want to do?” Peles was helpless.

“Of course I’ll just deal with him directly. It’s not like I don’t have a trump card.”

Although using that kind of trump card on such small fry seemed far too wasteful, given her current situation, it seemed this was the only path left to take.

Ariel straightened her body, quickly wiped the blood from her small face, and made herself return to her former proud appearance.

Think about it, when had she ever been this miserable?

Before she had anything to do with that man, how carefree had she been, how invincible had she been?

So now, why did she need to think so much about him?

Who was she?

She was Ariel Bugaard!

Someone who, no matter how many hardships, no matter how many setbacks she suffered, would remain fearless and keep charging forward!

She would never be held back by one little man!

“Die......”

Ariel murmured softly. The colors in her eyes rapidly faded away, replaced instead by pure darkness, pure light.

Jonas gradually approached, and she also extended her hand, about to release the Skyfire Greatsword in her grip and use the ultimate move she kept hidden at the bottom of the box.

According to the normal script, this would probably be the part where the arrogant enemy mocked her in every possible way, only for her, seemingly driven into a dead end, to kill him in return, but......

“Hold tight.”

A warm voice directly interrupted her movement.

That voice was clearly as gentle as a spring breeze, yet it surged more fiercely than a gale, directly blowing away the chaos in her eyes and restoring complete clarity.

A large hand reached over from behind, following along her arm, the back of her hand, her fingers, wrapping around her, and then together, tightening its grip on the sword hilt.

Buzz——

A familiar aura enveloped her. Even the Skyfire Greatsword sensed this aura and released a joyful hum.

She froze. In an instant, that hard shell that had only just appeared seemed as though it was about to be shattered.

“L-Let go!”

Ariel twisted her body and scolded: “I don’t need your help, I can handle it!”

“If by handle it, you mean getting yourself covered in injuries, then I don’t approve of that kind of solution.”

That voice was unusually forceful.

Ignoring her resistance, he wrapped his arms around her and swung the greatsword together with her.

Everything, all of it, was so familiar, as though it had been rehearsed countless times.

No need to exchange glances, no need for advance planning. He held her, held her hand, and swung the sword together with her, and that move was used so naturally.

“Skyfire——Unsheathed!”

Flames surged outward, sword intent tearing apart the air.

Jonas’s expression turned terrified. He had never expected a strange man to suddenly appear, embrace [N O V E L I G H T] this woman, and then the move they used together would become incomparably fierce!

He tried to resist, but the power of their combined strike had already completely exceeded the range in which he could counterattack. Before even that fleshy tumor could be used again, he was engulfed by flames and instantly turned to ash!

“Looks like what you said just now, about me being in sync with someone else, was wrong.”

Muen lightly held Ariel in his arms, brought his mouth close to her ear, and said softly: “The one who has always been most in sync with me is you.”

“......”

Ariel’s eyes immediately reddened slightly. The cold aura around her faded, and her entire body seemed about to soften again.

But she still pushed away this guy who was obviously saying nice things to coax her.

She would never be fooled that easily!

Did he really think a few nice words would be enough to send her away?

Was she that easy to coax?

“You, weren’t you fighting the enemy over there?”

“No matter who I’m fighting, it can’t stop me from coming to help you.”

Although he had been pushed away, the hand holding that little hand still did not let go. Muen pointed into the distance and smiled:

“I temporarily beat him into serious injury. I felt something was wrong on your side, so I rushed over without stopping to help you.”

“......”

Ariel raised her hand and looked over. In the distance, another black-clothed man was clutching his abdomen with a bewildered expression.

It seemed that even now he still had not realized that the punch had directly pierced through his abdomen and created a huge hole there, so he was still fumbling around, trying to find where his stomach had gone.

Looking at it that way, it had indeed been a very rushed confrontation.

Ariel could almost imagine Muen hurriedly smashing a punch into him without even looking at the result, then directly rushing over here, just because he had sensed that she......

“No!”

Ariel reacted: “Don’t you usually trust me the most? You should know that I’d still be the one to win. You deliberately took advantage of me being injured so you could say nice things and fool me! Y-You think this means I’ll forgive you?”

She had already said it, she absolutely would not be shaken by this little bit of sweet talk.

Right now, her stomach was filled with the equivalent of a full one hundred panini cakes’ worth of anger. She, the great Ariel Bugaard, had already decided to punish this guy severely, so how could she possibly because of these two nice sentences......

“I didn’t say anything nice.”

Muen tightened his grip on Ariel’s hand and smiled: “I’m not coaxing you either. I’m only using my actions to express what’s in my heart.”

“......”

The breeze swept over once again, lifting Ariel’s bangs. Beneath her swaying strands of hair, her eyes, in that instant......became incomparably bright.

“Scum......scumbag.”

Ariel bit her lip. She clearly had so many things she wanted to curse him with, yet in the end, these were the only two words she managed to say.

“I’m a scumbag......but I’m also a scumbag who is devoted wholeheartedly to you.” Muen lowered his head, his azure eyes meeting her bright gaze: “Believe me, I absolutely won’t deceive you. About what happened just now, I will definitely give you an explanation.”

“......R-Really?”

“I already said, I won’t lie to you.”

“Muen......my dear Muen.”

Hearing this answer, Ariel finally could no longer resist the surging love in her heart. She stopped thinking about so much. What calamity, what attack, what cuckolding or rumors, at this moment, she only wanted to follow the most instinctive action deep within her heart.

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him.

“Mm......”

Lips and lips gently touched.

In an instant, Muen felt that long-lost, wonderful, electric-shock-like sensation.

Ariel, who had gone far too long without being nourished by sweet dew, was extremely proactive, as though she intended to apply the punishment she had decided on earlier in this particular way, her offensive extremely fierce.

Muen was also unusually obedient toward her, “retreating step by step” beneath her offensive.

......Wonderful.

Muen let out a long breath of relief in his heart. That heavy stone had finally fallen.

Thank heavens, in the end it was not the worst possible cleaver ending.

But honestly, it was lucky that the one he had run into this time was Ariel, the easiest one to deal with.

If this catastrophic situation had involved any of the others, he really would not have known what to do.

Maybe he really would have had to take a few cleaver strikes.

Fortunately, with the assist of a certain unnamed enthusiastic member of the public, things on Ariel’s side could already be considered temporarily settled. Next......

“Hmm? Why does it suddenly feel a little cold.”

The kiss ended.

Ariel’s face was already like a delicate flower, flushed completely red.

Normally speaking, this should have been an incomparably stirring sight.

But for some reason, Muen inexplicably felt a trace of coldness.

And so, instinctively, he looked in the direction that cold sensation was coming from......

And then.

He met the gaze of a gigantic golden pupil.