Lewd System: Every Scream and Moan is EXP

Chapter 315: Chapter 315 : A Mirror Doesn’t Choose What It Reflects

Jax finally turned around to face her. His eyes were back to carrying nothing. Emotionless. Flat.

"I won’t judge you for doing whatever it takes to be the hero of your own story. Just never forget that you are barely surviving in mine."

He took a step closer. "And you will keep surviving as long as you direct everything at me. Not at the people around me."

His tone didn’t waver. "If you are waiting for an apology from me, then forget about it. Because I know I made no mistake."

He held her gaze. "Plot your revenge against me all you want. But let me be perfectly clear. If you ever become a threat to the peaceful dream I am building, I will erase you from this world without a second thought."

Then his voice dropped into something colder. "And do not forget, Delphine. Every breath currently filling your lungs is borrowed. I pulled you out of the grave in that forest. You are only alive because I allowed it. So if I have to cut you down, heaven will not count it as a sin on my soul. I would simply be taking back a life that already belongs to me."

He walked past her toward the stairs and said without turning. "If my warning still hasn’t pierced that stubborn head of yours, I highly suggest you consult your mother. Because I can assure you, even a woman as wicked as the one you are trying so desperately to protect has already learned better than to stand in my way."

Delphine didn’t know what to do. Questions were piling up inside her head faster than she could process. Was he telling the truth about her mother? Because that would explain why he was still alive. Why her mother let him walk away.

But apart from that, other questions were driving her mad. Why was he opening up to her of all people?

And among every serious, critical question she could have asked, the one that left her mouth was the stupidest. "Where are you going this late? Don’t you need to sleep?"

Jax picked up his coat and slung it over his back. "As I told you, my plate is full. I can’t afford the luxury of closing my eyes when my people are out there worried sick and waiting for my return. Don’t concern yourself with my health. I mastered the art of skipping sleep a long time ago."

Delphine spoke with a low and confused voice. "I don’t get you at all. It is like seeing two completely different people standing in front of me."

Jax stopped mid-step on the stairs. He didn’t turn around. Just spoke over his shoulder.

"I am not two different people, Delphine. I am simply a mirror. If you bring me a suffering child asking for a safe haven, you will meet an absolute shelter. But if you bring a blade to my doorstep, you will meet the monster. Just like your mother did."

A pause.

"I am exactly whatever this world forces me to be. Pretty simple, isn’t it?"

He continued down the steps. "If I had placed you in the category of my enemies, we wouldn’t be standing here talking. I don’t waste my breath on the dead."

His voice carried the weight of someone who had studied every person he had ever met. "I have spent my entire life reading the depths of people. And about your case, you tried to wrap yourself in hatred. You let your pride convince you that you could take an innocent life just to get back at me."

He glanced back at her one final time. "But a true killer’s hand doesn’t shake, Delphine. Your ego wrote a check that your soul refused to cash. Your humanity won tonight. And because it did, I decided to teach you rather than destroy you."

And then he was gone.

Delphine stood there completely baffled. ’What is wrong with this guy?’

Then a picture flashed in her mind. Him catching her mid-fall. His arm wrapped around her. His hand sealing her lips shut with his face millimeters from hers. The warmth of his chest against her—

She blushed and shook her head violently. ’No. What is wrong with me?’

She yanked the dagger from her belt and hurled it off the inn’s railing into the darkness below. Then started walking back to her room. That’s when she noticed a black cat sitting on the windowsill. Staring directly at her with unblinking eyes.

Meanwhile from inside her own room, Athanasia was watching everything that had just happened. Through the cat’s eyes.

—x—X—x—

Jax walked through the silent streets of the capital. The city was asleep but his mind was running at full speed.

He finally came to a stop when he spotted a man sitting on a bench outside a library. The man spoke without standing.

"They are inside. But there seems to be a constant unusual suffocating mana energy leaking from the place from time to time. Master, this place seems to be dangerous. And the man you told me to follow wasn’t human either. He is constantly shape-shifting to avoid suspicion. Along with four more of his comrades."

Jax nodded with satisfaction. "Good work, Bruise Lee. You did a great job. Now rest."

Earlier while roaming the capital, Jax had felt something off about one particular person in the crowd. Shady. Mysterious. His instincts screamed to keep a watch on the man. So he had deployed Bruise Lee to shadow him.

Now Jax sneaked into the library himself. Climbed the roof. Slipped through an upper window. And the moment his feet touched the floor inside, the first thing he heard was a scream.

He followed the voice deeper into the building. Down corridors that shouldn’t exist in a library. Until he found them. Two hooded men performing a dark ritual on a child suspended in the air. A burning spellbind was seared onto her back. Her body was convulsing.

She was in tremendous pain. And her screams were the only witness.

Jax clenched his fist. Every instinct in his body was ready to destroy this entire place and everyone inside it.

But that’s when Echidna, who had been silent for hours, finally spoke. And her voice carried something he hadn’t heard from her before. Pain.

"Don’t do anything, Jax. Your actions can change your own present."

Jax hissed internally. "How many times do I have to tell you to not meddle with my affairs?"

Echidna’s voice trembled. "What if that child doesn’t need your help?"

Jax froze mid-step. "What do you mean?"

"Because if you interfere, I will be erased from existence." Her words came out cracked. Barely holding together. "The suffering this girl is going through right now is what will draw Mother to her place. And Mother’s arrival is what frees me from all of that pain."

The realization hit Jax like a wall he didn’t see coming. The girl floating in front of him, the child being tortured by those hooded men, was Echidna. The same girl whose soul was currently living inside his body. She had told him before about being experimented on. About being tortured for her powers until a being came and saved her.

He was looking at that exact moment.