Lewd System: Every Scream and Moan is EXP

Chapter 374: Chapter 374: Four Fronts and a Pet Leviathan

Jax stood at the glass for several long minutes, turning the riddle of the attack over and over in his head while others crowded in beside him to look.

The sky outside hung wrapped in dark fog, thick enough to swallow the moonlight whole and leave the night blind.

Far off in the distance, he could pick out the shapes of enormous beasts, and the buildings folding to rubble beneath them as they pressed forward.

But his mind hadn’t let go of Loki’s move. ‘What are you thinking, Loki? What is it you actually want from me?’

He kept circling back to her words, that line about taking her sweet time to lock in a guaranteed win. She’d been quietly stacking this army the whole while, and even knowing that, none of it added up.

She’d gone to all this trouble and dragged herself into the spotlight on purpose, when every story he’d ever heard from Echidna swore that celestials worked from the shadows and never once let themselves be seen.

He’d assumed she would scheme behind his back. Play it as filthy as the game allowed. He’d accounted for every shade of that. What was unfolding now had never made it onto his list.

And the worst riddle of all, the one chewing through his skull, was that moment she’d raised her finger at him when asked what she wanted, then slowly swung it out across the entire hall.

‘If she wanted me dead,’ Jax thought, ‘she could have just named me out loud. The whole hall would have thrown me at her feet in a heartbeat to dodge a war that belongs to me and not to them.’

‘Stop pouring your time into her scheming,’ Echidna cut in. ‘I told you from the very start, she isn’t an opponent you get to play head games with. So do yourself a favor and forget you even own a brain. Because as long as you’ve got one, she gets precisely what she wants. Breaking you. Or muddling you into a confused little mess, exactly like she’s doing right now. Drop all of it and march east. I can taste a celestial aura coming from that way. And you needn’t worry about a single thing, so long as I’m here at your side.’

“Yeah,” Jax shot back. “It’s the ‘I’m on your side’ part that’s got me worried more than this war”

And so, while Jax and Echidna slid neatly into an argument over the precise tally of times she’d actually been useful versus the times she’d been dead weight, the rest of the hall was busy screaming in terror or quietly surrendering every last hope of seeing morning.

They were all staring the same direction Jax had been. West. The side where the nearest enemy line sat closest of all.

“That’s…” one man breathed, naming the beast. “That’s the king of the seas… Levi… Leviathan.”

“No, no, it can’t be,” another said, voice shaking. “That creature… what in the world is it doing here?”

A noble, or to be precise, the leader of a hidden assassin group, watched it with a knowing little smile. “If that thing is here, it means the Nation of Thalassara has thrown in. And look closer, you’ll spot a tiny mosquito perched up on the Leviathan’s head. I’d put good coin on that being the king of the sea elves himself.”

The panic rolled from one end of the hall to the other. Some sobbed. Some dropped to their knees and begged for a miracle. Not one of them understood what was happening, every soul cursing themselves for showing up to a simple birthday party, and asking the heavens why every creature out of legend had chosen tonight to crawl into the light.

And watching that fear curdle and spread through his hall, Claude finally spoke.

“Why is it I’m smelling fear in my air? Why are we afraid? Of whom, exactly, are we afraid? Don’t tell me it’s over these fools out there. The ones who’ll learn soon enough that they knocked on the wrong door. That they knocked, in fact, on their own demise.”

His gaze swept the room, slow and entirely unbothered. “You stand at that window and let your own imagination do the enemy’s labor for him, crushing your courage so he won’t have to. You should have looked through the other window. The one that faces inward. Here, into this hall, at the glorious stories every soul gathered under this roof carries on their back. Most of us have already walked through a night far darker than this one. That is the very reason we stand here, at the summit of all power.”

“And if it is death you fear, then call up the faces of the ones who came before you. The ones who reached into the chest of Death itself with their bare hands and tore out a title to lay at your feet. One that will feed your bloodline for generations.”

His voice hardened to iron. “If you will not stand for yourselves, then stand for them. For the ones who gave up everything they had, for you, for this world. Stand so you may hold your head high. So the story of your name carries down to every child born after you. Stand with me in this war, not to crawl out of it alive, but to carve your name into the hall of fame.”

“I will not lie to you, and I will not dress it up gently. There will be losses tonight. Perhaps it is you. Perhaps it is me. I cannot say.”

A cold, flat smile crossed his face. “But this much I can. When tomorrow’s first light comes crawling across this land, it will settle upon their ashes, and it will carry a message far larger than them. To the rest of the world. To every shadow and hidden corner that ever hungered to swallow our world whole. That yes, we may be the worse monsters. We may turn our blades on one another in the chase for power. But the moment the dark comes creeping in, it will always, always find us standing shoulder to shoulder, holding up a light it has no hope of putting out.”

“You all know me. I am nothing but a merchant, the sort who can tell risk from certainty with a single glance. And this battle ahead is no risk at all. It is a confirmed victory. Because there exists no force on this planet fit to rival the monsters standing in this very room. Name me one soul who could defeat the professors gathered here. Name me one who could lay so much as a scratch on Archmage Rashida and her people from the mage tower. Name me anyone, in all of history, who ever walked away the winner against my Silver Vanguard. I know every single name in this hall, from a hidden assassin leader to the head of every clan. And that, for me, is more than enough to see a clean and certain victory.”

The fear in the room had not vanished. But it had changed its shape. Hardened. Found something solid to wrap its hands around.

And into that hardening silence stepped Lysandra.

The headmistress moved to the center of the hall with the unhurried weight of a woman the whole world goes quiet for. She let her gaze travel the room once, slow and deliberate, before she opened her mouth.

“He’s right. There’s no need for panic. But confidence alone wins nothing. To make Lord Claude’s words come true, we’ll need every able hand in this room.”

“And on that note, I can see it written plain on a few of your faces. The thought that this isn’t your war. That you came for a pleasant evening, and the bloodshed outside is somebody else’s problem to bleed for. I understand the temptation.”

Her tone stayed warm and pleasant. “So allow me to make a suggestion, for them. The ones with far too much pride to take an order, and far too little spine to face the dark. The lords who would sooner die than be seen sweating. By all means, hide in this central mansion. Right alongside the weak who can’t so much as lift a blade, tucked safely under this lovely roof with the children, the elders, the pregnant women, and the maids. And when the whole thing is finished, we’ll be sure to send someone to inform you it’s safe to crawl back out of your little holes.”

The words landed soft and sweet, and all across the hall, men hissed through their teeth and fists clenched white, every one of them catching the insult, and the lifelong shame, buried neatly beneath that gentle suggestion.

“Very well.” Lysandra didn’t give them time to stew. “Without wasting another breath, I will be taking command of our forces. We are surrounded on all four sides, so we will answer on all four.”

She raised a finger toward Albert. “The west flank carries the heaviest and the closest push, so it falls to the Silver Vanguard. Knight Commander Albert, I leave that line in your hands, and your remaining members’.”

Albert had barely begun to nod when Rora yanked him backward by the collar, her face pressed near the glass and lit up like a child laying eyes on a theme park for the very first time. “Albert. Albert, look. That’s a real, actual Leviathan out there. Isn’t that the coolest thing you’ve ever seen? I wanna pet him.”

Albert, mortified in front of the entire hall, leaned in and hissed low in her ear. “If you shut your mouth right now, I’ll take you out there myself.”

“Oh, really—” Rora started to shout, then clapped her own hand over her mouth, remembering exactly the conditions of Albert.

Albert’s mind sagged under the weight of it. ‘Why, of all the people on this continent, am I stuck with her again? And why the west, of all the directions, the one the Leviathan and every other flashy race is marching straight out of? What in the hells do I do if this madwoman starts cutting down our own comrades for daring to bruise one of her precious pets?’

Lysandra carried on regardless. “The east falls to Archmage Rashida and her mage tower, with the support of the people gathered here from your spires. Whatever’s left over, I’ll fill myself, with volunteers.”

“The south, I will hold myself. With the professors, and with whichever students would rather die on their feet than hide on their knees.”

“And the north belongs to all the rest of you, every faction that came before tonight. Every great household. Every mercenary band, every assassin guild, every merchant group. Every clan, march north. Not as rivals. Not nursing some ancient grudge against the man beside you. But as one single force, fixed on one thing only. Refusing to let this world crumble to dust under our watch.”

-x-X-x-

[A/N: Phillip_Beavers and Ugglymug thank you for the golden tickets 🙏🔥

And Ugglymug bro I genuinely haven’t seen this many golden tickets spam in a while, thank you so much for that 😭❤️🔥]