Drip-Fed

“Alrighty, let’s start with this… Apexus, get over here!” Reysha slipped off the couch and pointed at the seat opposite of where she now knelt. Then, she put her elbow on the table.

The challenge was clear. Apexus moved into the position. “I might hurt you,” he warned. “I do not have a grasp on this strength yet.”

“I like it when you hurt me a little bit.” Reysha licked her lips, the blue of her eyes standing out that much stronger against the black of her sclera and the dark, warpaint-like stripes around her eyes. “Don’t hold back, big guy.”

Reysha’s hand virtually disappeared inside Apexus’ paw. In any regular situation, concerned onlookers would have stepped in already. The biceps of the humanoid chimera was practically the width of Reysha’s waist. All the same, the redhead grinned wildly. All the same, the two others watched in silence.

“Aclysia, if you would.” Apexus requested. He put his other arm behind his back. Reysha did not.

“Go,” the metal fairy said.

“Oh, Hellroots, fuck!” Reysha immediately began to tilt with her arm. The pressure of his brawn was like a waterfall hammering on her head and it only got more intense with each second. Apexus was holding back, at least initially, ramping up the pressure gradually.

The Rogue braced her knee against the table, then grabbed the edge of the furniture. “Uhm, is she allowed to do that?” Korith asked.

“No, but that is hardly the point,” Aclysia responded.

“Yeah, squishy… read… the room…!” Reysha managed to joke, all while barely holding her position.

Apexus was as stoic as ever, his features unmoving. Reysha’s muscles tensed against him. He had been stronger than her before, a simple reality of their Classes, but she had never been weak. That arm, especially, could and did offer him immense resistance during past encounters.

Pulling her last trump card, Reysha let the demon blood surge. Black veins spread beneath the skin. They bulged unnaturally. The skin turned from chocolate brown to a greyish black. Her teeth were clenched, her expression feral. She managed to press Apexus back a bit.

And a bit was where it stayed.

Accumulated muscle fatigue took its toll. The back of her hand painfully smacked on the hardwood of the tabletop. “Fuck!” Reysha shouted, a mixture of frustration and arousal. The latter won and she jumped over the table. Despite what he had just demonstrated, the Monk was toppled over by the redhead. “Make it hard!” she demanded.

Not three words that usually worked on men, but Apexus was no usual man. His manhood surged to full hardness rapidly, the redhead grinding against him impatiently the entire time. Then, she rode him, hard, fast, and needful.

It was all over in just two minutes. Some engagements were so passionate that lasting any longer was just unrealistic.

“Whew… yeah, I feel way better now.” Reysha rose up, her exposed cunt oozing fresh seed.

“Well, I am horny now!” Korith complained.

“Nothing stoppin’ ya from jumping on next.”

“I am stopping her,” Aclysia intervened.

“I wouldn’t have done it anyway!” the kobold insisted. “It’s n-not the time! At least wait until after we finished talking.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry.” Reysha grabbed a towel from one of the nearby shelves and tossed it onto the couch before she sat down.

‘At least she remembers my lesson on difficult stains,’ Aclysia thought, then resumed the conversation. “Have you verified that he is stronger?”

“WAY stronger than before.” Reysha circled the shoulder. Despite the demonic regeneration, she could still feel the strain. “Not that I’m any good at estimating this stuff, but I would say 10 levels up, maybe 15?”

“That would put him in range for his Common Art,” Aclysia remarked.

That alone was an exciting prospect for the party. The Common Art was a major spike in an adventurer’s prowess. Often, a Common Art was more utility than a direct increase in power. Turlesh had been able to track them across Leaves. Apotho’s Common Art was his ability to draw summoning circles that could even command divine attention. Mai had been able to shapeshift in a limit capacity.

Every adventurer could only learn one Common Art and it prepared their bodies for the greater powers unleashed in the second half of Levels. Pushing through the midway point was what truly separated the kind of adventurer that could be found commonly enough from those that were produced in the low dozens across an entire Branch of the Omniverse.

“Let us assume it is 10 Levels, ascending him to around 45,” Aclysia continued, letting caution reign. “If this is our worst-case scenario, then this boon is still so massive that we ought to take the risks associated in staying here.”

“Yeah, I don’t think we want to spend the next year or so grinding dungeons to catch up to the big guy.”

“Would be super awkward,” Korith agreed. “We’d have to do it without him, we’d forget all of our teamwork…”

“Indeed,” Aclysia remarked. “Further, even if we fled now, assuming that Jolene can send someone to this location, we would only gain a few weeks of a head start at most. I deem it better we angle to give ourselves the chance to resist an attack than to avoid it entirely.”

Everyone around the table nodded. “Prey sneaks through marked territory. Apex predators grow to stand proud in plain sight,” the Monk declared.

“That was a pretty normal Apexus-ism,” Reysha remarked with some disappointment. “Got anything more unorthodox in there?”

“The ivy crawls on bark, but the tree stands tall alone.”

“Yeah, that’s the stuff!” the redhead laughed.

Apexus showed a short smirk in response to her amusement, then returned to his stoic gaze. “I believe I can create the potion to allow you to absorb the energies in the same way. Each of you will need a unique one. Our bodies are so different.” He looked at Aclysia. “Yours will be easiest, I believe.”

“I already am a being of the Omniverse’s energy,” the angel agreed with a nod.

“Then yours will make for a good bridge,” Apexus said to Reysha.

“Noir and all that, I get it.”

“Finally, yours will be the most complicated.”

“Yay, regular sapient being drawbacks!” Korith spoke with fake enthusiasm.

“That’s what ya get for being in a party full of freaks.”

“The… the only real freak here is you, you nympho!” Korith shot back.

“Ouch! How dare ya! The big guy played along immediately.” Accusatorially, the redhead pointed at the Monk, who had the decency to look away, feigning shame. “Ya think I can topple and ride a guy that size without him letting me? He totally thrust up as well!”

“You are corrupting my darling with your constant needfulness,” Aclysia asserted.

“Oh! Master! Yes! Spank me! Stuff all my holes! I exist to be filled by you!” The loud, wanton cries of the redhead were immediately followed by a sarcastic drawl. “That’s you, every night, ya little freak.”

The cheeks of the pale, pointy-eared woman took on a pronounced red tone. She cleared her throat. “Be that as it may,” she deflected. “We have our agreement to stay and proceed with the empowering.”

“Do we need one Black Root each?” Korith asked. “And, uh… we probably need to find a solution to the backwards catapulting thing, yeah?”

“For me, yeah.” The tiger girl gestured at herself. “Unlike the rest of you, I don’t have bullshit regeneration.”

Korith protested, “I don’t have that either!”

“You have an armour that does it.”

“Oh… oh yeah, fair point.”

“So, at least for me, I’d appreciate a big cushion or something.”

“We will find a solution.” Apexus got up and grabbed his pants, putting them back on. “I will inform Bulubu of our decision. Then, I will hunt. Then… we will continue to cleanse this world.”