"Eh?"
Erina's voice cracked again. Her breath caught like she'd swallowed fire.
The room spun in her eyes.
"B… burn Astrea?"
Her words trembled out, weak and pale, like they didn't want to exist.
Leonhardt didn't answer. Not right away. He tilted his head, watching her with that sa calm scrutiny he gave corpses and contracts.
She looked like neither. Not yet.
"Woman," he said, slow and level. "Why do you look so pale and upset?"
Erina opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again, struggling to catch a thought that wouldn't hold still.
"I… You can't just say that," Erina whispered. "That's a city. A place where people… live."
His eyes narrowed.
"And?"
He let the pause stretch, then added, quieter:
"What about the goblins?"
Erina blinked.
"What...?"
"Do they not live?" he asked. "Do they not have hos? Culture? Children? What makes their lives lesser than the ones you nursed in your temples?"
"I... I didn't say that," she murmured.
"No," Leonhardt said, "you didn't. But your silence is louder than fire."
Her heart skipped. Leon's tone was cold. Not cruel—but absent, as if the lives she ntioned were grains of salt he'd pour into his wine if it improved the taste.
"I've walked every street of Astrea," she said, voice tight. "Helped nd wounds there. Prayed in their churches. Saved children from plague with my own hands. You want to burn it?"
Leonhardt shifted, taking a slow step closer.
The air seed to tighten. Leon's presence folded over her like a weighted blanket made of sin and authority.
"I do," he said.
She stared at him like she didn't know who he was anymore.
But she did. That was the worst part.
"Leon…"
Her na for him ca out breathy, half-pleading, half-lost. Her throat clenched against sothing thick and heavy in the air.
A heat. A scent. A pressure that coiled between Erina's legs and behind her heart. It made her want to kneel and scream at the sa ti.
"I thought you were changing it," she said. "The city. I thought you were… helping."
He leaned in, just a little. His voice dropped low.
"I am."
Vyx stirred beside him, still clinging to his elbow, tilting her head with curiosity. Her wide pink eyes blinked slowly.
"Why's the golden one shaking, Master?" she asked sweetly. "Is she going to molt?"
Leonhardt didn't look away from Erina.
"Strip your illusions," he said.
Erina's lips parted. "What?"
He wasn't talking to her. His words were low, spoken into the air as if to himself, or sothing just beyond the veil of thought.
The pressure around him pulsed.
His Spirit stat flared—not violently, but insistently like invisible fingers pressing into her chest, down her spine, into her thighs. Erina gasped, stumbling back a step.
"I—I don't understand," she whispered.
Leonhardt stepped forward again. Slowly. One bootfall at a ti.
"The city will burn," he said. "Not today. Not tomorrow. But it will. Because rot has roots. And I will not let them take deeper hold in my world."
Erina clutched her robes. Her skin felt too tight, her thoughts scrambled. She tried to look away from him, but her eyes kept returning.
"Y-you can't just kill everyone!"
"I won't have to," he said. "By the ti it burns, they'll have made their choice. And if they cling to the rot, then fire is rcy."
Her legs shook. Her thighs clenched.
He was speaking madness. No—he was speaking truth in a voice so clear it made Erina's bones ache. Her faith, her oaths, all of it trembled under the weight of his calm conviction.
"You… you sound like a devil," she said, barely audible.
His eyes sharpened.
In one swift motion, Leonhardt closed the gap. His hand gripped her throat—not choking, but firm—as he pressed her back against the cold black iron wall. Her body left the ground, robes parting under his advancing fra.
"I am a devil, woman."
His voice rasped beside her ear, hot, unwavering. His other hand slid with terrifying precision along the inside of her thigh, up through the folds of cloth like he was claiming land.
"I am a man who must complete his goals, or face complete ruin."
Her breath hitched, caught between fear and a trembling pulse of arousal that made her thighs twitch.
"What are you?" he growled. "Why do you speak down to , human...?"
His fingers flexed against her inner thigh.
"The only reason you breathe is because I lust for your flesh."
A helpless sound escaped her lips. Her hips arched, her eyes wide and wet, glowing with confusion and need.
And his voice—his voice wrapped around her like a collar:
"Don't mistake rcy for weakness. Not from ."
Leonhardt's fingers lingered a second longer.
Then he let her drop.
Erina stumbled to her knees. Her thighs trembled, soaked with sha she couldn't explain. The air tasted thick. Her lips parted, but no words ca.
Leonhardt looked down at her.
"Even now your body agrees with ," he said calmly. "You're drenched. Can you feel it, priestess?"
Erina's hands clutched at her skirt. Her face burned. Her body pulsed. Her mind scread.
"Stop… I can't…"
"Oh, you can," he murmured. "You just hate that it feels good."
She looked up at him, guilt twisting behind her eyes—only to freeze.
He was hard.
The thick outline pressed against his trousers, shalessly outlined by the tension between them. A throbbing, inhuman bulge that pushed past human modesty. Erina's eyes widened, wet and filled with tears.
Leonhardt's smirk was small, cruel.
"See what you do to , little priest?"
He stepped closer again, letting the shadow of his arousal hover near her face. He didn't touch her. He didn't need to.
"You bathe in sha like holy water. Is this the weight of your prayers?"
"I don't…" she whimpered. "I'm not… like them…"
"You are," he said. "You're mine. You've just forgotten it."
A pause. Then a quiet sound.
"Mnn…" Vyx blinked again, still latched to his elbow. "She's steaming, Master."
Leonhardt chuckled, eyes flicking to the small demon.
"She's just waking up."
He turned away from Erina, his arousal still plainly visible, but his mood back to cool detachnt.
"She'll either break properly… or burn with the rest."
Leonhardt didn't hate Erina, but he knew that if she couldn't fix her mind now, everything would crumble, and he wouldn't be able to keep her beside him. His emotions upon fusing with the incubus core changed many things.
Desire, arousal, lust and importance.
The won close to him were like delicate ribbons he didn't wish to see tarnished.
But if they got in his way, he would be the first to burn them to cinders.
He turned back to Erina.
But this ti, his voice softened—just slightly.
"You want to save them, don't you?"
Erina flinched, eyes still wide.
"You and my Crimson Hawks… You believe in redemption. rcy. All of that."
She nodded slowly. Swallowed.
"Then do it," he said. "Make them understand. Warn them. If the city cleanses itself, I won't have to."
She blinked, unsure if she'd heard right.
"You an… you'd spare them?"
"I an I won't stop you," he said. "Not yet. If you want to try saving them, then save them. Show it's worth the risk."
His gaze lowered, just briefly, to the wet cling of her inner thighs. Then back to her eyes.
"But if they spit in your rcy, I'll make you watch them burn."
Erina sat there, breath shallow, legs curled beneath her like a sinner before the altar.
He offered her a chance. Not forgiveness, not peace—but a path carved in thorns she could walk if she dared.
"I will," she whispered. "I'll try."
Leonhardt's expression didn't shift. But sothing flickered behind his eyes. Not approval. Not affection. Amusent, maybe. Hunger.
He extended a hand to her—calloused, stained, rough with the command of death and life.
She took it.
He pulled her to her feet. Held her there, eyes locked to hers.
"You have until the bells stop ringing," he said. "Then I will act."
Erina didn't know what that ant. But she nodded.
And just before he turned away, she rose on trembling toes… and kissed his cheek.
His head tilted.
Her lips lingered—then moved. Slowly. Uncertainly. Then deeper. Her mouth parted over his skin, plush and trembling, brushing the corner of his mouth instead of his cheek. A wet sound kissed the tension between them.
Erina's hands trembled at her sides. Her tongue barely grazed the edge of his mouth, and she felt it—that hunger beneath his skin.
Heat pulsed between her thighs again. Her chest ached from how tight it had got.
Leonhardt didn't move. Didn't flinch.
He let her taste him.
And only when she realised just how much she'd leaned into him… did she pull back.
Blushing deep, her mouth parted as if surprised by herself.
Just as she began to pull back, Leonhardt moved.
His hand slid around the nape of her neck, not rough, but inescapable. And he kissed her.
Not gently. Not cruelly.
His mouth claid hers with slow, crushing pressure—wet, hot, and deep. His tongue pushed past her lips like it belonged there. Her eyes fluttered wide, then half-lidded as a moan escaped her throat. Her knees nearly gave out again.
The taste of him was dark, like smoke and iron and sothing older. She couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. She didn't want to.
By the ti he pulled away, her lips were red and glistening, her breath ragged.
Then she pulled back, blushing deep, mouth parted as if surprised by herself.
Leonhardt's eyes t hers.
A slow smirk curled across his face.
"I'll make a fine devil of you yet."
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