Chapter 421: Epididymal Hypertension

Something was off about the succubus. She wasn't walking normally and that had nothing to do with her race. She was shuffling over towards Aejaz and occasionally partially stumbling which clued in Ares to what must have been happening here. Wherever she came from originally didn't matter because she'd been abducted and brought here against her will. She was likely shackled at the ankle and held as a prisoner for the Riddlemyd to use as a challenge for adventurers to overcome. She didn't seem too into this whole situation so she was likely being forced to do all this and not actually getting any true pleasure out of it. If she didn't comply there would almost definitely be some kind of punishment in store and not the kind Ares and Aejaz had experienced when failing a room. Still, she wasn't necessarily entirely opposed to this either as it was in line with what she'd want to do in the outside world regardless so it was a mix of both acceptance and dissatisfaction. It was impossible to tell what sort of contraptions Sevorus must have set up to whip her into obedience but it couldn't have been fun, that was for sure. As for Tom Tom, he probably didn't have the authority to free her, or release any of the experiments / captives here, so he was 'innocent' in a way... Or at least as innocent as he could be. He was an accomplice! Bad kitty! Still, the succubus didn't seem like she was heavily injured or starved or anything so he was probably making sure she was fed and decently comfortable at least which was better than nothing. It was a mixed bag of treatment but she'd definitely rather not be here if she had the choice.

If Ares moved the succubus would detect him walking through her pheromone smoke and become cautious so he resorted to using divine sense to get a closer view remotely. She was a demon but that didn't mean she was necessarily some expert cultivator who could spot a peeking divine sense, especially not one as powerful as Ares'. It was enhanced by Omniscience and pressure so it was thoroughly shrouded if he didn't want it to be discovered. The succubus seemed to have decently strong racial traits, if the effectiveness and scale of this smoke was any indication, but that didn't make her a good cultivator by default! She could siphon other people's cultivation by having her way with them but, even if she raised her cultivation base to be higher than what it would normally be, that didn't make up for the deficit in personal skill. She was definitely not a combatant, Ares could tell as such at a glance because it was incredibly obvious in the way she timidly moved around, but that wasn't where the challenge in this room lay so it didn't much matter. It was more about not falling asleep to begin with than fighting a strong cultivator. Ares was fine with letting her move closer to Aejaz because all it would take him was one quick burst of pressure, maybe an Esoteric Compression for good measure, and she would be squished like a bug. There were a few reasons he wasn't doing this immediately but the most important one currently, at least, was letting Aejaz try and overcome this on his own. Ares couldn't always be there for him so it was time to fight back! He managed well against the twisted back on the Federation, and the steppers back in the desert, so it was time to see if he could go three for three by overcoming this very literal mental hurdle!... Although he didn't too hot against the fire tank that one time... If it weren't for the fact that they required fuel to operate Ares would bring them out and make Aejaz fight them during downtime back at Oasis.

Anyway, that aside, there were other reasons Ares was doing this too. Despite the many books he read he only really learn about demons and angels after his run in with heaven when fighting for Hunter's soul. Dominus mentioned a few things here and there and Ares searched around for books on the Federation to gather whatever information he could. What better way to learn, though, than to see it first hand? With his Omniscience he would get a lot of valuable information about how similar / dissimilar demons were in terms of biological make up to the average human. Apparently some demons had very different internal structures that resulted in various key differences between them and humanoid races. Most demons had to sacrifice strength for better mana manipulation or vice versa and it wasn't common to find one with both talents, especially not at a high level. The hierarchy in hell was one determined almost entirely by strength so this variance definitely mattered! Archdemons with both strength and incredible magic were all exactly where you think they'd be in this hierarchy whereas succubi were just typically common fodder with good magic and plenty of trickery up their sleeves. Then there were demons like imps that had sharp claws and were nimble but couldn't really cast magic to save their lives. There were exceptions to these generalised statements, and you could find an evolved demon that overcame the typical limitations of their normal biological traits, but it was usually safe to assume that whatever demon you ran into would 99% of the time eb exactly what was predicted of them. Right now Ares wanted to get an idea for roughly how potent a succubus could be as it would be a good bench mark for his expectations going forward. Just the fact he could resist the smoke was already fantastic news as is and so a majority of succubi would never be able to get the drop on him via this method and knowing as such in advance was a massive boon. if he ever needed to challenge a succubus head on he would feel comfortable knowing it was entirely possible and skewed in his favour.

Last but not least, Ares wanted to check this succubus' individual talent with the pleasure pillar and compare it to Enyo's. Who'd win? A demon born into a race literally designed to be pleasure incarnate or one armored holy woman? Ares knew who his bets were on... Still, that didn't mean Enyo was better at it in every way and so Ares was actually thinking about 'keeping' this succubus. She wanted out of this Riddlemyd confinement and Enyo wanted to learn so... Pet? If Ares shoved her inside the Primordial Blade and brought her out then Enyo would get a test subject and expert in the pillar to both experiment on as well as learn from. Ares would get to challenge himself by containing more than one person in the Blade at once, as Jebben was already in there, and so it would be rather difficult but worth the effort. The more Ares did stuff like this the easier it would get and just waiting for natural improvements every time he increased his cultivation was taking too long for his liking. So, in other words, everybody won here if Ares yoinked this succubus from this Riddlemyd... Other than Tom Tom who had one less toy to throw at the adventurers in this place but he'd live.

The succubus was a unique enough existence that she was worth keeping around and it was better for her not to stay here. She could leave the sect, once Enyo was done with her, if she wanted to go or she could stay too. Ares didn't really acre what she did because having one more person around, given how many were in the sect already, really didn't make a difference. Hell she might even try and start up a brother or something and as long as it didn't become some highly dodgy place wherein shadiness and mistreatment was rife then Ares would allow it. Letting the disciples relieve stress from time to time in such a fashion wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Also, whenever Ares moved the sect throughout the universe, depending on where they ended up, the sect might wind up being isolated for long periods at a time. In such cases preventing agitation from building by offering such a service might actually just generally be a good idea. There was a brothel in Red Sun as is but it wasn't the most well developed place of all time, at least according to what Ares heard about it from the owner who he'd worked for to chase up debts on occasion, via Hans' introduction, when he was younger, so a place run by a succubus would maybe be worth investing in. Bonus points if he could find more of them in the future as it might make for good tourism...

Ares wasn't using demons for his own gain, they usually wanted to live lives like this! He was just enabling it! Succubi enjoyed sex more than most people did, it improved their cultivation, and it was like food and drink to them so they needed it or else they would get ill for periods of time and take a while to recover. In that sense, people usually felt pity for them but the succubi would always assure people they were perfectly fine with it because it really was completely natural to them. No human would ever willingly stop breathing and it was a similar deal to them so Ares was actually being helpful here by offering such a thing! He wouldn't have done it otherwise!.. Of course, all of this depended on the succubus. To be honest, after he dumped her on Enyo, he really couldn't care less what happened to her. Ares was treating her like a mid grade stardust he found on the side of the road as, once she was spent, Ares would forget he ever even picked her up. She was the first demon he ever saw, unless mad-mood Allie counted, but that was far as his interest in her went.

As for what she was up to currently, she'd just knelt down in front of Aejaz and was testing the water and making sure he was actually out for good. She'd probably tried to mess with adventurers before only for them to be luring her in and attack her hence the caution. There was probably spatial magic at play here to save her if her life was in danger, sort of like the gatling geckos from earlier, but it must still have been quite a shock for someone you thought was asleep to suddenly attack you from point blank range! If Ares tried to swat a seemingly-sleeping spider with a rolled up newspaper and it jumped the second he went for the kill he would freak out too!... He was speaking from personal experience with that one... Fortunately for the succubus, Aejaz really was out cold currently and wasn't responding. He might still wake up later but, for now at least, she was free to get started. She placed her hand over his heart and started forming a link with it as establishing this connection was supposedly necessary to start siphoning his cultivation and physical strength. This was the riskiest part of the process because it was when the victim was most likely to awaken. Funnily enough the riding that came later was oddly peaceful for the 'victim' despite how rigorous it could be. Once the link was established fully the victim's sense of touch was dulled a little so they were actually mostly numb throughout it. It was still enjoyed in dream-land but it felt more dreamlike and fleeting than it would otherwise. Rip off! Not even getting to enjoy a quickie before biting the dust was mean! It was better than nothing but give a guy a break! Or a woman, succubi really weren't fussed in that regard. The same was true of incubi too, actually. Hell they probably didn't even care about whether their partner was humanoid or not. Every hole and every pole was a goal. In a weird kinda way, their perverse determination was somewhat admirable.

Ares had seen enough! He wasn't going to let this go any further because there was really only one place left for this to go and Ares couldn't let that happen in good conscience. Plus Allie would chew his head off if he even thought about it and letting things get to this stage would be bad enough as is in her mind. Aejaz himself wouldn't be happy with the happy ending either so Ares' peeping habits were finally going to expose him for the voyeur he'd been acting like up until now. Ares readied himself to smite the succubus with pressure but he ended up holding his hand a little longer after all. Not because he wanted to throw Aejaz to the attractive wolves here but because it seemed like a certain someone was finally waking up from his nap without outside intervention. This didn't guarantee Aejaz a win just yet, succubi did have backup measures usually, but this was a good first step to overcoming this problem without aid from Ares. He could still maybe do this himself so Ares lowered his hand and started creeping up on the succubi. Yes he was moving now but thew succubi was way too preoccupied with her target waking up to notice, she wasn't a multi-tasker clearly and her cultivation base was quite low too. She was only at sensory enhancement, like Ares, so she really wasn't a great cultivator and was just sort of stumbling through any encounters with opponents as best she could. There was a hint of panic on her face while Aejaz was groggily waking up so she couldn't even maintain her calm, on the off chance a victim woke up, and correct course quickly. She was definitely not cut out for this lifestyle but that just made Ares all the more curious as to what she was doing here to begin with! Why did Sevorus need her of all the succubi out there? Surely there was a more powerful one to experiment with? Or maybe it was because he didn't value the talents of a succubi to begin with given his general disinterest in such a thing? Well only pagoda Ares knew that but real Ares could infer as such given this guy's general nature, disposition, and priorities.

Despite taking a second, the succubus did eventually get to work on putting Aejaz back to sleep by grabbing his head and directly injecting mental magic of some variety. There was a type of pleasure pillar art that put naughty images into a person's head and bogged them down into a mini comatose state until they went through each of them, drowning the victim in a lewd daydream, but it was usually less effective on someone who was aware, even if only partially, that it was happening to them. Aejaz was blinking himself awake right now and slowly shaking his head to get rid of the obnoxious hands holding him in place so he was able to see this demon and acknowledge his current situation. He was struggling to solve the issue though because his mental resilience wasn't fantastic, it was one of his major weaknesses actually, and he couldn't see Ares anywhere to copy his disintegration magic. He could delay the inevitable by stealing the memories that were being planted inside him, that action bought him some more time, but it only made the issue far worse if he wasn't able to find a solution. When the stolen memories returned the amount of images he was trying to prevent from clogging his brain would all but double at once as the succubus was not going to stop putting more in his brain just because he removed them once. Put simply, Aejaz used a desperate measure that would either maybe work or completely screw him with no in-between.

Ares could tell how this would end because Aejaz was already falling back into a slumber with a content smile on his face. He must have been enjoying the images, perv. Plus the memories he stole, containing however many mental gigabytes of sexy images, were being redownloaded into his brain so, in the end, although he tried hard, he'd lost. Ares gave him credit for not completely folding and losing without a fight but this was still not a desirable outcome and just went to show there was a lot more for him to improve upon. There were a lot of different strategies Aejaz could have used here but he failed to find any of them and that was disappointing! He could have turned invisible the first time he felt himself falling asleep and hoped the succubus never located him in the smoke (though this was unlikely it was better than doing nothing and leaving himself completely vulnerable). He could have stolen the succubus' pillar affiliation just now when he woke up and tried to go toe to toe with her in the mental realm instead of pointlessly resisting with what he had (he had good looks to utilise and might have actually succeeded in reverse charming the succubus if he went all out). He could have tried to stab her with the Nyxian Prowler and / or silently cast Spike over and over again to kill her instead of attempting to remove her hands from his head which was always going to be harder. The latter option was a race but he was likely to win it if he tried due to his physical advantage over her and her weak body. One well aimed Spike would cause her to falter massively and then he could have taken control of the situation somewhat. He also really shouldn't have stolen his own memories to delay the inevitable as he would have lasted longer had he not done it. Getting bombarded by mental magic all at once, instead of incrementally bit by bit, meant he wasn't prepared to resist it at all. Overall, there were a number of rookie mistakes that didn't need to be made and each one costed him his chance of winning. Ares wouldn't be too harsh on him under normal circumstances but he failed quite hard towards the end. He should have been able to resist a little more and Ares was admittedly surprised he conked out so quickly...

...

What is she doing? Ares kept an eye on the succubi who sort of just froze up and stopped moving. She wasn't checked out mentally or anything, she jsut seemed oddly conflicted about her task almost like she didn't want to do it anymore... She hadn't wanted to do it from the start but it's not like the process was unfamiliar to her and she wanted the food anyway so she wasn't completely opposed... But now? Now she seemed like she would rather jsut go read a book or something than do this chore. If she had to do Aejaz now she would probably fake it! Ares really didn't understand this change in vibe but he quickly realised that Aejaz' failure to resist was a quick downfall for a reason! He really would have normally lasted a bit longer but the reason he didn't was because he accelerated his own demise to win the fight! That might have sounded counterintuitive but he'd simply done what was needed to prevent death. Not just his either, Ares would have been saved by his actions too if he wasn't already completely safe. What Aejaz had done... Was steal her libido! Her near infinite and boundless, insatiable lust was removed from her just like that and transferred directly to Aejaz! He then immediately gave up any and all resistance to the lewd images because he was made extraordinarily horny by them thanks to the sheer level of excitement he stole from the succubi, forcing him to succumb to the art immediately. He was getting a taste of what it was like to have permanent urges twenty-four seven, and in this case be completely unable to do anything about it in dream land, but, on the bright side, he had saved himself! He would wake up blue balled but he was alive and that was arguably better! The succubi just really didn't wanna ride him right now and so she was confused at this odd sensation of 'peace'. 'Was this what it was like to be an angel?' That was what the look on her face was saying... She shook her head and decided to leave this place and return through the wall because staying here was pointless. Maybe if she walked far enough away from Aejaz she would get to stay like this forever! That wasn't how it worked but she was unfamiliar with his arts and simply hoped such a thing would happen. She turned around and nearly had a heart attack, however, when she noticed Ares waving at her from a few feet away with a smile like some creepy stalker.

The succubus had never seen this before. At no point in her life had she ever wrapped somebody up in the smoke successfully and not put them to sleep. Sure some people woke up but staying awake through the initial smoke application was unthinkable to her as her racial ability was considered strong even amongst here peers. Her best bet was to try and charm him the good old fashioned way. He was awake but simple charm magic actually functioned better than mental attacks when their target was fully conscious and so it was worth a shot Ares saw this coming with his Omniscience but he made no effort to stop it as we was really quite curious as to how ineffective it would be. Even if things went wrong he had a backup plan tucked away in his brain, a small clump of disintegration, and could remove the foreign magic just by lowering his guard. The disintegration cluster was contained by him at all times but if he was charmed he would stop holding it and it would then automatically flood out the charm art. A clever trick but a risky one for most other people. Ares was rightly confident in his disintegration magic but if somebody else tried this with normal magic there was a good chance it would fail. The succubus was a little confused as to why this guy was spreading his arms out wide and choosing to receive her magic directly but she'd seen desperate men like this before and wasted no time in simply casting the aptly named...

"Charm."