Chapter 158
Chapter 158
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 158
Chapter Title: Red Cliff (2)
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The Ash Witch, Della Redcliff, had loved shiny things ever since she was a child.
Rings intricately crafted with dazzling jewels, glasswork crafts, brooches adorned with elaborate patterns.
She especially adored luxurious items that gleamed brilliantly under soft light, flaunting their beauty all the more.
There was no particular reason.
Like a crow gathering shiny trinkets to decorate its nest, Della had simply hoarded all sorts of objects in her chambers from her apprentice witch days onward.
Whenever something caught her eye, she made sure to claim it.
She coveted the previous generation's stigma above all else.
The Self-Generating Magic accumulated in the Redcliff line over countless generations, along with the barony title granted upon inheritance—she wanted it desperately.
She studied, researched, and trained relentlessly.
She cut in half a curriculum expected to take at least twenty years and proudly claimed the stigma.
After becoming a witch, she lusted after every artifact and ornament in Gehenna.
Della gathered them by any means necessary.
For items their owners refused to sell, she offered three or four times the price.
If they still wouldn't part with them despite the premium, she applied pressure from outside or within, forging hierarchies that left them no choice but to sell.
In the end, shortly after ascending to witchhood, it all fell into Della's hands.
The grandest, most magnificent mansion in Ars Magna Town.
An ancient grimoire of which not a single manuscript copy existed.
A cursed diamond auctioned at the Red Roof Salon.
The finest elixir, where a single drop on the tongue induced dizzying ecstasy.
The fresh, untouched flesh of pretty, cute young witches, and more.
Whatever she desired, it never took long.
Della Redcliff was a chosen baroness among countless witches, a great witch of the 20th hierarchy, after all.
Anything Della wanted soon tumbled into her grasp.
'Boring.'
Yet those possessions quickly lost their luster.
The pounding thrill of first craving, lusting, indulging, obsessing, pursuing—it was soon buried under the dust of ennui.
The initial flutter, excitement, passion, ecstasy, fulfillment—all faded into ancient memories.
This signified the loss of value.
How could something that stirred no thrill in her chest possibly be precious?
And so Della turned her gaze to the mortal world.
Even if she'd grown weary of most things in Gehenna, surely the wider world—the mundane realm overflowing with base pleasures and entertainments—could quench her thirst.
The first few years were delightful.
She crushed clueless exiles, hunted merits, assembled homunculi.
She crossed vast oceans aboard colossal cruisers or drowned in debauchery amid the casino-packed cities of the desert.
Gadgets of civilizations she'd never heard or seen of filled her ravenous hunger with false satiety, if only for a time.
Yes, 'for a time.'
'This is boring too.'
It was déjà vu.
In less than a decade, Della's thirst and hunger reared their heads once more.
By then, she'd resigned herself to it.
Her boredom and dreary days were some innate, primal affliction.
She figured she'd never fill the void for eternity.
Until she encountered a witch from some unknown Eastern splinter state she'd never even heard of.
'This is my original hunting ground!'
'So? I'm claiming it from now on.'
'No... Are you insane? Think being a baron makes you invincible?'
'How reckless... Don't witches settle things with magic?'
She crushed the brazen witch with raw power.
It wasn't difficult at all.
The fool charging in wildly without knowing her place was merely 17th hierarchy.
Yet Della felt an instinctive pull.
A slender, pitiable face, and a spirit unbent even in defeat.
Dark green hair streaked here and there with bright turquoise strands.
But what captivated her most were the eyes.
Those pale blue irises, tinged with jade, seemed more alluring and valuable than any gem in Della's possession.
Della sensed the arrow of her chronic impulses now aimed squarely at Sharon.
She launched an investigation immediately.
Sharon Evergreen.
A debt-saddled witch exiled from Gehenna after causing a massive scandal.
An immature fledgling with an incomplete inheritance of her ancestral stigma.
Hearing that, Della anticipated smooth sailing.
Someone with no allies or lifelines was ripe for temptation.
'What? You'll pay 100 million if I attend your bath?'
'Yes, call it an act of mercy. I'm well aware of your dire straits.'
When Della tracked Sharon down again, she dangled a fortune in exchange for bath service.
Of course, bathing was merely the bait.
First, just bath attendance.
Then, casual physical contact.
Then, nights of rapture in bed until her back arched in exhaustion.
Lowering the barriers one by one.
For now, freshly exiled, she spouted nonsense about pride while scraping by on odd jobs and homunculi pennies—but that veneer would peel away soon enough.
Introduce her to the taste of easy money, and she'd come crawling back, addicted.
Thus, even as she made the initial offer, Della was already fantasizing about freely groping Sharon's naked form.
But Sharon's response was icy.
An instant refusal, devoid of hesitation or doubt.
'What? Get lost.'
Sharon glared at Della, eyes narrowed in utter revulsion.
As absurd as it sounded, those eyes were breathtakingly beautiful, nobly defiant.
And in that moment, Della realized.
Unless she seized Sharon by any means necessary.
Unless she clouded those clear eyes with pleasure and reduced her to a plaything.
This thirst would remain unquenched forever.
2.
A mere one-minute clash had been enough to lay waste to the entire area.
The tunnel interior glowed cherry-red, transformed into a kiln belching residual heat in the hundreds of degrees.
From the shattered ceiling, rails dangled like stretched candy, dripping globs of molten iron.
The road's asphalt had melted into a sticky morass, reeking of acrid petroleum.
And sprawled on the equally scorching sidewalk blocks lay Sharon.
Scorch marks marred her face and gown everywhere; she heaved ragged breaths.
A clash between 17th and 20th hierarchy witches.
Della had reined in her power to match Sharon's level, yet the shockwave had incinerated the tunnel and every structure within the inner barrier realm.
"Haa... hick... ugh..."
The pipe she'd offered as sacrifice for fire element magic snapped feebly.
Sharon's dazed gaze met Della's, who loomed overhead with haughty arrogance.
"Still haven't figured out your place?"
The tunnel air was scorching enough to roast a normal human's lungs on inhalation.
Yet Della parted her lips casually, cooling the ambient heat.
The interior plummeted to around 60 degrees in seconds.
In truth, Sharon had known it would end this way.
Redcliff boasted the pinnacle of fire element mastery among living witches.
No half-baked amateur like her stood a chance.
"Still, you're worlds better than last time."
Della lifted the hem of her slightly singed crimson dress as she spoke.
Evidently, she hadn't spent the last decade idle; Sharon had put up a decent fight.
It had burned through about seventy percent of the stigma's stored mana.
Over half wasted on power control, of course.
"Hah... uh... ugh..."
Sharon strained desperately to rise, but lacked even the strength to purse her lips—her eyes merely fluttered open with effort.
As Sharon barely struggled upright, Della's stiletto heel pinned her bosom firmly.
"Oh my, don't struggle to get up like that. What if you hurt yourself more?"
Della licked her lips, savoring the soft, yielding give of breastflesh beneath her sole.
How could such an expression be so utterly endearing?
Her blazing fury drowned in frigid helplessness.
Her pristine pride of lily-white cloth befouled by smears of scorn and humiliation.
Knowing she'd toiled so hard just to witness this face, Della nearly climaxed on the spot, stance unbroken.
"Mm, mm... What a pretty body after all."
After kneading the breast several times without her full weight, Della withdrew her foot.
Any longer, and Sharon might black out entirely.
"I won again this time, so I'll claim the victor's spoils. No more hunting in this district. I'll take over up to your turf."
"Non... sense... fuck... off..."
Fury and malice reignited in Sharon's hollowing eyes.
Yet it lacked the fuel to hoist her battered frame.
Della crouched right there, drawing her face close to Sharon's.
"Do that, and you lose your money-making spot overnight. Fail to pay up properly, and reclaiming citizenship sails off forever."
"........."
She extended a hand, caressing Sharon's cheek tenderly—so very tenderly.
The slightly chafed skin tickled her palm.
"So I'll give you a job. No place to crash anyway, so bunk in my hotel room. I'll pay you every time you do something cute. Here, see?"
Della dangled a finger inches from Sharon's lips.
Simultaneously, she withdrew two thick checks from her bulging wallet.
Each bore a figure alongside "100 million gold equivalent."
"Suck it like a baby at the teat, and it's yours. A little contract. From here on, obey me diligently and earn your keep."
Sharon no longer had a home.
Her hunting ground might as well have vanished.
Among options to repay her crushing 58 billion debt, the easiest was swallowing her pride and accepting Della's offer.
"........."
Sharon's lips parted slowly.
Della eased her finger inside to make sucking effortless.
"That's it, good girl."
Della flashed a triumphant smile.
No matter her iron pride, she was still a slave to debt.
Isolated and broken down to this point, Della planned to start light and erode her bit by bit.
Eventually, buy up her debts from Countess Gemernai, toy with her like a doll, foster total dependence—that was the endgame.
This was the first step toward that sublime pleasure.
But Della's satisfaction soured swiftly.
Sharon had sunk her teeth into Della's fingertip with every ounce of remaining strength.
Intending to sever it outright, perhaps—but the pain felt like a puppy teething.
The discomfort wasn't the issue.
It was Sharon's refusal to break, still thrashing in stubborn defiance.
Her eyes, blazing blue, pierced Della.
Della hated it.
"........."
An inexplicable humiliation stabbed her chest; the limiter in her mind clicked loose.
If she wouldn't submit even now, force was the only recourse.
"Miss Sharon, you're hurt worse than I thought."
Della's voice quavered faintly.
For a mere half-witch to defy her this far, despite all the leniency.
Drag her to the hotel now.
With her mana for self-defense all but depleted, she'd twitch a finger at most, no matter what Della did.
Take her by force, savor the gasping spectacle.
Worry about consequences later.
She steeled herself.
"I'll heal you. Let's head to my room first."
"Le... t... go..."
Sharon strained to shove away Della, who gripped her collar to haul her up.
Della didn't budge, lifting her with icy resolve.
"Quit resisting. You're being a pain."
"Urk!"
Too troublesome—knock her out?
Della surged a mana pulse inside, roiling Sharon's innards.
Sharon went limp, unable to resist the intrusion.
Then came the sensation of something coiling around her wrist.
"Huh?"
Startled by the abrupt feeling, Della glanced down.
A black ribbon had somehow wound itself around her wrist, bared beyond the scarlet dress.