I Awakened My Game System! Now Three Great Houses Want Me Dead!-Chapter 110: Be II

Xenos caught it mid-swing with the palm of his hand and casually stepped off the arc, but not before tripping her support leg and sweeping through with a light tap to Gaia’s shoulder.

"More speed when you pivot. Your wrists are doing the thinking; let your legs do the work."

An overhead slam, a feint, a backward hop, a sink, and a spring.

He kept moving through it all; a spoken lesson slipped in after each.

"You swing from your elbow too much; put more of your weight behind the staff."

She countered with a few earth spears, which he easily dodged, and then a spike-filled wall that she was about to fling at him, only to vault over it and land on his flank, since she knew that he would easily dodge it.

Xenos laughed, loving the strategy, and pushed past her, forcing her to twist back.

When she did, he clipped the back of her neck with a finger, making her go still.

"Dead."

Immediately, as if expecting this, she conjured walls on both sides, trapping herself and Xenos in between them. Pockets of her earth took shape beneath as well, fast enough to trap him, even as he tried to step back and out.

"I-I got you now!"

To pile on even further, she materialized stone spears above her and from the walls.

Xenos was absolutely surrounded, and for a moment it seemed as if Gaia had finally got him.

But he wasn’t about to allow that to happen.

"We’ll see about that."

Kicking up on the wall, he got out of the sinking hole beneath, only to meet spikes that were about to pierce through his head.

Leaning his head back, making his body parallel to the ground, he found the pocket where no spear would hit, letting them sail above and below him.

But it wasn’t over yet, as the spears from Gaia’s side had come as well, meeting him when he was at an awkward angle.

Suddenly, however, the incoming spears crashed into each other. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

It seemed that while dodging the earlier spears, he’d grabbed one midair and waited for the perfect moment to throw it.

There was no better ’moment’ than that.

With earth splinters and dust flying everywhere, Gaia didn’t notice how fast Xenos had closed in on her.

When she finally did, she tried to constrict the walls further, extending them into each other, and thrust forward with her bladed staff, only for Xenos to duck through and slip an arm up behind her ribs, pinning the staff and rolling her over into the sand.

"Honestly, I don’t really have much to say about that attack. You did really well."

As if waiting for those words, the walls around them crumbled, earth returning to Divinity.

She tried to stand up, struggling with trembling muscles and an exhausted Soul, nearly emptied out of Divinity, but Xenos quickly gave her a hand and pulled her to her feet.

Gaia wasn’t only trembling from exhaustion, but also from the effort of forcing herself to cross moral lines she wasn’t used to, and beyond that, actually attacking Xenos, her very husband.

Xenos’s smile thinned.

He backed away and folded his arms.

For once, he seemed not to be in a joking mood.

"You seem to have a problem with aiming for the kill."

Her brown eyes flicked up.

"I-I don’t want to hurt you."

That almost seemed to disappoint him.

"Well, if not me...."

He pressed, his eyes turning cold.

"Would you kill a bandit I put before you? One who murdered a family for coin last week?"

"..."

She swallowed hard but said nothing.

"Even if he, let’s say... raped a hundred women? That’s pretty evil, no?"

"..."

Again, nothing, but Xenos continued, wanting to see if he had really found the exception to the rule of this realm:

"No? Would you not kill a war criminal who’s slaughtered a village and razed it to the ground?"

"..."

"Hm. Would you not want to stomp their head into the ground again and again, while their family watched, until it’s nothing but mush, and then take what remains, clump them up, and feed them to his wife? If you wish, you can bash her head in as well. Equal opportunities. The child can go; they’re innocent... No?"

"..."

Gaia trembled harder, never seeing his eyes this serious before, even worse than that time when they had dueled in the Academy. He almost seemed to be talking about someone in particular, or perhaps something that he did; either way, Gaia didn’t notice, only Eris did.

Still, same as then, Gaia wasn’t scared; she knew that he’d never truly hurt her.

This was only him teaching her in his own way.

A way that was so very twisted.

And so after a long stare at her staff, she finally built up the courage...

"If... if we kill them, aren’t we just as bad as them?"

The courage to say some incredibly naive bullshit.

Those words would’ve gotten him mad if they were spoken by anyone else.

Thankfully, he held her close to his heart, so instead of doing what he’d usually do, he simply crouched and picked up a clod of earth and crushed it in his palm.

"Oh sweet Gaia..."

A clump of dark clay gathered in his palm.

"You can’t even fathom how wrong that is."

She flinched at how clean his tone cut.

"Hm, you see..."

Xenos dropped the dirt between them.

"Revenge is dirty work, no matter which side of the aisle you stand on."

He wasn’t much of a preacher, but this he had to get through to her head.

"Whether you’re an eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind, side, or mine; calling revenge dirty is something I’m sure you’d agree with... but justice isn’t that."

Otherwise, she’d be a liability.

"You cannot see justice as prettied-up revenge."

He pointed at the ground.

"If someone commits evil, you can pity them for what broke them, if there was something, but you can’t act as if leaving them to go do it again is upholding justice or mercy... dig two graves to bury them and their supporters in it."

Xenos shook his head.

"We’re not storybook knights like the ones I’m sure you’ve read. We live in a broken system that uses rules to cage the weak and feed the cruel. If you are for justice and someone becomes a danger to the world, you stop them so no one else gets hurt. That doesn’t make you the same thing... What you said is exactly what they’d like most to believe."

A chuckle escaped his lips.

"After all, making you soft would ease their control over you... your resistance would be meaningless."

He let that hang before continuing:

"I’m not asking you to enjoy it as I do. I’m asking you to be useful. When the time comes, you must do the thing necessary. If you can’t, your hands are going to stain, and you’ll wonder why you didn’t learn this sooner when someone else pays the price."

With that, Xenos straightened up fully, standing over her for a moment.

"Make your choice and make it count so no one else pays for your mercy."

The sun cut bright across his face, making his expression appear harder.

"Be ruthless... most times, true justice is ugly."

Gaia’s eyes appeared to... tighten a little.

A resolution had formed, perhaps.

"Good, now go rest."

Xenos’s smile returned more softly.

"You did well."

Medea quickly took her away while glaring at him.

Chuckling at her, Xenos looked at the distance.

The Colosseum now awaited him.