Lewd System: Every Scream and Moan is EXP-Chapter 243: Reality Is the Cruelest Truth

The memories didn’t stop.

Because Jax had no intention of letting them stop. He had stored every single fragment that would crack Cleenah’s soul wide open.

Every detail cataloged. Every moment preserved. Arranged in the precise order designed to dismantle the woman standing before him piece by piece.

The projection continued its merciless playback.

Cleenah watched the mother and daughter flee through streets painted in fire. Ducking behind collapsed walls.

Squeezing through gaps between burning houses. Pressing themselves into shadows while demons swooped overhead like vultures circling a feast they hadn’t bothered to finish.

They got caught.

Lilith’s mother, half-dead from carrying two children through a warzone, still raised her fists. But the demon blocking their path wasn’t threatened. Wasn’t even remotely interested in ending it quickly.

He was having fun.

Every desperate swing she threw was batted aside like an afterthought. Every attempt to shield her children was met with a lazy backhand that sent her stumbling. Entertainment. That’s all she was to him.

And that’s when the world learned what a cornered four-year-old with Infernal Overlord Blood could do.

Lilith jumped at the demon.

Her tiny fists started hammering against his body. Wild. Clumsy. Graceless. The punches of a child who had never thrown one in her life. But her hands found his neck.

And the very power that every mouth in this dungeon had called cursed, the same strength the entire world branded as evil, surged through fingers that were still too small to wrap around an apple.

She brought the demon down.

Not through technique. Not through training. Through sheer, primal, unfiltered rage channeled through a bloodline that answered when its host had nothing left to lose.

She punched his throat. Again. And again. And again. Until the cartilage collapsed. Until the shape of a neck no longer existed beneath her fists.

Her body radiated an aura that warped the air around her. Blood ran down her forehead as a tiny horn split through the skin for the first time, cutting its way into existence like a crown she never asked to wear.

Then she dropped.

Exhaustion consumed her mid-swing. Her breathing turned savage. Ragged. Her tiny veins bulged across her frame as if her body was tearing itself apart from the inside to pay the cost of what she had just done.

Lilith’s mother scooped her up. One arm cradling her burning daughter. The other pressing the infant against her chest with a palm sealed over his mouth so his cries wouldn’t bring the next wave of death.

She ran.

Carrying her pain. Carrying someone else’s hope. Looking down at her own child’s agony and choosing to keep moving because stopping meant everyone dies.

Cleenah saw it all.

Every second. Every detail. The very power she had cursed. The very family she had sworn was the root of all suffering. Was the one that bled and burned and nearly died to save her village.

And her brother.

Something inside Cleenah’s chest cracked like old glass finally giving way.

She grabbed fistfuls of her own hair and pulled until her scalp screamed.

"This is all lies!" Her voice split at the seams. "You fabricated all of this! Because you knew you can’t win against me fairly!"

The first thing she did was throw her sword. The holy blade spun through the air, aimed directly at the runic stone on the ground still projecting the memories.

But Jax’s sword was faster.

It planted itself in the ground between the holy blade and the stone. Standing upright. A tower. A wall. An answer that required no words.

Cleenah’s sword bounced off and clattered uselessly across the floor.

Jax moved slowly. Picked up the runic stone. Closed the projection. His face carried nothing. Not anger. Not victory. Not even satisfaction.

Just the calm of a man who had already won and was now simply explaining how.

"You can’t change reality even if you choose to live in delusion. Everything you saw were the memories of Lilith."

He turned the stone in his hand.

"You’d ask how I did it. Well, your Saintess Jennifer was the one who helped me."

Cleenah’s breath died in her throat. "No way, the Saintess—"

Jax didn’t let her finish. "In the morning, I had a feeling that before facing all of you today, I should know my student first. The one you were all planning to kill. Who was she? What did she ever do to deserve this?"

His tone carried the same weight as a judge reading a verdict.

"So I took her to one of my friends. That being your Saintess. And with her power, the same power given by the gods to protect this scum mankind, she showed me everything about Lilith."

He added. "In private. And that was enough for me to protect her."

Then he pocketed the stone. And pulled out another one.

"But you know what? That wasn’t the only revelation."

He patted the second stone like a man holding a loaded weapon and deciding which vital organ to aim for.

"Remember this morning? The Saintess summoned you. Told you she was giving you her blessing for today’s match."

A pause that stretched like a blade being drawn.

"In reality, she fetched and stored all your memories. While you gave her permission to enter your soul."

He held the stone up.

"This is you, Cleenah. Your memories. Watch carefully. And if after watching you still believe it’s all lies, we continue our fight."

Cleenah’s hands were shaking. Not trembling. Shaking. As if the bones inside them were trying to escape her skin.

Her vision drowned in tears. Her voice came out in pieces. Barely human.

"Please don’t. Please stop it. I can’t."

The others couldn’t understand why the fearsome paladin who had been ready to slaughter everyone in this dungeon had shattered so completely.

Lilith was in tears from reliving her own past. Seris wept from pure sympathy for a pain she was only beginning to comprehend.

Even Celestine and Ava, who had treated this entire ordeal like evening theatre, had gone quiet. Something close to guilt touched their faces. But curiosity still burned brighter.

Jax activated the stone.

The projection ignited. A new perspective. A new pair of eyes.

A young girl standing in a village square. Surrounded by faces from moments ago.

Ren and Rosaline.

Rosaline was crying. Not the dignified tears of a composed farewell. The ugly, heaving sobs of a mother watching her child leave for a world she couldn’t follow her into.

"Cleenah, we will write letters to you every week. No, every day! So you better reply to every single one, whatever happens. Okay, sweetheart?"

Ren stood beside her. His hand resting on the girl’s head. Steady where his wife was falling apart.

"Don’t forget about your health. Make sure you eat well. And most importantly, enjoy your youth, Cleenah."

His voice cracked just once.

"And if anything ever happens, just write to us. We will be there in no time."

The perspective tilted upward. The girl looking at both of them. Fighting the war behind her eyes to keep even a single tear from escaping.

"Don’t worry, Mom. Dad." Her younger voice carried a bravery that was paper-thin. "I will take care of myself. And you better do the same."

A sniffle betrayed her.

"When I grow up. When I get stronger and rich. I’ll build a big house in the capital. And then we’ll all live there together again."

The embrace that followed lasted too long. Because both sides knew it wasn’t long enough.

But for Cleenah standing in the dungeon, this wasn’t just an emotional farewell she was revisiting. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

It was the last one.

The last time she ever saw her parents alive.

This was the day the Holy Order came for her. Their oracle had detected a child blessed by the Goddess Benigore herself, hidden in a remote village.

They searched. They found the girl radiating enormous holy power. And they took her away as their treasure.

The scene shifted. Years forward.

Young Cleenah in her quarters at the Holy Order. Sitting on her bed. Surrounded by towers of letters that she devoured like a starving person tears through bread.

One letter described a family that had recently settled in the village.

Her parents gushed about the mother. Too kind for her own good. An epitome of beauty who brought warmth to everyone she met.

They talked about their three-month-old daughter. How much the baby resembled Cleenah. How seeing those tiny features made them miss their own girl even more.

And then they talked about the father.

The most respectable man in the village. Helpful. Generous. Beloved by everyone.

Who happened to be a demon.

Young Cleenah’s reaction was immediate. Her face darkened as if someone had blown out every candle in the room at once.

For an entire month, she wrote back. Letter after letter. Each one more furious than the last. Demanding they exile the family. Cut all ties. Burn every bridge.

She wrote about how evil demons were. How they despised humanity to their core.

How no matter how kind they seemed on the surface, when the time came, they would drive the knife into every back that had trusted them.

She did everything a girl trapped behind holy walls could do to drag her parents back to reason.

But every response came back the same. Filled with warmth. Filled with praise. Azrakh helped rebuild the neighbor’s roof.

His wife brought medicine when the elder fell sick. Little Lilith took her first steps and the whole village threw a celebration as if their own child had achieved it.

Her parents were happy. And nothing Cleenah wrote could make them see what she saw.

More time passed. Three years of training. Three years of rising through ranks. Three years of becoming the weapon the Holy Order needed.

And then the letters stopped.

One week without a response. Then two. Then a month of silence that grew louder with every empty morning.

Cleenah looked at the last letter she had ever received. Her mother’s handwriting. Familiar curves and loops that smelled like home even through parchment.

They were telling her she would soon be a big sister. That a great responsibility was coming to rest on her shoulders.

In the projection, young Cleenah pressed the letter against her chest. Hugged it as if the paper could hug back.

And murmured with closed eyes.

"I pray to Goddess Benigore that you are all safe and sound."