Chapter 35: Trying anything as a last resort

Calm down, Aphrodite, calm down.

At the very least, the “Heart-Eroding Syndrome” the girl before her suffered from didn’t immediately drive her into a state of madness, right?

Even if she had no idea what the girl would do next, at least her own life was safe, wasn’t it?

Aphrodite desperately tried to comfort herself in her heart, for in her current situation, that was all she could do.

Other than lying flat and… uh, lying flat and waiting for a miracle, she truly couldn’t do anything else.

The girl still straddled her, her whole weight pressing down.

Hot breaths, tinged with a strange mix of faint sweetness, blood, and a chilly scent, kept washing over Aphrodite’s face and neck, leaving her with waves of discomfort, an itchy sensation, and… a certain indescribable restlessness.

The girl’s once-cold violet eyes were now completely covered by a deep, dreamy purple, unfocused and hazy, yet still fixed on Aphrodite below her with a gaze that brimmed with a near-instinctive hunger.

The position of the two, coupled with the girl’s obvious abnormal state and burning breaths, created an extremely subtle and ambiguous atmosphere, making it hard not to imagine that something “unthinkable” was about to happen.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Sensing the situation was growing increasingly wrong, Aphrodite simply gave up struggling and tightly closed her eyes.

Anyway, right now she was the fish on the chopping board. As long as this girl didn’t threaten her life, what harm was there in enduring for a while? Once this bout passed, the girl would surely settle down.

Based on her past experience of first soothing Bella—though the Heart-Eroding Syndrome was hard to bear, after a certain period, as the sufferer’s energy was spent or their instincts were satisfied in some way, things would gradually calm.

However, what happened next soon made Aphrodite realize she had underestimated the situation.

Not long after she closed her eyes to endure, a strange sensation suddenly surged from her wrists—the very wrists gripped tightly by the girl!

It was as if… her power was being drained!

As though something, through the touch of their skin, was greedily drawing out the power within her, like the roots of a voracious plant.

What made Aphrodite even more alarmed was that she could clearly feel that what was being siphoned off wasn’t the familiar, Bachrosian darkness from before, but rather… the holy radiance produced by her current body.

This realization sent chills all over Aphrodite!

The root of Heart-Eroding Syndrome was a loss of control over internal darkness! Darkness and holy radiance were two completely opposing, mutually repelling energies—like water and fire!

For a Mixed-Blood Demonkin whose internal darkness had already rampaged to be greedily absorbing holy radiance—this was like pouring oil onto a blazing fire!

Normally, not only would this not pacify the syndrome, it would trigger an even more violent conflict, causing the person to be torn apart by the clashing forces or driven into deeper madness!

At the same time, the sensation of her holy radiance being drained left Aphrodite extremely uncomfortable, even a faint hint of panic surfacing in her heart!

It was like a person who couldn’t swim suddenly being pushed underwater, feeling the life-giving air being stripped away bit by bit.

What was even more alarming was that, along with the loss of power, her body started having subtle reactions she couldn’t control.

Her legs, which had been calmly laid flat on the ground, began to tremble and squirm involuntarily, her ankles rubbing unconsciously against the carpet.

At first it was just a subtle movement, but as the sense of power draining grew, the struggling became more and more obvious.

At some point, her face had turned a deep, burning red, spreading from her cheeks all the way to her ears.

Aphrodite felt her head begin to spin, her thoughts growing thick and sluggish, like honey dissolving in warm water.

A strange, flustering heat welled up from her lower abdomen, spreading like wildfire through her whole body.

“…Mmnn…” Aphrodite couldn’t help letting out a faint, trembling whimper from her throat.

This feeling was too strange!

It wasn’t just the emptiness of being drained of power, but also… a kind of thrill, as if some deeply buried shameful switch inside her had been flipped!

She’d thought that if she just gritted her teeth and endured until the girl’s Heart-Eroding Syndrome fit passed, it would be over.

But she never imagined that this girl’s symptoms would be so unique, her method of drawing power so… “efficient” and… so hard to adapt to!

As if to confirm her worst premonition, the girl pressing down on her seemed to grow dissatisfied with only absorbing power through their wrists, finding it too “inefficient”.

Suddenly, Aphrodite felt the weight on her shift and press even lower!

Startled, she opened her eyes—just in time to meet the girl’s breathtakingly beautiful, blushing face, now only inches away.

The girl’s dazed violet eyes burned with even deeper hunger, and she was slowly, stubbornly lowering her face toward Aphrodite…

Her target, clearly, was Aphrodite’s slightly parted lips, opened in surprise!

Aphrodite’s heart lurched, her pupils contracting sharply.

This girl… she couldn’t be thinking of… drawing holy radiance directly… with her mouth?!

What kind of joke is this!!

A tidal wave of shame and panic instantly washed over her! This was far beyond the realm of “endurance”!

If you’re going to draw power, just draw power—why does the “process” have to level up like this?! From wrists to mouth? What’s next…!

At that thought, Aphrodite was even more alarmed, and her already-weak body surged with new strength.

Yet this bit of strength, against a girl lost in Heart-Eroding Syndrome and desperate for holy radiance, was as futile as an ant trying to stop a carriage. It didn’t loosen her grip in the slightest!

Aphrodite could only twist her head with all her might, trying to avoid those lips, now so near and burning with heat.

But this was only a stopgap!

The girl’s unfocused eyes locked onto her, lips drawing ever closer.

Yet, just as those lips were about to touch, a bold idea flashed through Aphrodite’s mind.

That black core from before… didn’t she, too, use holy radiance to purify its wild darkness while passively absorbing the less violent darkness it released?

Since this girl had emerged from the core, and her symptoms were so unusual—

Could it be possible to actively provide a guided stream of holy radiance, and, together with the girl’s unconscious “absorption instinct,” form a cycle of purification and balance, just like before?

The thought was pure madness! Under normal circumstances, infusing a Heart-Eroding Syndrome sufferer with holy radiance was suicide!

But wasn’t the girl in front of her greedily absorbing her holy radiance?

And so “hungrily”? This completely illogical phenomenon might be the very clue to survival!

Desperate times call for desperate measures! Give it a try!