14 A Pitiful Little Oni

Right now, Aruthos came to a crucial decision!

[If I can't beat you, I will perish with you!] He concentrated his qi to his feet and charged forward towards the armored woman with determination.

In his heart, he only felt regret for not winning the heart of the woman he loved after trying for so long.

[Goodbye my love...]

He then engaged Pasha in a close ranged duel using his halberd. Pasha nonchalantly deflected each slash and each thrust using her gauntlets. She didn't even bother to attack which pissed Aruthos even more.

The remaining energy from the combustion of his life energy was diminishing as his attacks became duller and lack of energy. The witch must have realized this as Aruthos panicked inside his heart. She knew he would be exhausted any second now.

At the last second, Aruthos screamed with madness and threw his halberd towards Pasha. As Pasha blocked the halberd and lost sight of him for a split second, Aruthos took advantage of the precious milliseconds and grabbed ahold of Pasha's thighs. He was planning to ignite his remaining life essence and explode together with the witch!

...

Pasha was extremely shocked and furious.

The weak Oni had the gall to hug her! At her sensitive parts at that! Imagine where his face would be when the arms were locked on her thighs. Green veins were seen throbbing at her temples. The synchronization between her soul and the customized body was so great until she could feel the contact like every other person.

This little Oni had challenged her limit again and again. It time to end this little game.

She slammed her elbow to the Oni's head to give him a well-deserved concussion and loosened his grip. Then it was followed by a knee strike to make Aruthos float in the air before finally unleashing a bad-ass spinning kick on the poor Oni who's trying to ignite his final life essence. Aruthos was helplessly walloped to a nearby mountain like a ragdoll.

This time, Pasha followed through with her attack; she jumped down from her hoverboard and send side-kicks one after another towards his chest with fury.

A molester didn't need any pity.

The Oni vomited blood and showed signs of fainting as his uncontrollable body smashed the ground yet again for the third time. However, this annoying bugger kept on struggling to get up, albeit weakly.

Pasha stepped on his chest with her boots and pushed him down with a stomp, "You despicable little Oni! Stand down! If not, you'll suffer some more."

The suffering Oni struggled even harder! It pissed Pasha to the maximum this time!

[What is wrong with this guy!? Is he a masochist?!]

Pasha turned the disc on her gauntlet again, this time towards the green magic stone. Green vines with thorns erupted from Pasha's palm and wrapped up the struggling Oni into a fat green slug. As the poison from the thorns pierced through the Oni's skin, his struggle turned slightly weaker.

...

The bitter Aruthos was struggling with all his might!

The combustion of his life essence had greatly weakened him. However, since he didn't manage to ignite the last bit of it for taking down the woman just now, he could still exude some energy.

Shame clouded his face as he heard himself being called 'a despicable little Oni'. It was a first for him to be insulted this way.

He must escape as soon as possible and gather his battalion. This expert was too strong when compared to himself. If he didn't go all out and use all the resources of the empire, this monster will totally wipe out every single one of his brethren.

At least they must make a last stand!

Only with that, maybe all factions will reunite to fight against a single enemy.

The mighty Valkyrie used a different magic to bind him, but he was sure he could free himself. Aruthos made a last-ditch effort to free himself by biting the green thorny vines and even used his sharp horn desperately.

[I can do it! I can do it!] He psyched himself fervently.

Maybe what he did angered the woman.

"Shitty little oni! YOU ASKED FOR IT!"

The woman went insane and beat him up left and right, up and down, and then left and right again, like a pitiful little 'punching bag' instead of an oni. The beatings ensued for a long time until he was totally weakened.

He suffered deeply and bitterly, until he was on the verge of fainting.

He could almost hear the sound of someone shouting his name from a faraway place. He strained hard to open his blurry eyes when he saw a blurry yet familiar figure from afar, "Little Leila, run.." He managed to utter a muffled sound before his vision went totally dark.

....

Helen brought Leila to the site where she last detected the encrypted message from the elder witch she was supposed to receive a while ago.

She was worried when she heard a loud explosion coming from the site.

She managed to receive a message from headquarters saying that an elder witch was en route for further investigation. However, after the stipulated time, she was still waiting to be contacted.

After using her means, she found out that an unknown encrypted message has been intercepted by the Belathine military intelligence. She had an ominous premonition.

When she reached the location where the last known code was intercepted, she scanned the surrounding and found the elder witch fighting someone tens of kilometers away.

It looked very one sided though.

It was not a fight, rather, it was more like a trashing. She felt pity to the person on the other end; which unlucky Oni had crossed paths with the elder witch? And even enraged her to this extend?

Following the temperaments of an Oni, that person must've attacked first without regard. Elder Witch Pasha was always known as a refined and elegant lady. She rarely showed an unpleasant expression.

However, this time Helen could feel the anger emanating from the armor-clad elder witch; there was no need to see her face.

As she got nearer, the figure at the bottom of the elder witch's foot was surprisingly familiar, although he was in an extremely sorry state.

Leila ran forward and cling on the boots of the elder witch nervously, "Madam Pasha, please let off my Uncle Aruthos." She whimpered with tears and snot running down her face.

"Please! This little one beseech you!" She made her winning pitiful expression and banged her forehead on the ground repeatedly to garner even more pity.

...

Pasha heaved heavily; she was not tired, but extremely angered by the bastard's tenacity. A surprise expression flitted her face as she faced the snotty girl.

[Ah, the new recruit.] Her mind clicked with the latest developments during the last meeting.

She took a breather and lifted off her leg. She did plan to stop beating the lights out of the perverted Oni anyway.

Leila checked his breathing and found that the high general was still alive. She heaved a relieved sigh as do Helen.

"Thank you Madam!" said both Leila and Helen

"Sure." Removing her helmet, she flipped her long hair to the side and coughed pretentiously as she admitted that she was a little bit carried away. Noticing Helen concerned face, she knew that Helen must have known the Oni as well. Let me ask her later.

The Oni was weak, but admittedly, very tenacious. He kept on trying either to retaliate or to run. It made her so mad; she unintentionally hit the guy a little too hard.

However, she was mindful not to permanently cripple the pitiful guy for eternity. After all, it seemed that this guy is quite strong. It was very hard to train oneself to reach this level.

She respected everyone who could persist and train until they can achieve this level of strength. This guy was at least 30 % as strong as her. Bear in mind, she was a 3000 years old witch with abundance of experience, magic reservoir, and battle strength. She was even older than Roland himself.

She glanced at the despicable but pitiful little Oni one last time before she continued wrapping him up totally with Leaf-like powers.

"Sigh. Really. He asked for it." She murmured with resignation. It felt good to let go of accumulated stress, especially on someone who's a pervert. What surprised her the most was his relationship with the new recruit. She needed to clarify everything first before taking the next action.

"Deactivate Recombinant Protocol 3.0".

The hoverboard flew down and recombined with her reassembled battle gears into a sleek flying car.

"Get in." She gestured to both of agents.

They moved to a different direction from the Main Capital. She needed to re-access the situation and get to know her new captive.

Seeing her captive being bound up tightly like a slug, Pasha found the situation a bit funny and very satisfying.

Ignoring the fact that this guy face was totally swollen like a pig, he did look a little like a superstar fad which was quite popular in Neverwinter as of late, when he valiantly faced her head on just now. She was quite up to date to the latest trends in the empire from reading all the progress reports sent by her agents.

[The style is there.] Pasha laughed silently.

[A pity. He's a little short in the head.]

[Maybe that's the innate characteristics of all Onis?] Pasha was reminded by Celine's and Helen's conversation about Leila.

[Or maybe because both of them are somehow related?] Though Pasha didn't see any similarities between them.

She shrugged absentmindedly.

...