Chapter 282: I am not sulking! [1/2]
Claire Knight, a woman who died from being violated, now screamed her heart out as weakness left her body. Souls swirled around her like a raging tempest. Her howls sounded like those of a feral animal.
I found her extremely beautiful. Not in a sexual way, but similar to how one would look at a painting or an enchanting flower.
She was covered in blood. Tears and snot ran down her face. Her muscles were trembling without strength, yet her face was serene. Unlike my ascension, Claire's was quite dazzling. A vortex of soul swirled like a hurricane with her at the center.
"Congratulations, Claire. You are now a Phantom," I said with a smile.
Reapers could intuitively tell the strength of another by sensing each other's souls. Much like I could tell the rank of an enemy in Hellsgate just by sensing them, Reapers worked the same way.
While their detection worked on the same principle, the way they registered was different. Monsters and undead had soul signatures that increased in size, but were similar to solid objects.
Soul sensing, as I liked to call it, used air as a medium, but worked like sound waves.
Just like bats or dolphins, reapers broadcast soul. Whenever we detected a Hellsgate inhabitant, an "echo" would return to us. The return signal, much like echolocation, told us the size of a creature's soul.
For Reapers, it was the other way around. A reaper was measured by the depth of its soul, not its size. Say I sent out 10 souls worth every half second. Wraiths would receive the souls and send back an echo. The amount of time it took for the echo to reach me was that reaper's depth.
If a Wraith was at level 3, it would take 2 seconds for the soul sensing to complete. For level 1 Wraiths, the exchange would be almost instantaneous.
For Phantoms, the exchange would take tens of seconds. So from a Reaper's perspective, if there was a hole in their soul-sensing map, something was there. The longer the hole remained, the stronger the Reaper.
Humans did not send an echo, so from our point of view, they were similar to inanimate objects.
Of course, this soul sensing was what you might call common courtesy. It was also possible to block the souls completely. When blocked, the soul echoes behaved as if they had hit a wall.
A reaper had no obligation to respond to being sensed. Thus, outside of friendly relationships, Reapers rarely determined each other's strengths in battle this way.
Claire wasn't blocking any signals right now, so anyone who tried to sense her would feel her new depth.
Jo had a huge smile on her face as she stepped forward and embraced Claire. Her affectionate mannerisms were the ones I was familiar with.
"Well done Claire. The peace you feel now is because you have confronted your inner demons. From now on, the nightmares will plague you no longer."
"Sniff. Lady Vela. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you."
"Hush. From now on, you are one of my little sisters. Call me Big Sis."
"Yes, Big Sis."
My Italian bride then rubbed Claire's back while the saint continued to shed tears of happiness. After a few moments, Jo looked at the other girls of Golden Wick, returning to "Vela".
"The rest of you suffer from the same situation. If you do not face what you fear, you will be running for all eternity. I will give you all the same chance. Stand up. And reclaim your pride! Who wants to become a beast?"
As if inspired by Claire's transformation, the rest of the girls shouted at the top of their lungs.
"I DO LADY VELA!" x11
Jo smiled broadly and called to the Sirens.
"Sisters, please help me."
Wordlessly, Bella's projector showed 11 other men going about their lives. Some were sleeping, eating, one was even in the middle of raping another woman.
Lilly raised her two hands and opened portals that abducted all the men. When the men arrived, they were all disoriented and confused. The Golden Wick girls all trembled as they saw the bastards who had destroyed their lives.
Bella then took what looked like fat pens out of a small bag.
"Stick them all with these. They will last longer."
[Eagle Eye] allowed me to see the labels on said pens.
'Epipen, adrenaline (epinephrine) auto-injector. Well, shit.'
Of course, for such scum of the earth, calling what followed an ass kicking was a fucking understatement. Each of my girls vented enough for all the Golden Wick Saints.
Liv, demonstrated her knowledge of human anatomy by breaking every joint on the man. I never knew you could bend a human like a pretzel.
Lilly, strung up her target like a punching bag and began to shatter every bone in his body. Of course, like a chaotic painting, the man's skin soon showed every color of the rainbow.
After dislocating her man's limbs, Robyn tried to see how many times she could stomp on a man's balls before they exploded. If that was not enough, she took the crushed eggs and shoved them down the man's throat.
Jasmine, pulled out a poison-tipped dagger and began to slice the man she chose. Avoiding major arteries, the target of her execution could be understood at a glance. The man frothed at the mouth and the veins all over his body turned black.
Bella threw a bag over her man's head and began pouring water into his mouth. Then she took a taser gun and began to electrocute the man through his testicles.
Aki, who got the naked man in the middle of his crime, mutilated him. She shoved the severed cock into the man's own ass. The bladed kitsune then promptly cut every tendon in the man's body, turning him into a vegetable.
Seeing the gruesome torture of the Sirens made Jo's beating seem incredibly humane in comparison. While I did not like to see my girls touch another man, in Aki's case such shock value was necessary.
With only seven of them then accounted for, the 2nd Amendment took point and proceeded to beat the living shit out of the remaining four. They were...extremely enthusiastic.
Cynthia, Addison, and Phillip didn't participate, chatting like old ladies.
"Phillip, aren't we fucked?"
"What do you mean, Ms. Cynthia?"
"I think she means that the odds of women being killed by the Sirens are extremely high."
"Ah, well, that may be true," the monocled bastard said wryly.
"Hey! Scammer! What if they think I tried to seduce Limitless? Look at those poor bastards. Even I am beginning to feel sorry for them."