Chapter 41: Elemental Magic
"YOU SMELL LIKE WOMAN?"
Cora was at Rafel's bedside when he awoke that evening. The dark curtains of his large four-poster canopy were drawn shut and very little light from the dowdy chamber lamps spilled in. Rafel rubbed his eyes with a soft yawn and peered at Cora. She sat a small distance away, on the bed's edge. Her blue eyes were unrelenting.
"What?" Rafel smiled and furrowed deeper into the scarlet pillows.
With Corazón, he could act out his youth—behave like someone who was eighteen years old for a change. The fireplace crackled and spat embers, brightening the sharp beauty of Cora's face as she leaned near.
"Your Grace," she said. "Might I ask who this woman is? The fragrance is not Aya Naamah's, and it isn't the Queen's either."
Rafel sat up. "How do you know what my Succubus smells like? Corazón? Is there something you want to tell me?"
She giggled when Rafel pulled her into bed with him. They tumbled a while in the byzantine sheets and Rafel poured his warmth into her softness. Cora melted in his arms, laughing and chiding him for his playfulness. He tickled her harder and she rolled with his big body.
"Stop it, Rafel. Don't change the subject!"
Rafel abruptly quit his petting. He was flat on his back in bed, and Cora sat astride his legs, straddling him. Her bum was warm on his thighs. She stiffened also when he did. Rafel touched his hands to her hips. He fondled her slim waist. His demonic eyes went a tad softer.
"What is it, Your Grace? Did I do something wrong?" Cora shifted in his lap.
"No. Not all, Corazón. You called me Rafel."
She blushed and turned her face away. "I lost myself a moment."
"Hmm, is that so?" Rafel was not convinced.
Rafel kept his hand to the small of her back and stood off the bed with her. Cora instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist. Despite feeling his awakening wood, the both of them did nothing about it. Rafel carried Cora in his arms, light as a feather and straddling his strong thighs, all the way to his crystal bathroom.
He pushed through the glass doors and slapped the nob of an overhead fountain. He stood then under the rain of hot water with Cora propped on him. Their clothes soon dripped with water, and only then did Rafel put Cora down so the both of them could peel off the sodden garments.
Cora rose naked and dreamy before Rafel. Streams of water rushed down the hollow of her breasts down her light abs.
"So. . .are you going to tell me who you were with all morning while I was sleeping off in a carriage ride?"
Rafel stepped out his black briefs. His cock perched half erect, like a pipe in the space between them. Showering with Cora was nothing weird—in their case. Back in Hel, he had servants just for his bathing rituals. Female servants. After all, no one knew when the Apollyon might decide to drag one of the girls to his cock.
"I was in the Penderghast villa over at the southside moorlands. . ."
Rafel went on to explain to Cora his entire morning as she soaped him up. He did not deduct a single thing. His silver-haired Chamberlain already knew of his affair with the Countess. When Cora knelt on the white tiles to touch him, Rafel stopped the path of her hand on his rock-hard pecs. Her pretty face and blue eyes hovered an inch away from his slippery shaft.
He pulled her up quietly.
"Get the bathrobe. And meet me on the north sparring grounds. It just occurred to me I've never seen you train."
Cora submissively nodded and wrapped a towel over her model figure. She pushed the sliding glass doors and hopped to Rafel's order.
[🎶 Good Things Fall Apart – ILLENIUM, Jon Bellion.]
The north side of the Emberfall Estate was straight and wide, with a savanna stretching into the silvery horizon. The grasses were a pale shade, lacking the necessary chlorophyll. They weren't normal grasses, but the foliage of Wyrmwood. A vegetation that grew only in areas of pure creation magic.
The trimmed flatland was silver as the winter skies above. Contrary to the Count's prediction, it had not yet snowed.
Rafel padded across the gray marsh in his cold goth boots, his black tunic swaying behind him in the wintry air. He walked a few steps through the carpet grass and stopped. He swirled around and strands of his red hair pulled from his masculine coif. Behind him, twenty paces away was Corazón.
The Dark Witch was dressed to the nines in a flashy tight leggings complete with a [Hallowed] mage shawl. The silver cowl matched her platinum hair. Cora bristled with excitement. Rafel had invited her to training this dusk. They were about to spar.
Idle clouds rolled over Emberfall's misty grounds as Rafel spread his hands wide in the air. He gave Cora the order to begin.
"Hit me with all that you have, Corazón. And know that I can take it."
"B–But?" The witch began to stutter.
"No Buts, love!" Rafel yelled across the flatland to her. "COME ON! LET ME SEE SOME WITCHING!"
"Alright." Cora cleared her throat. "Here we go."
Since Cora was bonded to the Matriarchy of a coven sired by Her Eminence, Lilith herself, Rafel expected at least an [Epic] level mana generation from Cora. She was a [Rank B] Witch after all. Cora softly began chanting under a small voice. Her sorcery was in whispers.
Rafel paid attention to her spellcasting.
She uttered these words,
"Out of brimming fire, echoed my Goddess' ire.
She who must not be named, but rules over many souls tamed.
Grant me now imperial grace, cast from darkness thy unholy place.
I summon the firmament to heed my call, blood and thunder thou must fall."
As Cora spoke these dark words, her voice split into a million shards and screeched out from all directions. The touch of a fiend's roar bulleted out her lips. The wind picked up on the grassland, and several silver tendrils were uprooted. Cora's white cape was billowing in the wind. Her platinum hair glowed white gold, shining out like an Angel's Halo. Her blue eyes sparked and shot ethereal flames.
Clouds began to gather above. Dark menacing clouds. It soon formed something of a giant fist. The energy in the air change and raw mana was potent to any magical entity.
Rafel was impressed.
This was Elemental Magic.
The force of creation.
Very, very few witches could successfully conjure and control the spellforce without roasting themselves in the process. All magic came with a price. Luckily for Cora, she had an Underworld Goddesss for a Matriarch and could summon to earth a Uluvian Reaper and feel nothing but an itch. Coven Matriachs were like an umbrella in a storm. And Lilith could bear the weight of a crucifixion and still live.
Rafel beheld a frightening flash of lightning tear down the skies for him.
It happened in the one-thousandth of a second.
But to him, it was slow. He saw the finger of electricity prick the sky and plunge down for him. He dodged so fast it was like he vanished.
Cora was shocked to the bone. This man was apparently faster than lightning.
The purple streak struck the earth and the grasses it met went up in ashes. A haphazard burnt circle was left behind, and the scraped soil turned to glass.
"IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT, CORAZÓN!" Rafel boomed just as the accompanying thunder shattered the sky.
Sands danced on the scorched earth. More strikes of lightning rained down, incinerating the silver grasses. Rafel kept jumping away just when it felt Cora would finally gain an edge.
Cora was getting drained. She felt it. And so she put all of her energy and drew from her [Hallowed] mana core one last time. She joined both her hands and blue flames shot up from her fingertips to her shoulders. It engulfed her until she was a gigantic blue inferno.
A great mass of pulling lightning streaks gathered in the dense clouds, furling into a huge ball of twisting purple energy. A comet heading straight for earth.
"No, this. . ." Cora yelled. "THIS is all I've got!"
She spontaneously let loose, and the ball of lightning came crashing down. Thunder rolled the heavens, making the skies seem more of the sea as it thrashed with clouds like frothing waves. To Cora's surprise, Rafel didn't jump this time.
Her eyes went wide just before the crackling comet hit earth. It was going to kill him.
"MY LOOOORD!!!" She screeched.
But Rafel just stretched out his arms. And he took the hit.
His ruthless smile was the last thing Cora saw. . .before the entire flatland exploded into a nuclear mushroom of devastating energy. It was the surge of a blast and the ricochet of the heatwave sent her flying backwards.
The blinding light tore eyesight from her dilated pupils.
Cora could finally see some seconds later. But when she looked out across the savanna, there was no grass in sight. There was no Rafel either.
Cora choked as tears sprang to her eyes. She put up her hand over her dry lips.
"The Martyr have mercy! Have I killed My Lord?"
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone