Luke just looked at me with complete confusion for a second before smacking his lips and shaking his while letting out a slight sigh. “The lieutenant was a succubus, wasn’t it. Fuck why did it have to be a succubus.”

I give a confused look as Luke slouches in his chair. Luke looks me in the eyes and sighs again. “Succubi are inherently addictive. The fact that you ate one is probably the best way that fight could have gone but I can guarantee you are addicted to eating them.”

I take a second to ponder the implications of what Luke said before throwing that out the mental window. There was no way I was addicted and just to be safe I turned on my mental barrier and immediately noticed that I still wanted to eat a succubus and so I turned off the mental barrier. “Pretty sure it's not an addiction but ok sure.” Luke lets out a little chuckle and waves his hand. “If you say so.”

Luke looks over the Tabitha, “Tabitha could you leave us. I need to talk to Jace about something” Tabitha sends me a side glance. “Sure, I’ll just head out.” Tabitha rose from her seat the walked out the office door. Luke snaps over to me. “I have something I need you to do for me. I… I was unable to kill a lieutenant who is slowly coming towards Llyn.” The silence holds for a second before Luke continues. “After all the captains have died the lieutenants get… aggressive to say the least. They start to actively hunt down humans and the best place to attack would be a town. I need you to at least hold the lieutenant for 20 hours as I work with the other towns.” Luke then looks genuinely sad for the first time since I’ve first seen him. “I’m sorry that this falls to you. This might be too much for yo-“I slap the desk making it creak, “Yes, I am 100% down to fight this lieutenant for the right reasons and definitely not because I’m hungry. Yep, definitely not hungry.” I finish my sentence while licking my lips.

Luke looks on in doubt, “Jace this won’t be like the succubus. You may have had a counter to it but this is a different ballpark. You might actually die, hell I almost did when I fought it. Jace, It was better than me in every way. The only reason I’m even asking you is that you might be able to survive the fight off of stamina alone. And I mean survive Jace, not win. Don’t even try to fight to kill. The more you damage it the stronger it gets.” Luke sighs. “Look,” he stands up and pulls up his shirt and I can see a massive scar running from his waist to his collar bone. For a second my mind struggles to understand why that matters before it hits me. I haven’t seen a scar since the start of the system. The fact the Luke had one was not a good sign for my survival. I think about what would happen if I lost though. I shake my head, I can’t say no to this for both moral and personal reasons.

I look Luke in the eyes before nodding, “I’ll do it.” Luke nods and sits back down. “I’ll be there to help you as soon as I can.” With that Luke shows me where he fought the lieutenant on the nearby map.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tabitha was terrified of Jace, full stop. She was doing her best to hide it but was extremely glad when Luke sent her out. By that point, she was sweating bullets. Tabitha had never lost a real fight and especially not so badly. She had done everything but two things right. Of course, the things she got wrong were what almost got them killed. She had picked the wrong opponent and forgotten her team.

Tabitha was so excited about a hard fight she ignored the people who fought with her almost every day in favor of an exhilarating experience. She wouldn’t forgive herself for that one. The worst part was that it wasn’t even a life-or-death fight for Jace, it was just a warmup. Something fun to pass the time. The fact that a being like that existed and started at the same time as she did was soul-crushing. How had he gained so much power, how could one man be that strong. Tabitha questioned this as she walked through town. She approached the gates and wondered if she lived like Jace did, fighting 24/7 in the wilderness, could she be that strong or would she still fail to catch up. That was when the other official Llyn group arrived at the gate with a short woman breaking off towards Tabitha.

“Heya, my names Elizabeth. I saw you when Luke formed the groups. With the way everyone followed after you I would bet good money, if it existed here, that you were the other group's leader.” Elizabeth flashed a smile and stuck out her hand. Tabitha shook it in a daze. “Names Tabitha and ya I lead the other group. What did you guys just get back from?” Tabitha asked off handily just trying to be friendly.

“We just got back from fighting a captain. One of the toughest things I’ve ever fought.” Elizabeth looked happy as she talked about the captain she fought. Tabitha wished she could feel like that.

“My team also got a captain, but it was a bit easy for us,” Tabitha responded still out of it.

Elizabeth looked shocked before smiling again, “That would be the last of them, right? That’s good. I hope we can clear out the lieutenant as easily.”

“Do you know about who killed the first lieutenant?” Tabitha asked hoping that Luke had told her something.

“Not really but if I had to take a guess, I would put my money on Jace. Guys could probably get hit by a semi and not get hurt.” Elizabeth said with a small chuckle.

Tabitha locked on to Elizabeth, “You know Jace?” Elizabeth’s eyes widened, “Ya he saved my life. He may not be the most heroic, but you slap a monster in the problem and he’s already solving it.” Elizabeth laughed at her joke but noticed that Tabitha had a pensive look at her description of Jace. “Something happens between you two?”

Tabitha had a blank look on her face, “C-could we talk about this somewhere else? It’s kinda personal.” If Elizabeth didn’t think that the only thing that could tempt Jace was eating a monster she would have gotten the wrong idea.

They quickly found a small café and sat down each ordering a tea. Each was waiting for the tea to arrive before they started to talk. Once they had their tea Tabitha started to talk. “I met Jace after we fought the captain. I was disappointed by the captain; it probably had a mind manipulation skill, but my mental stats are pretty high, so it didn’t work. Well after I killed it, I heard his roar and I just had to fight him.”

Elizabeth let out an ‘ah’ as she started to piece together what happened. “It didn’t go well, did it?”

“He barely tried. I got there ahead of my team and tried to fight him. He just smiled and broke my ice armor in one punch. I could hardly believe what had happened. I tried to use my skill to its limits, and he just brushed it aside. Then my team arrived.” Elizabeth could help herself and winced and quickly said, “Sorry, continue.”

Tabitha nodded, “I thought that we could win this if we work together. I was wrong… He let us get a full range of attacks off and just took them. Then he counter-attacked, and everything went wrong. He beat us in seconds and then acted like nothing had happened the next day. Then I felt his blood lust for the first time and that was when I realized that I was nothing compared to him.”

Elizabeth nodded slowly understanding. She had felt like that several times in the past but when the High Emperor saved her, she felt it the most. What the point of trying to get stronger or better at something with someone was better at it by just existing. She had found her own answer in personal satisfaction but that might not be for everyone. “The thing with people like Luke and Jace is that they just aren’t within the human realm anymore. The best example I can give is the before the system you didn’t compare yourself to billionaires did you.” Tabitha let out a small ‘no’. “Then you shouldn’t compare yourself to the new ones. You haven’t seen what they gave up for power and you probably never will. Just know that at the end of the day you still are the third most powerful person in our sector. Don’t get too down on yourself for not being able to keep up with someone who can only think of eating monsters.” When Elizabeth finished Tabitha looked down and seemed to be thinking so she excused herself as she still had the stuff to do but she hoped that she had helped.