Chapter 153: The Hollow Woods…

“Akira, wait!” Mia grabbed his arm, tears streaking down her face. “You can’t just jump into a painting! That’s insane!”

“I know,” Akira said, gently extracting himself from her grip. “But seven people are dying in there. I’m not leaving them.”

“Then I’m coming with you!”

“No.” His voice was firm. “I need you here. Keep people calm. Help Rina and Ayaka contain the situation.”

“But…”

“Mia.” He cupped her face, looking into her eyes. “Trust me. I’ll come back. I promise.”

Before she could protest further, Akira turned to Rina. “How much energy have you absorbed?”

“Too much,” Rina gasped, her violet aura crackling around her like lightning. “I feel like I’m going to burst. It’s so much, Akira. So much want, so much need…”

“Good. I need you to lend me some of that power. Can you do that?”

Rina’s eyes widened. “Transfer essence? I’ve never tried that before.”

“First time for everything.” Akira held out his hand. “Just focus on pushing the energy into me. I’ll handle the rest.”

Rina took his hand, and immediately Akira felt a flood of raw lust essence pouring into him like molten honey. It was overwhelming, intoxicating, and dangerous.

His body temperature spiked, his cock hardened painfully against his pants, every nerve ending screaming with need.

[ESSENCE TRANSFER INITIATED]

[LUST ESSENCE ABSORBED]

“Enough,” Akira gasped, breaking the connection. He was breathing hard, sweat beading on his forehead. “That’s enough.”

“Are you okay?” Rina asked, concerned.

“I will be.” He turned to Ayaka. “Once I’m inside, the painting might try to pull more people in. Don’t let it. Use barriers, whatever you need. Just keep everyone away from it.”

“Understood,” Ayaka said. “But Akira… what if you don’t come back?”

“Then you seal the Gate from this side. Burn the painting if you have to.”

“I can’t—”

“You can. And you will. Because that’s what needs to happen.” He looked at her seriously. “Promise me.”

Ayaka’s crimson eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “I promise.”

Satomi-sensei stepped forward. “Kanzaki-kun, I don’t know what you are or how you gained such power, but please… be careful in there. Pocket dimensions like this are designed to trap, to corrupt, to consume. Don’t let it twist you into something you’re not.”

“I won’t,” Akira said. Then, softer: “Thank you, Sensei.”

He turned to face the painting.

Up close, it was even more disturbing. The shadows pulsed with hunger, and the faces.. all seven of them, stared out with desperate, terrified eyes.

Ayame’s face was the freshest, her expression still showing the exact moment of her capture: mouth open in a scream, eyes wide with terror, one hand outstretched in a final, futile plea for help.

I’m coming, Akira thought. All of you. Just hold on.

He placed his hand against the canvas.

The surface was warm, almost feverishly hot, and it gave way under his touch like thick honey. He could feel it trying to pull him in, eager for another victim, another source of energy to feed the dimension beyond.

[WARNING: ENTERING HOLLOW WOODS POCKET DIMENSION]

[RECOMMENDED PARTY SIZE: 4-6 EXORCISTS]

[CURRENT PARTY: 1]

[SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 23%]

“Not the most encouraging odds,” Akira thought.

He took a deep breath, activated every protective skill he had, and stepped forward.

The world turned into a blurred painting. What was once a 3D space flattened out, then became 3D again, but it was strange, twisted, and wrong. Colours ran together like paint in the rain. Sounds bounced oddly, as if they were moving through water.

Akira stumbled, catching himself against a tree that felt solid and unreal at the same time, like touching solid smoke.

When his vision cleared, he was standing in a forest. But the forest was not a natural one… not even close.

The trees were made of desire.

The tree trunks were made of twisting, semi-transparent shapes of bodies tangled together in different passionate acts, with faces contorted in pleasure, pain, or both. The bark felt like warm, flushed skin, beating with a pulse.

The branches looked like arms and legs, stretching out, holding, and inviting. The leaves made sounds as they moves, like whispers, each one carrying a different voice:

“Touch me.”

“I need you.”

“Please, please, please.”

“More.”

“Never stop.”

The ground beneath his feet wasn’t earth; it was flesh. Every step sent ripples through it like walking on a waterbed made of skin.

The river looked like a deep cut, full of thick, unknown, breathing liquids: sweat, tears, and other things like the colour of milky oil.

Above, the sky was pink and purple, swirling with dirty, cloud-shaped bodies and sex acts. Lightning flashed, but the sound wasn’t thunder; it was moans.

[WELCOME TO THE HOLLOW WOODS]

[CORRUPTION LEVEL: EXTREME]

[MENTAL RESISTANCE: REQUIRED AT ALL TIMES]

[CURRENT GUARDIAN: THE MUSE OF DEPRAVITY]

“New meat,” a voice whispered from everywhere and nowhere. It was feminine, seductive, and ancient. “Such delicious new meat. Come deeper, little king. Come play in my garden.”

“Show yourself!” Akira called out.

Laughter echoed through the trees, sounding like hundreds of voices laughing in perfect, disturbing harmony.

“I am shown. I am the trees. I am the river. I am the very air you breathe.” A pause. “I am also… her.”

One of the trees ahead began to change. The writhing bodies that made up its trunk shifted, came together, and turned into a single figure who stepped out of the wood like it was stepping through a curtain.

She was beautiful in a way that hurt to look at.

Every inch of her was sculpted for raw, helpless desire: full, heavy breasts that rose and fell with each breath, a narrow waist flaring into wide, fertile hips, and long, toned thighs that promised they could clamp tight and never let go.

Her skin was the colour of moonlight, her hair flowed like liquid shadow, brushing the undersides of her breasts. And her eyes were pools of swirling pink energy.

But it was her face that made Akira’s blood run cold.

It was Aoi’s face.

Or rather, a twisted, corrupted version of it. The innocent shyness was gone, replaced with knowing seduction. The cautious uncertainty was gone, replaced with bold confidence.

“Hello, Akira-kun,” the Muse said in Aoi’s voice. But the voice was wrong, sounding like layered harmonics that made his skin crawl. “Welcome to my world. Do you like what I’ve done with the place?”

“Where is she?” Akira demanded. “Where’s Aoi? Where are all of them?”

“Oh, they’re safe. Well, mostly safe. Mostly alive.” The Muse gestured lazily. “The guard is very safe. He’s become such a beautiful tree. Would you like to see?”

She pointed, and Akira’s stomach turned.

One of the trees close by had a trunk made of screaming, moving bodies. On the trunk, he saw a face he knew. It was Guard Hiroshi. His face was frozen in fear; his body had merged with the wood, with roots coming out of his feet and branches growing from his arms.

He was alive. Akira could see his chest moving with shallow breaths and could see his eyes tracking movement. But he couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, and couldn’t do anything but exist as part of the forest.

“What did you do to him?” Akira said in a low voice.

“I gave him what he wanted,” the Muse replied. “Deep down, he wanted to be part of something bigger than himself. So I made him part of the forest. Isn’t that kind of me?”

“That’s not what he wanted, and you know it.”

“Isn’t it?” The Muse tilted her head, and the motion was so much like Aoi that Akira’s heart clenched. “Everyone who enters my domain gets exactly what they truly desire. The guard wanted belonging. The mother wanted to escape her suffocating life. The students wanted freedom from expectation.”

She stepped closer, her bare feet making no sound on the flesh-ground.

“And your little exorcist friend? She wanted to feel powerful. To be the hero. To prove herself worthy.” The Muse smiled. “So I’m giving her exactly that. Come, I’ll show you.”

The forest shifted around them, moving to create a path. Akira followed cautiously on high alert.

They emerged into a clearing, and Akira’s breath caught.

Ayame was there.

She hung suspended in the air, wrapped in a spiderweb made of living paint. The strands were semi-transparent, pulsing with pink energy, and they were dissolving her clothes.

Her skin was flushed, glistening with sweat, and her breathing was rapid and shallow.

But it was her expression that broke Akira’s heart.

She wasn’t struggling or fighting. Her eyes were half-closed, her lips parted, and she was whimpering.

“What are you doing to her?” Akira demanded.

“Nothing she doesn’t want,” the Muse replied. “I’m showing her what it’s like to be powerful. To be desired. To be worshipped.”

She gestured, and the paint-strands tightened, making Ayame gasp. “Every fantasy she’s ever suppressed, every desire she’s denied herself in service of her duty… I’m giving them all to her.”

The forest around Ayame was whispering, thousands of voices speaking in unison:

“You’re so strong.”

“So beautiful.”

“We worship you.”

“Stay with us.”

“Never leave.”

Ayame’s body shuddered, and Akira could see the internal battle playing out on her face. Part of her knew this was wrong, was a trap, was corruption.

But another part of her… the part that had been suppressed and denied for so long, was actually enjoying it.

“Let her go,” Akira said.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep