"Done…"
Azriel sighed, looking once again at the floor of his house.
He had returned home, leaving that entire mystical world behind.
"So this is our house?" Lyna said, manifesting through the mist as a fox in the real world.
"It looks a little… no, very poor." She shifted back into her human form.
"Your house is pathetic." Her clothes changed from a temple priestess's robe into a wide, expensive fur coat.
"Though at least it's good enough to light a fire with," She added, smiling with sadistic delight.
Azriel sighed.
"I thought it would take longer, you know, for you to show your true colors."
She laughed at the remark.
"Wait for what? You knew everything from the start."
She approached him, still seated on the floor, and looked him over from head to toe.
"Your mistake was signing a contract of equality…" Her smile widened with every word.
"You should know there's no such thing as equality in this world… only endless struggle."
"And in that struggle, I am the strongest."
She raised her arm, and Azriel's followed, repeating the same movement under her command.
"My mind is stronger, so don't even try to resist. From now on, you'll be my servant."
Azriel tried to stand up with a yawn, but his body locked halfway through, making him frown.
'This is going to be inconvenient,' He thought, and Lyna laughed listening to the thought. 'Very inconvenient,' He added.
Azriel took a deep breath and focused all his mental strength to move, but the resistance was just as strong on the other side.
Lyna smiled from beginning to end at his futile effort.
"Why do you think they created a submission contract in the first place?"
"I've already started cultivating and have trained my mind for years. You haven't even begun, your mind is far weaker than mine."
Azriel grunted, straining to resist with sheer willpower.
"There's no point in resisting. It'll only bring you pain."
"I may have regressed in cultivation, but our foundations aren't equal, my mind has always been stronger, my body has always been stronger."
"I am a spirit, after all."
He failed again and again.
"And you're nothing but a small, weak human."
He kept trying, only to fail.
She laughed at his struggle.
Then Azriel felt the ground vanish beneath his feet, his mind being forcibly brought to the mental plane, where he met her once more.
Her eyes gleamed with pure sadism.
"Just sleep…"
Azriel felt his eyelids grow heavy.
Lyna was now only a step away, ready to shatter his consciousness. "
You won't even feel it."
"Just sleep…" She repeated, while he strained to keep himself from blacking out.
"Sleep, foolish child, don't resist." She was growing impatient, her teeth clenched.
"Fine…" She sighed, stepping back.
"I'll let you continue existing, but from now on, don't interfere with my decisions. Just watch in silence."
Lyna readied herself to control both bodies with mastery.
She was going to merge them and then cultivate again all the way to her peak.
"You're too full of yourself,"
Azriel suddenly said, his eyes heavy, almost shut with sleep, his mental energy drained under the crushing pressure.
"Full of myself?" Lyna laughed at his empty words.
"You're the one on the verge of collapsing." A smile curved her lips.
"The only reason you're not destroyed yet is because I didn't recover my formal status… "
"When I ascend to the next realm, you'll be erased."
Azriel looked at her with clouded eyes, then smiled.
"So this is what you're really like…" He said in surprise.
"I already expected this from you, but I still wanted to see it with my own eyes."
Suddenly, he seemed to regain his vigor and rose within the mental plane.
"But wha—?" She looked at him in shock as the connection suddenly cut.
She could no longer see his perspective.
His thoughts no longer reached her.
"Don't cry to me about this later." A smile as sadistic as hers crossed his face.
"Either way, it's your fault for going too far." Suddenly Lyna felt herself being pushed back into her body.
"Damn it!" Her physical body fell to the floor, her hand on her head, quickly rolling on the ground as if it were on fire.
"Damn! Damn! Damn!"
Azriel laughed as he watched her writhe.
Her head must be hurting like mad now.
The scene would have been almost comical if not for her earlier declaration to destroy him.
"What the hell did you do!"
She cried, tears in her eyes, more like a spoiled child than the powerful villain from moments before.
"And all that at once!"
"I gave you a mental punch, pure information injected into your mind all at once." Azriel laughed, taking pleasure in her suffering.
"It's a technique I learned when I was little. Very useful for dealing with egocentric familiars."
"Bastard!" She finally regained control of her breathing, though tears still glinted in her eyes.
"Just wait until I learn that!" She immediately tried to reconnect to him, attempting to learn the same technique.
"And how do you plan to do that?" Azriel chuckled again.
But to her surprise there was a barrier between them, a mental barrier.
She could no longer pry into anything about him and quickly grew frustrated, stamping her foot in the real world.
"Cut that out! we're master and familiar, we can't separate over petty squabbles!"She said, her cheeks puffed up.
"What future do we have if we start like this?"
"Now it's 'we,' huh…" He snorted softly. "A moment ago it was just you."
"The past is the past, now is now." She said flatly. "Tear down the barrier."
"Never." He reiterated.
"First you have to understand your place in this, you're the familiar and I'm the master, understood?"
"Yes, yes, I'll obey, just take it down already." She answered.
'I'll kill him as soon as I learn how to deliver mental strikes,' She thought.
Azriel could still hear her thoughts and only laughed again, she hadn't learned her lesson yet.
Then, immediately, he repeated the feat; she suddenly screamed and dropped to her knees, her head throbbing.
"Damn!" she said through tears.
"I told the truth, I swear."
Azriel watched those crocodile tears and couldn't believe how naturally she lied.
"Of course, my servant, you'll have plenty of time to learn to manage your new life."
"But right now, only I need to know what's going on in that naughty little head of yours."
He teased, poking her sore temple.
"If you understood, then speak." She clenched her teeth in fury, her fox ears pinned back, nothing betrayed her feelings.
"Of course, Master." Azriel smiled but couldn't resist adding,
"You used to call me 'great master Azriel,' so call me that now."
He teased as she stared at him in shock; she was about to defy him again, but the fear of pain made her speak.
"Of course, Great Unfathomable Master Azriel." He grinned widely as she rolled her eyes.
"Better."