I Only Summon Villainesses

Chapter 252: Moment Of Truth

The stalling. The reluctance to attack. The way it had taunted me with repetition instead of fighting, the way it had stayed latched to trees instead of lunging. The sluggish movement that I’d attributed to caution but was actually something else entirely.

The reason it couldn’t move properly wasn’t injury. Wasn’t fear or strategy.

It was digesting.

The Chameleon hadn’t just mimicked Nisha. It hadn’t just studied her from a distance to learn her mannerisms and speech. It had swallowed her. The close proximity that I’d deduced, the terrifyingly accurate impersonation, the knowledge of how Nisha spoke... all of it made sense now. It hadn’t observed Nisha.

It had consumed her.

And everything since, the stalling, the taunting, keeping me fighting and distracted, all of it had been buying time for the process to complete.

The Chameleon’s one good eye met mine. And slowly, deliberately, it let the smile widen.

It knew I’d figured it out.

And it knew what that meant for me. Because now I couldn’t just kill it. I couldn’t burn it, couldn’t slash it open carelessly, couldn’t pour everything I had into destruction the way I had moments ago. Nisha was inside that thing, and any blow that killed the creature might kill her too.

Fire would cook her alive before it cooked the Chameleon. My sword could cut through its belly and cut through her in the same stroke. Even blunt force, even if I had the essence to deliver it, could crush whatever pocket she was trapped in. Every tool I had was a death sentence for the person I was trying to save.

I was standing five paces from the thing that had eaten the person I was trying to rescue, holding a sword I couldn’t use, with no flames, no essence, and a body that was falling apart.

And the bastard was smiling because it knew, it knew with that terrible intelligence, that it had just become untouchable.

My grip tightened on the sword.

”You think this changes things?” I said, and my voice was steady even though nothing else about me was.

The Chameleon opened its mouth. From deep within its throat, muffled and distorted by layers of flesh, came Nisha’s voice.

Not a scream this time. A whisper. Faint, barely audible, stripped of everything except exhaustion.

”...Cade...”

My expression darkened. Anger washed over me, sudden and total, flooding from my chest to my fingertips like something had cracked open inside me and let the heat pour through.

Now, look. Nisha and I didn’t share some dramatic relationship. There was no power-of-friendship play here, no heroic bond compelling me toward self-sacrifice. I could simply turn around and walk away. Say I was unable to do anything because I was crippled.

I mean... am I not crippled? Give me one good look and tell me I’m not crippled.

But do you know the reason I wouldn’t do that? Why I wouldn’t be a fool and abandon Nisha the same way I abandoned Emma, hiding behind the justification of some lame excuse?

’Come to think of it, she does deserve it...’

How dare she have sex with me and then go ahead and have sex with another man? Or was I the other man? Either way, how dare she? I gave that woman things. Moments. Experiences that should have had her swearing off other men entirely, and instead she goes and does this to me? The disrespect was staggering.

But I wasn’t about to be both an asshole and a coward at the same time. I was, after all, a very benevolent person.

’Which means I have to find a way to handle this situation...’

Having no essence, by the way.

’I need to be able to generate essence.’

All the means available to me were currently unavailable, for the simple and unfortunate reason that there was no female here. The only female who would have worked was Nisha, and she was currently dissolving in the belly of a giant chameleon.

I sighed and stood there staring at the bastard, who stared right back at me like he could do this all day. Which, considering he was mid-meal, he probably could.

And then, while staring at him, it suddenly occurred to me.

’I have a way out!’

There was a way. A method to gain essence that had, in fact, been the very first method through which I’d discovered I could replenish my reserves. The numbers were smaller, much smaller compared to when I used a partner. But it was still something.

’Does this mean...’

The thought was revolting.

’Nah. Hell no. I’m not doing that.’

My mind paused. Reconsidered.

If I did it, I could gain at least two hundred spirit essence. Two hundred. In a battle like this, running on fumes, with the bastard unable to move because he was trying to digest my companion, two hundred was the difference between living and dying.

The problem was time. Luckily for me, this particular remedy was my foundation. My base. The thing I had been doing longer than anything else in my entire life, and after all those years of dedicated practice, I knew very well how much of a one-minute man I was in that regard.

I knew Infinite Vitality couldn’t work here because that one required a partner, which I didn’t have right now. Unless the lodestar counted my hand as a partner.

I chuckled at the thought, then glared at the Chameleon, who glared back. Wounded. Breath ragged. Looking at the way it was so hindered, something told me either Nisha was fighting back from the inside or the Chameleon was reaching a critical point in its digestion. Either way, the clock was ticking for both of us.

I sighed and said to it:

”Toilet break, please.”

The Chameleon blinked. Its one good eye tracked me with an expression that, on a creature with that much intelligence, I could only describe as bewilderment. Like it was trying to process how its prey had just politely excused himself from a life-or-death standoff.

I turned and walked behind a tree. Exhaled heavily. With my mangled, scraped-up hand, I pulled out my cock and held it in place. Inhaled. Closed my eyes.

’Let’s get this over with.’

I built the image of Kassie and Maggie in my head. Started with Kassie’s sumptuous breasts, the weight and softness of them. Then Maggie’s terrifying ass, the kind of ass that could end civilizations, and I imagined slapping it, watching her alabaster skin ripple with each impact.

My broken fingers throbbed, sending a spike of pain up my wrist that nearly shattered the image. I gritted my teeth and held on to the fantasy with the same desperation I’d hold a cliff’s edge.

I grabbed Maggie by the neck and went to work, imagined that composed, saintly face of hers finally cracking as she begged me for more. All that dignity, all that composure, crumbling until the real her came out gasping and desperate.

I didn’t ignore Kassie, either. When I noticed she was getting a little pissed that I was spending too long on Maggie, I moved over to her, held her close, and fucked her missionary style, slow and deep, like two people who actually meant it. Her moans against my ear. The way she whispered my name.

’Oh shit, I think I’m taking this a little too seriously...’

But I didn’t stop. One minute was all I had. No time for an existential crisis about my imagination being too vivid.

I went back and forth between them. Maggie until she passed out, then Kassie, same treatment. My hand was screaming at me the entire time, every nerve in those mangled fingers reminding me that I was masturbating with a hand that probably needed amputation, but pain and arousal have a complicated relationship and I was not about to unpack that right now.

And just as Kassie was reaching her climax, shaking, calling my name one last time, I exploded with all the built-up tension and white liquid shot out in front of me.

I opened my eyes.

The liquid had landed on the face of the Chameleon.

The thing was right there. Right in front of the tree. Staring at me with my cum dripping down its face. And in that one good eye, behind the wounded malice, behind the terrible intelligence, I saw something I had never expected to see on the face of a monster.

Offense.

The Chameleon looked offended.

I staggered back in horror.

”You creep! How did you?!”

But even as the shock of this deeply violating moment hit me, the messages of my glorious victory were already singing in my ears.

[Your Spirit Essence has been restored]

[Your Physical Stamina has been restored]

[Your Spirit Essence has been restored]

[Your Physical Stamina has been restored]

[Your Spirit Essence has been restored]

[Your Physical Stamina has been restored]

[Your Spirit Essence has been restored]

[Your Physical Stamina has been restored]

[Your Spirit Essence has been restored]

[Your Physical Stamina has been restored]

[Your Spirit Essence has been restored]

[Your Physical Stamina has been restored]

[Your Spirit Essence has been restored]

[Your Physical Stamina has been restored] ...