Reborn as a Succubus: Time To Live My Best Life!-Chapter 416: Traitor

The lightning bolt hit the tree behind her.

Melisa had dodged on instinct, throwing herself sideways half a second before the bolt reached her chest. The tree exploded in a shower of splinters and bark, the crack of it splitting drowning out everything else.

[She’s fast.]

Melisa rolled to her feet, already drawing a spellsign and muttering an incantation under her breath. A fire barrier snapped into existence between them just as Sylra launched a second bolt. The lightning struck the barrier, scattering into a web of sparks that lit up the clearing like daylight.

"Sylra, stop!"

Another bolt. This one came from a different angle, and Melisa had to abandon her barrier to dodge it. She felt the heat of it pass her shoulder, close enough to singe the fabric of her shirt.

[She’s really not holding back.]

Sylra was already casting again, her fingers weaving spellsigns with a speed that shouldn’t have been possible for someone who’d been self-taught for two years. But then again, she’d been draining essence from dozens of kitsune for months. All that stolen power had to go somewhere.

Melisa threw up a stone wall. Sylra’s next spell, some kind of concussive blast, shattered it into rubble. Melisa shielded her face from the debris and fired back with a wind gust that sent Sylra skidding across the clearing.

Sylra caught herself, digging her feet into the dirt. Her silver hair was wild, her red eyes blazing.

"Fight me properly!" she screamed. "Stop holding back!"

"I don’t want to hurt you!"

"Then you’re going to die!"

Another lightning bolt, then another, rapid-fire. Melisa dodged the first, deflected the second with a hastily drawn wind barrier, and the third caught her across the arm.

Pain. White-hot, searing, every muscle in her left arm seizing at once. She bit back a scream and stumbled, her vision blurring.

[Fuck. Okay. That hurt.]

Sylra pressed the advantage, closing the distance. Her fist connected with Melisa’s jaw, and Melisa tasted blood. She staggered back, throwing up a flame barrier on reflex. Sylra pulled back from the heat, and for a moment they stood on opposite sides of the fire, breathing hard.

"Why won’t you understand?" Sylra’s voice cracked. "Everything I did, I did because of you. You showed me what was possible. You showed all of us."

"I showed you that nim could be more than what the world said we were," Melisa shot back, spitting blood. "Not that we should turn around and do the same thing to everyone else."

"It’s not the same!"

"It’s exactly the same!"

Sylra snarled and punched through the fire barrier with a concentrated blast of wind. The flames scattered, and she came through the gap casting. A stone spike erupted from the ground under Melisa’s feet. She jumped clear, but Sylra was already following up with another lightning bolt that forced her to dodge mid-air.

Melisa hit the ground hard, her injured arm screaming in protest. She rolled, came up, and barely blocked a concussive blast that would have taken her head off.

[She’s good. She’s really good. Two years of self-teaching plus months of stolen essence and she’s fighting like a veteran.]

But she wasn’t a veteran.

Melisa could see the gaps. The way Sylra overcommitted to her attacks, leaving herself open. The way she relied on raw power instead of positioning. The way her spellsigns, while fast, lacked the refined precision that came from years of formal training.

She was strong. Stronger than Melisa had expected.

But Melisa had been doing this since she was nine years old.

"Please," Melisa tried one more time. "Sylra, just stop. We can talk about this. I can help you find another way—"

"Another way?" Sylra laughed, and there were tears in her eyes. "There is no other way! You could’ve been great, Melisa! You could’ve led us! All the nim, everywhere, looking to you, following you! And instead you chose them! Humans and kitsune and darians, you chose all of them over your own people!"

"That’s not what I—"

"YOU COULD’VE LED US!"

Sylra’s next attack was the biggest yet. She slammed both palms together and a wave of compressed air and lightning surged forward, tearing up the ground as it went. Trees cracked and toppled. The earth split.

Melisa planted her feet.

[I can’t reason with her. She’s too far gone.]

She drew the spellsign. The familiar pattern, burned into her muscle memory through years of practice. The incantation came out steady despite the chaos.

"Illumi, nerca, var fal!"

Blue flames erupted from her palm.

Not the small, controlled spheres she used for demonstrations. Not the careful bursts she’d used in sparring matches with Zephyra. This was the real thing, the spell she’d created and refined over nearly a decade. Her signature. Her weapon.

The blue fire cut through Sylra’s attack like it wasn’t there. It struck her dead center, engulfing her torso, her arms, her legs.

Sylra screamed.

Melisa had heard people scream before. In battle, in pain, in fear. But this sound was different. There was shock in it, and agony, and something that sounded horribly like betrayal.

She cringed, forcing herself not to look away.

The blue flames weren’t normal fire, after all. For whatever reason, a reason she still didn’t know, they burned hotter. Deeper.

Sylra collapsed, her body hitting the ground hard. The flames died out, leaving her curled on her side, shaking, whimpering. Her clothes were scorched but her skin was mostly intact. She’d live.

She’d just wish she hadn’t for a while.

The clearing was quiet.

Melisa stood there, breathing hard, her injured arm hanging limp at her side. The trees around them smoldered. The ground was torn up and scorched. The unconscious kitsune from earlier was gone, Melisa realized. She must have woken up during the fight and run.

For a long moment, the only sound was Sylra’s ragged breathing and the crackle of small fires in the underbrush.

Then voices. Footsteps. Lights bobbing through the trees.

The kitsune from earlier burst into the clearing, followed by four village guards armed with spears and glowing with defensive enchantments. They took in the scene, the destroyed forest, the beaten nim on the ground, and Melisa standing over her with blue fire still flickering at her fingertips.

"She’s the one," the kitsune said, pointing at Sylra. "She was draining me. I felt it. She was taking my essence."

The guards moved in quickly, two of them restraining Sylra while the others secured the clearing. One of them produced enchanted bindings, and they hauled Sylra to her knees.

Sylra’s head hung low. Her silver hair fell across her face, hiding her expression. But as the guards pulled her to her feet, she looked up.

At Melisa.

"Traitor."

The word hit like a punch.

"You’re a traitor to every nim alive," Sylra spat. Her voice was raw from screaming, barely above a whisper, but the venom in it carried just fine. "We could have been more than just free. We could have been gods. And you threw it away because you’re too busy licking boots to see what you really are."

Melisa said nothing.

"They’ll never love you," Sylra continued as the guards dragged her away. "None of them. Not the humans, not the kitsune, not anyone. You’re a tool to them. A pet. And when they’re done with you, they’ll throw you away like they throw away all of us."

The guards pulled her into the trees. Her voice faded. The forest went quiet again. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Melisa stood alone in the ruined clearing.

She looked down at her hands. Her right one still crackled with residual essence, the faint blue glow of her signature spell. Her left hung useless, the nerves still fried from Sylra’s lightning.

[I did the right thing.]

She knew that. Logically, rationally, she knew that stopping Sylra was the correct choice. The woman had been hurting people. Draining them. Planning something that would have led to suffering on a massive scale.

Melisa did the right thing.

So why did she feel so weird?