Chapter 420: Via
The car had already settled into a steady pace, quietly rolling along the road while the scenery outside continued changing with every passing minute. Kouhei rested his elbow against the door and looked out the window, absentmindedly watching rows of trees, distant hills, and scattered buildings slide by one after another. After everything that had happened earlier, the calm atmosphere inside the car felt strangely relaxing. It almost made him forget how eventful the day had already been.
While his attention remained outside, he suddenly felt someone gently wrap a hand around his.
"Where’s my kiss, Kouhei-kun?" Yuuna asked, giving him a slightly pouty look that was almost impossible to ignore. And kind of cute too.
Apparently, she had been paying attention earlier.
The others had already gotten a kiss from him before they left, but somehow she had been left out. Naturally, she wasn’t about to let something like that slide, especially when everyone else had already gotten their turn.
Of course, Kouhei wasn’t planning on refusing her. That wasn’t the issue.
The only thing making him hesitate was the person sitting in the driver’s seat.
Aria was driving the car, and she was his girlfriend too. More importantly, she hadn’t received a kiss from him yet either. Kissing Yuuna right in front of her made him wonder if he was about to accidentally step on a landmine. Relationships were already complicated enough without adding unnecessary explosions into the mix.
"You don’t have to worry, Kouhei-sama," Aria said while keeping her eyes on the road. "I’ll get mine once we arrive and settle into our lodgings, so you don’t need to hold back because of me."
Hearing that immediately took a weight off Kouhei’s shoulders.
Since Aria herself was perfectly fine with it, there wasn’t much point in overthinking the situation anymore. She sounded completely sincere, so all that nervousness disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared.
Although...
Trying to kiss someone inside a moving car still wasn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world. Whoever designed car seats clearly wasn’t thinking about romance. They were probably just worried about seat belts and back pain.
Still, Yuuna had already leaned toward him ever so slightly, making it perfectly obvious what she wanted.
Kouhei smiled before leaning closer as well. He gently placed one hand against the side of her face, brushing a few loose strands of hair away from her cheek before softly pressing his lips against hers.
The kiss only lasted a few brief seconds.
It wasn’t overly passionate or dramatic, nor did it need to be. It was a simple kiss filled with affection, and somehow that made it feel even more meaningful than either of them expected.
As soon as their lips parted, something completely unexpected happened.
A faint light appeared within both of their eyes. They danced around, before it disappeared as quickly.
The glow wasn’t blinding or flashy, but it was unmistakably there. At the same time, the aura surrounding both of them seemed to ripple outward before naturally flowing together. It looked almost as though their energies had reached for one another on their own before blending together without either of them consciously doing anything.
"Did we just... Love Link?" Yuuna asked, blinking several times in disbelief.
She sounded genuinely surprised.
Honestly, Kouhei was just as shocked as she was.
Love Link was an incredibly rare phenomenon that only occurred when Kouhei and another person managed to perfectly align their hearts. Calling it rare was honestly putting it lightly. The odds of it happening naturally were described by him and the others in the Kouhei Faction as one in a million.
Whenever Love Link was successfully established, both Kouhei and the other person would receive extraordinary enhancements. Their abilities, physical capabilities, and overall power would increase by a ridiculous amount compared to before.
Even then, Love Link wasn’t limited to just one form.
The most basic version was simply called Love Link, where Kouhei synchronized with a single person.
Then there was Connective Love Link.
Instead of connecting with only one partner, Connective Love Link required Kouhei to synchronize with multiple people simultaneously. Needless to say, accomplishing something like that was far more difficult.
Up until now, there had only been one known method of reliably triggering Love Link.
Both participants had to orgasm at exactly the same moment. Meaning, in order to achieve it, Kouhei had to have sex, or at least reach an orgasm one way or another together with the person he wanted to Love Link with.
During that instant, their emotions, intentions, and hearts naturally synchronized, creating the perfect conditions for Love Link to activate. Although the requirement sounded surprisingly straightforward, actually pulling it off consistently was another story entirely. Timing something so precise between two people was difficult enough.
Trying to do the same thing with three people at once was on an entirely different level.
That was exactly why Connective Love Link was considered by him unbelievably difficult.
Kouhei would have to make two or even three women reach orgasm at precisely the same time as himself. Successfully accomplishing that wasn’t impossible, but it definitely wasn’t something that happened every other day. Still, the reward reflected the difficulty. Connective Love Link granted an even greater increase in power than the standard version.
Yet what had just happened completely ignored everything they thought they knew.
They had activated a Love Link through nothing more than a kiss.
Although the power flowing through them wasn’t nearly as overwhelming as what they experienced from a normal Love Link, it was still strong enough that neither of them could dismiss it. Even this weaker variation carried enough potential to become something frightening if they continued exploring it.
"It looks like we’ve discovered another breakthrough, Kouhei-kun," Yuuna said, sounding noticeably excited. "If Love Link can happen through kissing too, then we might be able to speed things up much faster than we originally thought. Although..."
She paused for a moment, looking as though she were carefully choosing her next words.
Kouhei raised an eyebrow.
Although?
"Although, I still prefer doing it the usual way."
Her meaning was crystal clear.
She was saying that she still preferred achieving Love Link through sex rather than simply kissing.
The moment those words left her mouth, Kouhei could practically hear his own heartbeat pounding inside his chest. His face warmed ever so slightly, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t think of anything clever to say back. Sometimes silence really was the only available option.
Before anyone could continue the conversation, something suddenly interrupted them.
A violent impact struck the roof of the car without warning.
The entire vehicle lurched to one side as it swayed from the force, making everyone inside instinctively grab onto something to keep themselves steady. Judging by the direction of the impact, whatever had hit them had come from somewhere high above.
***
Via was a fallen angel whose sadistic personality had ultimately led to his exile from the Heavens.
Unlike most who sought power, wealth, or influence, Via only cared about one thing.
Entertainment.
Unfortunately for everyone else, his definition of entertainment usually involved watching other people suffer.
He spent much of his time hunting demons simply because he enjoyed it. Whenever he happened across something more interesting than a random battle, he gladly changed his plans. If he found demon lovers peacefully spending time together, he would happily ruin that happiness before killing them. Usually, he would rape the demon woman while making the male one watch. Seeing hope disappear from someone’s face brought him a twisted satisfaction that few things could match.
That was simply the kind of person he had become.
At the moment, Via lazily drifted among the clouds with an expression that practically screamed boredom. He looked like someone who had already watched every show worth watching and was desperately searching for something new.
Then he noticed it.
Far below him, he spotted two demons sharing a kiss.
"Kekekeke! Now that’s what I call interesting entertainment," Via muttered with a grin before slowly licking his lips.
That was always how his mind worked.
The moment something unusual caught his attention, it immediately became a source of amusement. It was honestly a very human way of thinking, which was rather ironic considering he had originally been an angel. Then again, fallen angels were often consumed by one of humanity’s mortal sins, so developing human desires and twisted instincts wasn’t particularly unusual anymore.
Via didn’t waste time wondering about things like that.
Those kinds of questions were boring.
Entertainment was all that mattered to him.
Still wearing the same grin, he extended one hand, and a beautifully crafted bow materialized before him. The weapon radiated pure holy power despite being held by someone who had long since abandoned the Heavens.
He calmly drew back the string.
As he did, an arrow made entirely from concentrated light slowly formed between his fingers, shining brightly against the surrounding clouds.
Without showing even the slightest hesitation, Via released the string.
The arrow tore through the sky with incredible speed before crashing directly into the moving car below.