Reign woke up in the morning, he yawned before trying to turn around but was unable to. Something was clinging on him, and not allowing him to move at all.
He turned his head to the side, only to be met with Liara's sleeping face.
During her sleep, the young girl had actually turned to face Reign and had even gotten closer to him. Her right arm was over his body, as was her right leg. Half of her body was on him, and half was on the bed. Her head was right on his chest, and that would be nice and romantic if not for the fact that her mouth was open and she was drooling all over Reign's bare chest.
"Yo, wake up." Reign said as he grabbed Liara's head and gently shook it, but nothing happened.
He sighed before pinching her nose, but even that didn't work as once again, her mouth was wide open and she was breathing through it. Reign stared at Liara before extending his finger and causing some sparks to appear as his lightning coiled around it.
He gently touched her shoulder, slightly shocking Liara, causing her body to tense up and for her to wake up. She opened her eyes and yawned before looking at Reign.
"Just 5 more minutes," Liara said absent-mindedly before closing her eyes again. Reign blinked several times before shocking her again, this time, a bit stronger than before, which caused her to wake up again.
"What the hell, I'm sleepy!" Liara said as she stared at Reign's eyes, only for her to blink and slowly look down and around them. The realization of what was happening slowly came to her mind as her eyes widened as she quickly turned and got away from Reign.
"The vortex, it's making me do things again," Liara said as Reign shook his head.
"The barrier is still there, it's you, you clung to me during your sleep, look, you even drooled all over my chest." Reign said as he pointed at his chest, where drool was still visible, and was going down to the bed which already had a bit of it on it.
"No, no, it's the vortex."
"No, it was you, you did this." Reign said again as the two continued the little 'argument'.
"Just get me some tissues or a towel, alright?"
"It wasn't me."
"I saw you drooling on me, it was you, now give me the damn towel."
"No, you're not right, it wasn't me," Liara said stubbornly as Reign's face changed as he got more and more annoyed.
He suddenly got up and walked over to Liara who was staring at him with vigilant eyes.
"What are you –"
"Aaaa!" Liara screamed slightly as Reign grabbed the end of her pajama and lifted it up before using it to wipe off the drool from his body, causing Liara's stomach to be uncovered.
"You perv!" Liara shouted before grabbing the pajama back from Reign, whose chest was now clean.
"I told you to give me a towel, but you didn't, and since you drooled all over me, quite literally mind you, I decided to use that to wipe it off." Reign said in a low voice before stretching.
"I'm gonna go shower, then we can get the barrier back up." Reign said as he got inside the bathroom and closed the door. The sound of water running was heard quickly after that, and Liara simply sat down on a chair with a blush on her face.
'What the hell, what the hell, whatthehellwhatthehellwhatthehellwhatthehellwhatthehell!!' Her mind spun as she couldn't believe what she had done.
Waking up next to Reign would be one thing, waking up partly on him with her head on his chest another, but drooling on him?!
She didn't know if she would ever be able to move on from doing something so embarrassing, this moment would be one that she would relive many times in the future for sure.
Only about 15 minutes had passed when Reign got out of the bathroom. He had already gotten his clothes out of the inventory and was dressed. He walked over and sat down in front of Liara.
"Alright, ready?"
"Huh?" Liara looked up and stared at him with a confused expression.
"Are you ready to start with the barrier?" Reign decided not to tease Liara any further as this was quite an important thing they needed to do. Causing her any more disturbance by teasing her about what she had done was truly not necessary, at least not right now, as after the barrier was placed, that was a different story altogether.
Liara nodded to Reign who placed his hand on her head. Even though one didn't really need physical contact for this, it helped anchor themselves to the other person, making it a bit easier to go in and get out.
Reign did the same as before, going deeper into her soul and searching for the barrier and the vortex. He didn't need to search for a long time though and arrived in front of the barrier quite quickly.
'Let's see how much damage it has done.' Reign said as he touched the barrier and inspected it.
"About 90% of the soul power gone huh?" Aethion said with a click of his tongue. That was more than what they anticipated. Since it had managed to destroy 40% in 12 hours, they thought they had 13 or 14 hours left, but now, after about 7 hours, it had destroyed 50% more.
'The more it destroys, the faster the rate of destruction goes.' Reign thought as he sighed.
'We should have thought of this, the barrier is a lot more stable in the beginning, the more of it gets consumed and destroyed, the less stable it is, allowing the vortex to do more damage in the same amount of time.'
"But luckily, the barrier is still present, so this won't take long, I'll use more souls this time, making it even larger and sturdier so that it can last longer."
Reign placed both of his hands on the barrier and started channeling his soul power, only for something to suddenly change.
The barrier cracked.
Suddenly, the pull from the vortex became much more powerful, and Reign's ethereal body was glued to the barrier as the vortex tried to destroy it, causing more and more cracks to appear.
"Dammit, we made a mistake kid!" Aethion shouted in disbelief.
"We thought that because it is a vortex, the pulling force it generates should be distributed evenly around the barrier, thus making it impossible for only one place to be damaged more than another, but this thing is not a vortex, not in the traditional sense!"
"It has done this on purpose, only done so much damage last night so that you would drop your guard, and left the 10% now so that you would believe that everything was still fine, that there was no danger."
"It then suddenly struck only one area of the barrier, and because it is already so weak, it was easy for it to break through it and start pulling you in, as well as dealing damage to the barrier!"
'Yeah, I can see that this thing, it's unlike anything we thought it was, it seems to possess some intelligence and consciousness, it actually even formed a plan, one that was actually quite elaborate, it was as if it was checking on how I responded to what it did before going all out and trying to draw me in now.' Reign pushed against the barrier and used multiple souls to form a rope that coiled around his body, allowing him to slowly get away from the vortex, but the trouble had just begun.
The vortex suddenly sped up.
The pulling force became more and more powerful and the barrier broke before being absorbed by the vortex.
"It's stronger, dammit, the souls you used to form the barrier!" Aethion suddenly shouted.
'They would have been lost anyway, so it's not a-'
"No, not that!"
"It used the souls, it devoured them, that is why it is able to power itself up, if it had been able to do this before, why did it wait and use it when you were here the last time?!"
'It couldn't.'
"Correct, it couldn't, it needed fuel, it needed souls in order to do this, if you make another barrier, you will do nothing but allow the vortex to grow even more powerful!"
'Dammit, then what are we supposed to do?!'
Suddenly, Reign flinched as he felt somebody touching him.
'Shit, Liara, don't tell me she's being influenced again?!'
Reign's thoughts were correct as Liara had removed his hand and suddenly straddled him before starting to kiss him all over.
She removed her pajamas and continued kissing him as Reign did his best to find a way to stop the vortex.
'Do I really need to give it Lieara's soul fragments?'
'No, I'm not doing it, not before finding out just what the hell this thing is!'
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