“Indeed. And because of your great contribution toward us, I would formally like to extend our thanks and an agreement to help you out whenever it is needed.”

Natasha’s words were formal but necessary. Aurora had almost expected things to end up like this after hearing what had transpired.

Still, she was a little touched to see Natasha proposing this deal to her.

“I would be glad to take you up on this deal. For further negotiations, you can approach our headmaster Rex and he’ll fill you in.”

Was Aurora shifting her work on Rex? She was and she was proud to say that she felt no guilt for doing so either.

“Now that the important discussion is over, we have one more thing to talk about.”

The voice was not a whisper but it was spoken directly in Aurora’s ear. The exhale hitting her neck made Aurora’s face go red.

Aurora felt Ava’s presence behind her only after she had spoken. Ava had one arm circling Aurora’s waist and the other dangerously close to her breasts.

It was an indecent image no matter how you looked at it. And it was even shown in front of guests.

“Ava, let me go. Now is not the time to be joking around.”

Aurora tried to dislodge Ava’s arms from around her torse but the white-haired girl did not let go.

“No can do. I need to maintain physical contact with you to keep the corruption at bay. I don’t know how you got yourself contaminated but it’s eating away at your divine powers. You need to pour it all out of yourself.”

Aurora paused at the words. She did remember trying to deal with the corruption and taking the accessive amount into herself but she had not expected it to still be a problem after a week.

After all, a goddess of her level should have purified the taint of corruption already.

“I know what you are thinking but getting rid of the corruption is not that easy. It is even more difficult for you because your divine powers are so powerful.”

Ava did sound like she could read your mind. Her words were said playfully to lower the tension but they still held the heavy truth in them.

Somehow, Aurora got a feeling that Ava was not happy with the circumstances either but she was not willing to say it out loud.

“I’m sorry. This is all my fault. I will take any punishment you dish out to me. I can even take it back inside me if you allow me to.”

Somehow, Natasha was the one who apologized for this. Aurora could feel the guilt oozing out of her in waves.

“No can do. You have divine powers now so you’ll die the second you take this corruption in. We will need someone capable of taking this tint in and purifying it. And there are only two types of people who can do that.”

“Either a really strong human who can endure the tint-transfer process. It would be ideal since the corruption does not affect normal humans but the burden of the transfer ends up killing most of them.”

“The other would be to look for the purest life form with healing capabilities – a Nymph or an angel. Their blessing is a direct contradiction to this curse so they’ll be the only one capable of purifying this curse.”

Aurora could feel an incoming headache forming behind her head. The corruption was something that was turning out to be much more troublesome than it was supposed to be.

However, if she thought this was the end of all the bad news then she was mistaken. Ava decided to land another blow on her with her next words.

“In the meantime, we will need to regularly regulate the corruption inside your body or it’ll continue to fester. Dual cultivation should be an adequate process to suppress it for the time being.”

If Aurora could have yelled in that situation, she would have.

“So, you are saying that I need a regular infusion of energy through dual cultivation to make sure that this corruption doesn’t overwhelm me?”

“That’s what I am saying. It also needs to be someone without divine energy so that they don’t get affected in the process. And that leaves us with.....well not many candidates. Thinking back at it, all those who are left are men.”

“I don’t swing that way so we can discuss it later.”historical

Aurora was tired already. All she wanted to do was to go back to sleep but her mind was in overdrive.

She was about to fall asleep when she felt a jolt of pain in her stomach. Her throat felt irritated so she tried to ease it with a cough.

But when she removed her hand it was red and sticky.

“Shit. The situation is worse than I expected. We have no other choice but to take emergency measures. Rita, Amanda, you are both still humans so you can act as a proxy for a person.”

“How?”

“We will bind your divinity for now and make you into an ordinary human. This will be a one-time deal so prepare your mind. Aurora, I’ll knock you unconscious for now but once you wake up, do brace yourself. You will not get time to rest afterward.”

Aurora wanted to protest against this order but her arms felt like they had no energy.

She had not wanted to get Rita or Amanda involved in her problem but she could see their determination being reflected in their eyes.

They were going to do this with or without Aurora’s agreement. So it was better to accept their gift generously than to make it difficult for them later.

“Alright. I will take you up on that offer.”

Aurora felt like she was fighting a losing battle. So she decided to give in and go back to sleep.

She felt Ava’s spell fall over her and drag her into unconsciousness. No matter how hard Aurora tried to wake up, she would not be able to unless Ava wanted her to. It was dangerous for Aurora to hand herself over to Ava like this.

But it was for the better. And because of the contract, Ava could not do anything to Aurora either.

Time went past while Aurora slept. Time had no meaning in the darkness of her mind but Aurora still tried to keep a sense of how much time had passed.

It felt like an eternity before Aurora felt her spell being lifted. She could smell something sweet and intoxicating reaching her nose and two pair of hands all over her body.

It looked like the show had started.