CH271 The Charm of the Woman

***

Alex returned to the Back Mountain Lodge in haste.

On the ride over, his mind had been filled with all the things he needed to do. Yet, upon stepping into the place he now considered his home in this world, a sense of peace washed over him, easing the urgency in his chest.

"Haste makes waste," he muttered under his breath.

He realised he shouldn't make decisions while agitated. Forcing himself to calm down, Alex decided to distract his thoughts, at least for a while.

After returning Dread to the stable—where one of the new staff, a stableman, he'd authorised for the lodge took the reins—Alex headed into the building. His feet carried him toward the training hall.

He planned to use some physical exertion to help clear his head.

When he entered, however, he stopped short.

Udara was there, training rigorously. From the looks of it, she was shadow sparring. Unlike Alex's own relatively half-hearted shadow spars, she gave it everything she had—albeit while refraining from using mana.

She hadn't noticed him yet, so Alex stayed silent. He moved to the side of the door, leaning against the wall with folded arms as he watched.

As always, Udara's movements were breathtaking. She flowed with a lithe, feline grace—half fighting, half dancing. Each strike transitioned seamlessly into the next, creating an unbroken rhythm that pressed momentum onto an unseen foe.

Weaves, dodges, feints, sudden strikes, subtle repositioning… every motion meshed together into a relentless dance. It left no opening for an opponent to retreat, recover, or even breathe.

Alex found himself entranced.

For that moment, she was the only thing in his world. Every flick of her wrist, every step of her foot, every twist of her body carried the epitome of controlled grace, all perfectly tailored to her strengths while minimising her weaknesses.

And as he watched, Alex began to see his own flaws more clearly.

He had already spent his four days in seclusion analysing the campaign—not only drafting proposals for Drake, but also mercilessly critiquing himself.

He reached a bland painful conclusion.

In battle, he suffered from severe choice paralysis.

Rune-Tech magic, physical combat, bloodline enhancements… he had too many ways to fight, and too many variables to juggle. More often than not, he hesitated—caught between concerns of mana and spiritual force management, environmental factors, and friendly-fire risks.

By the time he made a decision, he often defaulted to a safer, underwhelming move, far weaker than the options truly at his disposal.

It forced Alex to a realisation.

While the Furor side of his bloodline enhanced his physical combat ability, the Auramir side improved his mana control, and his Rune-Tech platform opened the door to virtually every form of magic he could learn… none of them gave him what he had come to believe was the single most important aspect of battle—

Combat Disposition.

Alex realised he lacked the mentality of a true combatant.

His bloodline—particularly the Furor half and its associated True Name—pushed him toward militancy, with Calm Madness doing most of the heavy lifting. Yet even that did not erase the fact: he still wasn't mentally attuned to battle.

At his core, no matter how much he tried to adapt, he still carried the mindset of someone from his previous world. More than that—he still had the mind of a researcher, a scientist, an engineer.

He didn't treat combat solely as the life-or-death struggle it truly was. Instead, he unconsciously framed it as a puzzle to solve, a problem to engineer a solution for.

He had always been more invested in achieving the end result than in sharpening the means. In retrospect, that mindset was not only dangerously reckless—it had also prevented him from embracing the mentality needed to truly grow as a fighter.

When he looked at Udara, however, he saw what he lacked.

An experienced fighter who had trained herself to veil her mind of distractions. She didn't fixate on distant goals—she gave herself wholly to the fight before her. Every strike, every dodge, every weave was her entire world in that instant. She was consumed by the act of honing her strengths and minimising her weaknesses.

She embodied the hallmarks of the fighter Alex needed to become.

He once again reaffirmed that her decision to pursue a momentum-driven, flowing style was no accident. It was a carefully constructed choice.

Her Dryad bloodline granted rapid recovery, fuelling her continuous movement. Her Amazon bloodline bolstered her power and overall physical performance. Her Drow heritage refined her grace and flexibility. And then there was her Succubus bloodline—subtly dulling the responses of her foes, charming them with the hypnotic rhythm of her movements and the devastating distraction of her figure: the sway of her hips, the curve of her waist, and especially the devastating jiggle physics of her great behind.

[A.N: Sometimes even I wonder if something is wrong with me. *wry smile*]

By the time Alex traced the thought to this point, he found himself entranced by those devastating weapons of allure which were further powered by the laws of physics

His Truth-Seekers flickered faintly gold.

"What the—?"

Clarity snapped back into Alex's eyes, but not until a full ten seconds later.

At that point, even an ordinary woman would have sensed the heated, lust-filled gaze of a man on her rear—much less a seasoned warrior like Udara.

Suddenly, Alex felt a sharp vertigo. A chunk of his mental energy—and with it, a good portion of his Spiritual Force—was forcefully drained to snap him awake.

Even fully conscious, he still found his eyes irresistibly drawn to Udara's form. His breathing grew heavy as insidious whispers pressed at the edges of his mind.

"Udara… your charm!" he ground out between clenched teeth.

"Ah!" Realisation struck her instantly.

Udara immediately pulled back the charm aspect of her Succubus bloodline, with her expression tightening.

"I am sorry, Master!" she said quickly, bowing her head.

Alex steadied himself with a deep breath, feeling some clarity return.

"Don't be. The fault's mine… for watching without permission," he replied.

But inside, the mishap left him shaken.

He had assumed the Succubus quarter of Udara's quarterpartite bloodline was mostly dormant. But now it was clear—she possessed significant control over its expression, leaking it deliberately in combat. This time, believing herself alone, she had unconsciously released the full weight of it.

'She's not even a full succubus… yet her charm was that strong,' Alex muttered inwardly.

He shuddered at the thought of facing the allure of a pureblood Succubus.

'If they weren't so rare, they'd be a disaster to every manfolk in existence.'

Actually, even in their small numbers, Succubi were still feared by many across Arun—tolerated only in rare places such as the Eternal Valkyrie Empire (E.V.E.), where matriarchy reigned.

"Are you sure you're fine, Master?" Udara asked, stepping toward him with worry, noting how his eyes still lost focus now and then.

Alex shook off the lingering haze and forced a smile. "I'm fine. I was just… thinking."

Her anxious look—concerned, almost panicked—struck him.

It was fascinating. Moments ago, she had been a picture of focus and grace, flowing through her shadow sparring with deadly confidence. Now, before him, she seemed less the seasoned warrior and more the youthful, uncertain girl beneath the armour. That vulnerable innocence carried its own quiet allure.

Alex abruptly shook his head, snapping himself out of it. He suspected the effects of her Succubus charm still lingered in his mind.

He quickly dragged his mind elsewhere before it could betray him again.

***

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