He wasn't equal to her yet since she just barely qualified as a peak level six but it was only a matter of time before he reached her. salem's mind raced as the corrupted thinking made her immediately turn her thoughts towards violence but logic told her that killing leon was now impossible. even if she overpowered him by a good amount she didn't have any method to keep him from escaping. the stronger someone was the harder it became to contain them and salem had never tried to figure out how to trap someone on her level before leaving her ill prepared.
The worst part in her opinion was that even if she devoted her time to figuring out how to do so by the time she did leon might have made it useless as he had already grown beyond that point. salem hoped that the sex would make leon hesitant to try and get rid of her at the very least. all of these thoughts vanished with what leon said however. "i can get rid of your corruption now." he said seriously.
Salem's mind just stopped entirely when he said this due to the sheer absurdity of it. the corruption was both the greatest power she possessed as well as her greatest regret because of what it cost her. thanks to it she was queen of the grim and could control them easily but at the same time she was not blind to the effect it had on her thoughts and actions. she had tried to get rid of it before periodically throughout history but had only ever been successful in suppressing it's influence rather than removing it. if she wasn't extremely aware that leon doesn't lie about things like this she would have thought him trying to trick her.
"Good so now that you are not thinking about ways to murder me in my sleep , which i could tell you totally were , it's time to share the bad news." leon said and salem stiffened. "the process for clearing out that corruption is going to hurt like nothing you have likely ever experienced. the good news however is that it's not possible to kill anyone with this method , which i am willing to prove since your paranoid self is likely thinking that this is too good to be true." leon said enjoying the rapidly fluctuating expressions on salem's face as she struggles to process this information.
"How exactly do you expect to prove this?" salem finally asked after five whole minutes of silence. "thanks to the essence of grim in the air of this place the people who have lived here for an extended period of time have a hefty amount of corruption in them. i will simply let you choose one from amongst them to be purified , personally I'd love to subject tyrion to the process due to the agony it causes but in the end the choice is yours." leon said calmly.
"Is it truly that bad?" salem asked in surprise because she was very much aware that the only reason tyrion hadn't been tortured on a daily basis by leon during this past year was because leon had the self restraint not to endanger the treaty over his own wants. it was actually one of the traits she admired about leon , his willingness to temporarily restrain his own desires to keep the big picture in mind. "i suppose the castle guards maid would do for a test since she has been here the longest." salem said without any care for her servant.
Leon wasn't even surprised about the maid being mentioned since contrary to what one may assume salem didn't have a single noncombat person in her arsenal. yes the maid in question is a highly skilled fighter due to being trained by salem personally from a young age in everything from assassination to battle strategy. part of this training apparently included torture resistance which meant that salem could use the maids reaction to being purified to gauge how bad the pain was. the maid is trained to be absolutely loyal to salem so she didn't even flinch when salem called her and told her what was going to happen.
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