Drowsy winds tapped Iris’s cheeks. Her eyelids trembled. She shifted her posture, but the discomfort persisted. The nightly air, cold and tranquil, churned all around her. A diffused scent, candy-like in flavour, rose-like in aroma, permeated her surroundings.

“Ludmint?” she whispered. “Did you . . . carry me to your room?”

No sound, no movement, nothing seemed to move, nothing but Iris herself. Her intuition finally shook her soul, which pulsated brilliantly, dispersing confusion and illusion plaguing her.

She opened her eyes, her brows furrowed. The bed in which she lay rustled with her movement. Its pink, fluffy blanket carefreely wrapped around her figure, concealing her beauty from all but her most beloved. She grabbed the blanket, damping its fluff, and untangled herself.

A rush of soothing perfume seeped out of the squeezed fabric. It pinkened the dark blue night. Its colour was inferior only to the tender yellow candlelight. They glowed throughout her bedroom.

Iris waved her hand. A gale blew away the pink mist and extinguished the candles. Yet the candles reignited themselves, glowing in bluish flames. They now radiated cool, refreshing breezes.

That reignition, Iris failed to detect any hint of magic. If not for her staring at the phenomena, she wouldn’t have known the candles lit themselves.

It was as if laws of nature dictated the process. Candles, when extinguished by external means, compelled themselves to burst anew.

Iris took a deep breath. A puff of forest-like scent entered her body and infused into her slime. Her Corruption Power surrounded them, interacted with them, and decomposed their structure.

Once again she found nothing.

“The laws of the world have changed,” she muttered. “Who are you?”

As nothing returned the answer, Iris rose out of her bed. The bedroom’s layout eerily resembled her own, but its decoration, atmosphere, and ambience contained a hint of airiness, of lightness she rarely experienced.

It reminded her of . . . home. In that nameless, damp cave, she spent the first moment of her new life in bliss. She dared not hope to capture such delight again, but now she found it in this familiarly different world.

Unreal. As if she were in a dream.

Iris touched her cheeks. Her fingernails pinched her membrane and stretched it until it split. Her cold slime flowed from her cheeks. Like tears it moistened her face, dripped on her pyjamas, and stained the carpet beneath her feet.

The coldness tingling her face, the stickiness on her translucent dress, they gave rise to an awareness, an awareness of the surroundings foreign yet familiar, magical yet real.

“Duality, where are you?” Iris said. She closed her eyes, feeling her body descending unto her consciousness. Her spirit fell inside herself, and she opened her eyes.

She stood in the same bedroom, before the same bed, surrounded by the same candlelight. This place . . . existed only in her mind.

Frowning, Iris walked to her reading table. She glided her fingers on its wooden surface. A layer of dust dirtied her, but she didn’t mind. Her eyes shifted to a drawer, where she stored her precious books and documents. She held its handle, injected her Corruption Power, which slithered in a predetermined path, and pulled the drawer open.

The mechanism cranked, and the drawer slit open. Within it lay a thick tome, Speculative Divinity. Iris picked it up and flipped through it, seeing only empty pages upon empty pages.

The one who locked her in her dream was not powerful enough to replicate the knowledge of the divine. This dream-like sensation, this colourful world, it was characteristic of her.

“Nupian . . . am I that indispensable?” Iris said. She instinctively knew that Nupian would come for her, but why? What had she forgotten, again? “Fortunately, I’ve grown since we last met. Your influence can no longer blind me. I . . . want to ask you a few questions. Would you like to hear them?”

Muffled footsteps resounded from the outside. A petite rhythm, clicking against the stone road, echoed throughout the empty city. Its soft yet passionate tone interrupted Iris. She merely ceased her one-sided conversation and walked to the window.

Thick blue curtains, with pink streaks crossing their fabric, rustled along with the midnight drafts. Iris drew them to the side and peered her head through the open window. A bright flower-like moon hovered beyond the sky, waving its petal-shaped clouds at the sleeping world, at its sole citizen.

The moon’s reflection flickered on her golden irises, which shimmered as clarity overtook her confusion. Her insightful gaze glimpsed at the illusory world, through a thick haze of dreams, and landed on a series of vibrating lines, threads of thoughts that composed this dreamscape.

Colourful feelings developed and withered, giving rise to tides, to emotional waves. They rippled and dispersed and merged with their surroundings, filling the atmosphere with unseen spirits.

Most of them were Iris’s emotions, conscious and subconscious, but there were hints of unfamiliar affection, of artificial love.

Iris touched her neck, feeling the black choker wrapping tightly but also delicately around it. Its structure had fused with her body, tickling her whenever she glided her fingers on it.

Before she tried to experiment with the choker, she caught at the corner of her eyes a blurry figure at a distance. Her eyesight penetrated the terraced houses and landed on that mysterious lady, who also looked up.

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Their gazes met, and their hearts palpitated.

Iris clutched her chest. Her face reddened. Her soul shivered. A cold wind descended upon her, forcing her to blink, to shiver pitifully in her thinly weaved pyjamas.

Inaudible whispers clasped her mind, snapping her out of her trance. That Nupian had vanished from her location. Where could she be?

Another mutter softly echoed beside her. It confided to her abstract sense of awareness, of traces of powerful teleportation spells. Iris closed her eyes and imagined the layout of Donhalgen.

Glowing magic circles manifested and revolved around her. Countless phantoms of her future split themselves and rushed in myriad directions. They cast their spells, morphed their wings, and separated themselves into an endless amount of Slime Girls.

All with one goal, to avoid Nupian.

The potential Irises left the room as swiftly as they materialised. Their illusory scent perfumed the atmosphere, and the real Iris submerged herself in this strange mood, where she admired her other selves sacrificing themselves for her.

They were all her, and she was all them. If she were the one summoned by her other self, she too would gladly cast away her life; the exchange of her temporal existence with a step toward that goal, it was worth it, everything was worth it.

“For every puddle of ours, the height we could climb will be a little higher.” Iris flashed a freezingly tender smile. “All we hope for is that we carry a part of us through. We only need one, after all.”

The potential Irises vanished one after another. Before their future collapsed, they encountered the potential Nupian, and by a mere touch they lost themselves.

Their disappearances shone amidst the lonely city, flickering like the last cry of the dying stars. The curtain of the end fell, and silence consumed all futures, all possibility.

Even if Iris was now of the Condensation Phase, she still couldn’t retaliate. Her Nupian, her lovely Nupian, was too powerful, assertive.

The door into Iris’s house creaked open. Although quiet, its haunting noise pierced into Iris’s ears. She looked at the window and shook her head. She could not escape, could not fight back.

To win, she must face her fear head-on. She must surprise her Nupian.

The approaching footstep ceased in front of the door into Iris’s bedroom. A series of playful knocks reverberated. Iris softly assented. The door carefully slid open.

A large black hat, on whose rim was a flower-laced veil, rested on Nupian. She tilted her head, sweeping her attention through the tranquil bedroom. Her gaze found Iris. Her veil waved as if uttering their cheers.

Iris placed her hands on the window frame, her back facing Nupian. She stared into the distance, into the field of blurry stars, into the great beyond for where a place she longed existed. Motionless, she lost herself in her thoughts, allowing the nightly winds to dance around her.

Nupian’s lips curved into a smile. She grabbed her hat, took it off and pressed it on her abdomen, and then took a deep breath. The layering scents of myriad Irises filled her lungs. She shivered, her neck pinkening.

“Iris, you’re even more beautiful than the day I lost you,” she said. “Congratulations, Dear. You’ve condensed your power as well as your charm.”

Iris smiled. She remained unmoving, her face hidden from Nupian. “My instinct . . . told me of your arrival. Have we . . . forgotten something?”

Nupian paused. Her hands, holding her hat, tightened their grip. Her Domain of White Winter stirred, but its power could not find and freeze the shackle upon her lost memory. It could only numb her uneasiness.

“I . . . indeed have. I remembered . . . that our souls became connected, our hearts intertwined. But then, we . . . when I regained myself, I’ve already returned to my body. What did you see?”

“I saw the Heavenly Kingdom itself,” Iris said. “Would you believe me if I told you I’ve met a goddess?”

“I would not . . . if it weren’t you saying it.” Nupian chuckled. “You’ve always been special. If it’s you, slipping out of a transcendent’s grasp isn’t an impossibility.”

“If I could escape from The Goddess herself, why would I let you approach me?”

Nupian sauntered towards Iris. Her black hair danced around her body, swirling like a river of inks detailing a joyous future between two lovely, special brides.

She reached forwards. Her hands passed through Iris’s shimmering blue hair. They wrapped around her fingers, sparkling like minuscule crystals. Her fingertips phased through them and touched Iris’s shoulders.

Nupian gently held onto Iris’s upper arms. Iris trembled. The cold winds vanished, the soothing scents disappeared, and the night ceased its steady movement.

The moon brightened, flashing its pale highlight upon the sole pair within this misty world.

Iris slowly turned her head to face Nupian. Her golden eyes dimmed, turning grey.

“Was there ever any chance for me?” she said.

“I do not know, I cannot know, Dear. What you’re hiding, only you would know.” Nupian drew her hands along Iris’s arms, reaching Iris’s hands. “But, I do know that you’ll still exist after we’ve completed our vow.”

“This body, this memory, they’ll live on. But what would become of me?”

“You’ll gain a part of me, a part of my legacy.” Nupian handed Iris her black-veiled hat. On its cap was a single black rose. “Throughout my journey, I’ve unearthed many treasures, and what I’m offering to all my brides is the most precious of them all.”

“Where . . . are they?”

“They’re with me, within me, around me.” Nupian smiled. “Unfortunately, our connection isn’t that intimate yet. You’ll see them soon, very soon.”

Iris closed her eyes, relaxing her hands. She casually slipped out of Nupian’s grasp and, revealing a graceful smile, walked to her bed. She turned around, looked at Nupian with her eyes closed, and fell on her bed. Her blanket rose around her, perfuming a candy-like scent throughout the room.

The blue chilly candles flickered, shifting their shade to passionate pink. A permeating heat engulfed the atmosphere. The curtains fell and obstructed the prying cold air from interrupting this sacred ritual.

With Iris’s bare body laying before her, Nupian bit her lips. She carefully walked to the bed, taking off her attires, trembling with every piece removed. Her pale, snowy skin reddened when her hands glided across them, as if the ghosts of her most beloved tickled her, teased her, kissed her.

She pressed her knees on the bed. Her body hovered above Iris, who, with her eyes closed, opened her mouth and licked her lips, moistening their slimy membrane.

“I . . . we are asleep, dreaming a future that couldn’t be,” Iris said. “My affection is fleeting, my heart transient. Illusion and reality, they collide and mesh until one can no longer discern the truth.”

Iris drew her arms around Nupian’s neck. She opened her mouth and exhaled. A puff of burning, fruit-scented air filled Nupian’s face. Nupian slowly lowered her head. Her fine black hair, like curtains, fell all around Iris’s face, concealing the impending act of love from all but the two brides.

“I shall make this dream a reality, this promise the truth,” Nupian said. “I shall find you, and you shall find me. We shall stay together until forever ends.”

Nupian pressed her sensitive body against Iris’s, who shivered and let out a sensual moan. Her voice flooded the bedroom, painting the pink atmosphere steamy.

“Then, come find me. Prove to me that your love transcends distance, transcends time, and transcends identity.”

Iris opened her eyes. Their golden shine brightened the lonely night. Her resolution struck this involuntary dream.

As everything rapidly crumbled, Nupian frowned. She opened her mouth and gave Iris’s lips a tender, passionate kiss. Her tongue intertwined with her most special bride, as the two Monster Girls, deeply in lust, disintegrated into piles of thoughts.