Nupian clutched her chest and swayed uncontrollably. She crashed on a wall and collapsed, haggardly gasping for air even though she had no need for it. All-encompassing anxiety, as if her life was slipping away, as if her body belonged to her no more, loomed above her.

Her Corruption Power rose out of her body and rampaged wildly throughout her quiet compartment. If not for her first wife, who enacted a spell formation to repel the destruction, the entire ship would’ve already sunk.

“Return to me, Nupian.” Nupian’s first wife came to her. “I’m here. You don’t have to endure it alone.”

With great struggle, Nupian dragged her chaotic power back within her soul. Her trembling body fractured and reconstructed itself, only to shatter again, and again, and again until that dreadful episode passed.

When her madness ceased, her wives surrounded her with their worries and distress, but her first wife blocked them. Her unstable condition endangered their fragile existence. They reticently backed off, for only Nupian’s first wife, her first love, could contain that insanity.

Nupian knew of their affection. And it only worsened her feeling that boiled her chest, her shame that scarred her heart, her guilt that gutted her conscience.

Pathetic. She shouldn’t have doomed them to this fate.

Tears welled in her eyes. Her first wife hugged her, infusing familiar warmth that dispelled the chain of thoughts she dared not reconsider. She had come too far to give up, too deep to return.

Her soul was no longer hers, her journey no longer for herself.

“I . . . dreamed,” Nupian said.

“The nightmare too shall pass.”

“It’s already passed.” Nupian shook her head. “We . . . were back there, back where it all began.”

“You . . . dreamed of that place?”

Nupian’s first wife, Aconite, trembled. Her gentle expression paled, terror filling up her dull eyes. That place, the origin of their power, the start of their adventure . . . but also the source of their misfortune, the beginning of their misery.

“Did she appear?” Aconite said, her voice trembling. “Did she demand anything?”

“She appeared, but not for us.”

“Don’t lie to me. Don’t sacrifice yourself again!”

“There weren’t only us. She . . . came for Iris.”

Multiple eyes grew from Nupian’s pupils, within which rose petals blossomed. They filled her sclerae with blood-red stains before receding back into the depth of the immaterial realm, clinging around Nupian’s soul, greedily consuming its vitality.

“What should we do?” Aconite, staring into Nupian’s soul, froze in place. She averted her eyes, unable to even look at her most treasured person. “If . . . if she got to Iris . . .”

Nupian gritted her teeth. “We have to accelerate our plan. She might desire Iris, but she won’t break our pact.”

Iris mustn’t suffer the same fate as her. She was the last hope, the sole ray of light that Nupian had been searching for.

…

Iris squirmed. The tempest of spiritual petals and tangible fragrance rippled with her motion, their flow reversing, crashing, dispersing as drizzle upon the white canvas. Pink shades, like dews, etched a series of intertwining symbols onto the void, surrounding the dreamer as if she were the offering.

Ludmint, holding Iris, pressed her ear on her fiancée’s chest. The erratic pulses gradually lessened along with the trembling. She intermittently injected silver light into Iris. Their radiance illuminated her membrane before they got absorbed by the core.

Around Iris, a whirlpool of the black tide, a concoction of formless creatures and abominable flesh, lurked in rhythmic waves. Their shadows reached out their claws and slithered around the most delectable scent.

Antina hmphed. Dark purple light gushed out of her long sleeves. With oceanic pressure it crushed any straying shadows, pushing them back to where they belonged. Yet a few persisted.

As the perfume spread, more and more creatures of great power would sense it.

“We don’t have much time,” Antina said. “The Void itself desires her soul.”

Ludmint remained still. “Even though it’s the only place the curse couldn’t reach.”

“If we don’t leave now, she might stay here forever.”

“A little more. I must at least see its trace.”

“She wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”

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“I’m only looking for a chance.”

A distortive howl boomed. Countless shadows shrivelled and retreated. Their chaotic cries filled the white void with high-pitch rings.

A black colossus plunged through the dark sea with its mighty limbs shattering all inferior beings in its path. Each of its forceful movements rumbled the infinite void, crackling barriers between Planes.

Antina drew forth her power to block the shockwave. The clash reverberated the proclamation of prey and warned all beasts of their foolish engrossment.

Despite the continental distance between them, Antina’s hair rustled, her clothes wrinkled. The insignia of her mother flickered, cracks surfacing.

She turned to Ludmint.

“It’s no longer your decision,” she said. “Nupian can only claim her attention for a few moments. That Void Creature will claim her body for eternity.”

“One last time. Let me try to wake her.”

As Antina clasped her quivering hands and observed the terrifying presence at the end of space, Ludmint closed her eyes, leaned to her sleeping beauty, and pressed her lips upon her fiancée. She tenderly bit those pale, quivering lips while her hands pushed that delicate body further within her.

Their fragile bodies wrapped around each other. Her silhouette fused with Iris’s, and she reached for Shadow Heart Core.

After a moment of gentle caress, she squeezed it.

Iris also bit her lips.

She instinctively flinched back her hands and opened her eyes. She met Iris’s clear gaze with hers misty.

“You shouldn’t let lust win,” Iris said.

“Don’t make us worried then.”

Iris glanced at Antina and closed her eyes. She clung onto Ludmint, her face snuggling her beloved’s breasts. Ludmint turned to the portal and returned to reality with Antina.

Screeching howls grew larger and larger until the grey door swung shut. A few pressure waves punched the door, snapping its frail wooden boards. Their intensity shook the whole second floor before subsiding to null like nothing ever happened.

Against Ludmint’s silent plead, Iris separated herself. She inhaled the dispersing pink scent. Only after it fully dissipated did she sigh.

She was about to speak when she crutched her chest and knelt. Her slime turned dark purple, her membrane sprawling neon blue tendrils. Cold air enveloped her figure, which sparkled between vivid and fleeting.

Ludmint rushed in, but Iris stopped her. Breathlessness clasped her chest, and vertigo seized her heart. She covered her mouth and coughed savagely. Crimson petals sprouted through gaps between her fingers. They lightly fell on the black floor and dyed the golden lines with a blood-like texture.

Iris stared at these petals, her eyes contracting. A haunting smile rose in her heart and divided itself endlessly, occupying every bit of her thoughts.

A hazy shape, a lady concealed in a red shroud, manifested in her soul. She, her sleeve covering her mouth, examined Iris’s soul.

Thunderous sounds shocked Iris. Her Shadow Heart Core cracked, and agony shredded through her mind.

Her eyes blurring, she grabbed the petals, stuffed them in her mouth, and chewed everything. Crunchy noises resonated in her ears as crushed eyeballs melted on her tongue.

She vehemently swallowed. The blood and flesh evaporated inside her, leaving no trace.

Once she wiped her lips and stood up, she smiled at her fiancée and her maid. Her slightly crooked head infused the air with suffocating moods. Her tendrils, dripping with sticky fluid, sunk inside her membrane.

She now regained her calmness.

“That was unsightly,” she said. “Please erase it from your memory.”

“That isn’t a part of the curse,” Ludmint said.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because you were apprehensive.”

“It was unexpected.”

Ludmint walked to Iris. “Tell me, Iris. I’d rather have your lie than your silence.”

Iris averted her eyes, but her gaze landed on Antina, who too was staring at her. These people risked their lives to save her, did their best to cure her, yet she couldn’t even tell them what they were saving her from.

“I’m not fine.” She pushed away her girlfriend. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know who did it. I don’t know anything.”

She lowered her head. Her heart ached, ached more painfully than when countless blades tore through her, when her body splattered into droplets, when a spear struck her Shadow Heart Core.

She couldn’t even answer a simple question.

“Thank you.” Ludmint hugged her crumbling wife-to-be. “I just want to hear your voice. Nothing more.”

Iris returned the gesture. Her arms tightened around her Ludmint while her head buried itself in the soft flesh she desperately yearned for. She could feel worry oozing out of her slime, but she cared no longer.

Black monoliths hovered in silence. Golden river flowed in silence. The world leaned onto the pair and shielded them from turbulent gushes, which crashed, separated, and parted way like an intricate maze branching its paths.

Hymns of heartbeats droned on and on until Iris pulled her reddened face away from her comfort. Pink dots on her slime diminished, and she detached completely from Ludmint.

“When it’s time, I’ll tell you everything,” Iris said. “Will you wait for me?”

“An eternity is my limit.”

“I’ll make sure not to exceed a single epoch.”

Ludmint beamed and raised her hand forwards. “Let’s go up. This dreary place doesn’t suit us.”

Chuckling, Iris grabbed the hand but stumbled forwards. The world broke into slices and rotated in random orientations. Drowsiness tremendously pressed down on her. She forced herself to stand straight and smile but then stopped.

“Ludmint . . . I’m tired.” She puckered her lips. “But I don’t want to see her again.”

“You won’t see her again.” Ludmint eyed Antina, who came to support their patient. “We have still one last plan.”

Iris blushed. The power of the void worked, but she kept silent. She allowed her two partners to carry her out of the underground and into the large flower-decorated, candle-scented bedroom designed for the occasion.

The void was dangerous. Those two didn’t have to take the risk. She simply chose the safer option for them.

They lay her on the bed, lit the candles, and closed the curtains. Soft moonlight slipped past the woven fabrics of the curtains, slithered through gaps between her embroiled lingerie, and tickled her heart one stroke at a time.

She obscured her expression with her arm and swiped hooks of her inner garment, which faltered to the side, exposing her secret.

She breathed out. Her fiancée breathed in. She lay still. Her fiancée moved atop her. Tingling sensations bloomed in her thighs, in her abdomen, and everywhere intimate with deliberate touches.

Another pair of hands coursed around her skin. She shivered, yet she refused to move her arm. Pinkness of her flesh, of her desire, blinded her, filled her with anticipation of countless ways her body would flail around like an innocent maiden pushed down by her seductress.

Mixed with her pants, her moans sang invisible pleads. She shuddered, feeling the faint tremor of her bed, the dampness of her sweat, the sweetness of her scents. The bedroom closed in upon her, like darkness upon the creature of the night.

Her lovers inched ever so closer to her. Heating breaths irritated her cheeks. She twisted and turned. And she stayed within the confine of their caresses.

For the entire night she fueled their flames.