The world had narrowed to the cold, gritty patch of mud beneath Zhuoyan's forehead. She knelt on all fours, a posture of absolute submission that sent waves of silent, screaming fury through her spirit. The rain plastered her dark hair to her neck and back, each cold drop a mocking tap on her skin. She was an Elder of the Celestial Blade Sect, a being of ice and will, reduced to the position of a sacrificial animal, waiting for the brand.
Behind her, she heard the horrifying sounds of Wan's movement. It was not a walk, but a slow, pained, dragging shuffle. There was a wet, sticky sound as Wan's feet pulled from the mud, followed by a heavy, off-kilter *thump* as she planted her foot. The rhythm was broken, a grotesque limp born of the monstrous object locked deep within her. With every step, a low, involuntary whimper of pain escaped Wan's lips, a sound that was both pitiable and terrifying. Her tormentor was also a victim, and her own suffering was not abating her resolve. It was fueling it.
The air shifted. Wan was directly behind her now, her presence a towering shadow of shared pain.
Then came the touch.
A trembling, mud-slicked hand landed on the small of Zhuoyan's back. It was not a gesture of firm dominance, but one of desperate necessity. Zhuoyan could feel the faint, high-frequency tremors from Wan's own suffering transmitting through her palm. Wan was leaning on her for support as much as she was holding her down. The intimacy of that shared weakness was more violating than any blow.
"The same courtesy, Zhuoyan," Wan whispered, her voice a ruin, a ragged breath next to her ear. "You must be opened."
Zhuoyan bowed her head lower, bracing herself. She squeezed her eyes shut, a silent scream building in her chest. She steeled herself for the first, humiliating touch.
It came.
The moment Wan's tongue touched her, Zhuoyan's entire world exploded in a flash of white-hot shame and violation. It wasn't the physical sensation; it was the defilement. Her body, a temple of untouchable pride, jolted violently. Her sphincter, a muscle of pure, unthinking reflex, clamped shut with the force of a bear trap. A strangled gasp, a sound of pure shock and disgust, was ripped from her throat.
"Yield, Zhuoyan," Wan's voice was not a command, but a weary, pained statement of fact. "I endured your ministrations. You will endure mine. It is the only way." The effort of speaking cost Wan dearly; her words ended in a sharp intake of breath as a spasm of her own internal pain shot through her.
Gritting her teeth so hard she tasted blood, Zhuoyan fought the war inside herself. She fought her pride. She fought her instinct. She fought every screaming impulse for privacy, for integrity, for defense. With a monumental act of will that felt like she was tearing her own soul in two, she forced her mind to conquer her body. She commanded the terrified, clenched muscle to go slack. It was the hardest thing she had ever done.
Wan's tongue began its slow, methodical, humiliating work. Zhuoyan squeezed her eyes shut, her knuckles white where she clawed at the moss, tearing it out in fistfuls. Every wet, probing, circular touch was a fresh wave of degradation, a deliberate dismantling of her pride. She could smell the rain, the mud, the jasmine-and-moonlight scent of the elixir on Wan's breath, and her own clean scent being violated. A hot tear of pure, impotent fury slid down her cheek, mingling with the rain and dirt.
The tongue gave way to the fingers.
Wan's elixir-slicked digits were clumsy, trembling with her own agony. The first finger that pressed against her was hesitant, but determined. As it pushed inside, Zhuoyan cried out, the sound sharp and involuntary. The brutal stretching of her virgin tissues was a focused, searing pain.
Wan did not relent. She pushed a second finger alongside the first.
"Ah! Wan!" Zhuoyan screamed, her hips bucking, trying to throw off the invasive hand.
"Be. Still." Wan grunted, her voice tight with strain. She threw her weight onto Zhuoyan's back, her own broken body using what little leverage it had to pin her rival. The pressure was immense. The struggle was hateful, a pathetic, intimate wrestling match in the mud. Zhuoyan felt Wan's fingers digging, stretching, brutally forcing a passage where none had existed. The pain was sharp, tearing, but it was the humiliation of her rival's fingers working deep inside her that truly broke her composure.
Finally, Wan withdrew. The preparation was over. Zhuoyan was left panting, violated, and awaiting the true ordeal.
The main event arrived with a shocking, invasive cold. The elixir-coated tip of the second Peach Blossom pressed against her ravaged entrance. It was an alien presence, a stone of immense weight poised at her broken gate.
"Don't fight it," Wan breathed, her voice filled with the terrible, intimate wisdom of recent experience. "It only makes the tearing worse."
Zhuoyan surrendered. She let her muscles go limp, a silent offering to the coming storm.
Wan leaned, putting what little strength her broken body possessed into a slow, grinding, inexorable siege. Zhuoyan felt her world dissolve into pure, agonizing pressure. The blunt, rounded head of the plug began its horrifying journey, splitting her open from the inside out. Her scream was a raw, unrestrained sound of an animal being torn apart. She felt the deep, sickening *pops* as her own ligaments and deep fascia gave way, a mirror of the sounds she had heard from Wan.
With a final, sickening, wet squelch, the plug slid home.
She collapsed, her face hitting the mud, her own body now a ruin held in its profane posture only by the massive object locked deep within her. She was sobbing, great, shuddering, hopeless sobs of a being utterly broken.
She felt the fumbling of Wan's trembling fingers against her skin. The cold click of her own key—the key Wan had worn—being taken from its chain. The key to her own damnation.
"Lock it," she managed to force the words through her shattered composure, the command a final, desperate act of defiance.
Through her haze of pain, she felt the faint, desperate pulse of Wan's exhausted qi.
***CLICK.***
The smooth petals bloomed.
The world ended.
And began again, as something else entirely. The acute, tearing pain was instantly replaced by the new trinity of torment. The overwhelming, nauseating **fullness**. The deep, structural **ache** of her pelvis being permanently held in its broken, spread-apart shape. The constant, exhausting, downward **weight** of the heavy crystal.
And then, the thrum.
It started as a low hum, a vibration deep in her core. The smooth, rounded petals were pressing on nerves she never knew she had. It was a deep, throbbing pain, yes, but woven through it was a sickening, electric tingle of unwanted arousal. Her mind reeled. Her spirit, a fortress of ice, felt a profane fire lick at its foundations. Her body was betraying her in the most humiliating way possible.
A low, horrified groan was ripped from her throat as she finally, truly, understood the genius of Wan's cruelty. This was not a trial of pain. It was a trial of sanity.
She felt Wan collapse beside her, their two broken bodies now perfect, hateful mirrors. Two goddesses, both impaled on a beautiful flower, both gifted with the key to the other's eternal torment. The second gate had fallen. And in the cold, unforgiving rain, their true challenge had just begun.