The sea of clouds atop Mount Taixu surged beneath her feet, and the branches of the ancient pines rustled in the wind.
Kiana withdrew her right palm. A faint, pale-blue current of energy, visible to the naked eye, still lingered in her hand.
The current swirled twice between her fingers, then dissipated into the air.
"Not bad." Fenghuang stood three paces away, arms folded across her chest. "Your mental strength has recovered to about seventy percent."
Kiana shook out her aching wrist, her forehead drenched in sweat.
She had been training since morning, resting only three times in between, each break no longer than five minutes.
"Is seventy percent enough?"
"No." Fenghuang walked over to the stone table, poured a cup of tea, and pushed it across. "But by tonight, you should be able to return to your own body briefly."
Kiana took the teacup and downed it in one gulp.
"How brief is briefly?"
"Ten-odd minutes," Fenghuang said. "Enough for you to exchange a few words with Su Yu."
Kiana set the empty cup back on the table and wiped her mouth.
"And after that?"
"After that, you come back here and keep training." There was no room for negotiation in Fenghuang's tone. "To fully reclaim control of your body, half a month if it's fast, a month if it's slow. During that time, your body will remain in the hands of the Herrscher of the Void."
Kiana's brow furrowed.
Half a month to a month.
That meant Sirin would spend half a month to a month at Su Yu's side, using her body.
"So when you go back briefly tonight, you must tell Su Yu the truth." Fenghuang said. "Then the two of you negotiate with the Herrscher of the Void together."
"Negotiate?" Kiana's voice climbed half an octave. "Negotiate with that brat?"
"Your life is bound to hers—that's her one and only weak spot. Use it to make her hold your body in good behavior during your recovery, so she doesn't do anything out of line."
Kiana was silent for a few seconds.
"Squad Monitor, do you think she'll agree?"
"With her temperament, it'll be hard. But no matter how hard, it has to be settled."
Kiana drew in a deep breath and set the teacup back down on the stone table.
"Fine."
She settled back into her horse stance.
"Then I'll keep training."
Fenghuang watched the back of her as she sank once more into cultivation, and said nothing further.
Wind poured in from the cliff's edge, stirring the leaves of the ancient pines.
Happiness Community, Su Yu's rented room.
Eleven-forty at night.
Su Yu lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
His hair was still wet; after his shower he hadn't bothered to dry it, and droplets dripped from the ends onto the pillow, soaking a small dark patch.
The day after tomorrow.
The PV was going live the day after tomorrow.
He closed his eyes, trying to make his brain stop.
But the events of the day kept spinning before his eyes like a revolving lantern.
Eden under the office desk.
Elysia's handkerchief draped over her face.
The moment "Kiana" walked in.
Putting those things into her mouth and saying, "This tastes awful."
Su Yu rolled over and buried his face in the pillow.
That lofty, high-and-mighty Herrscher of the Void.
Turned out to be a little brat who didn't even have that much common sense.
Today, after Eden had left, she'd even asked with utter seriousness—"Are you offering your loyalty to that woman?"
Su Yu had nearly lost it on the spot.
If he hadn't been forced to play dumb while knowing full well, just that one line would have already exposed Her Majesty the Queen as a total, brazen liar bluffing through her teeth.
There was no sound from the living room; "Kiana" must have already fallen asleep.
Su Yu opened the System panel and was surprised to find that the progress of the [Tame the Queen] quest had actually climbed to twenty-five percent.
That progress was quite a bit faster than he'd imagined.
He let out a sigh, recalling what Fenghuang had said in his mind earlier that day.
Kiana would be coming back tonight? But it was already so late, and after a busy day, he still had to put on a dueling acting performance with her right in front of Sirin—
Exhausted in both body and mind.
Still, since Fenghuang had said she'd remind him.
Then he'd rest a while for now, and when the time came it'd be easier to discuss countermeasures with Kiana.
Weariness surged up like a tide, washing his thoughts into scattered fragments.
His eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and the lamplight on the ceiling blurred.
He rolled over and pulled the blanket up to his chin.
His breathing gradually lengthened.
In the living room, the blanket on the sofa shifted.
Sirin opened her eyes.
She had been lying there, listening for a long while.
The breathing from the bedroom had already become long and deep, evenly spaced—the rhythm of deep sleep.
She sat up.
The blanket slid from her shoulders, revealing Kiana's oversized white T-shirt.
Moonlight leaked in through the gap in the living room curtains, drawing a thin silver line across the floor.
Sirin stepped barefoot onto the floor, an icy chill rising from her soles.
She had endured all day long.
From having her hair combed by Su Yu in the morning, to being forced to wrap her arms around his waist on the back of the electric scooter, to drinking that cloyingly sweet milk tea, to playing the idiot all day long in the studio—every single second had been torment.
Enough.
That scene she'd witnessed in the office during the day was still seared onto her retinas.
Eden's foot pressing down on Su Yu, that man without even the strength to resist.
Sirin scraped her right foot against the floor.
She walked toward the bedroom.
Her steps were light, each one landing on the seams between the floor tiles, making not a single sound.
This was a Herrscher's instinct; even in her weakest state, her control over her body still far exceeded that of an ordinary person.
The bedroom door wasn't shut tight, leaving a gap two fingers wide.
Sirin reached out and pushed the door open.
Su Yu lay on his side, facing the wall, the blanket pulled up to his waist.
He wore a pair of gray athletic shorts and a black tank top, his hair still not fully dry, leaving a dark patch of dampness on the pillow.
Moonlight streamed in through the bedroom window, falling on his back.
Sirin stood at the bedside, looking down at this man sound asleep.
Her expression was complicated.
Just thinking of what she was about to do made her stomach churn.
To touch this human's body with her own foot—such an act was, to the Herrscher of the Void, nothing short of blasphemy against a deity.
But she had to do it.
As long as she pinned him down the way Eden had, he would dissolve into that same wretched state.
For the sake of conquest, this was a necessary price.
She reached out.
Her fingers pinched the zipper of Su Yu's athletic shorts.
The sound of the metal zipper being pulled open was especially jarring in the silent bedroom.
Sirin straightened up and stepped onto the bed.
She raised her right foot, the sole hovering below Su Yu's waist and abdomen.
Seen from the angle of the moonlight, that bare right foot hung suspended in midair, the toes curling slightly from tension.
The skin atop the foot appeared near-translucent and pale under the silver-white light; the lines from ankle to toe-tip were slender and taut, every toe stretched ramrod-straight, as if overcoming some instinctive revulsion.
The gap between the big toe and the second toe tightened from the curling motion, and in the hollow of the sole lay an exceedingly thin film of cold sweat, glistening faintly with a watery sheen in the moonlight.
In the very instant that Su Yu's eyelids twitched violently at some strange sensation and his pupils abruptly contracted, that icy bare foot, carrying the temperature of moonlight, came down with perfect precision.
Su Yu's eyes snapped open.
"—!!"
His spine, springing up from the bed, was forced back down hard by that foot.
In Su Yu's wide, staring eyes were reflected a pair of golden irises gazing down from on high, as if looking at garbage.
"You... what do you think you're doing?!"
The only reply, however, was a further increase in the pressure of the sole.
That fair, tender bare foot, as if treading on some loathsome insect, ground down without the slightest mercy.
Sirin looked down at the prey beneath her.
The moonlight split her face into halves of light and shadow. In those golden eyes there was no lust, no ambiguity—only a satisfaction pure to the point of childishness, brimming with the meaning of "I won."
Just as expected.
Exactly the same as what that Eden had done during the day.
This man's appearance under her foot was identical to the one beneath the office desk during the day—terror, panic, his whole presence shriveled to the point where he didn't even dare lift his head.
"Sirin, what are you doing?!"
The mask of his disguise shattered clean in such an extreme situation.
Su Yu cried out that name through gritted teeth.
Seen through, Sirin arched an eyebrow.
Unexpectedly, she showed no panic at all.
Instead, her golden eyes lit up, like a hunter watching its prey deliver itself into the net.
"During the day, the sight of you under that woman's foot was truly too pitiful to look at."
Sirin gazed down at him from on high, the corner of her mouth curving into an arc both cruel and excited.
She seemed to thoroughly relish this thrill of grasping power; the force beneath her foot gradually increased, even carrying a savage edge as though she meant to grind him utterly to pieces.
"How dare you, Su Yu? You would actually willingly bow your head to such a mediocre, lowly woman? She isn't worthy at all! In this world, the only one who can make you submit is one person—just one!"
Her lines were saturated with an almost manic possessiveness—not love, but the towering fury of a deity whose offering had been stolen away by a mere mortal.
"That's exactly the expression! Su Yu! In the consciousness space I killed you a thousand times, and not once did you ever show this kind of... routed, armor-cast-aside expre—!!"
Sirin laughed until her very shoulders trembled faintly.
This thrill of conquering a soul directly with the body sent her "flying high" far more than mere destruction ever could.
"Your weakness is already firmly in my grasp, human—you have nowhere left to run."
This declaration, so limpidly clear as to be infuriating, containing not the faintest erotic connotation whatsoever.
Spilling from those lips identical to Kiana's, paired with those golden irises that regarded him like garbage, and with what her foot was doing in that moment—this ultimate sense of dissonance was, on some twisted level, far more lethal than all of Eden's techniques during the day.
That was Kiana's body.
Sirin's movements grew increasingly intense.
In her understanding, the more violently the prey struggled, the more it proved her "ritual of submission" was working.
She felt an unprecedented ease of body and spirit, as if that lonely queen on the moon had finally reclaimed the thrill of rule.
Her whole self felt light and weightless, as though the next second she would soar up into the clouds—
And then she noticed that surge of heat welling up in her lower belly.
This human body, weak to the point of contempt, was at this moment emitting some signal she could not comprehend in the slightest.
Heartbeat racing, breath quickening, the muscles at the base of her thighs tightening beyond her control.
It must be because this body was too weak.
Once she had conquered this man, she'd have to replenish her nutrition properly.
That was how Sirin explained it to herself.
And in the very last second before this runaway train was about to plunge off the cliff—
"Su Yu, about Kiana—"
The voice caught.
Through the Spiritual Link, Fenghuang had seen the scene before Su Yu's eyes.
This fifty-thousand-year-old relic, upon glimpsing the image transmitted from the outer layer of consciousness, experienced the most violent system crash of her long life.
She froze.
For a full three-tenths of a second, this immortal who had once witnessed the fall of the previous civilization and sat alone through countless uncountable years went completely blank in the mind.
"This is bad—Kiana—"
Fenghuang remembered something.
Kiana's mental strength had already recovered to the point where she could briefly return.
And just now, in the Mount Taixu illusory realm, she had already told Kiana, "Tonight you can try going back for a few minutes."
If Kiana were to come back at this very moment—
Kiana, in the midst of cultivating the Tai Xu Sword Heart, found her mental strength at this precise instant recovered exactly to the critical threshold.
The timelines overlapped.
Everything happened in the same second.
A burst of white light exploded in Sirin's mind—the heat-surge broke through the dam with a thunderous roar, without any warning at all.
Her consciousness was scattered apart within that white light.
As if an invisible hand had yanked her violently down from the driver's seat of the body.
And another consciousness, brimming with joy and impatient words, poured into this body in the very same instant.
Kiana Kaslana had returned.
She had been counting, in the Mount Taixu illusory realm, how much longer until the "tonight" Fenghuang had promised arrived.
She had a hundred lines prepared to say to Su Yu.
She wanted to tell him she had gone to the Sea of Quanta.
She had saved Bronya.
She wanted to say, thank you, your efforts weren't in vain—she had even thought up a very cool way to open.
This was the reunion she had longed for.
She opened her eyes.
"Su Yu, I'm back—"
But the body's strangeness lodged the last half of her sentence in her throat.
The first sensation was heat.
Something scalding and viscous was trickling down her face.
The top of her foot was wet too.
Her whole body convulsed uncontrollably, as if pierced through by an electric current.
Kiana couldn't even manage a scream; she only felt as though her entire being had been struck by high-voltage electricity.
Her mind went blank, her body twitching of its own accord, sinking together with Su Yu into that sinful abyss.
A full five minutes passed.
In the bedroom there remained only two streams of rapid, ragged breathing.
The air was thick with an indescribable, suffocating, sweet-and-bloody scent.
Kiana slumped atop Su Yu, her legs still trembling with cold shudders against her will. Her gaze drifted slowly downward, looking at her own foot.
And at Su Yu's face, written over with stupor and despair.
Those words she had meant to say—the joy of having saved Bronya, the resolve to live on hard in this world.
She couldn't say them. She couldn't say anything anymore.
"I... I..."
Kiana opened and closed her mouth.
Su Yu lay against the pillow, gazing at those heterochromatic eyes he knew all too well, and at that "Su Yu" with its tail-end rising in girlish, delighted surprise.
In that moment, the sanity of them both, like some fragile porcelain, shattered completely into powder amid the wreckage filling the room.
Minds utterly blank.
Both of them were left thoroughly dumbstruck where they were.
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