Professor McGonagall's fingers remained pressed against the surface of the crystal ball.
She had held this exact posture for three days. Over those three days, she had consumed only three cups of tea, half a piece of bread, and made a single visit to the latrine. When Vera had forced the bread into her hand, she had taken one bite, chewed three times, swallowed, and resumed staring into the crystal ball. The remaining half lay on the corner of the table, its crust dried and hardened, completely untouched.
The light of the crystal ball flickered within the tent. Beams radiated outward from its core; whenever a ray struck the canvas walls, a transient image coalesced upon the fabric. Each scene lingered for two to three seconds before being overwritten by the next. Those projections had revealed every crag of the Zhongshan Mountains, bird's-eye views of cultivator bazaars, flagged coordinates of anomalous spiritual fluctuations, the murky perimeter of the Blood Sea, and the airspace above the Myriad Demons Palace shrouded in dark-purple spiritual Qi.
Jerry's residual magic was simply too faint.
McGonagall's fingertips shifted across the crystal's surface, tracking a hairline fracture of greyish-black essence. Buried deep within the sphere, the thread was so fine it was nearly invisible to the naked eye, like a single strand of hair etched into the glass. The magical signature Jerry had discharged when blasting through the transit corridor's walls was the final lead McGonagall could follow. The terminus of that thread pointed toward a coordinate deep within the mountains, after which it vanished entirely—erased as cleanly as if wiped by an eraser.
"Professor McGonagall."
Vera's voice echoed from the tent flap. The tread of her combat boots against the canvas floor struck a restless, impatient rhythm. Her fiery red hair looked startlingly vivid in the dim light of the tent.
"If you don't sleep, I'm hitting you with a Sleeping Charm."
McGonagall's fingers never lifted from the sphere.
"A Sleeping Charm will not work on me. I have layered myself in counter-curses."
"Then I'll just knock you unconscious barehanded."
Vera stepped up behind McGonagall. Her right hand unhooked a short baton from the belt of her tactical gear, its tip embedded with a runic stone. She prodded McGonagall's back with the baton—none too gently, jolting the professor's upper body forward by two centimeters.
"Stop acting up," McGonagall said.
"Then finish the bread first."
"I am not hungry."
"Then chew a couple of bites anyway. Move your jaw so it doesn't lock up. Last time you went three days without food or water tracking a Dark Wizard, your temporomandibular joints seized completely; it took me ages to pry them apart. I still remember how ridiculous your wrinkled face looked."
McGonagall's fingers paused over the crystal ball for a second. The corner of her mouth twitched before her right index and middle fingers left the sphere, snatching up the stale crust from the corner of the desk and shoving it into her mouth. She chewed three times, then swallowed. Dry, hard crumbs tumbled from the corner of her lips, scattering across the parchment unrolled over her lap.
"I have chewed. That is enough."
Her fingers pressed back onto the surface of the crystal ball.
Footsteps sounded outside the tent. They did not belong to Vera; McGonagall knew Vera's stride by heart. These boots scuffed against the gravel in short, frantic steps, pacing back and forth like an agitated cat in a cage.
Catherine pulled back the tent flap.
Her cat tail protruded from the hem of her combat robes, its fur puffed to double its normal thickness. The tail whipped so violently it blurred in the air, flicking from left to right in under 0.3 seconds, and back again just as fast. Her cat ears stood straight up through her hair, angled forward, the pinnae swiveling continuously as if straining to catch any sound that might be tied to Jerry.
"Any news?"
"None."
McGonagall did not look up.
Catherine's tail lashed even faster. Stepping into the tent, she circled the front of McGonagall's desk three times. At the end of each circuit, her tail smacked against the corner of the table, its bushy tip brushing over the parchment scrolls, sweeping several sheets onto the floor. She didn't bother picking them up.
"Three days."
She spat out the words, her mouth opening and closing as if wanting to say more, but the torrent of thoughts choked in her throat, leaving only a fractured mutter.
"...That absolute idiot."
Isabella stood at the entrance of the tent.
She had arrived roughly forty seconds after Catherine. Her dark hair fell loose over her shoulders instead of its usual ponytail, stray strands clinging to the skin of her neck. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her fingers clutching her forearms with enough force to whiten her knuckles. She remained at the threshold, neither entering the tent nor asking if there was word, having already gleaned the answer from McGonagall's monosyllabic response to Catherine.
Malfoy poked his head in from behind Isabella. His platinum-blonde hair was a disheveled bird's nest, his cheek still bearing the crimson crease of a pillow he hadn't had time to wash off after rolling out of bed. His mouth opened to ask something, but Isabella tilted her head, presenting a cold profile that choked the words right back down his throat.
Silence hung in the tent for fifteen seconds.
McGonagall's fingers traced spirals across the crystal ball—one loop, two loops, three. Her fingertip moved in slow concentric circles along the curvature; each time she passed the severed coordinate point at the end of that greyish-black trace, her pad paused for a heartbeat before resuming its sweep.
"The spatial-locking technique used was no conventional cultivator method."
Her voice rose from above the crystal ball—raspy, dry, like sandpaper grating over rough timber.
"They utilized at least three layered locks. The outermost was a standard spatial interference array, tearing the Portkey's transit corridor open from the inside. The middle layer was a coordinate overwrite, redirecting the ruptured conduit's terminus to a predetermined destination. The innermost layer was an anchoring structure I have never encountered... It was not composed of spiritual Qi, but rather felt like an ontological anchor anchored in absolute reality. In the wizarding world, such a feat would require the simultaneous casting of at least seven Master-level spellcasters."
Her left hand lifted a sheet of parchment from the desk, its surface covered in complex runic derivations.
"I have studied spatial charms in the tower for decades, yet this lock took me three full days just to decipher the first layer. If I had lingered at the scene for just thirty seconds more..."
Catherine's tail smacked heavily against the corner of the desk.
"Stop."
The tip of her tail pointed straight at McGonagall's face.
"You're doing it again."
McGonagall's lips tightened into a thin line.
"I am not..."
"Over the past three days, you have uttered 'if only I' at least twelve times. The first time, you said if your Portkey had activated thirty seconds earlier, it wouldn't have been locked onto. The second time, you said if you had utilized a higher-tier encrypted corridor, there wouldn't have been an issue. The third time, you said if you hadn't brought Jerry to the front line, none of this would have happened. The fourth time, you said if you..."
"Enough."
Vera's voice cut in from the corner of the tent. Leaning against a support pole with her right leg crossed over her left, she twirled the runic baton slowly through her fingers.
"McGonagall, you said it yourself: self-reproach solves nothing. Catherine, whipping McGonagall's desk with your tail solves nothing either."
Catherine's tail froze mid-air.
She pulled it back from the desk, tucking it beneath the hem of her combat robes.
The sound of hooves.
Everyone turned simultaneously toward the tent entrance. A silver-white Patronus galloped inside, its hooves striking the canvas floor without producing a single sound. The Patronus halted in the center of the tent, its jaws parting as Dumbledore's voice resonated from the luminous beast.
"The Ministry of Magic has authorized a cross-border search operation. Four Auror squads will arrive at the frontline encampment in thirty minutes. Professor McGonagall, please provide the coordinate telemetry of Jerry's final transit."
McGonagall lifted her fingers from the crystal ball, seizing a quill from the stand. Her nib flew across the parchment, scrawling a string of runic coordinates, three sets of transit frequency data, and an incomplete schematic of the spatial lock. Rolling the parchment into a tight scroll, she fed it into the Patronus's gaping mouth. The beast's jaws snapped shut, its silver radiance collapsing inward before shooting through the tent entrance as a beam of pure light.
Isabella stepped inside the tent.
She had remained by the entrance until the Patronus departed. Approaching McGonagall's desk, her right hand unfolded from her chest, her fingers sorting through the scattered parchment sheets covered in runic equations. Her movements were delicate; unlike Catherine's frantic sweeping, she organized the papers systematically, as though cataloging an archived case dossier.
"That innermost lock that lacked spiritual energy—could it be a conceptual spell bound to cosmic rules? Something akin to what cultivators refer to as the 'Heavenly Dao'?"
McGonagall's finger paused over the crystal ball for half a second.
"...Continue."
"When Jerry resisted within the transit corridor, he ruptured the conduit walls with his magic. If something beyond the cultivators' spatial lock was actively preventing his return to the wizarding world, it might not have been a deliberate human mechanism, but rather a fundamental planar rejection. The cosmic laws of our two worlds are entirely incompatible. When Jerry's magic was dragged by the locked coordinates, his own retaliation knocked the transit vector off course."
Isabella withdrew her hand from the parchment, her index finger tracing an invisible line through the air.
"He wasn't pinned down and dragged away; he detonated the conduit mid-transit, throwing himself far outside the locked sector. That is why the trace vanished right after you detected it. It wasn't erased by an enemy; Jerry severed his own trail. If he is deliberately concealing his magical signature, no amount of scrying from this side will ever find him."
McGonagall stared at Isabella for five seconds.
"...You should come work as my research assistant."
"I prefer active combat."
A faint smile touched the corner of Isabella's lips.
The canvas wall was suddenly struck by a flash of red light.
The source was roughly fifty meters outside the tent. A fist-sized crimson fireball streaked across the encampment's airspace, slamming into the outer canvas. A fraction of a second before impact, the protective charms woven into the fabric flared to life; a greyish-white membrane enveloped the tent, shattering the fireball into a shower of sparks. The embers rolled down the canvas onto the ground and sputtered out.
No one inside the tent moved.
Vera tilted her head. "The fifth wave today?"
"The sixth," McGonagall's fingers settled back onto the crystal ball. "Three waves yesterday, six today. The frequency is accelerating. The cultivator scouting units are probing our defensive reaction times."
Catherine's cat ears swiveled. Striding swiftly out of the tent, her tail slipped from beneath her robes, its fur smoothing down into the sleek, elongated form of active combat. Isabella followed close behind, her fingers brushing across the potion vials at her belt, tapping each of the three glass phials to confirm their placement.
Outside the tent, the encampment's defensive array had been fully activated. A pale-grey, translucent dome of light blanketed the entire perimeter, runic patterns flowing smoothly across its surface. The scorch mark left by the fireball on the dome was already repairing itself, shrinking to half its size within five seconds.
The combat wizards had already manned their defensive posts. Six wizards in tactical robes stood along the eastern ramparts, wands raised before their chests, tips trained on several grey motes circling in the distant sky. There were roughly a dozen of those specks, hovering between two and three thousand meters up, circling slowly.
"Those grey streaks of flying sword-light again," Catherine's ears swiveled toward the sky. "Same frequency as the last scouting party. Shall we shoot a few down?"
Vera emerged from the tent, twirling her runic baton.
"Hold fire. Let them look. Let them look their fill. Let them see the Black Dragon and decide for themselves whether they dare descend."
She pointed toward the heavens above the camp.
The Black Dragon circled within the clouds. Its five-hundred-meter wingspan was not fully unfurled, revealing only the silhouette of its belly and tail tip through the overcast sky. As it glided through the clouds, its wingtips sheared clean through the vapor, slicing two straight trenches through the cloud deck that stretched toward the horizon like cuts through grey silk.
The grey lights in the sky froze the instant the Black Dragon appeared. They hovered motionless for three seconds, then pulled up in unison. The dozen-plus motes climbed from two thousand meters to over five thousand, pulling well beyond the effective range of the combat wizards' spells.
Catherine curled her lip in disgust.
"Faster than rabbits. Just like that Golden Core cultivator last time—Jerry pinched him once and he vanished without a trace. Do these cultivators know how to fight head-on at all?"
"The ones who fight head-on are deployed on other battlefields," Isabella's voice drifted from beside Catherine. "This is a containment front; the units sent here are primarily reconnaissance scouts, not shock troops."
"I know," Catherine spun her wand in her hand. "I just wanted to curse them to vent some frustration."
A fifth combat wizard jogged over from the ramparts, carrying an imaging stone slab. Etched onto the slab were the flight paths and headcount fluctuations of the grey sword-streaks. Catherine took the slab, scanned it twice, and handed it to Isabella.
"Eleven became thirteen. Two slipped in close under cover of the sword-light, pulling up only after descending to fifteen hundred meters."
"We let them get too close," Isabella handed the slab back to the wizard. "Next time, let them reach thirteen hundred meters before sounding the alarm. Make them think our detection range is shorter than it is."
The combat wizard saluted and jogged back to the ramparts.
Isabella tilted her head toward the sky. The grey streaks were still circling at five thousand meters, but their speed had slowed. They were no longer trying to approach the camp, merely looping at a safe altitude as if monitoring something. She knew what they were waiting for: for reinforcements to assemble, for night to fall, for the camp's attention to be diverted elsewhere. Each probe would come closer and faster, until one of them ceased to be mere reconnaissance.
The snowfall five days ago was proof enough. Before that snowflake drifted into the camp, no one had noticed anything unnatural about it. A runic core miniaturized to the size of a sesame seed, encased in ice crystals formed from condensed moisture, had ridden the high-altitude currents into the encampment. It wasn't until a witch accidentally stepped on it that the crystal ruptured, releasing a burst of spiritual energy that mapped the camp's internal defenses down to the stone.
Later, they found an unruptured one lodged in the tread of a combat wizard's boot. It was even smaller, wedged into the groove of the heel, untouched for three full days. If every soldier hadn't been ordered to strip their boots for inspection, it might have remained lodged for another week, relaying every footstep back to the cultivators.
Isabella walked toward the camp's perimeter, pausing at a breach in the breastwork. In the dirt roughly a dozen meters ahead stood several iron-grey sensor rods, their tips quivering slightly with the vibrations of the defensive barrier's magical field, the surrounding runes dimming.
Another one. This one was buried less than twenty meters from the rampart, concealed beneath packed gravel. If the magical field from the tent's wards hadn't caused the detection runes to spike, it wouldn't have been discovered until dawn.
The combat wizard beside her crouched down to unearth it, slipping it into a leather pouch inscribed with interference runes. She didn't stay to watch, drawn by someone calling her name from the gate.
Catherine stood behind the wooden palisade by the entrance, her tail brushing back and forth against the timber, wearing away a layer of paint. When she pulled her tail back, its tip was dusted with white flakes. She didn't notice, her gaze fixed entirely on the eastern ridge.
Beyond that ridge lay the main peak of the Zhongshan Mountains—the direction Jerry had vanished in. During an earlier patrol, she had caught a fleeting trace of his spatial energy, an essence so brief it vanished in under a second. She had chased that residual trail for two hours, only to find a shredded pocket of spiritual turbulence in mid-air. The center was hollow; nothing was there. Jerry was gone.
She hadn't slept well since that moment. Combat sorties and scouting patrols kept her occupied, but her cat ears were always swiveled toward the east. Always.
Inside the tent, the crystal ball suddenly flared to life.
A beam of greyish-black light erupted from the core, piercing the glass surface, expanding into a fist-sized orb within the tent. The orb rolled through the air, unfurling into a hovering letter.
The parchment was grey, stamped with Jerry's magical signature. The intricate lines of the signature glowed the instant the paper opened—a signature of grey-black radiance that no cultivator could ever replicate.
McGonagall's hands slammed down on the desk. She sprang from her chair so violently that the seat toppled backward, crashing against the floorboards. Her fingers reached for the floating parchment, flinching back for a fraction of a second as if afraid of shattering it, before darting forward to snatch it from the air.
"It is a Howler—from Jerry."
She managed those words, then unfolded the letter.
Jerry's voice resonated from the parchment. It did not roar with the deafening volume typical of a Howler, but spoke at a calm, conversational cadence.
"Professor McGonagall. I am alive, here in the Cultivation world. Do not worry. My coordinates were locked during transit, so I ruptured the conduit myself and was thrown off course to a place called the Myriad Demons Palace."
McGonagall's fingers clenched the edges of the parchment until her knuckles turned white.
"The Myriad Demons Palace is the premier demonic sect in this realm. I have allied with an Elder here named Yin Luo. She has secured my position for the time being. The Heavenly Secrets Pavilion is hunting me, but she drew them away."
The tent flap was thrown open. Catherine bolted inside, her tail snapping like a bullwhip. Isabella followed close behind, still holding the miniature sensor probe from the rampart.
"The Alliance Summit," Jerry's voice continued. "The Myriad Demons Palace will soon attend a joint summit between the Righteous and Demonic factions to discuss war strategies against the wizarding world. I have infiltrated the Myriad Demons Palace disguised as Yin Luo's attendant and have secured access to this meeting. If I can uncover their battle plans from this summit, we may find a way to bring this war to an earlier conclusion."
McGonagall's jaw slacked slightly.
"...This boy truly is something else."
Catherine's tail shot straight up into the air, its fur puffing out like a dandelion.
"Why is he an attendant again?! Who is this Yin Luo woman?!"
A faint smile curved Isabella's lips; she didn't laugh aloud, merely holding that quiet expression.
"He embedded himself right into their inner sect. Typical Jerry."
McGonagall flipped the parchment over. Another line of script was written on the back.
"One more thing. Yin Luo crafted a spiritual camouflage for me. In this disguised state, my aura appears to a cultivator's divine sense as a mid Foundation Establishment attendant. The membrane's quality is exceptionally high; unless scrutinized by an arch-cultivator at late Nascent Soul or above, it cannot be penetrated. Therefore, do not attempt to send extraction teams to find me. Your auras are fundamentally different from cultivators; you would be detected the moment you approached."
The corner of McGonagall's mouth twitched.
"...He anticipated our exact words."
Vera leaned half her body through the doorway, her fiery red brows arched high.
"He claims he is safe over there?"
"He claims he is safe," McGonagall laid the parchment flat on the desk. "And that he has found a potential path to ending the war."
Vera fell silent for two seconds.
"...So while we've been chasing flying sword-streaks out here for three days until our fingers are practically worn down, he has already infiltrated the enemy's inner sect?"
Catherine's tail coiled around the parchment, lifting it to her face to inspect every stroke of magic embedded within. She analyzed it meticulously, verifying the signature, the pressure of the script, and the frequency of the residual magic. She was not reading the content; she was confirming whether the letter was genuine, whether it was penned by Jerry himself, and whether it was sent under duress.
She finished her inspection.
"It is his magic. No trace of coercion."
She set the parchment down. Her tail uncoiled, allowing the paper to drift back into the air above the desk, hovering in its original position.
"Then I have nothing left to worry about," Catherine said.
"That wasn't the look on your face a moment ago," Isabella remarked, glancing sideways with a lingering smile.
Catherine turned her head away, her ears twitching once before settling.
"A moment ago he was on the missing list. Now he is on the infiltration roster. How can you compare the two?"
McGonagall drew a fresh sheet of parchment, her ink-dipped quill scratching across the surface. She wrote her reply swiftly, keeping the message brief: Intel received. Approved to remain in the Cultivation world to gather intelligence. Inform Yin Luo that our forces will halt all search operations to minimize exposure risks.
Once finished, McGonagall folded the parchment into an intricate spatial fold. Each layer was reinforced with encryption charms and self-destruct wards; should anyone attempt to force the letter open, it would reduce itself to ash in an instant.
She placed the folded missive into a wooden box on the desk. The bottom of the box was etched with Jerry's personal magical signature; sensing the encryption charms on the parchment, the box clicked softly, swallowing the letter inside. The next time Jerry established a magical communication link, this message would transmit directly to him through that shared resonance.
Catherine stepped up to the desk, drawing a dagger from her belt, its blade catching the dim light of the crystal ball. Plucking a single strand of her hair, she coiled it around the hilt and offered it forward.
"Tuck this inside."
McGonagall looked at her.
"What for?"
"A spatial beacon. My feline senses have a wider detection range than your tracking charms. If he needs immediate extraction, this hair beacon will allow me to Apparate directly to his side. Provided it is primed with his personal magic... Just write a note telling him to touch it."
"Reliable enough," Vera took the dagger, checked the hair against the light, and placed it inside the box.
The wooden box snapped shut with a click.
The greyish-black glow within the crystal ball faded until it extinguished entirely. It rolled to the edge of the desk before McGonagall caught it, setting it down beside the base of the oil lamp. The tent lapsed back into gloom, illuminated only by the faint grey radiance of the camp's defensive array reflecting off the parchment sheets. The runes across the barrier shifted into a fresh sequence, flowing slightly faster than before.
McGonagall reached to the side, her knuckles brushing against the teapot. Slipping her fingers through the handle, she raised the spout directly to her lips and took a deep draught. The tea was cold, having sat for at least two hours; her throat rumbled audibly as she swallowed.
"Day four begins," McGonagall set the pot down with a heavy thud against the desk, like striking a reminder bell for herself.
Catherine sheathed her dagger at her waist. The scabbard was worn leather, its strap marked by three distinct indentations that she absently traced with her thumb.
Isabella had already reached the tent flap. The pale grey light of the defensive array filtered through the slit in the canvas, casting an angled rectangle across the floor.
"The Alliance Summit," her fingers tapped gently against the doorframe. "The very figures who dictate the direction of this war will be gathering. If Jerry can infiltrate that summit beside this Yin Luo... he is effectively sitting inside the enemy's high command."
McGonagall picked up a quill and drew a loose circle around the incomplete spatial diagram. She twirled the feather between her fingers.
"Not inside the command center," she said. "Sitting in the back row of the audience chamber."
She paused, then penned four succinct words at the corner of the page:
Eavesdropping on the enemy.
When Yin Luo's lips were sealed, a muffled whimper rolled from the back of her throat.
Jerry's tongue had already forced its way inside her mouth. His left hand cradled the back of her head, fingers buried in her deep purple hair, applying just enough pressure against her scalp to prevent her from turning away. His right hand pressed firmly into the curve of her waist, slipping beneath the sash of her robe to find bare skin just above the waistband of her stockings. His palm was scalding hot, the heat causing the muscles along her flank to contract sharply.
Her lips were pried apart, her tongue ensnared by his. As she tried to pull back, his tongue pursued her relentlessly. For every inch she retreated, he drove an inch deeper, cornering her until she had nowhere left to hide, leaving her entirely at the mercy of his swirling mouth. Saliva leaked from the corners of their joined lips, trickling down her chin into the hollow of her collarbone, pooling into a glistening drop.
"Breathe,"
Jerry pulled back half a centimeter, his voice a low rasp.
Yin Luo sucked in a sharp lungful of air, her chest heaving against his through the sheer purple bodice. Her lips were slick with their mingled saliva, glistening in the dim light; before she could utter a single word, Jerry's mouth claimed hers once more.
This kiss was far rougher. His teeth caught her lower lip in a light bite—not breaking the skin, but enough to make her shoulders quiver. Her thighs clamped tightly together against the edge of the mattress, the friction of the sheer black stockings emitting a distinct rustle in the silent room. The ribbed stockings stretched from her stiletto heels all the way to her hips, the vertical lines pulling taut over her inner thighs.
Jerry's right hand traveled upward from her waist. His fingers traced the edge of the bodice before his index and middle fingers hooked the silk straps, sliding them off her shoulders. The deep purple silk slipped down past her collarbones, bunching beneath her breasts. He pushed the fabric further down until her entire chest was bared to the cool air.
The skin of Yin Luo's upper body was pale—so fair it carried a cool, bluish undertone in the violet lantern light. Her breasts were modest, filling his palms comfortably, crowned by pale pink areolas and erect nipples that stood firm in the chill, their color two shades darker than the surrounding flesh.
Jerry cupped both breasts simultaneously, squeezing them inward. His palms molded the soft curves as his fingers sank into the pale mounds. Yin Luo arched her back, letting out a clipped gasp.
"Don't squeeze so hard."
"They feel incredible."
Jerry shifted his thumbs over her nipples, rolling his pads across the peaks until they flattened, watching them rebound even stiffer than before. He circled both thumbs simultaneously—one clockwise, the other counter-clockwise—in slow, deliberate motions. Yin Luo's breathing fractured into ragged gasps, her lungs hitching on the tingling heat searing through her chest.
"Where on earth did you learn this?"
"Self-taught."
The faint smirk on Yin Luo's lips didn't last a second before Jerry shattered it with his next move.
He lowered his head and took her left nipple into his mouth. His lips sealed over the areola while his tongue flicked across the tip. The rough texture of his tongue scraping against the sensitive skin made her toes curl tightly inside the pointed toes of her heels, the soles grinding against the stone floor with a sharp squeak.
Jerry's left hand continued kneading her right breast, his fingers rhythmically closing and releasing. Each squeeze forced pale flesh through his fingers, leaving faint pink marks upon her skin when he opened his hand. He sucked on the left while massaging the right, keeping distinct tempos—fast on the mouth, slow with the hand—like two polyrhythmic metronomes playing havoc with her nervous system.
Bracing her palms on the bed behind her, Yin Luo's black nails dug into the mattress. Her talons scored white furrows into the deep purple silk sheets, fraying the fine threads. Her thighs drifted apart only to clamp shut again, the nylon stockings rustling repeatedly in the quiet.
"Do you want to lie down?"
Jerry lifted his mouth from her nipple, drawing a thread of saliva that stretched between his lips and her breast before snapping and falling onto her chest.
"No," Yin Luo panted, her voice thick and raspy. "Lying down leaves me too vulnerable. I'll stay seated."
"Then spread your legs."
"Do not order me around."
"Spread your legs."
Yin Luo glared at him. She kicked his shin lightly with her stiletto—a soft tap, like nudging an ajar door. Then she parted her thighs.
The waistband of her stockings pulled taut with the movement, the vertical ribs stretching across her inner thighs. Her panties had long since soaked through from their prior grinding, displaying a dark patch in the center that was actively spreading outward.
Yin Luo raised her hands to rest on Jerry's shoulders, her fingers catching the collar of his inner robe. Her black nails dug into the seams, tugging outward with force. She pulled once, failed to loosen it, pulled again, and got stuck. Her fingers snagged in the fabric on her third attempt.
"How do you undo this?"
"An Elder of the Myriad Demons Palace who doesn't even know how to undress a man."
"Say another word and I'll tear it to shreds."
Jerry untied the sash himself. The grey fabric fell from his shoulders, baring the lines of his torso. He stripped out of his hoodie, then shoved his trousers down.
When his cock sprang free from his waistband, Yin Luo's lips parted slightly.
She stared at it for several seconds.
"How is it even larger than when I measured it?"
"I was only half-hard when you touched it earlier."
"It was already bigger than the jade rod back then."
Cupping his balls, Jerry gently rolled them in his palm as he stepped forward half a pace, bringing his hips level with Yin Luo's chest. With her seated on the edge of the bed and him standing before her, his cock stood in a direct horizontal line with her breasts.
"Clamp it with your tits."
Yin Luo looked down at her chest for a moment, then back up at the thick shaft standing before her nose. Her slit pupils darted between his cock and her cleavage twice.
"I won't be able to hold it."
"Try."
She pressed her breasts inward from the sides with both hands. Her fingers dug into the pale flesh, shoving the mounds together to form a narrow valley. Her breasts flattened under the force, soft flesh spilling over her hands, but the channel remained far too shallow for the sheer girth of his meat.
"Move them yourself."
Yin Luo lifted her hands for an instant, then pressed them back down. She looked up at him, looked down, and looked back up.
"Do you think I know what I'm doing?"
"Learn as you go. You're a fast learner."
"Move your chest. Find your own rhythm. It doesn't need to be fast, just steady."
Yin Luo slid her breasts up and down his shaft. The pale mounds enveloped his cock, gliding slowly from base to tip. Her soft skin rubbed against the bulging veins of his shaft, the friction pressing into the flesh, leaving pale pink tracks across her skin.
"Is this right?"
"Yes. Just like that."
Her pace shifted from hesitant to smooth. Pushing up, sliding down, pushing up again. With every upward stroke, the skin of her inner breasts caught slightly against the shaft; with every downward slide, the friction flattened her skin smooth. Sweat began to pool in her cleavage, mingling with the pre-cum leaking from his tip, coating the shaft in a slick sheen.
"It's making noise," Yin Luo whispered, as if talking to herself.
It was indeed wet. The sound of her soft flesh sliding over the thick shaft produced a sticky, squelching wetness. It wasn't loud, but the cadence was steady; as her rhythm accelerated, the wet sounds blurred into a continuous squelch, like footsteps through saturated mud.
"Lick it."
Yin Luo tilted her chin down, pressing her lips against the coronal ridge. Parting her lips, she enveloped the head, her tongue darting over the slit. Salty. Mixed with the sweat from her cleavage, it tasted sharp and musky. She hesitated for a fraction of a second, then took the entire head into her mouth, lips sealing around the rim while her tongue circled the tip.
Jerry thrust his hips forward an inch. The shaft drove deeper into her mouth, the midsection clamped between her tits while the head filled her oral cavity. The crown flattened her tongue; caught unprepared, a muffled groan escaped her throat. One hand continued pressing her breasts tight around his cock, while the other braced against the mattress, her nails scoring new marks into the fabric.
Yin Luo felt overwhelmed between her chest and mouth, her mind spinning at how she had arrived at this point. Only days ago she was an untouchable demonic Elder striking down sect banners with a flick of her wrist; now she was kneeling by her bed, servicing a young wizard with her tits and throat.
Jerry pulled back slightly, his tip slipping from her lips with a strand of saliva that snapped against her chin. She closed her mouth and swallowed, her throat bobbing visibly.
"Keep going."
Jerry's right hand cupped the back of her head, drawing her back toward him.
This time he didn't let go, threading his fingers through her hair, controlling the angle and depth. His hips began to pump, his shaft sliding through her cleavage while the head drove in and out of her mouth, the pace significantly faster than before.
"My jaw aches!" Yin Luo mumbled around his cock.
"Hold on a little longer."
He bottomed out in her throat, holding the tip inside for two seconds before pulling halfway out and driving back in. He shifted rhythms—three fast thrusts, one deep hold—each rapid stroke splashing fine beads of moisture from her cleavage.
"What do you take my chest for?"
"For a chest."
Yin Luo let out a muffled snort of laughter. With her mouth full, the laugh choked in her throat, puffing through her nose in a short grunt. She wiped the corner of her mouth with her hand, smearing saliva across her stocking-clad thigh, leaving shiny streaks on the black nylon.
Jerry tightened his grip on her hair, pulling her neck back slightly so her chin tilted upward, forcing her lips wider apart.
"Almost."
He said only those two words.
Yin Luo didn't answer. Her mouth was occupied, her hands were holding her breasts, and the nylon of her stockings rustled against the floor as her heels scraped the stone once more. She closed her lips tight around the base of his head, her tongue pressing hard against the slit, ensuring that every time he rammed home, his tip crashed against the root of her tongue.
Jerry delivered his final thrusts. Each one bottomed out completely, the swollen crown pressing flat against her tongue while the slit kissed the opening of her throat.
With a final, ragged groan, hot spurts of cum erupted deep in her mouth and splashed across her breasts.
Yin Luo stared down at the fluids coating her chest. She dipped her right index finger into the white cream, lifted it to her nose, sniffed it, and licked it off.
"...Salty."
"Bodily fluids are supposed to be salty."
"Tastes almost identical to the residue left by the jade rod."
The corner of Jerry's mouth twitched into a broad smirk. Leaning back against the bedpost, his chest heaved as he caught his breath. Yin Luo sat on the edge of the mattress, her chest and chin streaked with white, her inner stockings marked with fresh handprints, the heels of her shoes wedged into the cracks of the stone floor.
"You cum on yourself when you use the jade rod?"
"I do," Yin Luo nodded. "Every time. Once it got on my bodice; took three washes to get it out."
"Then don't use the jade rod anymore. Use mine."
Yin Luo looked up at him, her slit pupils slowly refocusing from their post-orgasmic daze back to their usual languid slit. She wiped her chin with the back of her hand, glanced at the white smear on her skin, and met Jerry's gaze.
"You certainly don't stand on ceremony."
"My cock works far better than your dildo. What's seven vibration speeds? I have infinitely variable transmission."
Yin Luo paused for two seconds.
"...What does 'infinitely variable transmission' mean?"
"It means the speed can be adjusted to any setting. From a crawl of half a centimeter per second to three full thrusts every second. Any frequency you can't reach with that rod, I can give you. Any depth it can't reach, I can fill."
The tips of Yin Luo's ears flushed red. Not from embarrassment, but because she was genuinely calculating the metrics in her head. The concepts she had learned that afternoon were firing through her mind, translating Jerry's words into her familiar framework. Three thrusts per second—her jade rod couldn't hit that cadence; its seventh setting only vibrated at two-thirds that speed. And the depth wasn't even worth comparing.
"...So I shouldn't use the jade rod anymore?"
"No need."
"Where do I put it?"
"Throw it away."
Yin Luo's slit pupils blinked. She glanced toward the low cabinet in the corner of the room, where the twelve-centimeter jade vibrator still lay inside the drawer. She looked at the cabinet, then looked back at the heavy cock dangling between Jerry's legs. Even completely flaccid, it was absurdly thick, resting at roughly fifteen centimeters, coated in the sweat and saliva from her chest.
"I won't throw it out," she stood up, walked over to the cabinet, and pulled the jade rod from the drawer. "I'll keep it as a spare. In case you're not around."
"You're keeping a backup sex toy right in front of me?"
"It's called contingency planning," Yin Luo slipped the rod back into the drawer, pushed it shut, and turned around. "In case the Palace Master sends you away on an errand, or you get lost on the battlefield, or you—mmph."
Jerry kissed her again. It was brief—just a firm press of his lips, his tongue tracing her bottom lip before retreating.
"An arch-cultivator at late Nascent Soul obsessing over a jade dildo."
"Nascent Soul cultivators are human too," Yin Luo licked her numbed lower lip. "We have physical needs. Until you dropped into my hot spring, that rod was my only outlet. It took me six months just to adapt to its size. And then you show up, using the real thing right off the bat."
"How did the real thing feel today?"
"Too many variables. Hard to articulate. I'll write you a report later."
"A report."
"Yes. Formatted like a spiritual energy residue analysis report. Titled: A Comparative Study on the Operational Efficacy of the Real Cock Versus the Jade Rod. Conclusion: The real thing outperforms the jade rod across all benchmark metrics; sustained utilization is strongly recommended."
Jerry blinked, then chuckled aloud. It wasn't a roar of laughter, just a sharp upturn of his lips, a dry chuckle in his throat, his shoulders shaking twice. Seeing him laugh, Yin Luo smiled as well. She was still bare-chested, her skin drying with cum, her stockings rumpled, her lips swollen red, and her ears burning, yet she spoke with the exact composure she used when commanding sect affairs.
"Our pillow talk is getting increasingly bizarre."
"Bizarre?" Yin Luo walked over, bending down to pick up her bodice. The silk strap slipped through her fingers once before she snagged it. "I find it quite practical. We are the only pair in the Myriad Demons Palace who discuss academic formatting after sex."
"Fair point."
"And every word I said was genuine. I really will write it. I submit four residue analysis reports to the Palace Master every month; the format is second nature."
She retied her bodice. Her black nails danced across the silk, tying a neat bow in three seconds flat. Stepping into her outer robe from beneath the bed, she cinched the waist belt in moments. Her movements were as crisp and efficient as performing final diagnostic checks on a high-grade magical artifact.
Jerry dressed as well, his fingers fumbling with the robe's sash to tie a crooked knot. Yin Luo glanced at it, reached out, untied it, and redid it properly. "Your knotting technique is atrocious."
"Never practiced."
"Evidently."
She patted his chest once, brushing away a stray thread. Walking to the window, she pushed the shutters open, letting the heavy scent of the Blood Sea pour inside. The dark red liquid stretched beneath the cliffs, calm, undisturbed, an occasional bubble bursting on the surface. The metallic tang of the blood mingled with the musky aftermath of sex in the room, making her wrinkle her nose slightly.
"We depart for the Alliance Summit in three days. Do you want to tour the Myriad Demons Palace while we wait? I can show you a few interesting places."
"Where to?"
"The forging grounds of the Artifact Refining Pavilion. Every magical artifact in the sect is crafted there. Since you are so skilled at deciphering arrays, their forging formations will keep you busy for days. And then there is the grand energy-extraction array of the Blood Sea—its complexity exceeds the sealing formation in my cave by at least four orders of magnitude. If you can crack that one, the Palace Master might offer you a permanent post as an external formation master."
"What's the compensation?"
"Paid monthly in spirit stones. Three thousand high-grade stones a month for a Nascent Soul-tier formation master. Plus an unlimited supply of blood tea."
"I don't drink blood tea."
"Then I'll swap it for standard spirit tea." Yin Luo smirked, leaning back against the window frame. The crimson reflection of the Blood Sea washed over her profile, tinting her pale skin with a soft rose hue. Dressed in her black robe, ribbed stockings, and patent-leather heels, she looked like a tempered blade drawn straight from the blood below.
"Either way, do not stay idle over these three days." Her fingers traced an idle pattern against the wood; Jerry recognized the motion—she was tracing the frequency curve of his thrusts between her breasts.
"What are you drawing?"
"Sampling data," Yin Luo pulled her hand from the frame, casually tossing her hair back. "The report requires empirical evidence. I am committing the frequencies to memory."