King Neptune stood over Kira, his chest heaving with a strange, frantic energy. The regal, composed facade he wore in the upper courts was completely gone, replaced by the hollow, wide-eyed gaze of a man obsessed.
"You want to know why, don't you?" Neptune muttered, a manic grin splitting his face. He stepped closer to the stone pillar where Kira hung bound in runic chains. "You're wondering why a sovereign king would sink to managing a black-market syndicate, hunting down worthless beasts in the dark."
Kira tilted his head slightly, his dark eyes indifferent, showing neither fear nor curiosity. "Not particularly. But I'm sure you're dying to hear yourself talk."
Neptune chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. He reached into his blue silk robes and pulled out a worn, leather-bound tome. The cover was scorched, covered in ancient, faded glyphs that pulsed with a faint, corrupted aura.
"I retrieved this from the lowest depth of a S-rank ruin," Neptune said, caressing the burnt leather as if it were a fragile child. "Written by an ancient hero from a forgotten era. It contains the ultimate truth of this world, Kira. The secret to transcending mortality itself."
He leaned in close to Kira's face, his breath smelling of stale wine.
"A grand sacrifice," Neptune whispered. "If one offers the soul-cores of one thousand high-tier magical beasts in a single blood-ritual, the heavens will open. The divine core will fuse with the caster, granting absolute, unyielding immortality! No age. No sickness. No death."
Kira stared at him for a quiet second, then let out a short, unimpressed snort.
"Bro," Kira said, his tone lazily flat. "There aren't even a thousand high-tier magical beasts in this entire kingdom."
"Exactly!" Neptune shouted, slamming his hand against the stone wall. The sudden outburst echoed loudly down the damp corridor. "That's why I had to extend my reach! The Gargoyle Syndicate... the underground auctions... the border ambushes... my agents are hunting them worldwide! Eastern realms, western forests, southern seas—every shadow beast, every rare familiar will be dragged to my altar! I am going to become a god!"
Kira simply blinked, looking at the King like he was a toddler throwing a tantrum over a broken toy. "You're insane."
Before Neptune could respond, the heavy iron door of the dungeon creaked open. A high-ranking mercenary clad in dark, blood-stained leather rushed into the chamber. He dropped to one knee, casting a quick, uneasy glance at Kira before whispering loudly into the King's ear.
"Your Majesty... our scouts in the northern district have confirmed it," the mercenary reported, a cruel smirk on his face. "We tracked the mana signatures. We found Kira Yagami's mini-mansion. His five companions and a cluster of magical beasts are currently isolated inside."
King Neptune's eyes lit up with malicious glee. He slowly turned his head back to Kira, a slow, triumphant sneer spreading across his lips.
"Well, well, well," Neptune purred, pacing slowly around the pillar. "What a wonderful stroke of luck. It seems my hounds have located your little nest, Kira. Five wives, isn't it? An elven time-traveler, a mage, an assassin, an adventurer, and a demi-human cook. Quite the collection for a supposedly 'useless' hero."
Neptune stopped in front of Kira, crossing his arms with an arrogant tilt of his head. "Even I only have one queen. Tell me, Kira... what should I do with them? I will certainly take the magical beasts for my sacrifice. But what about your lovely wives? Should I bring them here in chains and enslave them? Or should I just have my executioners skin them alive in front of you?"
He leaned back, waiting eagerly to see Kira break. He wanted the screaming. He wanted the weeping, the begging, the desperate thrashing against the chains.
Instead, Kira just leaned his head back against the cold stone pillar, his face completely slack with boredom.
"If you do anything to them," Kira said lazily, his voice dropping into an almost conversational monotone, "I will do something to your queen."
Neptune's smile flickered. "What?"
"So you'd better kill me right now," Kira continued, looking up at the ceiling. "Because if you kill me now, you won't get to see me suffer like you want. That ruins your fun, doesn't it? But if you keep me alive to watch my suffering, I'll simply refuse to drink or eat. I'll starve myself to death in a week. Either way, you don't get your show."
Neptune's brow furrowed in confusion. "You... you think you can bargain with me?"
"I'm not bargaining, I'm just telling you how it is," Kira sighed, shifting his shoulders slightly against the iron bonds. "Besides, I already figured out this magic circle beneath my feet. This runic array is the only reason I can't channel my mana right now. It's a localized, immobile array. You can't just pack this up and take it anywhere you want."
Kira shifted his gaze down, locking eyes with the King.
"And you definitely can't bring me or my wives into your main castle while the Queen is there," Kira added with a faint smirk. "Even if you try to hide us in the secret chambers, the Queen will find out eventually. A king randomly disappearing to dark basement vaults? She's already getting suspicious of your little late-night outings, isn't she? The moment she finds out you're running a black-market monster ring beneath her nose, your royal court collapses into political ruin."
Neptune's jaw tightened. A bead of cold sweat formed on his temple.
"And if you don't kill me," Kira said, his voice dropping an octave, turning dark and sharp as shattered glass, "I will break out of these chains, burn your entire royal family down to ash with my own hands, and then simply kill myself afterward. I won't beg you. I won't cry for you. Do whatever the hell you want, Neptune. I just don't care."
He let out a soft, dismissive chuckle, resting his head back against the stone. "There are hundreds of thousands of girls in this world. If those five die, I'll simply move on and marry five more."
Silence descended upon the torture chamber.
The executioner holding the iron poker stared at Kira in absolute horror. The mercenary kneeling by the door looked completely frozen.
King Neptune stood motionless, his mind reeling in utter bewilderment. What the heck is wrong with this guy?!
The King had interrogated hundreds of rebellious nobles, rogue adventurers, and foreign spies. They all begged. They all wept. They offered fortunes, secrets, and kingdom lands just to spare their families. But this boy—hanging from meat hooks in a dark dungeon, covered in his own blood—was talking about his wives like they were replaceable shoes, while casually threatening to burn the royal bloodline to the ground with a bored yawn.
Neptune's face twitched violently. The total lack of control over Kira's psyche irritated him far more than any physical resistance could have. His blood boiled with pure, unadulterated humiliation.
"You arrogant, ungrateful little freak!" Neptune spat, his face flushing crimson with rage. "You think you're clever?! Fine! I won't waste time dragging them here! I will go to your mansion and kill them myself!"
Kira didn't even look up.
"An assassin, a high mage, a feral beast-girl, and a veteran adventurer..." Neptune sneered, trying desperately to regain his psychological upper hand. "Enslaving women like that is just asking for a dagger in my sleep anyway. They are weapons! Having them around as toys is like holding a loaded crossbow to my own head! I'm going to rip their throats out! You hear me, Kira Yagami?! You sit right here in the dark, and you better watch closely when my projection mirrors broadcast their blood spilling onto your mansion floor!"
Kira slowly opened one eye, looking at the trembling, furious King with pure apathy.
"Yeah, yeah. Fuck off already."
Neptune gasped, choked by rage. He opened his mouth to shout another death threat, but seeing Kira's utterly lifeless, uncaring expression, he realized anything more he said would just make him look even more ridiculous.
"Seal the door!" Neptune roared at the guards, spinning on his heel in a flurry of blue silk and griffin fur. "Keep the suppression array at maximum output! Don't give him a drop of water!"
The King stormed out of the vault, his heavy boots slamming furiously against the stone floor. The mercenary and the executioner scrambled after him, hastily slamming the massive iron doors shut behind them.
BANG!
The heavy iron locks clicked into place. The torches outside the bars were doused, plunging the stone chamber into complete, pitch-black silence.
The Calm Before the Slaughter
For a few moments, the only sound in the dark room was the slow, rhythmic dripping of water from the ceiling.
Then, deep within Kira's mind, a warm, golden glow lit up his consciousness.
< System: Psychological manipulation complete, Papa! That was incredible! His heart rate spiked to 168 BPM! He was completely rattled! >
Iris's voice echoed inside his head, light, cheerful, and filled with pride.
Kira let out a long, quiet breath, his bored, lazy expression instantly melting away into a cold, lethal smirk in the darkness.
"Did he really think I was indifferent?" Kira thought back, his mental voice sharp as steel. "If he had touched a single hair on their heads, I would have flayed him alive."
< System: He completely fell for it! He thought you didn't care about the mamas, so he decided to rush over to kill them instead of keeping them as hostages to use against you! >
"Exactly," Kira replied internally. "A hostage situation is annoying. But if he takes his elite strike force to my mansion to 'kill' them..."
Kira couldn't help but chuckle softly in the dark.
The foolish King had no idea what was actually waiting for him at that mini-mansion.
Neptune thought he was walking in to slaughter five helpless, unprotected women and steal a few shadow pets. He didn't know that Alaska was no longer a standard shadow beast. During the ambush at the canyon, the divine wolf had shattered his limits, undergoing a complete ancestral evolution into a Divine Shadow Beast.
Alaska now possessed pure Holy-Attribute Divine Shadow Mana.
Anti-beast crystals? Suppression arrays? Paralysis seals? They were completely useless against divine holy magic. Alaska didn't just resist those primitive spells—his very aura cleansed and canceled them on contact.
And Alaska wasn't alone.
"Iris, what's the current count of the shadow army staying with them?" Kira asked.
< System: Scanning secondary shadow reservoir... Current active unit count: 114 Shadow Wolves, lead directly by Divine Wolf Alaska! All 114 units are currently receiving Alaska's 'Divine Holy Blessing' passive aura! >
114 divine-buffed, holy-infused shadow wolves, hiding inside the shadows of the mansion's perimeter, acting as an invisible, lethal trap.
And then there were his wives.
Aoi, an elite assassin who lived in the dark, capable of decapitating targets before they even felt a breeze.
Shizu, a master elven mage whose elemental spells could level an entire mercenary squad in seconds.
Sofia, a frontline adventurer who had fought through the brutal depths of high-tier dungeons without flinching.
Marry, a demi-human whose raw, feral beast strength could shatter iron armor with her bare claws.
And Lyira, a warrior who had survived the apocalyptic wasteland of a ruined future timeline.
"King Neptune is walking straight into a woodcutter's meat grinder," Kira murmured, his eyes flashing red in the dark cellar. "He thinks he's going to hunt them. He doesn't realize he's delivering his elite forces right onto their plate."
< System: Papa, your mana channels are fully restored. Shall we break the runic chains now? >
"Not yet," Kira replied, leaning his head back, his dark grin widening in the shadows. "Let the King reach the mansion first. Let him see his grand army get ripped to shreds by my wives and Alaska. The moment his panic reaches its peak... that's when I'll shatter these chains, step out of his shadows, and show him what a real monster looks like."
To be continued.....