The air in the clearing froze.
It was not a drop in temperature, but the absolute paralysis of space. The crushing pressure of the Grinding descended upon the native hunters like a collapsing lead ceiling.
The leader, who moments before had been holding his sword with an arrogant smile, felt the oxygen violently expelled from his lungs. The man's knees gave out, colliding against the elastic, damp earth. The steel slipped from his trembling fingers with a useless clink.
Behind him, the other four collapsed into the mud, their pupils dilated in a terror so primitive their minds could not even formulate a plea for mercy.
They did not recognize the pale, cruel faces that emerged from the darkness of the bamboo grove, but their biology did. These were the absolute predators of that food chain.
The Lords of the Twin Shadow Syndicate, however, did not look at the hunters. To Lóu Jiàn and Jiàn Wúshuang, those men were nothing but dust suspended in the air.
The two untouchable monsters of the underworld ignored the forest filth and threw themselves to their knees directly into the mixed pool of mud and blood from the freshly killed Primordial Beast. The once-majestic Hegemon of the Immortal Sword did the same. Their priceless silks completely soaked in viscera, the two crawled to Zhì Yuǎn's feet.
The slaves' foreheads pressed into the bloodied earth, their shoulders trembling in a servile, violent, and devoted ecstasy.
"The Master..." Lóu Jiàn babbled, his nails digging into the mud, tears of pure idolatry streaming down his hard face. "Our heaven has arrived."
A muffled sound broke the reverence. The hunter leader, suffocating beneath the aura, let out a desperate moan in a futile attempt to draw air.
Jiàn Wúshuang did not raise his face from the mud to look. The swordsman merely lifted his right hand and moved two fingers in a lazy cut through the air.
The invisible intent of the blade tore through space. The sound of five necks being severed rang out in a wet, revolting unison. The heads rolled across the red earth, and the bodies collapsed lifelessly.
"The sound of these insects polluted the Master's moment of silence." Jiàn Wúshuang pressed his forehead back into the dirty ground without the slightest trace of remorse.
Yù Méi clicked her tongue, crossing her arms beneath her full bust. The golden silk of her dress rustled as she kicked one of the severed heads into the abyss of the black forest.
"You two are such killjoys." The perfect, impatient pout shaped itself on the youngest's full lips. "The fun was barely starting and you go and break my toys."
Still with their faces pressed to the ground, the slaves raised their hands above their heads, presenting dozens of storage rings crammed with the pure accounting of two years of domination.
Zhì Yuǎn did not touch the silver or the Spirit Stones. His dark, lethargic gaze remained fixed on the canopy of the colossal trees.
Mò Yán stepped forward. The corpse of the purest white silk corset strained dangerously against the volume of her heavy breasts, and the heavy black skirt grazed the red mud. Without needing introductions, the diplomat extended her pale hands to collect the rings, her scarlet irises assuming the family's logistics.
"The tithe has been collected." Mò Yán's melodious, unshakeably formal voice sounded over the prostrated slaves. "What is the status of the transport and the route to the capital's central matrices?"
Lóu Jiàn raised his trembling hand and pointed toward the darkness of the sky blanketed by the great dark leaves above.
A colossal beating of wings tore through the canopy. The wind generated by the impact nearly toppled the obsidian trees. Two titanic shadows descended into the clearing: two Night Wyverns. The winged beasts, clad in black scales that swallowed light and possessing eyes that burned like embers, roared in submission. They were harnessed by thick runic chains to a monumental carriage of dark wood and steel, reinforced with absolute flight and concealment matrices.
Zhì Yuǎn adjusted the collar of his charcoal-gray robe. His Wisdom mapped the nearest border city in a fraction of a second. He could raise his hand, tear through space, and hurl his family directly into the epicenter of the gold capital without the slightest effort.
But his unfathomable gaze crossed Yù Qíng's, who smiled languidly and suggestively. Then it descended to Yù Méi, who was already stretching herself expansively toward the carriage door, the slit of her dress revealing her flawless thigh. And just behind them, Bái Wǎn and Mò Yán waited with the damp obedience of those who longed for the darkness of the cabin.
Space did not govern him. He dictated the rhythm of time itself. And he had not the slightest intention of wasting the luxurious isolation of a full hour in the skies.
"We fly." Zhì Yuǎn's deep tone carried a subtle, undeniable warmth.
Old Mò Zhōng leapt onto the outer driver's box, taking the Night Wyverns' reins. Lóu Jiàn and Jiàn Wúshuang, not daring to raise their eyes, settled onto the outer sides of the vehicle, serving as mere flesh shields against the merciless wind, completely sealed off from whatever was happening beyond the thick doors.
Zhì Yuǎn and the four goddesses crossed the threshold. The steel and armored wood closed with a muffled click, locking the world outside.
The carriage took flight with a gentle lurch.
The air in the spacious cabin smelled of sandalwood and ozone. The acoustic insulation was perfect, creating an impenetrable bubble of dark velvet and human warmth. Zhì Yuǎn let himself sink against the wide back of the main seat, his legs spread with an imposing ease, his black silk cape sprawling across the cushions. The void in his eyes evaporated, swallowed by a dense, lethal lust as he surveyed his altar.
They needed no orders. Intimacy knew no modesty when the world outside ceased to exist.
Kneeling on the plush rug directly between his open legs, Yù Qíng and Mò Yán undid the belt of his dark silk trousers. The fabric yielded, and his colossal, incandescent shaft sprang free, throbbing with a heat that made the cabin air tremble. The priestess and the diplomat did not hesitate; both lowered their faces simultaneously, their full, crimson lips capturing the length and the base, sharing the meal in a deafening synchrony of saliva and suction.
While the mouths of the two women served him below, the other two advanced from above.
Yù Méi pressed herself against his left side. The Brutal Blade leaned in, her full breasts beneath the golden silk crushing against the man's ribs. Zhì Yuǎn's left hand plunged beneath the youngest's skirt, seizing the heavy fullness of her buttocks from behind. He kneaded the soft flesh with brute possessiveness, and the touch made Yù Méi gasp. The god turned his face and captured her mouth; his scalding tongue invaded the warrior's warm cavity, sucking her lips and saliva in a carnivorous, wet kiss.
At the same time, making use of her own small frame, Bái Wǎn climbed directly onto Zhì Yuǎn's lap and rigid abdomen. Positioning herself over the god's broad chest, Bái Wǎn's small, trembling pale hands opened the rest of his charcoal-gray robe. Completely intoxicated by the heat, the blue-haired young woman began to lick and kiss the line of his neck and collarbone.
Without breaking the voracious kiss he was giving Yù Méi, Zhì Yuǎn's free right arm reached around the novice from behind. His warm, calloused fingers massaged Bái Wǎn's small, firm buttocks briefly before plunging, without any warning, into the girl's soaked entrance.
"AAHN! M-My heaven..." Bái Wǎn moaned directly against the skin of his neck, her voice strangled. The sudden invasion sent a shiver through the young woman's nerves; she melted against his chest, losing all strength in her legs, sustained only by the hand that massaged and thrust into her from behind in a fast, drenched rhythm.
The cabin plunged into a sensory storm. His fingers massacring Bái Wǎn's intimacy and his mouth devouring Yù Méi's breathless lips drove both girls to their simultaneous limit.
Yù Méi moaned loudly, breaking the kiss only to gasp as her own Yin erupted into boiling, shuddering in spasms against his arm. Above, Bái Wǎn sobbed, her small body arching violently in an uncontrollable climax. A thick surge of pure liquid Yin gushed from the novice's depths, warm and abundant. The nectar streamed directly down Zhì Yuǎn's rigid, sweating abdomen, running in gleaming threads down to the base of his shaft.
Below, Bái Wǎn's sweet flow blended with the saliva of Yù Qíng and Mò Yán, soaking the base and the god's lap.
Neither of the two pulled back in disgust. The altar knew no modesty. The priestess and the diplomat continued their relentless alternating suction, eagerly licking the length of him and swallowing the younger sister's spilled Yin mixed with the musky taste of his semi-Yang essence leaking from him, savoring the mixture without a shred of shame.
Sated by the taste of the youngest and feeling the tension of the two below, Zhì Yuǎn reversed the dynamic with an absolute dominance.
He pulled Yù Qíng up by her shoulders. The priestess obeyed with fluid ease, being lifted and positioned seated directly on Zhì Yuǎn's shoulders, facing his face. Yù Qíng's pale legs entwined around his neck, and she herself pulled the skirt of her navy blue dress up, baring her own dripping, throbbing intimacy. Without hesitation, the god devoured the primogenita's core, his rough tongue whipping the swollen nerve and consuming her wetness with dense, wet sounds that made her cry out, throwing her head back.
Simultaneously, Mò Yán, now freed from his shaft, repositioned herself. The diplomat turned her back, pressing her full, sweating body against Zhì Yuǎn's right side. With trembling hands, she guided the man's free hand, descending over her own abdomen above the loosened Hanfu, down to the slippery entrance between her own thighs.
Zhì Yuǎn drove three fingers directly into the diplomat's wet entrance all at once.
"AAHH! Husband!" Mò Yán gasped loudly, her scarlet eyes rolling back. The restrained flower convulsed violently against his side. Unable to hold herself upright under that deep invasion, she raised her arms back behind her head and blindly seized the pale thigh of Yù Qíng — seated just above her — gripping and squeezing the sister's flesh as the only support keeping her from collapsing forward, her nails digging lightly into the priestess's skin with each violent thrust of his fingers.
Below, the roles had reversed.
Yù Méi and Bái Wǎn took their place on the rug. The golden warrior and the pearlescent goddess knelt together between Zhì Yuǎn's open legs. Without any inhibition, the two younger ones brushed their lips against each other in a shared, wet kiss as they took the husband's incandescent shaft into their mouths together. Méi and Wǎn's tongues met and lapped erotically along his warm length, pleasuring the god in a devoted synchrony, sharing the taste of his Yang and each other's saliva as they worshipped him.
The carriage tilted gently in the air, driven by the Wyverns, but the sound of thick suction, wet flesh, and desperate moans dominated the hour that followed.
The hyper-dense Yang, ground down by the friction and the unrelenting worship of his wives, reached its boiling point. During that isolated hour in the sky, Zhì Yuǎn spared none of the four. With each wave of heat that overtook him, he pulled them close and discharged thick, scalding torrents into the depths of their throats or the depths of their cores. The vital nectar and the musky taste of his Yang flooded the altar, feeding the hunger of Qíng, Méi, Yán, and Wǎn.
Zhì Yuǎn's long, heavy growl of relief filled the cabin as the last charge was delivered.
The gentle flight began to descend. The external gravity shifted, announcing the approach of the border city's teleportation matrices. The hour of hedonism in the sky had come to its end.
Adjusting their damp silks and wiping their gleaming lips with complicit, fully satisfied smiles, the four women prepared to open the door. The civilization below had no idea — but the true inferno had just landed.