“Where are we?” Eli frowned, a crease like a knife-line cutting his face.

Abyss had him by the collar with one hand, hauling him through high sky like a kite, skimming a sea of endless forest.

“Mm… oxygen’s a bit thick.” Eli sniffed the air, rubbing his nose as if brushing dew off a leaf.

“What’s it matter? Toss you in space and you still won’t die. You care about a little extra O2?” Abyss sneered, smoke around him like night fog.

“Tch. You don’t get it—I’m looking out for me. If something, you know, catches fire, who’s stuck putting it out? I’ll be the one running like a headless chicken.”

“Stop, stop. This isn’t our world. Do whatever you want; if it makes you smile, fine.” Abyss shook his head, like a crow ruffling wet feathers.

“Hey, speaking of—leaving Liqianyu there, is that okay? She’s a trouble magnet. Can you hold her down?” Eli shot him a doubtful look, eyes like flint under moss.

Abyss yawned. “I left a Dao avatar to keep watch. Don’t you trust me at all? Don’t you know your dear father-in-law’s virtues by now?”

“Yeah right. You keep a cold face and toss out world-ending toys at the drop of a hat. Tell me again why I should trust you?” Eli eyed the man wreathed in black miasma like a stormcloud.

Abyss’s mouth twitched; he sighed. “Stick to the point. Seriously. What a joke.”

“So why bring me here?” Eli’s patience thinned like ice under noon sun.

“To see if you two have fate. Or to see if you’ve got the knack I think you do.” Abyss’s tone went deep, like a bell under water.

“Huh?” Eli scratched his head, confusion fluttering like a moth.

Is he insane?

Then Abyss kicked him out of the sky, and Eli fell straight as a dropped spear toward the earth.

“Shit!” He yanked at his inner energy, like seizing a reins—yet nothing answered, and his falling sped up like a stone after the string snaps.

“You’re good with gravity now, right? Tweak your internal flow. Then your body just flies into the ground on its own.” Abyss grinned like a fox, then unraveled into black mist and faded like smoke in rain.

“Whether you walk out of this slice of time depends on you. My wounds cut deeper than I thought, and I can’t shield you long. When you get through, I’ll tell you how to dodge the suppressive force’s patrols. That little girl from the Far East will come here too. So, Eli, good luck.”

His voice thinned and dissolved, like ink bleeding off paper.

Eli hit like a stake and planted headfirst into the dirt, soil closing over him like a blanket.

He didn’t pull himself out. He let his buried head think in the cool, like a root drinking in silence.

Then he gave up thinking.

Honestly, he hadn’t done many good deeds lately; he’d just kept poking at his little tricks, tests piling up like fallen leaves.

He sighed, then wormed out of the earth, face full of black lines. “Wait—why was I thinking in the dirt?”

He sighed again and took a narrow path through the trees, steps soft as a deer’s.

Luck drifted his way: a pale lake lay ahead, a mirror cupped in forest hands. He hurried over and washed in its glass-clear water.

Roar!

A beast burst from the brush, leopard-like and coiled like a spring, and bellowed at him like thunder under a low roof. He jumped, then lashed a kick on instinct.

The creature pinwheeled back trailing whirlwinds, snapped three, four trunks like brittle bones, then burst midair into a mist of blood.

He blinked and rubbed his brow, fingers drawing circles like ripples.

Got a little jumpy… breathe… breathe.

Then the forest answered with roar after roar, drums beating in green.

Birds exploded from the canopy, scattering like torn paper in wind.

As if a calamity had stepped into the glade, beasts fled the trees in blind panic, waves of fur and fear.

Eli frowned and moved toward the center, like walking into a storm’s eye.

“Out of my way!” Edlyn gritted her teeth, and the Demonic Lord’s aura surged like a black tide, crushing the wolves’ minds like stones on reeds.

Something they were born to dread watched them without blinking, a shadow with knives for eyes.

Eli vaulted from behind a tree, face set like iron.

Then his expression froze. He swallowed, gaze snagged by the girl before him like a fish on a hook.

His Demonic Lord’s eyes were hazy like drunk stars, yet power poured off her like winter wind. She leaned on a tree, face flushed like sunset, thighs rubbing without thought, the whole scene wrong as frost in summer.

Eli threw up layered wards on the spot, domes of light snapping shut like shells, sealing the two of them from the world. Then he ran to her, feet quick as rain.

“Edlyn!”

He called out, voice cutting the air like a bell.

She seemed to hear. Her head lifted a fraction, her misted gaze mapping his face like a blind hand tracing a cup.

“Ah. You… you finally came.”

“What happened? How do you feel?” Eli’s brows locked like crossed spears, worry filling his face like tide.

Anyone with half a brain could guess her state; the air itself hinted like wine.

He couldn’t say it outright. He just edged in, gathered the foolish girl into his arms, and pulled a few outfits from his storage, draping them over her like blankets.

“Honestly. You little menace.” He sighed, eyes full of worry for the one burrowing into his chest like a frightened fox.

He lifted her head and pressed his forehead to hers, a bridge of skin like two cups touching.

“Temperature’s off.” His frown deepened, and his mental power flowed into her like a tide entering a moonlit bay.

His face went still; his brow left her brow like a leaf lifting from water.

This felt like those days when Edlyn hadn’t restored her power, when, as regular as the moon’s turn, he’d offered blood to tamp down the desire burning in her veins.

He’d thought, after she reclaimed the Demonic Lord’s body, she’d grown past it. He’d even felt a tiny pang of regret, like a bell with no clapper.

Now…

He hadn’t expected she’d been suppressing it all along, grinding it down like teeth on a bit.

Edlyn, eyes unfocused, rubbed against him in restless little arcs, her dry lips parting to let a small tongue wet the pink like dew on a petal.

Eli swallowed, voice tight as a drawn bow. “Edlyn, do you know what you’re doing right now?”

The Demonic Lord’s tail had already slipped somewhere intimate, moving with a will; no need to draw a map for the class.

Edlyn lifted her head and mumbled, “Duh… I’m… I’m being this proactive… this proactive, and what more do you want? You’re so… so dense.”

“Hey—don’t.” He chuckled wryly and pinched her soft cheek, like kneading a warm bun.

“Bad man…” She pouted. Eli smiled, bent, and captured her lips, a meeting like rain on thirsty soil.

At a time like this, how could he do nothing?

He swept her up, the small body light as a cat, and folded her into his arms like a cloak.

…

Dusk bled down the sky; sunset burned like a dying ember.

Eli leaned against a tree, bare-chested, skin mapped with kiss marks and long scratches like inked calligraphy.

Edlyn pillowed her head on his thigh, wrapped in his coat like a cocoon. She curled small, face back to normal, a sweet smile budding as she slept.

Eli smiled too, slouched against the bark, his feelings hard to name, a river too full for words.

His heart brimmed with thick, warm love; with Edlyn beside him, happiness pooled like spring water in a cup.

He glanced down at the sleeping Demonic Lord, chuckled, and rubbed her two pairs of Fiend horns, fingertips tracing crescents like moonlight.

She frowned, wriggled closer like a kitten, and sank deeper into sleep’s lake.

He laughed softly, said nothing, pulled on fresh clothes, then bundled Edlyn in his coat and drew her into his arms like lifting embers to his chest.

Sleep well, silly girl. He dipped his head and lightly licked the little Lord’s earlobe, a dragonfly kiss on water, smiling.

When Edlyn woke, dawn had already rinsed the world clean.

She yawned and rubbed her eyes with small hands, motions soft as feathers.

Beside her, someone slept against the tree, and she lay sprawled over him, small as a baby bird in a nest.

Then last night flooded back, a tide surging over sand.

She froze, swallowed hard, throat clicking like a pebble.

Ah… my first time, just like that…

She hurried to check herself, spirit peering inward like a lantern in a cave.

The gnawing Succubus craving had faded like mist, leaving only deep satisfaction, and blood-essence roaring through her like a red river.

That sudden extra energy inside her—no need to ask—she’d absorbed his you-know-what, turned it into fuel like a furnace takes coal.

Her pretty face soured; she rolled her eyes. The total surge of power had jumped a whole tier, like a step up a mountain.

It was ridiculous and sweet both. The old suppression on her Demon Race energy had cracked, seals lifting like frost in sun.

Great. From today, Edlyn was a pure, big Succubus.

Thinking that, she wanted to die of embarrassment, cheeks burning like coals.

She glared at the culprit; his lips curled at the corner like a fox’s.

Oh? So you were faking sleep?

She bared her teeth in her heart.

She pushed up quietly and looped her arms around Eli’s neck like a silken noose.

He opened his eyes to the little Demonic Lord, to white hair and heterochromatic eyes like twin gems; he’d seen that face a thousand times and still got lost like a sailor at sea.

He didn’t move.

Edlyn smiled, tightened her arms, and closed the distance like a tide climbing a shore.

Eli understood, shut his eyes again, and lowered his mouth toward hers, slow as a falling petal.

Edlyn let out a cold little laugh, and her small tail slipped from under her skirt like a whip.

It cracked across a certain part of him.

“Ow!”