Seraphine found herself in Ashen's dreamscape.
The last time she had appeared here was for an Absentia meeting, so she let her eyes roam with curiosity. Surprisingly, she didn't find the magnificent castle where those meetings usually took place.
Her attention caught on a scene playing out nearby. It was herself, kneeling in chains, with Ashen looking down at her from the throne with a frozen expression.
An involuntary smile crossed her lips. Despite her seemingly precarious situation in the scene, his dumbfounded look was genuinely amusing.
The scenes shifted as she kept watching, and before she knew it, she was inside them. Ashen let his body move on autopilot, following what had happened as he recalled the memories of the previous timelines and lived through them again alongside her.
When it was done and she opened her eyes, the lingering confusion faded. She understood now that living a moment and being told about it were completely different things, and she was glad she'd thought of this.
"Oh wow, baby… if not for my deaths, we would totally be living the perfect honeymoon."
"That's what you choose to focus on?" Ashen shook his head.
"Of course. These memories are going to be some of the most important ones I have, right up there with the tutorial days."
Ashen found himself quietly agreeing as an unconscious smile surfaced. "Your optimism is as contagious as ever."
"Hehe~"
"Alright. Now that you're up to date, let's get to work. I don't want to watch you die again." He decided it was better to start immediately; it was her life on the line.
"Oke, what do you need me to do?"
"For now, just stay by my side. I need to speak with some of the noble vampires and get those elf geezers started on the magic circle. After that, we'll visit the library and see if there's anything useful."
That place was less a library and more a realm of books. The scale was staggering; if he gathered every volume in all of Esperra, he doubted it would amount to half of this collection.
'That's what you get when a long-lived race archives everything in one place.'
"So I just have to stay close to you? Say no more." Seraphine didn't waste a moment and threw herself into his arms.
He caught her easily and ruffled her hair. "Be good. We'll play after I get them started."
His tone was reserved for lecturing children, but she decided to cooperate rather than protest.
"Ali~~~right~" her voice pitched exactly as whiny as a spoiled little girl. "That's a promise~" She stuck her tongue out for full effect.
"Sure, sure. Anything for my baby."
"That's why you're the best~" She beamed.
*
The elves arrived a couple of days later. The vampire Ancients were already present. Ashen had gathered the brightest minds from both races for a single objective: upgrading the magic circle they had developed in the last loop.
He had pulled it from memory using dreamweaving and presented it with a single central goal: extending the window of successful revival in cases where the target was already a corpse.
The previous spell had worked up to ten minutes after death. Ashen wanted considerably more, because he had a theory.
Seraphine had said the body she inhabited felt dead despite functioning perfectly. He still didn't fully understand that paradox. Neither, as it turned out, did the people in front of him.
But Seraphine's second death had confirmed it. If the body had been truly alive at the moment of casting, why hadn't the spell worked within seconds of her passing? There was only one conclusion, however absurd.
The body had died long before that.
"Can you do it?"
He didn't get the affirmation he'd expected.
"Primordial… that is not how it works. Life and death are not so easily manipulated."
The second elf nodded gravely. "The ten-minute window exists because the spirit of the deceased lingers for roughly that long. If the vessel is repaired before it dissipates, the soul can settle back into the body."
"My lord—" An extraordinarily beautiful woman spoke hesitantly from the side. She was one of the three Ancestor-rank vampires he had summoned, specializing in souls and spirits. Her looks were ageless from vampire blood, but she was as old as the elves, if not older. "Creating such a spell is theoretically possible, but ultimately a futile endeavor. By the time you would use it, the soul would have long since dissipated. There would be nothing to call back."
"What if there is a soul," Ashen said, "just not the body's original one?"
A pause.
"Then, my lord… that would be necromancy."
'She looks very much alive to me.'
He rubbed his temple. In the last loop, he had let them examine Seraphine's condition and describe everything in detail, including how she felt, and none of them had found the root cause.
"Let's look at it this way," he said finally. "The body is alive and dead simultaneously."
Strange looks from everyone in the room. He pushed past them.
"It's alive because the soul inhabiting it isn't dissipating. It moves and acts like any other human, with no signs of necromancy. It's also dead because the body cannot sustain that state for long before reverting to what it originally was."
"Your objective is to prevent that reverting. Ideally. If not, to turn the body alive again after its death."
The sages exchanged glances before another Ancestor spoke tentatively.
"My lord... what about the Berserk spell?"
*
*
*
Back in the grand library.
"Wait, a Berserk spell? How is something designed to make you rage supposed to heal me?"
"It's not that simple." Ashen patiently explained. "A basic Berserk spell lets you ignore pain and heightens aggression. What we're using as a foundation is considerably more. It forces the body to function even when it isn't operational, tethers the soul to the flesh as long as a dominant intent holds the mind, and pushes the body toward a single goal at full capacity."
He smiled. "A Berserker's goal is usually destroying the source of their rage. Yours will be survival."
Seraphine's expression turned thoughtful.
"We won't use it as is, of course. We'll adapt it to our needs. By the end, they say it won't even trigger on rage, but on the will to live."
"Alright. I trust you. I already put myself in your hands anyway. I only asked out of curiosity." She blinked at him with complete and uncomplicated faith.
"I won't disappoint you."
Seraphine licked her lips as she studied his serious expression. For some reason, whenever he made that face, it turned her on.
"Hey."
"Yes?"
"It's time for my meal."
He tilted his head. He was fairly certain it was still hours away, but he didn't mind an early offering. "Here you go."
She looked at the thumb extended to her and didn't move. She merely watched him with expectant eyes, waiting for something more.
'I suddenly resent my past self for establishing this,' he almost groaned.
"Do we really have to do this every time?" he asked, with reluctance, and she only beamed in response.
"Alright." He closed his eyes briefly. When they opened, the warmth in them had been replaced with something considerably colder.
He looked down at her and said, in a matching tone: "Suck."
Seraphine became a blushing mess and obeyed immediately, adopting the posture of someone caught entirely off guard by a wolf they had, in fact, deliberately walked toward.
'The things I do to keep them happy...' Ashen internally rolled his eyes, lips fighting a twitch.
He soon forgot his embarrassment as the sucking gave way to kissing that moved along his arm and up to his neck before finding his lips. After that, time became its own casualty. They were so thoroughly lost in each other that neither noticed it passing.
Kisses became licks and caresses. Moans and groans followed. Before long she was straddling him, and Ashen had to physically restrain her from using him to literally fuck herself with his cock, barely managing to remember the line they weren't supposed to cross.
In the end, all she could do was whimper against his skin and trace her lips wherever she could reach.
Ashen focused on keeping his own mental restraints intact while holding her wrists firmly at the small of her back.
'When her path was Lust, I held back because I was afraid of making her lose control. Now that her path is Chastity, somehow the same predicament has returned.'
The irony was not lost on him.
'It's almost as if we're cursed.'
"Ash~♡"
She was clearly at her limit… but then, her expression turned mischievous.
"Are you sure you don't want to give me more? Because I have a secret about you now~"
He raised an eyebrow. "What secret?"
"Huehuhe — I saw it, you know? When I took your blood." She leaned in conspiratorially. "Little Ashen peeing himself~!"
"..."
He stared blankly for a beat, then it dawned on him that she had seen a memory of him as a baby from his blood.
'The blood can even record memories I forgot? Seems like there's more to it than I initially thought…'
"You little bedwetter… what, too speechless to defend yourself?" Seraphine nudged him with her beasts since her wrists were still bound.
He stared at her, face turning exasperated, "You never wet the bed as a kid?"
"You didn't see it. It didn't happen," she declared, turning her face away imperiously.
"Alas… It seems I have no choice but to silence you now." He fixed her with an expression of exaggerated suffering.
"Oh yeah?" She met his gaze in open provocation. "Do you think I'm afraid? The truth always comes out."
"Not when all you can do is sing for me, dear."
Thump—!
"Oh, God—!"
That night, a thoroughly satisfied Seraphine departed, leaving behind one very blue-balled primordial lord.