The aphrodisiacal water of the mana-spring clung to their skin like a second, colder sweat. They emerged from the grotto into the pre-dawn gloom, naked and shivering, the world a graveyard of old magic now that the Grove's grand, beautiful lie had shattered. The air, scrubbed clean of its cloying poison, tasted only of damp earth, old stone, and the lingering, hateful echo of a Bitch-mana howl.
Their diversion—a trail of Petunia's sweet, weaponized nectar leading eastward to a corrupted ravine—had bought them time. But how much? An hour? Two? The thought was a constant, grinding pressure in Damask's mind. The hunters were professionals. They would not be fooled for long.
He looked at Petunia, whose small body was wracked with shivers, his skin pale in the dim light. The boy was a perfect tool, a flawless vessel, and the only reason Damask was still alive. But he was also a beacon, his very essence a siren's call to the predators stalking them through the woods.
A cold, pragmatic calculus took hold. The ruthless creed of the Testament was his only guide. Survival was a matter of resource management, and his resources were dangerously low.
The first ritual was an act of desperate, carnal engineering. Damask retrieved the turtle talisman from his pack. It was no bigger than his palm, cool and inert. The artifact should have been left to absorb ambient mana, to heal its wounds over weeks of slow, patient rest. But they did not have weeks. They had hours. He knelt, pressing the pendant against the cold earth, and began the agonizing, forceful process of overcharging it. He was attempting a savage pollination of stone with his own essence, a dangerous gambit to shock the golem back into a state of combat readiness. He could feel the Gristle Seeds being pulled from his core, a constant, cold ache deep in his balls. It was a phantom fucking, a sensation of being brutally and relentlessly milked by an invisible mouth, a constant, draining expenditure without a shred of pleasure. His body was a battery, and he was jump-starting his only weapon.
But it was not enough. To move through this hostile territory, they needed more than just a shield. They needed a shroud.
"Pet," he grunted, his voice tight with the effort of maintaining the golem's life support. "Stay close. Do not leave my side."
He initiated the second spell. The "Petrified Veil." He pulled on the last of his reserves, and the air around them seemed to thicken, to solidify. It wasn't a cage of grit, but a suffocating, intimate cocoon. The shell of solidified mana wrapped around them like a series of tightly bound blankets, pressing their bodies together, trapping their mingled scents of sweat and fear. It was a familiar feeling, the claustrophobic heat of two bodies fucking under heavy furs, but it was a heat born of desperation, not lust.
Under the agonizing strain of this dual mana drain, they set out.
Every step was a fresh torment. The Veil was a constant, chafing pressure, and the golem was a greedy, sucking leech on his already depleted reserves. Petunia was pressed against his back, the soft warmth of the Fem a maddening reminder of a pleasure he couldn't take, a dominance he couldn't assert. He could feel the boy's terror in the tremors that ran through his small body, a shared vulnerability that was a constant, grating friction against his raw pride.
They found the hunters' camp an hour later. The sight was a fresh, twisting blade in his gut. The casual display of carnal dominance—the discarded, cum-slick restraints, the arrogant piss-marks—was made infinitely more humiliating as he felt his own power bleeding away.
He was a king in rags, forced to witness the decadent feast of his enemies while he starved.
Then, a new sensation. A blunt, mental finger prodding at his defenses. A non-consensual, probing touch against the Veil that felt like an unprepared asshole being violated. He had to hold still, to not react, to endure the psychic fingering as the hunters' scout swept the area.
Damask's jaw tightened. He had to reinforce the Veil, to push back against the probe. He poured more of his precious, dwindling mana into the spell, and felt a wave of dizzying weakness wash over him.
He saw it then, glinting in the dirt near the dead fire. It was a Bitch's training aid, Damask recognized with a fresh wave of disgust. A simple, jewel-encrusted ring of obsidian designed to be worn during solo cultivation, its internal matrix absorbing ambient mana to amplify the wearer's orgasm. It was still slick with the mingled, musky fluids of the hunter pride.
A wave of self-loathing so profound it was a physical nausea washed over him. The Sovereign he had been screamed in abject humiliation. The Ascendant he had to become saw only a solution.
He stumbled forward, his pride a distant, irrelevant ghost. Petunia watched, his eyes wide with a dawning horror, as his Dom knelt in the dirt. Damask snatched the ring, his fingers closing around the cold metal. He brought it to his mouth, warming it against his tongue, the taste of his enemies' pleasure a profound violation.
His Dom's body, a perfect alchemical forge, could break down these tainted, second-hand materials in a way no lesser caste could, extracting every last drop of power where others would find only filth. But the process was nauseating. He sucked the residual mana from the ring, the ghost of their climax—the sharp ozone of a Bitch's arousal, the sweet nectar of their Fem—a bitter ash in his mouth.
He was no longer the Heir of the Ivy Court. He was a bottom-feeder, a desperate creature willing to consume the scraps of his enemies to survive. The humiliation was a cold, hard stone in his gut, but it was a stone upon which he would build his new empire.
That night, in a shallow, defensible hollow, the true cost of his desperate gambles became clear. He was empty. The golem was stable, for now. The Veil had held. But he had nothing left.
"Pet," he growled, the single word a raw, unfamiliar croak in the quiet of their small, hidden camp. "Kneel."
The cultivation ritual was no longer a choice. It was a desperate, biological imperative. He was attempting to refill a cup that had just been violently, deliberately emptied.
The scene was raw and agonizing. He attempted the "Pleasure Pricking," his Filament-Stage nub a pathetic, unresponsive thing against Petunia's offered hands. The failure was a devastating blow. But this time, there was no sob of frustration. Only a terrifying, quiet coldness. He looked at Petunia with the detached, analytical gaze of a craftsman whose forge was faulty.
"You are not hot enough," he stated, his voice a blade of ice. "You are not wet enough. Your hole is not tight enough. You will be corrected."
He seized Petunia, his touch no longer fumbling, but brutally precise. This was not a plea for pleasure; it was a calculated act of defilement designed to stoke the fires of libido through sheer, aggressive violation. He used his hands, his mouth, his teeth, turning Petunia's body into an instrument, playing a symphony of pain and humiliation until the Fem was a weeping, arching wreck of pure, mindless sensation.
And in the crucible of that beautiful, brutalized flesh, his own body finally, treacherously, responded.
It was Petunia who saved him, but not with gentleness. His body, expertly broken, became the perfect, worshipful forge. His mouth, bruised and tender, coaxed a flicker of life back into the dead flesh. The first, pathetic erection was a victory born not of love, but of exquisite, calculated cruelty.
The fumbling, joyless "Seed-Planting" was the chapter's brutal climax. He came with a gritty, painful spasm, depositing a handful of pathetic Gristle Seeds into Petunia's waiting heat. He had only managed to replace what he had lost. His net gain was zero.
As he pulled out, leaving Petunia a trembling, weeping wreck, he saw it. A single, shimmering drop of golden liquid had formed at the tip of the Fem's own small, useless cock. His nectar. Catalyzed by the raw power Damask had just injected, it was thicker, more potent than before. A perfect, honey-like substance that smelled of pure, refined fuel.
There was no pause, no moment of tenderness. The Sovereign he had been might have seen it as a gift. The Ascendant he was now saw only a resource. He lunged, his mouth closing over the small shaft with a greedy, sucking force. It was not a kiss, but an act of consumption. He drank the nectar directly from the source, his tongue a rough, demanding thing, milking every last drop. The taste was a shocking, clean sweetness, a stark contrast to the gritty, raw power of his own seed. It was a pure, high-grade fuel that soothed the raw, scraping feeling in his own core.
He pulled back, leaving Petunia gasping, a fresh wave of humiliation and a strange, profound fulfillment washing over him. He had been used, completely and utterly, every part of him a tool for his Dom's reclamation.
The mountain ahead was just as high, but now, Damask had been forced to consume the scraps of his enemies, and the very essence of his last, loyal subject, just to stay at its base.
And in the darkness, a cold, tyrannical resolve began to take root in the ashes of his pride. The path back to his throne would be paved with humiliation and carnal necessity, but he would walk it. And he would not be laid low again.