Watching Pyora's hips sway as we trudged through corridor after corridor of the same stone bullshit was starting to get to me. Again.
I don't know how Kai did it. How the hell did he fight this endless hunger? It's torment. Even now, the fire in me threatens to burn me alive unless I douse it. Douse it with what, though?
I caught the faintest glisten on Pyora's thigh. Sweat, or something else.
With that. Nothing else would do. Put out the fire with her.
"Fuck yeah. I love chicken," I muttered out loud, answering the voices rattling in my skull.
Pyora turned her head, eyes narrowing, clearly confused by my outburst. I gave her a look back—hungry, feral, unmistakable. She knew what I wanted. I didn't have to say it. Wouldn't.
Assume the position, I thought.
But then—wait. I don't have time for this. Literally. I'm on the clock.
Something inside me screamed like a caged beast.
Think of the endgame. If I give in to instant gratification, I'll never get the real prize. I'm going to fuck that deer like a coked-up gorilla on Viagra—but that only happens if I make it to floor twenty and back.
The urge eased, barely. Sweat dripped from my brow like an open faucet.
What the fuck was that? Me? Kai? Fuck, that was insane. Maybe Kai had more mental fortitude than I thought. How many times did he fight this monster—the beast inside—just to stay sane?
I glanced up to find Pyora staring at me, worry etched across her sharp, blue-tinged features.
"Don't be concerned," I told her with a smirk. "Just fighting with my dick."
She made a face, disturbed, and turned forward again. Kept walking like she hadn't heard. I followed, as if nothing had happened. I kept my eyes off her hips this time—didn't want to risk another flare-up so soon.
We rounded the next corner and came face to face with a pack of rat-things. Mangy fur, long teeth, tails whipping like whips.
I didn't move. Just leaned back and watched.
Pyora opened her palm, violet flames roaring to life. She roasted the whole pack in seconds. Screeches cut off mid-cry, leaving only the crackle of fire and the stink of seared flesh.
"Grand job, fire chick," I said, stepping past her, voice flat. "But maybe next time don't char all of my test subjects. A light roasting would do fine."
The stink hit me first—burned hair, acrid and heavy. The cooked meat whet my appetite, but this wasn't food. Their eyes had burst from the heat, popping in their sockets like overripe grapes. Skin bubbled and split. She hadn't even tried to hold back.
Quite the chef, I thought.
Then something caught my attention. One rat's claws and teeth—perfect. Not even singed.
Interesting. Even with nearly identical biology, one part survives the fire. Is it level? Mana manipulation? Dumb luck?
So many questions. So few answers. So little time.
Another rat had been roasted down to bare bones. But the bones had…changed. They glowed faintly purple, the same color as her flames.
Curious. What could cause that?
I crouched, touched the bones. A surge of mana jolted up my arm—sharp, electric. And then the bones disintegrated into dust, the mana fading with them.
Even curiouser.
A smile tugged at my lips. My pulse quickened. My hunger stretched.
"Pyora, take the lead," I said, waving her forward. "Feel free to kill anything we come across. Make sure to use those flames of yours… but do try not to overdo it."
The next corridors were the same monotonous stone bullshit—straight, tight, well-lit enough to see, just enough shadow to piss me off. It was boring. Boring except for Pyora's footsteps echoing in front of me.
She didn't hesitate. Every rat-thing that lunged from the dark got turned into roast scraps before I even had the chance to blink. Violet fire hissed and popped, filling the tunnels with smoke and the smell of scorched fur.
"Good girl," I muttered once, eyeing the twitching corpse of something dog-shaped that hadn't even had time to yelp. It wasn't affection in my voice—it was the same tone someone uses when their coffee machine finally works. Functional praise.
Pyora dipped her head slightly, like she'd been waiting to hear that all her life.
Pathetic. Or maybe just lucky. Either way, she was mine.
I crouched over the dog-thing's body while she stood guard. The fur had curled into black ash, but the claws? Still sharp as razors. Same as the rats. Resistant material. Could be something there. Maybe a pattern.
I cracked its ribcage open with a grunt. Not for meat, not yet—though the smell did make my stomach rumble—but to see what else survived her flames. The bones hadn't burned purple like the rat's. Different reaction. Different mana structure?
I stuck a finger into the dog's marrow, humming to myself. Felt nothing. No surge, no spark. Just bone.
"Disappointing." I snapped the femur like a breadstick and tossed it aside.
Pyora winced at the noise. I laughed.
This was the test. Everything was a test. Every monster was a little experiment, and Pyora was my scalpel.
We pressed on. More corridors. More monsters. I stopped bothering to throw punches. Why bother? She was a walking crematorium. My job was to watch, to catalog, to learn.
I started timing her burns. One, two, three seconds—monster gone. Average output. Sometimes more efficient if she hit them center-mass. I made a mental note: "strike zones matter."
She fought like a survivor, not a warrior. Always burning, never engaging directly unless forced. It worked. She was still alive, wasn't she? But she was sloppy. Wasteful. If she'd had me sooner, she'd have been something terrifying.
"Don't fry them all the way next time," I said after she reduced a pair of lizards into glowing puddles. "I need tissue. And organs. Preferably intact."
Her head tilted, confused. "Tissue?"
"Yeah. You know. Guts. Kidneys. Eyeballs. The chewy bits."
She gave the faintest nod, but I could feel it through the bond. Doubt. Curiosity. Still trust, though. She trusted me. Even though she knew I was lying half the time.
I smiled at that. It wasn't affection, not really. It was satisfaction. She was functioning exactly how I wanted.
The deeper we went, the hotter the air got. Less dank, more suffocating. The stone glistened with sweat that wasn't mine. I heard water dripping somewhere ahead.
Then the air shifted. Heavy. Like walking into a wall of pressure.
"Boss room," I muttered, my grin spreading.
The door was massive—black stone, carved with some ugly bird motif that looked like a toddler had been given a chisel. Pyora hesitated in front of it. She could feel it too—the weight, the danger.
I didn't. I only felt the fire in my gut, the pulse in my cock, and the itch in my hands.
"Open it," I ordered.
She glanced at me, uncertain.
"Don't look at me like that," I said, stepping closer. "You're the tool. The test. That's your role. So open it."
For a moment, I swore I felt it through the bond—her trust. Thin, fragile, but real. Even knowing every word out of my mouth was either a half-truth or a lie, she trusted me.
That made me laugh.
And then the door began to move.