Chapter 36 – First Love Monster
Shyara POV
My first steps into what Kai's memories would call a dungeon were…disgusting. Damian had been through here, no doubt. The place reeked of rot baked into the walls, centuries of death and waste seeped into the stone. And layered on top of that? A fresher stench. Torched flesh. Burnt mana. And something else I knew far too well.
I wrinkled my nose. "Ew." Didn't even mean to say it out loud.
Coming from a girl raised by goblins—who bathed in piss, smiled through rotting teeth, and lived in hovels crusted with mold—that meant something. The sticky squelch of every barefoot step made my skin crawl.
"Gah! Should've worn shoes. This suuuucks!" I shouted into the corridor. Whatever. If something wanted to pounce, great. Maybe I'd make boots out of it.
The trail wasn't hard to follow. Melted walls. Pools of still-bubbling rock. Feathers charred violet at the tips. And in the middle of it all, a puddle I recognized immediately. I'd tasted enough of Kai's seed to know it blindfolded. My chest tightened. Even here, Damian was using him this way.
"Dude," I muttered, "put your dick away for once."
I tucked a scorched feather into my hair. Its violet glow shifted to match my red strands. Pretty. But no corpses. That was good. That meant Kai's body was still moving, still surviving. But for how long? These were first-floor monsters, and the destruction looked like something out of the deeper Wildreach. Damian was going to get him killed.
No. I shook the thought. Kai was still in there. I could feel him, faint but fighting. He just needed a body to come back to, and I'd make sure it stayed standing. Yuki had grace, Nyla had strength. But me? I had Kai's memories and my own cunning, mashed together into something worse. Or better. Depending how you looked at it.
"What would Kai do?" I whispered.
He'd probably stumble in, no plan, and figure it out mid-quest. Idiot.
I laughed. "Guess I'll just follow the trail of death and sex."
And with that, I ran.
Damian POV
The 5th floor took three days to reach. Not because of difficulty. I left a trail of death and satisfaction on each floor. The aftermath of painstaking research. It brought a smile to my face and a swell to my loins just remembering it.
I'll admit, I lost my head during that first-floor boss fight with the bull. Watching Pyora move snapped my restraint completely. I demolished the bull in frenzy before setting upon Pyora when she offered herself. My memory of the entanglement is fuzzy. When I came to, she was a mess of fluids. Eyes glazed, breathing ragged, her noises incoherent.
But me? I felt great. Rejuvenated. Clear-headed. Really clear. The burning lust was silent. The unquenchable thirst to mate was gone. I was firing on all cylinders. Normally, seeing a female in Pyora's state would send me into overdrive and I'd be on her again. But now? Nothing. Not even a tickle in my loins. Instead, I studied her.
For twenty minutes I watched as her breathing steadied and her convulsions dwindled to twitches.
"I see," I murmured. "She's coming down from an orgasm."
It fit. She was still locked in the heat of it — a catastrophic orgasm, one so powerful it left her barely conscious. The frenzy had done this. I had done this. She was a powerful monster, ideal breeding stock. But frenzy ruined that. From her glassy eyes and slack muscles, she'd never again be what she was on the first floor. She was reduced to a relief tool.
I sighed. Frustrating. And no one to blame but Kai. His lust. His burden.
In a spike of rage I slammed my arm into the wall until stone exploded. The pain was excruciating. I collapsed, clutching my shattered arm as tears stung my eyes.
"Why?!" I shouted. "It never hurt this much before. Why now!?"
The pain muddled everything. I had always enjoyed it. Thrived on it. But now… without the frenzy, I was normal. A masochist. A sadist. Just Damian.
And yet… it felt like clarity.
I started laughing, wheezing through the pain. "Dear god. I'm literally having post-nut clarity."
The sound echoed through the corridor. By the time my laughter died, my arm had healed.
"Right. Let's not do that again."
Trying to punish Kai was foolish. We share this body. Hurting me is hurting him. Naïve. Stupid. Or maybe both. But doesn't knowing that make me wise? A paradox. A win-lose situation.
I glanced back at Pyora. The spasms were almost gone. Fluids dripped uselessly from her body. Some focus was returning to her eyes. Good. It was time to move on. The next experiment. The next floor.
If nothing else, she'd been a good candle.
The second floor gave me a few interesting beasts. I cultivated them briefly. At some point the frenzy returned, but Pyora was close at hand. I dealt with it quickly. After each frenzy she needed hours to recover. Annoying. But strength has its costs.
The third floor held a boss: a giant bee. Pyora's mind was mostly shattered, but she still obeyed. Her firepower remained intact. She incinerated the bee in moments. I, meanwhile, had been watching her every motion, testing if I could trigger frenzy deliberately. It worked. If I leaned into lust, the frenzy arrived sooner, stronger. Longer.
When it ended, and Pyora lay twitching for the third time, I almost pitied her. She had so much potential. And I had ruined her.
Easy come, easy go.
The fourth floor was dull. Weak monsters. The real trial was Pyora's pregnancy. It advanced rapidly — dungeon time runs differently. In mere hours, she bore a child. My daughter. Or Kai's. Complicated.
The girl's hair burned violet, shimmering like flame. Her skin was lighter than mine, her eyes twin purple embers. And she was aware. Already aware.
Pyora gave everything to birth her. By the time I held the child, she was fading. Her hand found mine. She smiled for the first time since we met. And then she was gone.
I stared at her body. Tears spilled unbidden. Foolish. A monster like me, weeping for a creature I'd used until she broke. But she had accepted me. All of me. Without hesitation. And I had destroyed her.
Is this what Kai endures? This suffocating thing called love? To only see it when it's too late?
I scooped the child into my arms. She resembled Pyora, and that eased me.
"You'll be Myne," I whispered.
A thoughtless name. But fitting. She was mine.
Childcare was foreign. She needed constant feeding, swaddling, attention. A nuisance — until I began studying her. Even as an infant she wielded flame. Clever. She grew unnaturally fast. Hours became years. By the time I reached the fifth floor, she was the size of a twelve-year-old. Strong. Smart. Desperate to please me.
Not that I felt paternal love. But her convenience pleased me.
The fifth floor was different. An endless jungle, full of unseen calls and unseen predators. Myne glanced at me nervously. I smiled back without thinking.
We stepped forward together, hand in hand.
Time to make a meal out of a dungeon.