Eventually, a series of yawns traveled around the table, marking the end of dinner. “You three have had a hard day. Why don’t you go wash up and head to bed? When you’re ready to drain the tub, turn the wooden knob on the left side. It's connected to a pipe that leads to the backyard.” 

“We’ll do just that,” I told Ichiha. Sekh, Tilde, and I walked to our room, and my sensitive little ears picked up something that made me smile.  

“They’re kinda interesting, aren’t they? It seemed like Lyudmila was a bit annoyed, but she did just lose a bunch of stuff.” 

“Yes, she’s not taking it well. For her sake, I do hope I can find a buyer within a few days. It’s going to be hard, but I think I have some connections I can still rely on. I’ll send some letters tomorrow. But all things considered, I thought tonight was lovely.”  

Was it lovely? 

The mother and daughter continued to talk as Sekh opened the door, and they were still in a chatty mood as I locked it behind me, laid Beccy’s shield against the door, and placed two waypoints on Irisa and Ichiha. I could see them on my map, and the waypoint had an option where it could appear through solid objects. While I didn’t think anything would happen, I wanted to take precautions to minimize the risk of them discovering I was a chimera.  

Sekh walked to the dresser and placed her backpack and two maces on it, then began to strip down. Her fantastically enjoyable breasts that I loved to lick, kiss, and rub were really a treat. As I joined her in a state of nakedness, I kept fondling my testicles and penis. But that was all for naught because nothing happened. Perhaps the displeasure showed on my face, but Tilde hovered around me. 

“Don’t try to force yourself to feel something you can’t. When the time comes, that little pecker is going to jump awake. Remember, you lived a shit life. I don’t need to remind you about it. And it’s kinda funny how trauma works like that. Like, let’s say you were bitten by a dog. It’s a traumatic event, so you might be afraid of them. You know your fear comes from that incident, and you know that not all dogs are biters, yet you still can’t take that risk to pet a dog you’ve known for all your life.” 

Sighing, Sekh walked over and held my head against her chest, and I nearly drifted off to sleep with just the beating of her heart alone. My mouth went from her breasts to her neck, licking her all over until she pressed her lips against mine. Her hands rubbed my back and ass while I played with her tail and stroked it. Our kiss became more intense when she put her tongue in my mouth, and while I didn’t quite know what to do, I slowly broke off from the kiss while tightly wrapping my lips around her tongue. Sekh started to pant, her lovely little moans attacking my heart directly. In a desperate attempt, I grabbed my flaccid cock and held it against my stomach, then tightly hugged Sekh. I had hoped the pressure and her warmth would do something... 

And nothing happened. I didn’t get hard. I didn’t get an erection. I wanted to have sex with Sekh. I wanted to make love to her. I wanted to finally be a man and fix what had been broken about me for almost a decade! 

“Master...” Sekh whispered. I backed away from the hug, and while I was still disappointed, I wasn’t totally upset because Sekh wasn’t the type of woman to make fun of me for my condition. “Let’s go get cleaned, okay? I’ll heat up the water with my flames.” 

I nodded, grabbed Sekh’s hand, and we walked to the bathroom. Tilde was struggling with the handle, cussing up a storm because she was too small to turn it. We rescued the day and went in, and Sekh walked across the tiled floor to the tub. She wrapped her weakest flames around her nails and warmed the water.  

But then my eyes turned to her delicious ass. Sekh really did have flawless skin. It was smooth and warm, and caressing her sent a joy up my soul that I had never felt before.  “Master?” Sekh turned around and watched as I touched myself and wondered what it felt like to be inside her... What it felt like to be surrounded by her warmth. “Master, why don’t you hug me? I don’t know if it’ll help, but you can slide your penis between my thighs if you’d like. You can play with my tail, too.”  

“But… I feel like I’m just using you as an object—” I had my hesitations about using her to satisfy my urges, but she cut me off.  

“Nope! Don’t say that,” Sekh briskly replied, cutting me off. “If I didn’t want to do this, then I wouldn’t have said anything.” She closed her eyes, smiled, and wiggled the adorable ears sitting atop her beautiful head. 

She took my silence as my confirmation, and I used a hand to grasp her waist. The other one held my flaccid penis, and after sticking it between her dripping pussy lips, Sekh squeezed tightly. I felt her succulent juices coat my shaft as I moved my hips. Her tail made its way to me, and I rubbed the base, scratching the area around where it left the skin. I especially loved how she arched her back when I applied a bit more pressure. 

It was exhilaratingly sexy.  

Why isn’t it making me hard? 

“Hhmmm… That’s it…” Sekh moaned. Her erotic breaths were something else. I put a bit more effort into it, going so far as to fondle her tits while going a little bit faster. Having her juices all along my cock? It dripping down to moisten my testicles? The squeezing of her thighs as she came, increasing the pressure I felt? 

It should have felt amazing, but I was just glad she was enjoying it. And maybe I was too. It warmed my heart to hear her cute voice. Even if I couldn’t satisfy her with my penis, I knew I could rock her world if I used my mouth and fingers. Suddenly, Sekh quivered, going a little bit weak in the knees as she squirted on my dick.  

“Ahhh…” Tilde moaned, closing her eyes as she enjoyed the fruits of Sekh’s labor. She had already gotten in the bath while we were in our own little world. 

“Are you ready, Master?” Sekh asked, turning to stare at me. I nodded and took a step backwards, removing my penis from her glistening, soaking thighs. She got in the basin first, then turned around and extended her hand for me to hold as I slipped right in. It was deeper than I thought, and I didn’t expect the hot, relaxing water to reach my breasts when I sat down. And it was simply divine. The stresses of the day washed away with every passing second. Sekh sat right beside me, resting her head against my shoulder as we took in the events of our first day of freedom. 

“Did you enjoy dinner?” she asked. 

“It was…fine, I think. The food was good, but I have no intention of becoming buddy-buddy with them. We’re only staying here until the clothes sell. After that, we’ll leave for a more populated city where I can find bullets on the regular. What about you, Sekh? Did you have fun?” 

“I... don’t remember the last time I had a conversation that didn’t end with someone dead. Before we met, I mean.” As I stared at the distant countenance on Sekh’s face, my thoughts went to Greggie, Keeth, and Will. My expression must’ve gone sour because Sekh soon cupped it with the palm of her hand and kissed me on the lips. She asked what was wrong, and I told her of the bullshit trial. Her face contorted with anger when I brought up Quella’s true feelings. She only wanted to save me because she would have the satisfaction of pulling it off, not because she didn’t actually want to see me die. And Greggie, Keeth, and all the others’ values had changed. Sure, they only wanted me to die out of pity, but goddamn, it hurts. 

Sekh remained quiet, but I knew she was thinking about killing them. 

I argued with myself about what I would do if I ever met them. For Meruria and the others? Yeah, they’re going to die. But Quella? Keeth? Greggie? That bastard Will was going to swing from the trees, but everyone beside him probably wanted to save me. And yes, it shouldn’t shock me that they thought that death would be a benefit for me because I was naked, strung up by magic, and everyone saw my scars and bruises. 

But still... Having hope snatched away after seeing it hurts the most... I’ll never forgive them for that. 

I scratched Sekh behind the ears and listened to her purrs. She leaned over the tub and grabbed a cloth. I looked for soap, but it appeared that was somewhat of a rarity. “Let me wash your back,” she said. I stood up, and she got behind me. Both hands held the cloth as she scrubbed my fair skin. Even without soap, her soft touch and the water felt pleasant and comforting.  

“Okay, you know what? I need to stop this. Do you guys know how weird it is to have the greatest threat this world had ever seen speak like a lovesick schoolgirl?” Tilde asked. She laid on her back and floated around the bath. “Have you even forgotten what ‘Dark Lord of Tyranny’ even means?! How are you the same woman who killed hundreds of thousands by forcing a volcano to erupt? Remember the public execution of those monks? Didn’t you order a mother to skin her crying child?” 

Sekh started to shake, but was it from anger? Something told me it wasn’t. A warning left my mouth, but Tilde kept speaking. “I’m saying this for your benefit. Look, you’ve read the tablets Murag left behind, but think about it. You have the real deal behind you. You know, the one who caused the world to band together for the sole reason of defeating her? You were busy earlier, I get that, but now’s the best time to ask her about it. Also, remember the whole bullshit about Lionfolk born with red and blue fur? Uhh, her fur’s black. Aren’t you kinda curious about that?” 

“Master…” Sekh wasn’t crying, but her voice had taken a turn for the worse. I turned around and looked at her saddened eyes. She dropped the cloth, touched her forearms, and avoided looking me in the eyes. “I need to tell you the truth...” 

---

The girl fated to become existence’s enemy had a normal start to her tumultuous life. Her father was an experienced adventurer, having retired to marry his childhood sweetheart after reaching the guild’s third-highest rank. Together with a maid, the husband and wife lived a blissful experience while the Dark Lord was nurturing inside her mother’s womb.  

The long-awaited day arrived and went without any problems. Her father danced and sang merry songs with his companions while his wife’s family took turns holding what they thought was a newborn gift to the world. The red and blue fur wasn’t something of an omen or curse, but it was a pleasant surprise that meant she was surely blessed by fire and ice.

On this day, the moment of her birth, an unseen curse was working with none the wiser. For you see, the girl was cursed with a terrible existence.  She was ill-fated to destroy the world and kill everything living thing on it, or she would die trying. 

For the first four years, nothing out of the ordinary happened.  

Her fifth birthday? 

That was when the voices began to speak and revealed the horrible truth. Every few centuries, a terrible monster in the form of a Lionfolk was brought into the world by parents unknown of the danger they had conceived. Resistance was futile, for the voices would never stop hounding the Lionfolk until she started to spread despair. If she continued to fight against it, the voice would flood her mind with the dark abuses her past incarnations suffered through.  

At just six years old, the Dark Lord of Tyranny endured the feelings of being raped, tortured, killed, strung up, skinned, buried alive, and boiling in a vat of bubbling oil. It was all she could think about when she was awake, and it was all she dreamed about when she was asleep. 

At the age of seven, the Dark Lord managed to kill her mother, father, and maid by subtly drugging the pot of coffee with a poisonous aphrodisiac the curse had told her about. Her father had resistance to it, but the other two did not. Ironically, he believed he was nurturing their wombs with his seed to create more life, but he was killing them with his love. By the time the Dark Lord revealed she was behind it with tears in her eyes, the funeral was over. Her father took up Bane’s Edge—his most powerful blade—and slit his own throat. The Dark Lord wanted to believe she was crying and begging her father to heal himself with a potion, but all he saw was the snarling face of a child with the soul of a demon. She had hoped he would kill her to bring an end to this curse, yet the father couldn’t bring himself to strike down his daughter. 

From there, the Dark Lord was resolved to end her own life. She rushed back home and set it ablaze while hugging her trembling knees. Her voice shouted that she wouldn’t kill anymore, but the curse inside fought back. Like a movie, it replayed a thousand scenes of wretched abuse suffered by her previous incarnations. The only way to stop the pain was to leave, but that didn’t work this time. Her little screams echoed that night while in front of a burning inferno. Pain and disgust filled her mouth, discomfort warmed her belly, and invisible lashes covered her arms from shoulder to fingertip. 

What did she do when the pain stopped? The innocent girl who loved her family wasn’t there anymore. She had been replaced with a shadow of her former self. With a determined goal inside her mind, she devoted herself to the acquisition of terrible power for the next two decades. The harbinger of despair slaughtered her way to the fearsome Dark Lord of Tyranny by leaving a trail of bodies in her wake.  

But it wasn’t all without trouble. Before her ascent to power could start, the Dark Lord was kidnapped by slavers who tended to the twisted whims of the wealthy. One such disgusting pig liked to see children dominate each other, and she lost her virginity to a boy one year younger than her. The disgusting pig found herself smitten by the Dark Lord, thus she dressed her up in exquisite undergarments and naughty lingerie because she liked to watch corruption swallow what she considered ‘beautiful.’ 

A chance soon came for the Dark Lord and her fellow slave to escape, but the injured Lionfolk tripped in the mud and was recaptured as the boy managed to acquire his freedom. 

She suffered another three years of being chained to a pillory, holes always available for whoever wanted to unleash their sexual urges inside her. When the weekend rolled around, she would be ‘married’ off to one of the bandits, who would have exclusive access to her. The women of the camp would do her makeup and dress her in the finest lingerie they could find, which only made the humiliation worse. 

It was no wonder she came to hate dresses, underwear, and anything else girlie or feminine.  

To avoid the risk of pregnancy, she was force-fed a gross concoction to render her womb incapable of supporting life. The Dark Lord only escaped when a band of traveling knights attacked the camp. She only remained sane because the curse kept her mind clear and focused. 

It was this mindset that allowed her to soar through levels and conquer dungeons at a blistering pace. Her sights turned from monsters to people as she took in undesired criminals to become the bulk of her army. She grew, and her name spread far and wild as a tyrannical, murderous force of nature.  

And then it happened… During a scene of such excessive violence and tyranny that gave even the curse pause, the Lionfolk finally ascended to her true form as the Dark Lord of Tyranny. It was also during this time that [Flame Nails] and [Ice Nails] were pushed to their ultimate limit and forcibly contorted into something terrifyingly powerful. Upon its first use, the Dark Lord could not control its power, and her skin found itself scorched the very color of light ash. The cursed voices and whispers continued, increasing her overwhelming ruthlessness by a factor of ten.  

Expressively gory accounts of her [Tyranny Control] began to spread far and wide. Details of how she would drug fathers and sons to sexually assault their daughters and sisters to break their spirits sent a stone into anyone’s heart. But word of her awful torture? Using a red-hot, serrated blade to forcibly cook pregnant women from the inside and forcing those related to eat them? Using heads as battering rams to break spines and legs? Splitting a child down the middle with a dull blade and forcing his mother to eat his heart? 

She was the Dark Lord of Tyranny, a title that simply needed no explanation as to why she did anything at all. 

All that was left was for her to destroy the world. Unfortunately for her, Holy Lord Amos was on a journey to find his Soul Warriors. When he had his five, he learned word of the Dark Lord’s ascension and saw fit to end her.  

What followed was a bloody war that ended with over 30% of the world’s population dead. Entire countries fell to the Dark Lord and her fearsome Tyranny. Any kind of armies the surviving countries mustered together were destroyed by a legion of Ancient Elder Dragons and their Elemental Meteors. The Scorch Giants of the far south were as big and tall as four adult human men, and their flaming fur rendered common weaponry naught.  

Every other month, the amount of land devoted to the alliance shrank. The price of food and water increased dramatically, riots and war broke out in cities that never felt the scourge of hunger. Thanks to a rumor the Dark Lord had spread about Lionfolk with red and blue fur being her special forces, it led to a genocide of those very Lionfolk. It was all for the desire to further spread a blanket of Tyranny because it was not true at all.  

It seemed as if she would have finally accomplished the goal she had set out for, but fate had a weapon up its sleeve. The young boy that deflowered the Dark Lord as a spear pressed into his throat? He was alive. After seeing an image of the Dark Lord against the bounty hunter’s board at the guild, he spoke aloud her name. Susize Vredi, the first Soul Warrior of Holy Lord Amos, happened to be present. Within weeks, the plan to send the man who had a special connection to the Dark Lord of Tyranny was formulated. It would involve sacrifice on his part, considering he had to leave his children and wife behind to go commit unspeakable acts of violence to slowly gain the trust of the Dark Lord’s captains. It was no small wonder the insanity of forcing mothers to throw their newborns into the roaring mouth of a volcano didn’t lead to suicide, but he knew that if he passed away, all would have been for naught.  

Thus, he worked tirelessly and eventually gained the very audience he desired. Upon seeing his face, the Dark Lord howled an anguished roar and began to torture the man who had left her behind all those many years ago. No one knew how his words extinguished the inextinguishable fury within her breasts. For the first time in her life, the Dark Lord of Tyranny willingly gave her body to a suitor and experienced a touch not unlike anything she had felt before. The night was long and full of passionate moans and heartfelt cries of relief, but when the sun came to take over the sky? 

The Dark Lord of Tyranny did not wake up to a continuation of the night before. No, she woke up to a brutal assault on her stronghold. She thought the foolish army had learned her lesson, but when she went to summon her mace, the man had a plan. With a powerful yell, he tore a chunk of meat out of his left arm, crushed the bone, and retrieved an enchanted chain hidden within. When he wrapped it around the mace’s handle, it sealed its dark energy. 

And for the first time? The Dark Lord was utterly powerless. The mace was connected to the magical defenses around her stronghold, and with it cut off? There was nothing to stop a specialized strike force from teleporting in. 

An act of love from a misguided and abused dream was the cause of her demise. Upon realizing she had been betrayed again, by the same man, no less, she elicited a howl of anguish that even breached the closed-hearted Murag, who had many reasons to hate the Dark Lord.  

 The moment Susize Vredi was to remove the Dark Lord’s head from her body, Lord Amos halted her blade. He revealed a startling truth about a curse affecting her. Killing the Dark Lord wouldn’t end it. No, it would only send her soul back into the cycle of reincarnation until it was time for her to be born anew. Ending the Dark Lord would guarantee a few centuries of peace, and then the world was going to be endangered once more.  

The Dark Lord had spread this truth to inflict more fear. Even if she was killed, she’d eventually be back to finish what she had started. 

The ‘savior’ went back to his family as the man who brought an end to the Dark Lord of Tyranny, but the cruelties he had committed to achieve that forced his heart to sink into darkness. Not even a year later, his wife found him swinging from the chandelier in the dining room.   

The Dark Lord was escorted to her resting place. None of Lord Amos’s Soul Warriors would return, and they knew that.  

A thousand years later, a human who had experienced the depths of despair was summoned to this world, betrayed, and thrown into the void. The wrathful flames of their soul sent a resurgence of passion into the Dark Lord's cold, nearly dead heart.