While his goal was to get the sarcophagus, there was always time to bust a nut; he needed the post-nut clarity.

 

Snuggling with Lily wasn’t bad, but it didn’t have the closeness he had with Gwen. His relationship with Gwen was slow but stable. He at least knew a thing or two about her. Lily was a fling to soak up some psion fear from his mark and wait for an opportunity.

 

Lily also liked to talk and half-listened while he searched through a sea of techniques for something usable. He needed some defense, but none of the techniques spoke to him. A few eldritch techniques could help him by giving him psychic barriers, blood shields, and liquid metal sweat, but they weren’t what he wanted for his build.

 

At the peak stage of prenatal mind cultivation, he felt that if he wanted to learn how to shield himself, he could learn it from the psions. How hard could it be to generate a psychic barrier? Telekinesis and personal levitation were already second nature.

 

“I could move your sperm out of my holding stomach, into my oviduct, and let them fertilize my eggs,” Lily said.

 

Vergil felt his eyes widen, and he jumped out of Lily’s tentacles.

 

“I knew that would get your attention,” Lily said.

 

“Were you joking?” Vergil asked.

 

He was sure they were incompatible, but she displayed some human attributes. Lily slowly pushed her black leotard over her round giggly green breasts. It was a shame to see the soft green nipples go, but maybe he would see them again soon.

 

Cultivation bullshit might not care about incompatibility. On the other hand, Vergil had blasted her beak full of his load, and he wouldn’t think about that any longer.

 

She started vibrating. “The look on your face. How could anyone believe you were a drone?” Lily said.

 

Vergil rolled his eyes. Su Lily seemed to be the playful type.

 

“There are things I need to know,” Vergil said.

 

“Don’t reveal your sapience to Su Charity; she’ll crack open and slurp out your brain in a heartbeat. One of the elders will eat me next to keep it quiet.”

 

Vergil sighed and learned the familiar technique. He already knew the Sarcophagus’s suspected location, so the game was all but over. All he had to do from this point was ruin the chances of the others. The best way to do that was simple.

 

“She won’t be a problem much longer; I’m not the only one,” Vergil said.

 

He let his hair grow out and gave the familiar technique a read. It was called Monstergirl Slayer. After giving it a thorough read, he felt confident. Each cultivation type, mind, body, and ki allowed him to take a single familiar in every realm. All he needed was a drop of blood to make it work. Unfortunately, while Lily was sweet, he shouldn’t make her his familiar.

 

“The dark-skinned one, most thought he was resistant. Do the Far family already know?” Lily asked.

 

“No, Tyson is controlling Far Ao with a technique,” Vergil said.

 

“Did they also kill Su Rudra?” Lily asked.

 

That was Vergil’s doing, but he didn’t want to fess up to it or lie.

 

“They used his death as an opportunity to control another clan member. It's only a matter of time before they have enough members to rush Su Charity and take control of her.” Vergil said.

 

Lily went very still.

 

“Am I next? Are you going to take control of me like we do drones?”

 

He shook his head. “I planned to offer you a way out. That door looks solid; why don’t you stay behind it for the rest of this trip. Five months shouldn’t be impossible with plenty of supplies. I don’t need the drones outside; you can have them. There is just one thing I need from you.” Vergil said.

 

Lily looked adorable with the way her light pink eyes stared at him. Maybe he hadn’t been thinking straight when he decided not to take her as one of his monster girls. They would be gone from this world if everything went as planned.

 

“I need a drop of your blood to prove your loyalty,” Vergil said.

 

 She held out a tentacle to him. “You’ll have to collect it yourself; don’t bite too hard,” Lily said.

 

He bit her just enough to draw blood and felt a drop of psion blood touch his tongue. Vergil’s flesh suddenly felt like he was dying of thirst, and he had his first drop of water in days. A few more drops than necessary passed down his throat before he pulled away.

 

Vergil felt like his cells had come alive in the flickering candles of Lily’s cave. The strange symbols on the door didn’t hurt his head as badly.

 

All his techniques had their own names and unique abilities to them. Nyarlathotep’s flesh was literally the summoned flesh of the outer being. From what he could tell, drinking the blood of other beings energized his flesh. A transformation was underway, but he needed more blood and flesh to facilitate it.

 

He activated monster girl slayer and felt his qi rush into Lily. Suddenly her body was swallowed in purple light as more of his ki flooded her. Vergil was forced to drop to the ground and cultivate with void pearls to keep from drying out on the spot.

 

Fortunately, he had a few thousand after his nightly hunts. He burned through 400 on the spot and cultivated quickly.

 

At roughly 100x normal cultivation speed, and began equaling her draw on his ki and surpassed it. Her black hole of a transformation acted as an anchor allowing him to up his 100 times cultivation speed by a few times. Over six hours, he felt himself reach the barrier of the advanced prenatal stage. He picked up a hundred more void pearls and crushed them before forcefully absorbing them. Thanks to Lily, most of the power wasn’t lost.

 

The barrier cracked.

 

Vergil poured all his considerable will against the door between himself and the advanced stage of the prenatal realm of ki refinement. His reasons were simple and easy to understand.

 

These less than 5 months were when he would have to get strong enough to take the sarcophagus. He might not have dared to invade the Su clan if he didn’t break through into the natal realm with all three refinement techniques.

 

Of course, there was always the chance the sarcophagus was moved or sold off to some other city. That would change everything.

 

It wasn’t enough to be a part of getting the sarcophagus; he wanted to beat everyone. Vergil wanted the power to make their numbers and specialties mean nothing.

 

As he cultivated the overflowing spiritual energy of heaven and earth, the cracks grew until he felt the barrier shatter. New denser ki congealed within his body and flowed out through his body; he felt his spiritual energy grow by leaps and bounds, making the impossible only a suggestion. As his spirit moved into the advanced stage, he felt closer to breaking through his limits and becoming a true cultivator.

 

“What have you done to me?”

 

A soft voice sang out from the light as it finally vanished, revealing a green-skinned beauty naked with long dark green hair, gloriously deep cheery blossom eyes, and large green breasts. Lily’s leotard no longer fit her right since she developed her human form.

 

Lily tried to take a step and fell over.

 

“Congratulations, you are now my familiar,” Vergil said.

 

He decided he liked the aesthetic, if nothing else. Lily was green with pink eyes, and Gwen was pink with green eyes. They would look good together.

 

“Focus on returning to your natural form.” She narrowed her new green eyebrows in concentration. Slowly the psi and ki density in the room increased as she transformed into a larger version of her psion form. Her breasts were larger, her tentacles seemed to glow with power, and the power of her transmissions had doubled.

 

“This feels amazing. I’m so much stronger; it feels like I could become a gold anytime.” Lily said.

 

She quickly spread her tentacles and exposed her beak. “Let’s celebrate,” Lily said.

 

“Not so fast. As my familiar, you have some duties in exchange for this power.” Vergil said.

 

He felt the connection to her, almost like their minds were only separated by a sheet of drywall. To call him in control was pushing it. Instead, it felt like they were connected.

 

“I understand while I was joking before about letting your sperm fertilize my eggs with my human form, it's possible. Could you give me time to prepare? I’m not sure about carrying life within me for 9 months? If I give birth, won’t I have to feed our young from my body? How will I obtain nutrients myself faster than it drains my own, or is that your role? Most nesting mothers require several human brains or a grey matter substitute with equivalent nutritional value; drones are expensive we need to start by purchasing you from Yin Gwen. I won’t let her eat your brain to make getting to Diamond easier.” Lily said.

 

“Lily, breathe. Did you put the hieroglyphs on that door to block the sound?” Vergil asked.

 

“Yes, I had to figure it out, or else other clan members would figure out my activities. We, enchanters, don’t call them hieroglyphs anymore; they are just glyphs. Do you like them?” Lily asked.

 

Vergil rubbed his head. It was still bald, so he grew a nice head of anime hair. He made it white and spiked it. Was it a blatant rip-off of his namesake? Yes, and he didn’t care; the look was iconic. His style of combat was the complete opposite of Vergil, unfortunately.

 

“Could you make the gravity in a cave 10 times that of what it is normally with glyphs?” Vergil asked.

 

That would put a massive strain on his body, and if he trained under it, Vergil knew he would reach the advanced and peak stage of body refinement quickly. His Black Goat’s Embryo would see to it.

 

“Theoretically, I have all the knowledge I need to do the job, but half a cave antechamber would suffice instead of a whole cave. That should be good enough if you plan to use it to trap Far Ao. Fortunately, not many psions are well read in ancient glyphs.” Lily said.

 

Before, she was just a cute slutty psion that wanted to have interspecies relations. Her glyphs and an in into the Su clan had changed her into someone useful to help him power up.

 

His opponents were the platinum-ranked psions in the Su clan guarding their clan treasures. So he didn’t feel right holding himself back instead of powering up. 

 

Vergil opened the door to the rest of the cave.

 

“What are you doing?” Lily asked.

 

With the door open, he could clearly sense Tyson with multiple psions with him. They were about to be in for a bad time. But even if his body was ready, his mind wasn’t quite there. Tyson had genuine grievances with him, which could get ugly when they hashed things out. On the other hand, Lily was directly in with her clan, so he wasn’t worried as long as she survived.

 

“I’m going on a little rampage and kill my way to the controller. So you stay here and work on that glyph array for half an antechamber of 10 times gravity. Once I’m done here, be ready to move after I dig up the leviathan vein. The odds are good; the other groups may notice our movements. Not to mention that moving a vein may attract more local wildlife.” Vergil said.

 

“Why must my clan members die?” Lily asked.

 

That was not what he expected to hear. Lily didn’t seem too loyal to her clan to him, but if she cared about them, that added another problem. Killing them wasn’t much of an option if he didn’t want to see his new waifu cry.

 

“I won’t kill them if I can help it, but I will knock them around a little.” Just like that, her beak had turned his intentions from murder to knocking some psions around on his way to his real target.

 

It was just as well. Vergil figured that it would look weird if there was only one survivor. So he would use burst, endure the pain, and pummel his way to Tyson. Lord of Terror would be kept as a trump card.