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After Alpha left with the two elves, silence settled back into the bedroom.
Li Ancheng sat on the edge of the bed and looked at Asia, who stood with her head down, fidgeting with the hem of her clothes.
He couldn’t help a quiet chuckle.
“Asia, why haven’t you gone to rest yet?
Is something the matter?” Asia kept her head lowered, golden hair falling across her face, and gave a small nod.
“An…
Ancheng-sama…” She swallowed.
Like she’d spent every last reserve of courage she had in this lifetime just to work up to the next sentence.
“Today…
Miss Hualian quietly told me…” “She said the reason she suddenly became so strong was…
was because you used a special method in your room to enhance her constitution…” “S-So…
can Asia have that too?” “Asia also wants to become stronger.
To be able to help you…” Li Ancheng’s expression shifted into something subtle.
“Did she tell you in detail…” “Exactly what method I used to enhance her constitution?” Asia looked up immediately and shook her head hard, her face wide open with pure, uncomprehending innocence.
“No…
Miss Hualian’s face was so red at the time.
She was all secretive about it and absolutely refused to explain.” “She only said the process…
was a bit intense…” He looked at this little lamb, as pure as a blank page.
Li Ancheng couldn’t hold it in.
A laugh burst out of him.
“Actually, that method is very simple.” “It’s becoming my woman.” “…Eh?” The bedroom went silent.
Asia froze where she stood.
Those beautiful emerald pupils trembled violently.
Her brain simply stopped working.
A second passed.
Then an inexplicable sense of grievance welled up from somewhere deep in her chest.
Her delicate lips pressed into a small pout.
A thin gloss of tears gathered at the rims of her eyes.
Her voice dropped so low it was barely audible, yet it carried a tone of absolute, guileless matter-of-fact.
“But…” “Asia’s life was saved by Ancheng-sama…” “…Hasn’t Asia long since been Ancheng-sama’s person?” Li Ancheng was thoroughly defeated by this immaculate logic.
He shook his head with a helpless smile.
“Silly girl.
I’m not talking about that kind of master-servant relationship.” “What I mean is…” “That kind of…
zero-distance exchange.
Between a man and a woman.” “Do you understand?” A train screamed through Asia’s head, whistle blaring at full pitch.
She understood.
Her fair cheeks, at a speed visible to the naked eye, flushed a deep, ripe crimson.
It spread wildly, all the way to the tips of her ears.
She opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Not a single syllable.
In the end, she could only bow a frantic ninety degrees in Li Ancheng’s direction, then spin and bolt for the door in complete disarray.
“THUD!
Ouch!” Her brain had short-circuited entirely.
Two steps in, her left foot found her right foot with perfect accuracy.
Her whole body went down, flat and full, into a sprawled prostration on the soft carpet.
She lay there for a long moment, too mortified to move.
Li Ancheng looked at the small figure curled on the floor like a distressed ostrich.
He smiled and shook his head.
He walked over and reached down, pulling the frightened little rabbit back onto her feet.
“Alright, alright.
I was teasing you.” Li Ancheng turned his palm over.
Between his fingers, a crystalline emerald pill materialized, translucent and perfect, radiating a rich, sweet fragrance.
“Taking this works just as well.” He explained gently.
“The effects might not be as immediate as what Hualian and the others experienced.
But with slow, steady cultivation, the final transformation is the same.” “Or I can seal your pain receptors directly and use my power to forcibly cleanse your marrow.” Asia’s face was still bright red.
But she didn’t reach for the pill.
And this was a divine-grade elixir that would have started wars in the Immortal Realm.
She only clutched the sleeve of Li Ancheng’s robe with both hands and explained in a small, urgent voice.
“Ancheng-sama…
Asia was just…
just too embarrassed earlier, that’s why she tried to run…” “I absolutely, absolutely was not rejecting you!” She raised her head slowly.
Those emerald eyes shone with a warm, wet light.
Shy.
But completely certain.
“I…
I just feel like I haven’t fully prepared myself for that yet…” “But…” “From the bottom of my heart, I care about Ancheng-sama more than anyone else.
I want to stay by your side for the rest of my life!” She looked at the pill in his fingers, shook her head gently, and pushed it back toward him.
“So please take this back.
And please don’t use your power to help me either…” “Because…
I don’t want to become stronger through special treatment.” “I want to be like everyone else…
and give myself to you the real way.” Having delivered the most audacious, preemptive declaration of surrender in the history of audacious declarations.
Asia looked like she had burned through every last reserve of courage she would ever possess.
She suddenly rose onto her tiptoes.
Light as a dragonfly touching water, she pressed a quick, soft kiss to Li Ancheng’s cheek.
“An…
Ancheng-sama…
good night!” Advantage secured.
The little nun immediately pulled back, slapped both hands over her burning face, and fled the room.
Li Ancheng reached up and touched the faint warmth still lingering on his cheek.
A quiet smile passed through his eyes.
His figure faded slowly from the bedroom.
…
The seam between the Underworld and the Human World.
The Dimensional Gap.
Light bent here in wrong, twisting arcs.
Spatial turbulence churned through the air, violent enough to shred an ordinary devil to pieces.
Deep within a valley below.
A woman of peerless beauty lounged against the gnarled branch of an ancient, towering tree.
A black kimono hung loose on her shoulders.
The collar had fallen open without apology, baring a wide expanse of pale, deep cleavage and the delicate line of her collarbones.
A pair of black cat tails swayed lazily behind her generous curves, occasionally curling around her own slender white ankles.
Her cat-slit eyes cut through the thin mist, fixed on a point somewhere in the far distance.
In that direction…
was Kuoh University.
“Shirone…” She murmured, and something in the depths of her eyes flickered.
Tenderness.
And pain.
Wound together too tight to separate.
“Toujou Kuroka!” The shout detonated through the valley’s silence like a bomb.
BOOM!
An enormous crimson magic circle exploded open in midair.
Dozens of devils descended with black bat wings spread wide, surrounding the valley in an instant, like soldiers dropping from the sky.
The one in front had a cold, hard face.
He gripped demon-locking chains that gleamed with lethal light, killing intent rolling off him in waves.
“You SS-class wanted criminal!
Guilty of the capital crime of killing your own master!
You actually dare to lurk around the fringes of the Dimensional Gap?!” “Did you really think fleeing out here meant our Underworld enforcement squad couldn’t track down a rat hiding in the gutter?!” Faced with a net closing in from every direction, Toujou Kuroka didn’t so much as twitch.
She tilted her head to one side, slow and unhurried, and let a mocking smile pull at the corner of her lips.
“I’m a cat, not a rat, you know~” “I’m right here, you know~ Meow~” She stuck out the tip of her tongue and dragged it across her red lips, the provocation completely shameless.
“If you think you can manage it…
come and try to catch me.
You waste of space.” “Hmph!
Arrogant to the last!
Take her down!” The lead devil’s face went red.
He slashed his hand through the air.
SWISH SWISH SWISH!
Countless chains wreathed in black fog exploded outward, raking toward the figure on the branch in a savage, strangling web.
The next second.
Every vicious grin on every devil’s face locked up at once.
What replaced them was the incandescent fury of being made a fool.
Those chains, capable of punching through solid steel, passed straight through Toujou Kuroka’s body like she wasn’t there at all.
They buried themselves deep into the earth behind her, throwing up a massive cloud of dust and debris.
The impaled Kuroka rippled like a reflection in disturbed water.
And then she was gone.
“Damn it!
That senjutsu illusion of hers again!” The lead devil ground his teeth and roared.
“She can’t have gone far!
Spread out and search!
Tear this place apart if you have to!” …
In a secluded maple grove not far away.
Space warped with a faint distortion.
Toujou Kuroka’s unmistakable silhouette materialized without a sound.
She pressed her back against a thick maple trunk and exhaled slowly.
A few beads of fine sweat stood out on her smooth forehead.
“Just a bunch of annoying flies.
So persistent…” “I need to find somewhere safe and recover first…
meow…” She murmured to herself, already preparing to move again.
“Found you.” A calm voice.
Toujou Kuroka’s pupils shrank to needle-points.
Every hair on her body, her cat ears included, shot straight up.
Danger screamed through her mind in full-volume alarm.
She snapped her head up.
A strikingly handsome young man stood in a black, silky bathrobe.
Somehow, without her noticing a single thing, he had appeared less than 3 meters in front of her.
Both hands were tucked casually into the pockets of his pajama pants.
He was watching her with the mild, assessing gaze of someone who’d found a lost pet.
A human?!
Kuroka’s heart hammered.
Her senjutsu concealment and demonic aura disguise, the techniques she’d staked her life on, were apparently no more than a sheet of wet paper in front of this man.
He’d seen through all of it.
He had even locked onto her precise spatial coordinates the moment she teleported.
But the most terrifying part.
From the very beginning, she had not felt him approach.
Not a flicker of his presence.
Not a breath of his aura.
Nothing.
Toujou Kuroka crushed down the shock clawing at her chest.
She switched modes.
The sweet, languid smile slid back into place.
Her cat tails resumed their slow, deliberate sway behind her.
“Oh my~” “Appearing out of nowhere in a place like this…” She tilted her head, let her eyes go liquid and inviting, and leaned forward just enough to make her point.
“Little brother, are you a fresh hunter sent by the Underworld?” “Or…” “Some tasty little snack who wandered in and doesn’t even realize he’s lost?” “Meow~” Li Ancheng glanced at the devils still crashing around the valley like headless flies, then looked back and chuckled.
“Toujou Kuroka.” “Want to come with me?” “…Hah?” Toujou Kuroka blinked.
Then she burst out laughing.
Covering her red lips with one hand, her whole body shaking, her chest drawing the kind of attention that made the air feel dangerous.
“Come…
with you?” “On what grounds?
What are you offering, meow~” She stepped forward with that slow, feline saunter, closing half the distance between them, close enough that her breath carried warmth.
“What exactly do you want from a stray cat who’s been run ragged across every corner of this world?” “My senjutsu?
Or…” “This body of mine?” “Or maybe you want to inherit the Underworld’s grudge that comes attached to me?” Her smile sharpened.
Bewitching with an edge under it.
“Little brother~” “Do you even understand that big sister here is an SS-class wanted criminal?
Listed as extremely dangerous by the Underworld itself?” “Picking up a stray cat from the side of the road and taking her home…” “Could get your throat bitten out.
Meow~” The smile on Li Ancheng’s face didn’t move.
If anything, it got quieter.
More settled.
He tilted his head back slightly and looked up.
The dozens of bat-winged devils had finally picked up the energy signature.
They came sweeping in like a storm front, fast and total, sealing off every direction in seconds.
Li Ancheng kept his hands in his pockets.
His voice stayed unhurried.
“No matter how wild a stray cat is, in the end she still needs a master, doesn’t she?” He lowered his gaze and met Toujou Kuroka’s eyes directly.
Then he said the one thing that hit like a detonator.
“Come with me.” “I guarantee you’ll be able to walk up to her openly.
No one chasing you.
Not a scratch on you.” “To see your little sister.” The words hit Kuroka like a nuclear strike, detonating somewhere she had kept sealed and buried.
But before she could surface from the shock long enough to respond.
SWISH SWISH SWISH.
The ring closed.
The lead devil loomed overhead and stared down at the young man in pajamas with the contempt of someone looking at an insect that didn’t know it was already dead.
“Foolish human!” “This is the Dimensional Gap.
This is not a place for a lower lifeform like you to set foot.
Remove yourself.
Now.” “Otherwise, for the capital crime of obstructing Underworld law enforcement, we will put you down on the spot.
You and this demon cat, both.” Li Ancheng didn’t appear to hear any of it.
His gaze never left Toujou Kuroka’s stunned face.
“So.
Are you coming with me or not?” And in that moment.
The word he’d said.
That one word.
Every languid, seductive, carefully constructed layer of Toujou Kuroka’s mask.
Came apart.
Her eyes went razor-sharp in an instant.
Purple demonic aura tore loose from her without warning, erupting like a volcano breaking open at the seams.
Fallen leaves ripped off the ground and spiraled into a roaring vortex around her, the air screaming as it shredded apart.
She locked onto the young man in the bathrobe with eyes that no longer had anything soft in them.
“…You just said…
little sister, didn’t you?!” “Meow?!” ➤ Next: You Can’t Just Touch a Nekomata’s Tail Casually, You Know — .—— .—— .—— .—— .—— Enjoying the story?