"Demitress," I say, and honestly — yeah, maybe I’m not winning any naming awards tonight, but she doesn’t seem to mind, tilting her head like she’s trying the name on and finding it fits well enough.
[Designation Confirmed: Demitress][Bond Established — Maiden Count: 3/4]
The system floods in right after, quest thread closing out clean despite Vince still standing there with his spear half-raised, still processing what just happened in front of ten thousand witnesses.
[Quest Complete: The Condemned Ember][Reward Distribution...]
[New Skill Acquired: Flame Manipulation]Inherited from Demitress — command and shape fire at will, scaling with Master’s rank.
[Rank Advancement: D → C][Stats Increased]
[Wealth Multiplier: +100 EXP Applied][Doubling Rate: 2.5x → 3x per cycle]
[Realm Hopping Full Unlock: 75% Progress — 3/4 Maidens Bound]
I feel the fire settle into me this time, warmth threading through my veins instead of the ice from before, and I flex my hand, a small curl of flame licking harmless across my knuckles before fading out.
C-rank now. Three maidens standing beside me — Viperess calm and lethal, Frostine regal and thawing, Demitress fierce and burning bright with newfound freedom. One more, and that door swings all the way open.
Vince is still staring, spear lowered now, the crowd around us dead silent, every screen in Sector 1 currently broadcasting the moment his execution turned into something else entirely.
I turn to face him fully, flame still ghosting faint over my fingers.
"So," I say. "You said something about a scratch killing me?"
Vince’s composure finally cracks. "Impossible," he mutters, staring at Demitress like the math simply doesn’t add up in his head. "Who sent you? Who authorized this? This isn’t— this can’t be—"
Rage overtakes whatever calculation he was running, and he lunges, spear surging forward with a burst of pressure that cracks the stone beneath his feet — fast, way faster than anything he’s shown so far, the SSS-rank weight of that weapon finally unleashed.
Demitress doesn’t even flinch.
Her eyes ignite, flame boiling gold and white behind the iris, and before his spear closes half the distance she’s already fired — a beam of concentrated fire tearing straight through the air, catching him mid-charge and punching him clean off his feet. He doesn’t just fall. He’s launched, hurled backward through the air, crashing through the arena’s rear wall, then a second reinforced door behind it, then a third, steel crumpling and tearing like foil, before he finally comes to a stop somewhere deep in the structure, unconscious before the spear ever got the chance to swing.
Silence. Total, absolute silence across the arena, ten thousand people staring at the ruined trail of steel doors where an S-rank hunter with an SSS-rank artifact just got sent flying like an afterthought.
Demitress lowers her hand, flame fading from her eyes back to their normal glowing gold, and exhales like the whole thing barely registered as effort.
"Pathetic," she says, tail flicking dismissive. "All that posturing, and he couldn’t even land a single strike. Talk without power behind it is just noise."
I pull up her status out of habit, curious now that she’s actually shown what she’s got.
[Demitress — Rank: S]
I blink at it a second. S-rank. Not just strong — genuinely, seriously strong, on par with the guy she just launched through three steel doors like he was nothing.
I look at her, then back at the wreckage, then at the stunned crowd still frozen in their seats.
"...Remind me," I say slowly, "never to make you mad at me."
The system pulses once, final confirmation locking in as the crowd still sits frozen around the wreckage of three collapsed steel doors.
[Quest Chain Complete: 3/4 Maidens Bound][Class Advancement Unlocked: Beast Tamer → ??? ][New Feature Enabled: Tamer’s Dashboard]
A new panel unfolds across my vision, way more detailed than anything the system’s shown me before — a live overlay stretching out across the arena, faint outlines flickering over every living thing in range. Guards groaning on the ground. Spectators still frozen in their seats. Even Vince, buried somewhere under rubble, shows up as a dim flickering marker deep in the wreckage.
[Beast Detection: Active][Compatibility Meter: Enabled][Taming Difficulty Estimate: Enabled]
I flick my focus toward Viperess out of curiosity, and a small readout blooms next to her marker — bond strength, compatibility percentage sitting maxed out, some kind of loyalty index glowing steady green. I test it on Frostine and Demitress too, same result, same steady green across the board.
Useful. Genuinely useful — no more guessing blind whether some feral beast’s gonna be a fit before I commit to the fight.
Then, right on cue, a fresh notification slides into place beneath the dashboard, quest thread already generating for the final maiden.
[New Quest Available: The Fourth Bond][Details: Loading...]
The arena’s still in chaos around us — guards moaning, crowd murmuring in stunned disbelief, Seraphina already barking orders at someone about getting us out before Sector 1 security actually organizes a real response.
I glance down at the loading quest, dashboard humming steady in the corner of my vision, one maiden away from whatever door this whole system’s been building toward.
Seraphina walks up first, glancing at Ignis — cautious, still sizing up the newest addition to my growing collection of very dangerous women — then back at me, expression shifting into something tighter, more urgent.
"Jake, we can’t just walk out of here," she says, low and fast. "Do you understand the damage you’ve caused? A destroyed containment wall, three collapsed steel doors, an unconscious S-rank hunter, guards in the medical wing — Sector 1 security is going to be here any minute, and there is no version of events where they let us just leave."
I look down at the ground, still half-processing everything that just happened — the execution, the fight, Demitress’s power, all of it stacking up faster than my brain can properly sort through.
Then something clicks.
I pull up the wealth interface again, feed the balance back into the multiplier, 3x rate chewing through the numbers fast now, climbing higher and higher until it’s sitting somewhere past anything reasonable, past anything a normal person could even picture spending.
[Balance: $47,000,000+]
The system flickers, a new prompt sliding into place — one I haven’t seen before.
[New Feature Unlocked: Property Acquisition][Purchase eligible structures outright with sufficient Wealth Multiplier balance]
I glance at the arena around us. Guards groaning. Crowd still frozen in their seats. Vince buried under rubble somewhere behind us.
I click it.
The massive screens ringing the arena — the ones broadcasting this entire disaster live across every tower in Sector 1 — flicker, then switch over, guild branding replaced by a stark new announcement in bold text visible to every single spectator still seated.
[PROPERTY TRANSFER COMPLETE][New Owner: Jake Vance][Asset: Sector 1 Execution Arena & Attached Grounds]
Dead silence. Then a ripple of disbelieving murmurs spreading fast through ten thousand people.
Seraphina’s mouth actually falls open, tablet forgotten in her hand entirely. "You— you just—" She stares at the screen, then at me, then back at the screen. "You bought the arena. You bought a government-sanctioned execution facility, live, on broadcast, in front of the entire district."
"Technically," I say, "I own the damage now. Can’t get in trouble for wrecking my own property."
The quest window finally finishes loading, details snapping into place.
[New Quest Available: Feathers of the Divine][Target: Divine Phoenix — currently held captive by the Holy Church][Compatibility: Confirmed — System Eligible][Objective: Infiltrate Church grounds. Tame the Phoenix. Evolve into final Maiden form.][Reward: Full Realm Hopping Unlock — God-Tier Hunter Path][Maiden Count Progress: 4/4 upon completion]
I read it slow, the weight of it settling different than the last three. This isn’t a feral beast chained in some containment cell, or a demon caged for sport. This is the Church — an institution, not just one hunter with an ego and a spear. Bigger stakes. Bigger walls.
I look around at what’s left of the arena — Vince buried in rubble, guards groaning on the ground, ten thousand spectators still staring at a screen that just announced I own the building they’re sitting in.
"Change of plans," I say, turning to the others. "Next stop’s the Holy Church."
Seraphina actually laughs, short and disbelieving, tablet hanging limp in her hand. "Of course it is. Why would we ease into anything." She rubs her temple like she can already feel the paperwork multiplying. "You do realize the Church doesn’t answer to guild law or sector governance. They’re basically their own nation. You can’t just buy your way through this one."
"We’ll see," I say, and I mean it — dashboard humming steady in my vision, three maidens strong beside me, one door left to open.
Viperess’s shadow curls eager at her feet. Frostine’s frost cracks faint across the stone. Demitress’s eyes still glow faint gold, flame simmering just beneath the surface.
Ignis — no, Demitress — tilts her head toward the horizon, toward wherever the Church holds its captive god.
"A phoenix," she murmurs. "Fire answering to fire. This one, I want to see."
We move.