The chill that swept into the café carried the metallic tang of stale blood and freshly sheared ice.
Liliane slowly raised a bulbous snifter of amber brandy to her lips.
She took a measured sip, letting the spirit mingle on her tongue with the lingering, velvety-sweet aftertaste of Mina’s magical milk.
The figure cloaked in ash-black approached the counter without the faintest whisper of a footstep.
Slender, pale fingers rose to untie a silver half-mask.
Revealed in the amber lamp glow was corpse-pale skin, sharp aristocratic features, and a pair of blood-red irises smoldering with an unnatural luminescence. Peeking past narrow, bloodless lips were two slender, lethal fangs.
It was Vespera - known through whisper in palace corridors as an elite assassin and the most trusted instrument of the vampire clans pledged to the Third Prince, Cassian Valemont.
The vampiress did not bother with courtly etiquette.
Resting a black-gloved hand upon the hilt of a venom-laced dagger at her hip, she measured Liliane with a gaze stripped of any human warmth:
“What did the nun from Wax Lantern Street sell you? And how much did she receive?”
Liliane lazily swirled the snifter in her hand, watching the liquor coat the glass.
“An odd greeting, even for a palace courier. As I recall, house rules in my establishment require ordering from the menu before barking questions.”
“Do not waste my time, Liliane,” Vespera said coldly, her crimson stare unblinking. “The girl is direct property and a vital asset in His Highness’s grand design. She bears the Scarlet Brand. Every move she makes, every coin she acquires, and every contact she establishes beyond the church falls under the prince’s jurisdiction. You are meddling in state affairs. I demand a full accounting of this transaction.”
The succubus arched an eyebrow, a flicker of amusement curling the corner of her full lips.
“Demand?” she echoed softly, her velvety timbre dropping an octave.
“You forget yourself, little leech. I am a trade partner to your prince, not a hound collared to his leash. The Pink Haven has stood longer than the House of Valemont, and I protect the anonymity of everyone who crosses this threshold with absolute discretion. From whom I purchase goods and what I pay is strictly my own concern. Get out, before I lose what little patience I have left.”
Vespera’s crimson eyes ignited with fury.
Losing her composure, the assassin took a step forward and slammed both palms onto the polished bar with concussive force, rattling the teacups suspended beneath the ceiling:
“The prince will not suffer your insolent games! That little priestess does not belong to you, no matter how much her naive body has bewitched you! She belongs to the prince, and - ”
The vampiress never finished the sentence.
In a fraction of a second, the cozy illusion of the quiet reading room shattered into dust.
The air thickened so violently that the rafters groaned, and the lamp flames guttered out, swallowed by a suffocating, violet-black abyss.
From the succubus’s back unfurled colossal, spectral wings forged of pure, cataclysmic essence, spanning wall to wall, while her emerald pupils collapsed into vertical, demonic slits.
The aura of a Witch of Desire - operating on a tier far beyond mortal registers of magic - crashed upon the vampiress with the weight of a collapsing vault.
The stone flags cracked beneath Vespera’s boots.
A strangled, helpless wheeze tore from the assassin's throat.
The invisible, pulverizing mass buckled her knees in a split second, driving her face-down into the fractured stone.
Vampire regeneration and supernatural agility counted for nothing before such ancient, bottomless might.
Vespera choked, her blood literally reversing course in her veins, igniting an agonizing paralysis across her chest.
Liliane rose slightly above the bar, peering down upon the kneeling agent as if observing a brazen insect:
“Little girl...” she hissed, her voice carrying the deep rumble of a primordial abyss. “If your master wishes to continue purchasing my silence and unique wares, he had best keep his curs on a considerably shorter leash. Because if you ever raise your voice under my roof again... I will return you to the palace in neat, bite-sized parcels for the prince’s hounds. Do you understand me?”
With her forehead pressed flat against the freezing stone and her teeth chattering from sheer, helpless terror, Vespera managed only a stiff, humiliating nod:
“U-Understood... My Lady...”
Liliane flicked her wrist.
The crushing pressure vanished as abruptly as it had descended.
The spectral wings dissolved, and the amber oil lamps flared back to life with warm, gentle light.
Vespera scrambled from her knees, her eyes glued to the floor.
Clutching her bruised chest and swaying on unsteady feet, she yanked her mask back into place and fled through the door into the damp gloom of the alley like a startled ghost.
Absolute quiet reclaimed the café.
Liliane exhaled a soft sigh, smoothing the folds of her velvet gown, and drained the rest of the brandy in a single draught.
Setting the empty glass aside, she propped her hip against the counter.
Her fingers unconsciously traced her lower lip, where the memory of Mina’s potion lingered - sweet, unblemished, saturated with a vibrant vitality that continued to pulse with pleasant warmth in her core.
The passphrase uttered by that terrified, trembling girl:
“Isolde, Mother of Creation, brought me here...”
A slow, nostalgic, yet endlessly fascinated smile bloomed across Liliane’s lips:
“Mother of Creation Isolde...” she whispered into the empty room, her emerald eyes gleaming with an ancient luster. “How on earth did a little priestess from a godforsaken hovel know that name?... No one has addressed me by that title in six hundred years.”
Closing her eyelids, she turned the remaining pink vial in her fingers, musing that the little nun was rather exceptionally easy on the eyes.
Meanwhile, across Veyrsend, in the attic of the modest church on Wax Lantern Street, a heavy iron crossbar slammed into place.
Mina collapsed against her bedroom door, sliding down the rough timber to the floorboards.
Her lungs burned from her mad sprint through dark back-alleys, her heart still hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Tearing off the gray cloak, she practically threw herself toward the table.
She grabbed the heavy leather purse and yanked the drawstrings open.
CLINK!
A golden cascade spilled across the raw wood.
The coins rolled and tumbled, shimmering in the pale moonlight with the warm, hypnotic luster of pure gold.
Mina lunged with both hands, feverishly stacking them into neat pillars of ten.
Her fingers shook, her breath catching in her throat:
“Ten... twenty... fifty... seventy... seventy-five...”
She froze, staring at the extra pile.
“Eighty... eighty-five?!”
She clamped a hand over her mouth, muffling a squeal of pure, unadulterated euphoria.
Eighty-five gold coins!
Seventy-five for the five vials at the new rate, and a full ten coins tossed in as an audacious, sensual “tip” from a horny succubus.
Translated to Earth standards, it was the equivalent of nearly a hundred thousand dollars - a sum that could buy a solid townhouse with a garden in Asterion, or sustain a comfortable life for years!
“I did it... I earned this with my own... well, almost my own two hands,” she beamed, glancing down at her chest.
The euphoria lasted right up until her cold, ruthless accountant’s brain kicked in.
Her shoulders slumped as she stared at the golden pillars.
Viscount Ashcroft had demanded three hundred gold coins a week.
Just in interest!
And the principal sat at a staggering fifty thousand.
Eighty-five coins was a massive triumph for a single night’s work, but it amounted to barely over a quarter of the sum needed to clear her upcoming extortion payment.
If she didn’t scrape together the missing two hundred and fifteen coins by Tuesday, the prince’s debt collectors would come pounding on the sacristy doors, and the Scarlet Brand on her belly would tighten its grip.
“All right. Don’t panic. One step at a time,” she told herself firmly.
Gathering the coins, she knelt by the bed.
Prying up the loose floorboard, she stashed the gold in the iron box beside the empty space where her old savings had lain, and carefully concealed the stash.
An emergency fund was born.
The true crisis struck the following evening.
The day had been an absolute slog - after the Liturgy of the First Dawn, hours of grueling cleaning, and listening to another batch of hypocritical confessions from petty artisans, only a pitiful handful of paupers trickled into the church.
The alms box collected a grand total of three tarnished coppers.
Aching and thoroughly drained, Mina sank onto the edge of the mattress and summoned the interface:
“System, display my balance.”
Translucent azure bathed the room:
[Faith: 14] [Gold Coins: 85]
Mina stared at the first line.
“Fourteen?...” she choked out, her voice cracking in panic. “Fourteen Faith points after an entire fucking day of waving censers and chanting scripture?!”
The destitute, brutalized folk of Veyrsend were incapable of generating pure, orthodox faith. They were too hungry, too terrified, and too exhausted from daily survival for their prayers to carry any genuine spiritual resonance.
Her earlier pool of Faith had merely been the leftover backlog amassed by the previous Mina’s relentless daily grind.
Worse still, when Mina navigated to the alchemical skills tab, she discovered another trap.
After unlocking the Milk Alchemy pathway, the cost of advancing traditional methods had skyrocketed into the stratosphere.
To elevate her craft tier so she could brew potent, complex elixirs from her own milk - which she could flip to Liliane for double the price - she needed thousands of Faith points!
Without it, her progression hit a brick wall. And with fourteen points, she was utterly paralyzed.
Her eyes drifted down to a pulsing, hot-pink banner labeled: [Alternative Faith Generation Sources].
The description was short and merciless:
“Fallen worshippers wandering in darkness open their souls most vulnerably through the senses. Arouse lust, infatuation, or emotional dependence within your flock, and their sinful thoughts shall fuel your Faith reservoir a hundredfold more potently than empty litanies.”
Mina buried her face in her hands, letting out a long, agonizing groan:
“This system is pure, incarnate evil... It literally leaves me no choice.”
With a heavy heart, she opened the shop, navigating to the only category she could afford - the discounted, shameless starter tier.
After a moment's hesitation, she tapped two listings:
[Purchased: Habit of Indecent Piety]
[Unlocked Skill: Tender Sermon]
[Deducted: 10 Faith and 2 Gold Coins.]
Two gold coins vanished from her stash, and a package swathed in black silk materialized out of thin air before her knees.
With trembling fingers, Mina unwrapped the bundle.
As the fabric fell away, her breath caught in her throat, her cheeks burning with a searing crimson blush.
This bore zero resemblance to the modest, woolen vestments of a Daughter of Light.
It was a shameless, perverse masterpiece of erotic tailoring.
The garment was cut from snow-white, gossamer silk that left nothing to the imagination when held against the light.
The neckline didn’t just plunge past her sternum; it was reinforced with structural underwiring that hoisted and aggressively pushed her breasts toward the center.
Slits ran up both flanks of the skirt all the way to her hip bones, and at the very bottom of the bodice... was a heart-shaped cutout meticulously tailored to frame the bare skin below her navel.
Tearing off her chemise, Mina slipped into the new habit before the small wall mirror, shivering with mortification.
As she fastened the hooks along her spine, a stifled sob caught in her throat.
The corset mercilessly compressed her monumental, lush E-cup bust.
Her breasts practically spilled over the silk like two engorged, glistening globes, pushed together into a deep, uninterrupted valley of cleavage.
And that constriction was the final straw.
Under the intense compression, her hypersensitive, erect nipples chafed against the sheer fabric, and upon the pristine white silk blossomed two small, damp, pearlescent stains of fresh milk.
“Oh, gods...” Mina whimpered, staring at her reflection with eyes wide in sheer horror.
She cleared her throat to test the newly acquired Tender Sermon.
Parting her lips, she attempted to recite a standard liturgical blessing:
“May... may the Holy Sun illuminate your hearts...”
Yet no solemn, priestly cadence left her throat.
Carried by the skill, the words flowed from her mouth as an impossibly soft, sticky, velvety whisper.
The timbre vibrated with an intimate sweetness that sounded like the breathless sigh of a lover in a shadowed bedchamber.
Every syllable dripped with veiled temptation, sending a scalding, shameful shiver straight down her own inner thighs.
Mina clamped her hands over her blazing cheeks, staring in the mirror at her half-naked, dripping-with-sex reflection:
“If I walk out before the altar like this tomorrow morning... that won’t be a liturgy. It’ll be a fucking coven of debauchery!”
She collapsed helplessly onto the edge of the cot, watching a single bead of sweat trace down her exposed cleavage.