Arc 11: Chapter 2
The bedroom that Bianca had opted to use was at the back of the very peak of the Reaper’s Grave, likely meant for the former leader. It had three doors leading out, two to side chambers and from there, more of the building, but those hadn’t been used much given that the necromancers filled it with all kinds of unpleasant things. For some reason, they had avoided the bedroom, so that made it the cleanest part of the whole fortress.
The front doors led into a long corridor with plenty of space for displays and paintings, but more importantly, brought them to the throne room. Whether it was intended to be used as such at first or not, the latest occupants had placed a throne of bone there, and there was a very nice dark carpet leading up to it, as well as a set of steps. As such, after discarding the bones – Shouge Zhe seemed to know how to handle them, so such matters were left to her – they had procured a big, comfortable seat and put it there instead.
Now, Bianca had a throne to sit in, even if she had none to do so for.
Still, she couldn’t help herself each time they came and went from the bedroom. As they walked around the throne, she quickly broke away and took a seat on the soft, cushioned chair, leaning back into it and enjoying the sensation. At the same time, her senses travelled downward.
Almost directly below their throne sat the centre of their defensive array, the very one that they had fought over some months prior. The energy from it seemed to flow up and to her, letting her grasp control of it – so much more easily than before, as the structure of it was altered and the requirement for the Reaper’s Song to be used was removed, replaced with dependence on a very certain aspect of her own energy.
Corruption.
It was a peculiar power, but the kitsune seemed to be figuring something out, so she was able to assist in this respect. Still, even with all that work, the array still needed to be stabilized every day in order to prevent it from exploding, or collapsing in on itself.
“Hah… we need to find a better throne one day, this doesn’t have enough… gravitas.”
“You could use me as a throne, Mistress,” her pet offered up, clearly being tempted to leap to the ground before her and present herself as a footstool.
“I appreciate the offer, sweetie, but that’s not quite what I have in mind. I want something big, epic, something that’ll make me look like a leader ruling over the world. Besides, I wouldn’t want to hurt your back with something like this when we’ve got far more fun things to do,” Bianca offered a warm smile, and that seemed to calm her pet enough, “Array seems to be doing well, so no reason to delay. First to… wait, Xue Yaling had something to show us, right?”
“I believe so, Mistress. Still, Huang Su did insist we go down to the array core every day, so…”
“Yeah, we have to trudge through there again.”
As Bianca was still in the third realm, her spiritual perception – even with the Weave and Demonic Tyrant – had limits to its reach. Normally, she wouldn’t even be able to stretch herself that far, but since she took control of the array, she had a potent connection to it. Reaching out to it specifically was possible while within the Reaper’s Grave, although she was unable to look at anything around it unless she activated the array enough to use its perception instead.
That wasn’t going to happen until it was in better condition, however, so for now, she might as well be blind to the goings on at the Reaper’s Grave. Still, aside from them, nobody has snuck in through the passages they were able to monitor, so everything was bound to be fine.
“Sect Mistress.”
“Huang Su. How’s the… everything?”
“This array is close to regaining proper functionality. I do not mean that it will be functioning at the full power that it could exhibit in its prime, of course, but it will finally be able to persist without our constant care,” the Sect Master bowed and explained, “After that, the rest of the passages can be either cleaned up, or removed. I would personally suggest the latter – they are a security risk, as we saw when defending this area.”
“Yeah, I don’t know what the reapers were thinking. Shouge Zhe might have a good reason prepared for us, though, still haven’t really asked…” Bianca sighed, kneeling down beside the core of the array as she looked to Huang Su, “So, where am I needed?”
“Please direct your energy towards the outer bounds of the array. I shall handle the rest. As for you, Song Ming, would you please do something to help the Sect Mistress relax? I believe she will need it.”
“Can I suck-”
“More… calm than that, please.”
“Aw,” Song Ming pouted, but nevertheless got into position behind Bianca and decided to rub her shoulders, since lewder options were out of the question.
With that, Huang Su took her seat on the other side of the heart of the array. She funnelled her energy in, and quickly found Bianca’s, and started to do her work from there. The exact nature of her efforts was hard to decipher, as Bianca had yet to learn much on the foundations of the great arts, so she just let the Demonic Tyrant take care of it while she enjoyed her pet’s treatment.
“Ah… I prefer this, I think.”
“Hm?”
“When we don’t have to run around all over the place… it feels nicer, calmer, you know?” Bianca said, sighing, “We need a bath, by the way.”
Song Ming paused for a moment, “A bath?”
“Yeah, some place full of hot water we could relax in. Considering just how often you tend to get coated in my cum, I think you could use it.”
“I… I thought you liked me smelling like that, Mistress…”
The Sect Master obviously attempted to ignore their chatter, but the faint blush on her cheeks was hard to miss.
“I do, I do, but I’m sure if we end up chatting with some of the Sect Masters out there, it’ll do more to hurt than help… well, unless they’re into this as well, I guess,” Bianca shrugged, “But, I wouldn’t get my hopes up about that, even if our sample size of one might disagree.”
“I- um, ahem. Please, Sect Mistress, you are distracting me,” Huang Su coughed, attempting to maintain that typical calm façade of hers, but Bianca knew better.
The Sect Master may have been awfully reluctant to showcase her true feelings when they were travelling about, not helped by the fact that Bianca’s Demon Queen side was being awfully loud back then, but over time, she seemed to get more comfortable with them. These moments where her true thoughts and feelings emerged became more common, and they made both parts of Bianca happy.
On one hand, she got to see Huang Su relax and be more honest with them. On the other, she knew that her influence was setting in, that slowly but surely, she would eventually be able to command Huang Su with the same ease she did her dearest pet.
‘Please, it’s far from the first time I’ve said this, but it’s really not good to be thinking this way.’
‘And I’ve said it many times that I’m just making her stick around with us instead of running back to her silly little sect.’
‘Tch.’
“My bad, just thinking out loud, heh,” Bianca smirked, trying to sound playful, and the Sect Master seemed to accept it, not showing any signs of displeasure.
“I see, Mistress… I hope there comes a day where we can ignore them all.”
“Hm?”
Her pet pressed up against her back, giving Bianca a great feel of her growing boobs, and rested her head on Bianca’s shoulder to whisper into her ear, “I wish for a day when you make the rest of the world kneel, Mistress. When you can issue any command, and those fools have to obey. For everyone to put your whims before their own, as you deserve.”
Her breath on Bianca’s ear made her shudder, but the sheer passion within her tone did too. If there was a demon among the two of them, it would have to be that cute, innocent woman that still blushed at the slightest mention of sex, and yet spoke without hesitation about dominating the world.
Well, it was hard to ignore that if anyone was to blame here, it was Bianca herself. She did this to her girlfriend, whether knowingly or not, and she couldn’t lie to herself – it was exactly what she’d dreamed of, all that time ago. It wasn’t purely a product of that half of her that lacked remorse and fear, it was something both shared, the only difference being how open those sides were about it.
As such, although the two sides glared at one another at this moment, they eventually find her pet’s words rather hot.
“Sweetie, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but let’s focus on more immediate things. When I get to the seventh realm, or whatever, I’ll see what we can do.”
“Heh, okay, Mistress, I’ll wait. Until then… whenever you don’t have time for me, I’ll just be touching myself while I imagine it.”
“Um… maybe focus on me instead. You know, the usual stuff?”
“Your huge, musky cock, the scent of your sweat, the-”
“Song Ming, dear, please, not now,” Huang Su seemed to be pleading with her eyes, “It’s really hard to focus.”
“I’m sorry, Lady Huang. I’ll stick to whispering in Mistress’ ear,” Song Ming said, promptly leaning in to do exactly that, “Is there anything else you’d want me to think about, Mistress? Maybe how I could act as your seat, with your huge ass on my face?”
“Sweetie, I… I appreciate the thought, but at this rate, you’ll give me a hard-on… by which I mean I’ll instinctively summon my dick again,” being forced to whisper back, Bianca couldn’t help but note that Huang Su almost certainly could still hear them, “We have lots of plans today, so maybe save the flirting for when we can actually get around to it all?”
“Mistress…” she whined, “I can’t help it. Every moment that I’m not doing something to please you feels so… empty.”
“Literally, or figuratively?”
“Heh… do they make plugs for pussies as well, or only my ass? Maybe that would help. Something for my mouth, too, and then-”
“I… don’t honestly quite know. I’ve not heard of that, but I’ve never really looked into the subject. But, ah, there are dildo gags, you could wear those. If you wear a mask or veil, you could even go around with that on and people would be none the wiser.”
“Mistress… I’m so horny right now. Please, touch me!”
‘Should I tell her that Huang Su is starting to blush like some innocent maiden?’ Bianca’s gaze flicked between her pet, and the Sect Master, ‘I wonder if I should gift her a buttplug next time I have the chance… if I ever, I guess. Well, one of these days.’
“Ahem. I believe I am about to reach a breakthrough with this task. Sect Mistress, would you be able to focus on it for a moment?”
With such an earnest plea – her words may not sound any different, but her expression was impossible to mistake – Bianca nodded and shut her eyes, even if there was no need to do so. If anything, she was just trying to convince Song Ming not to start humping her while she was pretending, or something of the sort.
Still, when she actually paid attention to it, she could tell that there was progress being made. At the outer reaches of the parts of the array they had controlled initially, Huang Su appeared to have repaired the connections they were forced to sever, and put up more elegant blockers on other parts of the array, where they were not yet ready to dwell. Although she couldn’t discern the exact reasons behind each blocker, she could tell that only the parts of the array that had suffered no damage over the past however many years were going to be connected after today.
At this point, all she really needed to do was to command the array, and force it to regain a part of the power it once had.
The energy within the array was brought from a steady flow to a surge that rushed towards the outer parts, and crashed against the parts where the array nodes were reconnected like waves against a cliff. The first collision seemed to change little, but the next suddenly broke through, and the light from the array core brightened a dozen times.
Corrupted crimson, twisted violet and endless shadow poured out from the ground, and surged out, the entirety of the Reaper’s Grave being illuminated by the array’s light once again. It was a darker, more eerie shade than the initial light of the Reaper’s Song, and yet to the few of them residing within, such a light inevitably lifted their spirits.
The familiar touch of her own energy felt comforting to Bianca, inviting her in to see the changes. Her lack of insight in the subject meant that she could only glean so much from seeing the numerous nodes and channels of the array, but there was one thing she couldn’t miss, no matter how ignorant she was.
Energy was finally flowing towards the array on its own, without her and Huang Su needing to feed it. In return, the array coated the entire region in a faint barrier, to shield them from the weather and weaker threats, to deter planar beasts from approaching, and to show everyone that the Reaper’s Grave was not abandoned.
Furthermore, she now had the ability to use the array from further away, and in turn leech off of its range to view things as though they were in range of her spiritual perception – just like when she first triggered it and took out the necromancers. For a normal person, such a view wouldn’t be especially detailed, but with the Demonic Tyrant and the Weave of the Senses, it wasn’t that far off being there in person.
“Hah… There. Sect Mistress, I believe that the array will finally be stable enough for us to be free to devote ourselves to other matters,” Huang Su said, “So, um, you should be free to do as you like, if you must.”
“Come on, we were just joking around, we didn’t mean to be disruptive… although now that you’ve confirmed that you’ve heard all of it, I’m glad to know that you’re interested.”
“Mis- Sect Mistress, please…”
“Hey, when did I allow you to call me that?”
“I’m sorry?”
“I’m your Mistress, sect or not, so I expect you to refer to me as such. Understood?”
Huang Su seemed confused, but given their previous ‘characterisation’, so to speak, it would’ve been improper for her to refuse.
“Yes, Mistress. I apologise.”
“See, we should’ve just stuck with that up until now. Anyway, not sure if you’ve got any other plans. Xue Yaling wanted to see me, so I think she might finally have completed that thing of hers… what has she been calling it?”
“Yin Soul, Yang Root,” the kitsune stated proudly, “Simply put, the premise is take a being of yin – women are naturally more aligned with yin, after all – and produce a yang root… another word for cock.”
“Yeah, figured… So, I probably won’t grasp the full intricacy of this, but how did you manage it?”
“It is a rather esoteric technique, so honestly, I’m not sure most would. Simply put, there are two directions I considered taking – the permanent, and the temporary,” Xue Yaling turned to draw with a piece of chalk on the wall of a ruined house, “Let me explain. The permanent solution would be to use the technique to modify my body, allowing me to have a penis at all times. This would be simple enough if I either had an excess of yang, or used the remnants of your energy, Bianca.”
“Mine?”
“It results in a certain… malleability and influence, does it not? However, this kind of permanence is not what I want. Just like your own technique, I wish to be able to have a dick when I need it, and get rid of it when I don’t. It’s also an opportunity for me to explore certain other opportunities, and to perform other minor changes you needn’t worry about,” the kitsune finished her drawing, the two diagrams now residing side by side.
Indeed, Bianca lacked a proper knowledge of the inner workings depicted there, but she could tell that they matched with the two options the kitsune had outlined.
“Are you saying that you’ve managed to complete both options?”
“At least theoretically. It needs to be tested first, which is why I’ve called you here today, although Huang Su and Song Ming are welcome to watch. The three of you should be able to tell me if you spot anything wrong.”