Chapter 111: Rank 1
"Excuse me, but I’m not taking off my clothes," Yuki said firmly.
"They’re already torn anyway, so why not?" Rixsa countered, gesturing to his ripped robes.
"Because... it doesn’t matter! I’m not having sex with you," Yuki replied, crossing his arms and looking down at her with an annoyed scowl. "I just met you. While I’m not against sex, doing it with you right now is a completely different story altogether."
Rixsa sighed, holding up her hands defensively. "Why don’t you just relax, okay? I’m just going to take a little of your essence to survive, that’s all. We won’t be having sex—just whip your cock out and let me suck it."
"No, I’m not doing that," Yuki barked, his tone unyielding. "I am a loyal man, and I’m not going to cheat on my women."
He paused for a second. Succubi didn’t actually need to have sex in order to drain essence; all they required was simple physical touch and—
Yuki stopped mid-thought. He tilted his head to the left, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the empty air near the upper corner of the chamber.
"What are you looking at?" Rixsa asked, blinking.
"Did you not notice that something has been watching us this entire time?"
"No... no?"
"Well, be more aware," Yuki muttered, shaking his head. "Numb, num... and get on the bed."
"Ehh?! We’re doing this?!" she stammered out, her face flushing bright red. "W-What about your girlfriend?!"
"Oh, I made that up for the watcher," Yuki said casually. "I have permission to do my job. You know, the crazy thing is..."
Yuki settled onto the edge of the bed and began explaining the strange situation he was in, detailing what Vee and Kasumi had previously said about his total lack of seduction skills. Rixsa listened intently, telling him she couldn’t really judge his charm because she didn’t know him well enough yet.
The two continued chatting, exchanging stories about their pasts and genuinely enjoying each other’s company—completely forgetting for a moment that they were supposed to be finding a way out of a sealed room. Through their constant physical contact on the bed, Rixsa slowly drained minute traces of Yuki’s vast life force, taking just enough energy to keep her stabilized and alive.
As they spoke, the localized spatial suppression around them suddenly warped and shattered. Yuki’s system shop interface chimed back to life, and his access to his pocket dimension re-established itself.
Before Yuki could react or pull out his entrance cube, Rixsa’s eyes went wide with pure horror. She froze, staring paralyzed at something standing directly behind him.
Yuki leaned his head back, wondering who could have possibly broken through the barrier unnoticed.
The entity standing there was the absolute last person he expected to see.
"Hello again, Yuki," Goddess Varisa said softly.
Before he could even draw a breath, she flicked the back of his neck with her slender finger, instantly knocking him out cold.
Reaching down, Varisa casually grabbed the back of his collar, picking his limp body up as if he weighed nothing at all.
"W-Who are you?!" Rixsa gasped in shocked horror, pulling back against the headboard. "Put my Master down!"
"Small one, be silent. I am not in the mood," Varisa commanded, casting a cold, crushing glare at the short demoness.
Feeling the sheer, suffocating pressure of an actual deity, Rixsa instinctively shrank back into the mattress, unable to utter another word.
Varisa turned and walked over to the massive steel door. With a simple, casual flick of her wrist, the impenetrable door was flung open, the complex spatial lock shattering into glowing particles.
Turning her head back slightly, Varisa commanded, "Leave this place, small one, and do not return."
"W-What about Yuki?!" Rixsa called out weakly.
"Don’t worry about him. If he is still alive, he will come and find you."
With those parting words, the Goddess stepped out of the room, carrying Yuki’s unconscious body down the hallway.
Entering the subterranean tunnels, Varisa moved silently deeper into the underground complex until she reached a heavily fortified, magical gate.
"This is it," she chuckled softly to herself, looking down at Yuki’s face. "This is the place that will make you better."
Fading straight through the solid armored gate like a ghost, she continued forward into the facility’s innermost chamber.
Inside, massive arrays of glowing runes were carved into the stone floor, surrounded by towering racks of essence cores and glass canisters overflowing with concentrated lust energy. Dozens of unconscious people from various races lay piled across the floor, their bare skin covered in intricate, burning pink runes.
The Goddess casually dropped Yuki onto the pile of bodies and vanished into thin air. None of the Black Cross knights guarding the perimeter suspected a thing.
Yuki slowly drifted back to consciousness.
He had no idea where he was or how much time had passed, but his entire body felt like it was burning alive. It felt as though his veins were filled with liquid fire, his mana core violently overflowing with unrefined essence.
"I’m glad to see so many new test subjects survived the transfer and made it here," a voice echoed across the chamber.
A Black Cross cult member stepped forward, his ornate armor noticeably different from the standard knights, marking him as a high-ranking battle mage.
"Don’t be afraid! This is merely an artificial ascension mechanism! All of you will reach Rank 1 when the ritual concludes... well, if you survive the process, that is. Good luck, and I wish you all a wondrous branch ability!"
With a loud hum, the ambient air became heavily charged.
Yuki felt his lungs burn with every agony-filled breath as his mental faculties began to shatter. Before he could process what was happening, he found himself collapsed in the corner of the chamber, clawing frantically at the stone wall. White foam frothed from his lips while fresh blood seeped from his eyes, nose, and mouth.
Meanwhile, above ground, a massive joint force of Imperial Knights, Holy Knights, and Inquisitors breached the sex cult’s sanctuary. They swept through the upper levels, arresting or executing every cultist in sight while securing the civilian captives.
Upon descending into the facility and discovering the heavy energy-requirement doors, the Inquisitors smashed through the barriers with brute force, putting every hostile succubus they encountered to the sword.
As they pressed deeper underground, they came across corridors littered with dead men. Their corpses were grotesquely disfigured, their heads having exploded from the inside out due to core overload, leaving no way to identify who they had been.
While the remaining succubi scrambled in utter panic to find an escape route, the Black Cross knights were nowhere to be seen—they had abandoned their allies, fleeing into the shadows to save themselves.
Yuki didn’t know where he was. All he could feel was a primal, consuming hunger.
He wanted essence. He wanted blood.
[CONGRATULATIONS ON REACHING RANK 1, YUKI!]
[System Interface:] You have unlocked a Branch Ability for your core ability [Vampire Monarch]: [Blood Manipulation].
[System Interface:] Due to reaching the next ascension rank within the Ascension Trial, you will no longer receive standard system tasks in this world’s game mode. Please relax while you wait for the trial to conclude.
What...?
[DING! NEW MISSION: BECOMING THE DEMON KING]
Objective: Eat and regain your strength. Feast on the blood of others. Kill all heretics to grow stronger.
Yuki blinked, his vision slowly returning in hazy flashes.
He was walking down a pitch-black corridor, his entire body drenched in warm, crimson blood. He had no memory of how he had broken out of the ritual room, but he had definitely fed—the metallic taste of fresh blood was still heavy on his tongue.
His vampiric night vision was active at its absolute maximum, alongside all his other pureblood senses, overwhelming his brain with raw input.
In the quiet darkness ahead, he could hear the faint, rhythmic thumping of a beating heart—a vessel full of hot blood, just waiting to be devoured.