VILLAIN'S HAREM IN OTOME GAME

Gold's heart hammered against her ribs as she watched in disbelief as the twelve-foot abomination was launched clean into the air.

Branagh flew across the cavern, slamming violently into the fortified wall fifty feet away, trembling the foundation itself. The massive monster fell back onto the floor as limp.

Her trembling gaze drifted back to Eren.

He swayed slightly, bleeding profusely from his split scalp, blood pouring down his shredded torso and pooling at his boots. Raising the back of a hand, he slowly wiped the blood from his chin.

The playfulness, the roguish smirk, the unhinged mockery—all of it nowhere to be found.

His presence was so suffocating, so chilling, that the entire chamber felt frozen. The caged beasts that had been snarling and thrashing moments before had gone dead silent. Some even shrank into the farthest corners of their cages.

They were looking at him like an apex predator in the wild.

Without a word, Eren grabbed the ruined collar of his shirt, and ripped the blood-soaked fabric away, tossing it aside. His lean, muscular frame was in gore, but his posture was unnervingly relaxed.

He began walking toward the mound of rubble.

"What was that you were babbling about earlier?" Eren muttered. His voice was shockingly soft, quiet, chilling. "Your syndicate is going to trace our trails? Hunt down everyone who dared interfere with The Substance?"

He stopped steps away, his blue eyes darkened, and his voice suddenly cracked like thunder:

"I dare you to fucking try it!"

Eren crouched before the twitching, semi-conscious Branagh. Reaching out with cold, bloodstained fingers, he roughly seized Branagh's deformed jaw, wrenching the monster's head upward.

"Look at me," Eren ordered.

Branagh's eyes flickered, meeting the chilling void in Eren's blue gaze. For the first time since his transformation, a flicker of pure dread pierced through the demon-tainted mana in the lord's veins.

"Listen to me very carefully," Eren whispered. "Because I only deliver guarantees once."

Eren rose to his feet again, raised his right boot, and stomped down onto Branagh's chest with concussive force.

"Rujgard won't exist long enough to touch a single hair on their heads. That is my personal promise to you."

Eren bent at the waist, burying his bare fingers beneath the exoskeleton bones plating Branagh's chest.

With a roar of pure strength, he wrenched his arms apart, and the exoskeleton tore free with a wet, grotesque snap of sinew and cartilage. Eren ripped the massive bone plate clean off the monster's torso, tossing it aside like scrap metal, fully exposing the raw, pulsating flesh.

"Gold! Move!" Eren shouted.

Gold flinched at the raw command, but her instincts moved before her thoughts could catch up. Stumbling through the rubble, she closed the distance in three frantic strides. Grasping the hilt of her half-broken sword with both bloodied hands, she drove the steel deep into the exposed, chest of Branagh, burying the weapon clean to the fractured guard.

Branagh choked out a wet, guttural rattle, blood bubbling past his jagged teeth.

Eren leaned over him, shadows. "Last call, Branagh. You have roughly ten seconds before your lungs liquefy. Talk. Why target Duke Alfric? Why attempt to execute the Empress? If this entire conspiracy was engineered to solidify the Emperor's position, why target Duke? And is the syndicate planning something on the girl named Violet?"

"Violet?!"

Gold's voice broke out in a frantic shriek. Her knuckles tightened against the hilt, her amber eyes widened with panic and terror. "How do you know that name?! How do you know Violet?!"

Eren didn't look at her. He kept his chilling gaze locked onto the dying lord pinned beneath his boot.

Branagh let out a raspy chuckle.

"You... you are truly no ordinary kid," the beast coughed, dark fluid spilling down his scarred jowls. "You piece together threads that would strangle kings... But if you believe executing me is a triumph... you have no inkling of the ocean of filth you've plunged your boots into. Rujgard is merely the vestibule, boy..."

"I don't give a damn about the depth of your swamp," Eren murmured, leaning in until his breath ghosted over the monster's ear. "I only care about keeping my promises."

"Who... in the hells... are you?"

"An anomaly," Eren replied flatly. He glanced up at the trembling girl. "End him, Gold."

Gold clenched her jaw, biting back the storm of questions, she channeled her divine mana down her arms.

Golden-white holy light engulfed the broken steel, plunging straight into the beating cerulean core. The demonic corruption inside Branagh's body shrieked against the holy brilliance. His veins flared like burning magnesium ribbons, his mutated body blistering and unraveling into disintegrating flakes of ash.

With one final, suffocating gasp, the twelve-foot titan dissolved, his bones crumbling into a pile of smoldering, gray dust on the ground.

Eren let out a low, dry chuckle, rolling his shoulders with a satisfied grunt. "One down."

But before he could celebrate his victory, Gold clamped Eren's shoulder and spun him around, her exposed lower jaw trembling with fury as she shoved her face inches from his.

"Who the fuck are you?!" she hissed, her voice vibrating with urgency. "How do you know about Violet?! Answer me, you bastard!"

CREEEEAAAK—BOOOM!

The cavern roof groaned above them.

The structural damage from their clash had finally severed the foundation. Cracks tore across the vaulted ceiling, showering the floor in heavy slabs and pulverized granite.

"We talk above!" Gold shouted over the deafening roar of collapsing stone, shoving his chest toward the service stairwell. "Move your ass before we're buried alive!"

Instead of running, Eren turned and casually walked in the opposite direction.

"Where the hell are you going?!" she screamed in exasperation.

Eren ignored her, stepping calmly through the falling debris toward an iron cage. The shadow cat cub pressed tightly against the rear bars. The little beast was trembling, its twin tails bristling like bottlebrushes, needle-sharp fangs in a frantic, cornered hiss as the human approached.

"Yeah, definitely," Eren murmured with a completely unhinged grin, kneeling before the bars. "Mira would absolutely love you."

Eren yanked the iron door completely off its hinges and reached inside with an open hand.

CHOMP.

The cub lunged instantly, bitingEren's right forearm. It locked its tiny jaws with vicious, feral stubbornness, its claws raking furious lines against his skin, refusing to budge.

Eren stood there amidst the crumbling cavern, watching the ball of black fur enthusiastically gnawing on his arm in deadpan bewilderment.

"Really?" Eren asked, raising the dangling cat to eye level like an unruly wrist ornament. "I just saved your hide from an illegal auction, and this is my tip?"

____

[Damnn, I wanna go back to write romance again. ]