Transmigrated As The Villainess' Boyfriend With A... SSS Harem System?

After parting ways with Layda, I quickened my pace along the winding rainbow river.

The clouds had dispersed like a wound closing, letting escape pale glimpses of sun that illuminated more than they warmed.

Arriving at the end of the rainbow, panting.

There he was, sitting beside the end of the rainbow. While swinging his bare feet in the water, he hummed a tune.

The rest of his body seemed motionless. Or perhaps it was. With Theren Valdris, deducing such things was difficult.

His white eyes found me before my boots touched the grass.

"You're late."

"I didn't know you had a schedule."

"I don't. But the river told me you're late. Its water saw you in the east plaza and then the current brought it to me and told me, the busybody."

Sitting on the opposite bank, the water separated us. Seven-colored pebbles that made the water look like a liquid rainbow.

"You said you could help me. With Sequencing."

Theren scratched his chin. His fingers left dirt marks on his jaw.

"I said I could take you to level two. I didn't say when. You're still greener than an oak sapling. First, you need to master the three basic aspects... Didn't Duralianne's newcomer tell you about them?"

She had, after humiliating Ardwyn.

"Control. Manifestation. Density."

"Correct... However, she only mentioned them." Theren spat into the river. "There's a big difference between naming a sword and knowing how to wield it."

His white Empero emanated from him.

A wave of hundreds of thousands of tentacles passed through the grass, submerged into the water, and emerged on the other side, surrounding me. I felt its contact on my skin. Rather than hostile, it was curious, like a doctor's fingers palpating a patient.

Barely managing to react and cover myself with my arms, I ended up on the ground.

Unlike a typical aura, Theren Valdris's Empero seemed to have a life of its own. I had never seen such an immense amount of Empero being controlled so precisely.

It was terrifying.

"Your Empero keeps telling me it's afraid," he said.

"It's not my Empero that's afraid."

"Everything goes hand in hand, Oak Sapling. Your Empero is the materialization of your being. Your fear reflects in it."

The white Empero retracted. Theren stood up. The river water, instead of dripping from his feet, evaporated before even touching the ground.

"Get up. We're going to play a game."

"I don't like games," I complained. Since the near-death experience I had with Vauxol, and the recent game I had with Layda, truth be told, I hadn't been left with any desire to play another. "The last one I played almost killed me."

"Vauxol is an imbecile who confuses memory and cruelty with teaching. Me, on the other hand..." he smiled without looking at my eyes. "I confuse everything too, but I always add fun. It's different."

Getting to my feet.

"The rules are very simple. Touch me. Doesn't matter how. A brush, a finger against my skin. Any part of my body, using any method you can think of. Your Empero, your hands, a rock, a branch... whatever."

"What do I get if I succeed?"

Theren raised both hands with a theatrical gesture.

"We'll move on to the next phase."

"And if I lose?"

"You'll go without food and won't be able to leave until you do," he said, walking on the water until he stood a meter in front of me.

He stood still. His gray hair falling over his empty eyes. Arms hanging at his sides. He adopted no combat stance whatsoever.

My black Empero manifested. In Theren's presence, mine was unstable, thin, and... pathetic. The dark smoke surrounding my body trembled like a candle flame in a drafty room.

My right hand was still bandaged. The wounds from the shattered pocket watch hadn't fully healed. I would have to rely on my left hand.

Launching my fist forward with all the speed I could muster. A direct blow covered in my condensed Empero.

Theren didn't move.

My fist stopped two centimeters from his face. Something prevented it. It was as if the air itself had condensed into a single point. My arm started weighing a hundred times more than normal.

"Density," Theren said. "I can concentrate my Empero into a point as small as the tip of a needle or expand it across my entire body. Right now, I've concentrated a layer two centimeters from my skin. So dense your fist couldn't pierce it."

Withdrawing my hand, my knuckles ached. Theren had condensed his Empero so fast I couldn't even perceive it.

"How can you do that? Concentrate so much Empero into such a small point?"

"Because I feel it. I've known it since I was born. It's my best friend. I don't give it orders. I just ask. And it complies."

I thought about my Empero. About how I had used it until now. I only ordered it around, as if it were a weapon and an extension of myself.

"You've been using it wrong," he said, as if reading my thoughts. "Your conceptual Empero doesn't work like the elemental or physical ones. Elementals give shape. Physical ones control density. You, on the other hand, Oak Sapling, conceptuales control."

"Control what?"

Theren raised his hands again.

"Reality. But to control reality, first you need to control yourself."

Trying again, I decided to use my ability this time. I manifested a word. 'Fast.' I wrote it in the air and condensed it as much as I could, then launched it like a projectile.

An improvised bullet.

Theren caught it with his fingers. He held it between his index and middle finger as if it were a fly.

"At least this time you moved an arm. Not bad," he appreciated, then continued with the explanation. "Manifestation. Your manifestation is too slooow. You move and think like a sloth. And when you launch, you lose half its power in transit. To manifest correctly, your Empero needs to be born already with form. Don't mold it after expelling it. Mold it before, inside you, and release it when it already has the shape you seek."

He crushed the word between his fingers. The black Empero vanished like an insect in a bonfire.

Before I could respond, Theren moved his left hand. Five threads of white Empero shot from his fingers. They extended through the air like whiplashes and sank into the earth.

The ground trembled.

Three statues emerged from the mud. Humanoid figures a meter and a half tall. Faceless or detailed. Just outlines of compacted clay moving like puppets whose strings were invisible.

The three stood up. Theren moved his fingers. They advanced toward me.

"What the hell...?"

"Advanced Empero Art: Puppeteer. It's not difficult, it just requires you to control the three basic aspects at the same time."

He made a quick motion with his fingers and the three statues charged at me.

Manifesting a bar, I condensed it until it had the density of steel. I struck the first one in the chest.

The bar bounced. The statue didn't flinch. Its clay arms closed around my waist. The second grabbed my left arm. The third lunged toward my legs.

"Enough!"

The statues stopped. But didn't let go.

Theren, still floating on the water, walked toward me. His bare feet stepped onto the grass without making any sound.

"Your Empero is too weak, Oak Sapling. Mediocre control. Slow manifestation. Insufficient density."

"You told me to touch you, not to fight these puppets."

"The puppets are part of the game. To reach me, first you must get past them."

"Even if I did the impossible and destroyed them, I'd still have to get through your Empero defense..."

The statues released me. They retreated to equidistant positions around Theren. Three faceless clay guards.

Theren extended his arms. His white Empero exploded outward. It was like a flood. Slow, constant... and unstoppable.

The white Empero spread across the grass. The river. The trees. The earth. It covered everything in a radius I couldn't measure.

"Advanced Empero Art: Domain," Theren recited. "This one depends on two of the basic aspects: instead of condensing it, you expand your aura in a determined radius, whose extension you control. The more Empero you have and the better your control, the greater the radius."

"What's your limit?"

"If I hold back, one kilometer."

One kilometer? Both Ardwyn and Lianza barely covered a few hundred meters when they didn't hold back and expelled their Empero.

But what they did was far from being called Domain.

Every stone, every blade of grass, every drop of the river within his reach... Theren felt it all. Saw it all. Dominated it all.

"Within my Domain, a leaf doesn't fall without me knowing. Neither you. Nor your Empero. Nor your thoughts, though I can't read them, I can feel the intention, how they affect your aura."

Standing in the middle of the three statues, Theren's Empero surrounded me like ocean water.

The sensation was suffocating.

"How am I supposed to touch you if you can see me coming from a kilometer away?"

"That's the right question." Theren shrugged. "But the answer isn't what you expect."

"What is it?"

"Touch anything that's within my Domain."

Anything?

Running toward the nearest tree, I raised my hand.

Blocked. His white Empero prevented me from touching it. The same sensation as when I tried to strike him.

Cursing inwardly.

How the hell was I supposed to beat this guy?

Theren Valdris, the official Empero professor of Mayorka, the deputy headmaster, the strongest Bookforger of this era... was the closest thing to a god I had ever seen.