The moon hung swollen and pale above the Leonidus estate, a dying lantern adrift in a sea of shadow.

Its light spilled through the tall arched windows of the chamber, pale ribbons over the silken bed where two women slept — Catherine and her daughter, Flora.

Their breaths rose and fell in perfect rhythm, soft and steady, like twin tides beneath the same shore.

Aiden sat at their side, eyes half-closed, hands still. He envied them — not their beauty, nor their lineage, but their stillness.

That ability to sink into the quiet void of sleep and wake renewed.

But he was not like them. Sleep, to him, was a mockery — an imitation of death that offered no peace.

His kind had been shaped by something older and crueler. For an incubus, rest did not come from dreams, but from consumption — of mana, of essence, of will.

He rose slowly, his movements silent as mist. The moonlight clung to his skin, tracing every motion with a strange, spectral reverence.

His bare feet met the cool marble floor, and for a long moment he simply stood there, letting the night seep into him.

He looked down at Catherine's face — tranquil, radiant even in slumber. Strands of her golden hair lay across the pillow like sunlight caught in frost.

Flora slept beside her, a reflection of her mother's youth, soft and unguarded. Aiden's gaze lingered between them — between past and future, power and vulnerability — and for the briefest breath, something inside him twisted.

He turned away before it could root.

"Status," he murmured.

The air shimmered, and a faint hum answered him. In front of his eyes, light bent and coalesced, forming a translucent panel of deep amethyst — like carved jade and living flame.

Symbols flickered, modern and alive, crawling across its surface as if etched by invisible claws.

---

System

Name: Aiden

Bloodline: High Incubus (Unknown Tier)

Mana: Mid

Grade: B++ Class

Personality: Calm / Uncontrollably Horny

Skills:

Possession Kiss (High Tier)

Emotion Amplification (High Tier)

Aura of Allure (High Tier)

Skill Weaving (High Tier)

Dreamweaving (Locked)

Temptation Echo (Locked)

Beauty: Very Dangerous (Mythic High Tier)

Talent: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Ember: 100% Filled

Charmed Possession: Very High number detected

Temporary Possession: High number detected

Full Possession (Seeded): Akidna, Flora, Catherine, Luna, Sabrina, Tanya

Leashed Possession: Amber, Arina

---

The glow from the screen painted his face in shifting hues — violet, crimson, black.

He studied the list of names, each one a thread bound to his soul, each a mark of dominion and dependence. When his gaze reached Arina, the corner of his mouth lifted.

"So," he whispered. "Even you."

He had wanted her strength — that raw, unbridled fury, the berserker's roar that made men scatter and monsters cower.

He'd watched her once, deep in the dungeon's chaos, drenched in blood and fire, her every strike shaking the monster. That was when he knew he needed it. Needed her.

And he had taken it. Not her body, not yet, but her essence — copied, mirrored, locked within the strange alchemy of his blood.

The same way he had taken Catherine's divine transformation, Amber's healing, and others besides.

But when he reached for it — when his mind brushed against that skill — the system's voice bit back.

---

[Skill Weaving]

Staked Skills (Unusable):

Heavenly Dragon Form (Catherine)

Berserker Steal (Arina)

High Healing (Amber)

...

..

.

---

His fingers hovered over the glowing runes. He tapped Berserker Steal.

[Insufficient Ember.]

A frown creased his lips. "....What?"

He checked the ember gauge. One hundred percent. Still full. Still unmoving.

He tried again.

[Insufficient Ember.]

Again.

[Insufficient Ember.]

His jaw clenched. "What the hell…"

He tried once more, harder, his will striking like iron.

[Insufficient Ember.]

For a heartbeat, rage boiled in his chest. His eyes flicked toward the sleeping women — the temptation to shout, to unleash his fury, crawling up his throat.

But he swallowed it down. He had learned long ago that anger was best saved, not spent.

Then the screen flickered.

[Lilith is laughing.]

The words appeared, slow and mocking.

[Lilith voices: "Complete my missions, and the ember bar will increase."]

Her voice wasn't truly sound — it was sensation, pressure, a whisper pressed against his soul.

He felt it in his bones, the way one feels thunder before it strikes.

Aiden's expression hardened. He remembered. The two missions she had left him — trials dressed as temptations.

The first: to gather essence, to unite bloodlines and feed his ember with the energies of others. In plain words, A massive Orgy.

The second: to devour the essence of demons themselves, like of the duke — the predators of their kind.

The former was already in motion. The seeds had been sown, the letters sent. Shins and all the Baronesses, countesses, high maids — all drawn into his web of allure.

Even now, in another wing of the estate, one such noblewoman slept on the couch, unaware she was part of something larger. Countess of the Wessex, her green hair suffeling down.

Catherine had not yet permitted her into the harem, but permission was only one kind of gate. There were others.

He closed the screen, its light fading into nothingness. Silence returned, deep and cold.

His reflection in the window stared back — the faint gold in his irises burning brighter, his skin faintly humming with mana.

He looked almost human, almost mortal. But the longer one stared, the more wrongness one would find — the quiet hunger behind his gaze, the faint curve of a smile that never reached warmth.

"Complete her missions…" he muttered.

The idea clawed at his thoughts. Lilith — the first of his bloodline, the mother of all temptations.

He walked to the balcony. The night air greeted him, cool and sharp. Below, the Leonidus fief slept under veils of mist. The city's lanterns glowed faintly, each one a trembling soul in the vast darkness.

He could sense them — thousands of pulses, thousands of lives — the mana, the warmth, the desires whispering faintly in the current of the world.

To him, they were like faint melodies in a grand orchestra, each capable of feeding his ember, if he chose to reach out.

He inhaled. The air tasted faintly of rain and ash. Yes ash, signd of reckoning.

The empire was shifting. He could feel it — the same way one feels pressure before a storm breaks. Civil war. Betrayals. Thrones waiting to fall.

The nobles feasted now, drunk on their illusion of triumph, of unity. But Aiden knew the truth — the empire was a carcass dressed in silk, and soon, the scavengers would feast.

And he would not just survive it. He would own it.

He turned his gaze northward — where the emperor's palace loomed beyond mountains and mists, where power slept beneath marble halls. "Soon," he whispered.

He exhaled slowly. The night seemed to breathe with him.

For a long while, he stood motionless — just a dark figure against the pale glow of moonlight and smoke. Thinking, planing what the next step he should take.

Catherine stirred faintly in her sleep, murmuring something inaudible. Her fingers brushed against his hand before falling still again.

For all her divine might, in that moment she was fragile — a creature of warmth and trust.

Aiden sat beside her. He ran a hand through his hair, his eyes on the ceiling.

He remembered his own words, spoken with the weight of devastating experience.

"The world is made of predators. The only sin is hesitating to bite first."

Yes. Eat or be eaten. That was the truth, stripped bare.

His mind drifted to his plans — the wedding with Flora, the consolidation of the Leonidus estate, the forging of new weapons from dungeon minerals under Aros's contract.

Piece by piece, the board was aligning. The duke, the viscount , those nobles thought they were using him.

Augustus thought he was marrying power to loyalty. The slayers thought him a pawn in their endless feud.

They were all wrong.

He was not a pawn. He was the player behind the board. With the plot of the world on his mind and memory.

Soon, when the empire bled itself dry, when thrones turned to ash, he and his chosen few would rise from it — gods in all but name.

He smiled faintly. It wasn't arrogance. It was prophecy, written in quiet certainty.

He rose and walked to the mirror. The man staring back was no longer quite the same.

The golden hue in his eyes burned deeper, faint symbols crawling beneath his skin like ink reacting to power.

He spoke to his reflection.

"This world eats the weak," he said softly. "But the strong… the strong consume everything."

A faint smirk crossed his lips. "And I will devour it whole, the whole of this mighty empire...."

He glanced back one last time at Catherine and Flora — mother and daughter, sleeping in fragile trust.

He whispered, "Sleep well. You'll need your strength for what's coming."

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