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Grand Duke Ju-ji's expression soured as he read the three letters the eagle had brought.
First, Sichuan.
— Flame Demon still shows no sign of emerging. We infiltrated a spy as a servant, but there is no talk of her having relations with any man, servant, or warrior of the Tang Clan. She appears to be purely enduring it.
"Tough bitch."
The Eldest Prince clicked his tongue in disappointment.
Flame Demon Dang Seo-hee.
Though she had coveted more than three men's worth, she—the greatest beauty of the Sichuan Tang Clan—was now restraining her carnal desires like a nun.
In effect, Flame Demon had burned the lifeline the Eldest Prince had thrown her. The Jilin Flame Demon was no longer of Jilin, but a wild beast—or in the worst case, might already be the Flying Heaven Flame Demon.
— Continue monitoring the Tang Clan.
Ju-ji wrote his reply to the first letter. Since Flame Demon had practically become an opposition faction, he needed to find someone else to install in her position as Flame Demon.
Next, Henan.
— Ice Demon is only training her martial arts, shuttling between the Emei Sect's Xuchang branch and the Murim Alliance. All the spies who attempted to ambush Ice Demon have vanished or were raped by the Lust Demon. It is likely that Ice Demon eliminates the attackers, then abandons them on the roadside.
Ice Demon Yoo Seol-ra.
The Ice Palace Mistress of the Northern Sea had hidden her Ice Demon identity and successfully infiltrated as one of the Six Phoenixes. Because the Sky-Soaring Ice Demon presented a somewhat perplexing problem, the Eldest Prince had attempted to contact Ice Demon.
She killed every single one of his informants.
Not satisfied with simply killing them, she drained every last drop of their internal energy. She disguised it as if the Lust Demon had done it, then dumped them in the Murim Alliance's prison.
Those who suffered under Ice Demon recovered their internal energy with excruciating slowness. She meticulously erased every trace of the Ice White Divine Art, and although Ju-ji knew his spies had fallen to Ice Demon, he could not touch her.
— Disguising Ice Demon as a member of the Orthodox Faction and making her a Phoenix, this is rather impressive.
The Heavenly Demon, for the first time in ages—in years, truly—did not begrudge his praise for the Eldest Prince's plan. He was more delighted than when Ju-ji had achieved great success in the Heavenly Demon Divine Art and reached the Transcendent Realm.
— When the Great Righteous-Demonic War unfolds later, a bitter wave shall sweep through the very heart of the Murim Alliance! Hwahahaha!
The Eldest Prince, bound by the Heavenly Demon's joy, could not easily act. He was unable to attempt active contact with Ice Demon, and whenever he tried, his men were killed until he ultimately gave up.
The demons he deployed into the Murim Alliance were all high-grade personnel, and each loss hemorrhaged flesh from the Eldest Prince as if great chunks were being carved away.
Ice Demon's true intentions remained a labyrinth, and in the end, the Eldest Prince surrendered his pursuit of her.
— She was originally a wild beast. Should she become not a wild beast but a Flying Female Ice Demon, I will seize her by the hair, ascend to the Ice Palace, and violate her at its main gate.
He would not forgive betrayal. The Eldest Prince could not suppress his fury as he composed his reply to the second letter.
"Why are all the demons betraying me lately?"
Had it been a mistake to single out only women and try to turn them into his personal Divine Physicians? He had deliberately prioritized women who seemed unlikely to betray him, and one by one, they had all cut contact.
For Flame Demon, Extreme Yang Energy.
For Ice Demon, the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.
He had accommodated their desires to the utmost, providing them in abundance—yet both had merely taken everything and vanished into silence.
"Fucking bitches."
The Eldest Prince could not contain the fury boiling inside him.
And then, the final letter. At its neat, delicately elegant handwriting, a spontaneous smile crept onto the Eldest Prince's lips.
— ...While tracking the Flying Heaven Three Demons party that used the Heavenly Rejuvenation Pill, we discovered another man and woman. I will determine whether they are a pair who aided the Flying Heaven Three Demons, or others related to them. And if what they carry is indeed the Heavenly Rejuvenation Pill, I shall secure it and present it to the Eldest Prince without fail.
"As expected of Thunder Demon. She never disappoints me."
The woman who had supported him first, before anyone else. The Eldest Prince's eyes took on a gleam of interest as he read the continued passage in Thunder Demon's letter.
"Anhui, Jiangsu, Shandong, Hebei? Hmm...."
Ju-ji stroked his chin with his fingers and smiled a rancid grin.
"That Namgung Clan bitch is already married... In Jiangsu I ate them all up and killed them... Hebei's girls have already all been sold... Ah."
Ju-ji toyed with the characters for Shandong, clicking his tongue in relish.
"The Hwangbo Clan's eldest daughter and the Shandong Ak family's youngest were goddamn delicious. Keuh...."
Ju-ji let out a small laugh, his face steeped in reminiscence.
"I should have gone back to devour the second Hwangbo daughter too... left her just one step short and couldn't eat her. Tch."
Ju-ji rummaged through his memories. As he pondered the reason he had been forced to flee Shandong in a hurry, his expression crumpled into a frown.
"...Ah! Fuck, that bastard Chu So-gwang."
Because his Unmarried Mark Nine Palace Array had been uncovered at the Chuso Escort Agency in Anhui, the Eldest Prince had urgently fled Shandong to prepare for any potential fallout.
"What was her name again... Hwangbo-ji? No, there was something in the middle, I think. Tch. Should've just grit my teeth for one more day, eaten her, and then bailed."
Ju-ji soothed his lingering appetite with regret as he penned his reply. The eagle that received the three letters soared out the window again, and Ju-ji closed the sash.
"Heh heh heh."
Ju-ji twirled a small knife idly in his fingers as he approached the bed. There, a woman bound tightly by rope was restrained on the mattress, utterly immobile.
"Sister, it truly pains my heart. We had an arrangement to simply enjoy each other, so why did you dare to propose marriage?"
"Mmmph, mmmmph!!"
The gagged woman screamed curses at him through her bindings. Ju-ji traced the flat spine of his dagger with a finger, then smiled rancidly.
"I came to Liaodong to eat up Moyong Ran, not to marry you, sister."
Ju-ji sliced the gag free with his blade. A cut mark opened on the woman's cheek, blood trickling down, and the woman spat at Ju-ji with eyes blazing bloodshot.
"You son of a bitch, you'll suffer heaven's punishment!"
"Hmph."
Smack—
Ju-ji slapped the woman across the face, then stabbed the dagger into the mattress.
"Next time I'll pierce your heart. Don't cry and whine. After all, you'll forget everything once it's over."
Ju-ji settled between her legs and rammed his manhood inside.
"I'm contemplating whether or not to install you as the next Blade Demon, so make sure you tighten that cunt properly and think it over. Hm?"
Tap, tap. Ju-ji touched the woman's cheek as he grinned.
"Sister, didn't you say you loved me?"
From the woman's tightly shut eyes, tears streamed freely down.
* * *
The Lust Demon is not a singular entity.
Just as there existed a Lust Demon who violated the Emei Peak, even before I entered the fray as the Lust Demon, the Martial World had teemed with countless Lust Demons.
And at their apex stands Grand Duke Ju-ji.
Active in the Murim for more than a decade, he disguised himself, hid his identity, and toyed with the pure hearts of innumerable women. Indeed, the woman whose identity Ice Demon Yoo Seol-ra used to conceal her own was one whose heart the Eldest Prince had mocked and murdered.
The Eldest Prince's insidious reach extended across the entire Murim to that degree.
"A long time ago... there was a man who came to the Hwangbo Clan as a guest retainer. I formed a... good relationship with him, but as it turned out, he had already exchanged a marriage vow with my elder sister."
Hwangbo Hye-ji, on the verge of tears, began to unburden her past. I listened carefully to her words—
"I don't want to hear it."
Thwack.
"Hic?!"
I did not listen carefully. Far from taking her words to heart, I wanted to scrub my ears clean.
"Even now, I refrain from mentioning Yeon-i, yet you speak of a man you previously bedded. Have you resolved to anger me on purpose?"
"B-but! That person told me! You have to finish inside during a woman's moon-cycle... for a child to be made!"
"And I'm telling you, that's a lie."
Thwack, thwack-thwack.
I seized Hwangbo Hye-ji by the waist and drove into her repeatedly. The sticky, foreign sensation between my shaft and her inner walls made my skin crawl, but I could not contain my rage at Ju-ji's reach having extended to Hwangbo Hye-ji.
"He told you a lie, intending to get you pregnant."
"......."
The pillow began to grow damp. The Heavenly Rejuvenation Pill meant she could feel no pain from breaking her fruit, yet she soaked the pillow with her tears nonetheless.
'It's a true relief.'
I hadn't expected much, but I had still prayed privately in my heart.
Please, let her be a virgin. Please let it be that the man who held Hwangbo Hye-ji's heart had not yet laid a hand on her.
'He ate the first daughter and missed the second.'
According to Hwangbo Hye-ji's words, the eldest daughter had already been devoured by the Eldest Prince. Her virginity had been taken, regrettably, but I resolved to be content that the Hwangbo Hye-ji I was now taking was herself a virgin.
Squelch, squelch.
I drove my manhood deep, scraping her inner walls to scoop out the remnants. The discharge that gushed out was difficult to describe, and a rank, bloody scent stung my nostrils.
Whoosh.
I once more incinerated the blood clots with the Zhongli Divine Fire Well. I could not erase every last bloodstain soaked into the mattress, but it put my heart considerably more at ease.
"Shall we test whether my words are correct, or whether the words of that bastard who abandoned you and fled are correct?"
Schluk.
I rammed my manhood in once more. Hwangbo Hye-ji, who had been clutching the pillow, stretched out her hand and pressed it against the wall before her.
"Ah-ak, haa-ah...!"
The tips of her fingers pressing against the wall turned white. I kept pulling her hips back so she could not escape forward.
"I'll finish inside. If I spill my seed now and a child forms, then that bastard was right."
"Ah, you can't finish inside...!"
Hwangbo Hye-ji kept trying to pull herself free from me, crawling forward. I deliberately pretended I couldn't stop her, following her as she crawled forward.
"Ah, if I become pregnant, I won't have the face to see Yeon-i...!"
"Which is why I'm telling you, you WON'T get pregnant!!"
I grabbed her waist and dragged her back as she tried to crawl away. She was still partially clothed, so I forcibly ripped the upper part of her skirt that lay over her chest.
Rrrrrip!!
"Heeek?!"
The skirt tore open and a fairly ample bosom burst forth. She must normally have bound it under her clothes, because at the sight of a chest that was far larger than it had appeared to the eye, my lower half swelled and burned even hotter.
"So a virgin resolving herself to bed me was not a decision she made on a whim. Heh-heh, your body may be virgin, but was your heart already unchaste?"
"N-no, it's not...!"
At my insult, Hwangbo Hye-ji turned her head and flared with anger.
"I didn't do it... I said I didn't do it!"
"But you did think about doing it, didn't you?"
"Ugh...!"
Hwangbo Hye-ji gritted her teeth. To her, apart from the fact that he had suddenly vanished, he would have been a young man of peerless kindness, courtesy, and charm.
"I can well enough imagine. The scoundrel approached you whispering sweet love. Then, when the mood was suitably set, he would have tried to mingle flesh with you. Like this."
I knew precisely how the Eldest Prince devoured women. As if I were her lover, I reached around from behind, placing one hand on her lower abdomen while I seized one of her breasts.
"The most beautiful woman I have ever seen, Hye-ji."
"Nngh...!!"
Hwangbo Hye-ji's body trembled. Sweat poured down her back, which was arched like a drawn bow, and I forced her head to tilt back toward me.
Slurp, smack.
I covered her moans with my mouth. Hwangbo Hye-ji, her eyes and the corners of her eyes still moist with tears, was startled at first, but soon she gently closed her eyes and tangled her tongue with mine.
Puh-ha.
"Your lower mouth is virgin, but your upper mouth is not? Sticking your tongue in the very moment we kiss."
"Stop... mocking me like that...!"
"Heh-heh, doesn't it just give you that feeling of being violated?"
I snapped my hips upwards roughly once, venting my displeasure in a coarse thrust.
"Do you know how furious a man gets when he learns that the woman he thought was a virgin is, upon close inspection, no virgin at all?"
"I- I am a virgin! The first man to ever mingle flesh with me in my life is you!"
"But you still mingled your tongue with that bastard?"
"No, I didn't!!"
Hwangbo Hye-ji denied it fervently.
"My elder sister... hic, I saw her do it, and... huk...!"
Hwangbo Hye-ji seemed genuinely heartbroken. I stroked her cheek with my hand and sealed her lips with mine once more.
Slurp, smack.
She poured herself into the kiss as if to prove her own personal divine innocence. I smiled at the movement of her tongue as it worked.
"...Heh-heh, you learned by watching Yeon-i, didn't you?"
"......."
A long, transparent thread of silver stretched between Hwangbo Hye-ji and me. I held her waist and lifted both our bodies from the bed.
"Let us move to the window."
"C- can't walk... u-uhng...!"
I lifted Hwangbo Hye-ji and headed for the window. Still impaled upon me, she floundered and trembled, but soon placed her hands upon the window frame to support herself.
"Look. At the fighting outside."
Beyond the window, the Hwangbo Clan's warriors were fiercely battling the Lust Demons. I threw the slightly open window gap wide open to the left and right.
"Hik?!"
"If you scream, the sound will leak outside."
I pulled my manhood out once. With her hands on the window frame, she looked back at me, and I laid my shaft atop the cleft of her buttocks, steadying my breath.
"Now that you've had the sexual act you desired so fervently, how do you feel?"
"I- I don't know. But...."
Hwangbo Hye-ji still could not meet my face.
"...I think I'm beginning to understand why Yeon-i loves him so much. Excuse me, Mister Lust Demon, who is so thoroughly brimming with thoughts of violating me and then fleeing."
Hwangbo Hye-ji turned to look at me for the first time, and reached out one hand toward me.
"...At least right now, please do it as if I were doing it with the one I love. So I can forget that dead man."
"?"
I had been about to thrust my manhood in when I tilted my head at the strangeness of it.
"Dead?"
"Yes. He fell... from a cliff. So...."
"......."
Had I been mistaken? Wi Ji-ju was definitely one of the Eldest Prince's favorite aliases.
'It doesn't matter even if it's not.'
Squish.
I parted her petals once more. Whether it was truly some man named Wi Ji-ju, or the Eldest Prince who failed after attempting his foul tricks, my task remained singular.
"So you may never again utter another man's name from your lips, I will fill your inside with my seed, Ji-ju."
"You're... you're really not going to get me pregnant, right?"
"Of course. I swear it upon the heavens."
I clasped the hand she extended. Hwangbo Hye-ji turned her head back toward the wall and murmured low.
"...I'll trust you. You can finish inside."
To begin with, I had no intention of doing it outside.
"Make me forget everything—every last trace of a first love, Ji-ju."