The True Side Effects
"Nnngh!"
"Aaaagh!"
The ships were already underway toward the contaminated freighter. Amid that formation, aboard Jincheon's transport vessel, the screams of two women rang out without pause.
"Keep breathing! Breathe exactly the way I taught you!"
"Hah… but—!"
"If you've got breath left to talk, use it to breathe! Hold it and this pain never stops!"
"Ugh… uuhh…! Hff…!"
"Hff…!"
Jincheon watched the two of them writhe and forced the breathing method on them without mercy. Once they began to obey, the agony gradually receded, and they threw themselves into the technique alone.
Maybe I should've done it this way from the start.
His gaze fell on the tattoos he had carved into their abdomens. Drawn in blood from a bitten fingertip, the marks now glowed as if lit from within.
Having become a Transcendent and risen in rank, every cell of his body—even a single drop of blood—had evolved for the efficient use of martial arts. With a formation painted directly onto their flesh in that blood, cosmic qi would flow into them; mere breathing would generate Inner Qi.
But the two women were complete novices. Qi forced into their bodies felt like full-body electric shock, and cold sweat poured off them. Under ordinary circumstances the relentless influx would have ruptured them from the inside. The formation drawn on the floor around them, however, regulated the volume of Inner Qi, so the worst outcome never arrived.
"Hah! Hmm!"
"Hff! Hoo!"
The electric sting that had raced through every vessel faded with each breath Jincheon had taught them. They clung to the method with desperate focus.
Huh?
Something's… forming inside me…?
Time passed. As Inner Qi gathered, change took root in their bodies. At last, dantians began to take shape. With every breath the half-bean-sized cores swelled a little more.
"The dantians have formed."
Sensing their birth, Jincheon withdrew the Inner Qi he had poured into the formation.
"Hah! Hah!"
"Huk! Hahh…!"
The forced current of qi cut off. Both women collapsed, gasping roughly.
"Good work, both of you."
"Wh-what… is this…? The world… looks different…"
"I feel it too… My senses… are strange…"
Soaked in sweat and sprawled on the floor, they reeled under the sudden expansion of perception. That was side effect number one of having qi jammed into them by force.
"Still…"
"Hm?"
"It was hard, but nothing truly terrifying happened. And this new sense… I think I'll adapt once some time passes."
"…"
"Yeah. Tough, but more doable than I expected."
Calsira and Heliane, still ignorant of the real side effects, spoke with casual relief. Jincheon neither mocked nor warned them. He simply closed his eyes and shook his head.
"Brace yourselves."
"What?"
"The real side effects start now."
"What do you mean by—"
The moment the words left his mouth, every blood vessel in their bodies lit up with pins-and-needles fire.
"Kyaaaaah!"
"Gyaaah!"
"Wh-what is thiiiis?!"
"Aaagh! Aaaaaah!"
It was the same agony that floods a limb when circulation returns after it has gone completely numb—except it flooded every vessel at once. They screamed and thrashed.
"That's the backlash of qi flooding the entire body and then draining out. A martial artist with an established dantian would shrug it off. You two just grew yours, so…"
"Ghhrrrk…!"
"Nnngggh…!"
"…you feel the full-body numbness."
They could not even stand. The instant they tensed a limb, the pins-and-needles spiked into pure torment.
"Th-then… hhk… how long… does this…"
"Individual differences, but roughly three to four days. Even after the pain fades, your whole body will stay hypersensitive for a few more."
"Th-that's… ridicul—aaagh…!"
Speaking itself hurt. Without someone to care for them they would have done nothing but writhe on the floor. Jincheon lifted both of them with Heogongsbeomul and carried them to the bedroom.
"If you want to recover faster, practice the breathing method whenever you can."
"Uuugh…"
"Khrrrk…"
"Should've been born with talent. Then you wouldn't be going through this."
"…"
"…"
Both women now understood, with their entire bodies, what it meant for one's sense of reality to leave the building.
Jincheon nursed them until the side effects faded. Thanks to their frantic practice of the breathing method, they managed to rise under their own power on the third day.
"Incredible… All of this was around us the whole time…"
Bang!
"Kyah?! Hff—! My head!"
Newly awakened to Inner Qi, they marveled at sensations they had never known—and, with suddenly enhanced physiques, kept colliding with everything in sight.
Is the effect of the Inner Qi method that strong, or is their baseline simply far above a Terran's?
Sensing what one had never sensed before was a stage every martial artist passed through. But the degree of reinforcement—jumping high enough to touch a twenty-meter ceiling in a single bound—far exceeded his expectations. Whether the power came from that unknown energy belonging to neither the Five Elements nor yin-yang, or simply from superior racial specs, he still could not say for certain.
For the record, they had all removed their nano-suits. The suits amplified even Jincheon's physical ability; if women whose bodies had just been strengthened by newly formed dantians put them on, accidents were guaranteed.
"Looking at you like this… I finally understand what a monster you are."
Now that she could feel qi, Heliane stared at the aura naturally wreathing Jincheon's body with a look of pure dread. It was no exaggeration: the energy he casually radiated, gathered and used, could casually destroy a mecha.
"I told you. You don't have to worry."
"You're right. I can admit it now."
"But just so we're clear—I won't be able to help you in mecha combat. Partly because I decided that myself, but also…"
"That's a relief."
"Hm?"
Heliane answered positively before he even finished.
"If we could be rescued by your power no matter what crisis we faced, then our lives, our futures—everything—would stop belonging to us."
A warrior with pride, she had no intention of becoming a helpless woman forever saved by a white knight.
"You already rewrote our fates once. If you keep saving us one-sidedly after that, we'd be nothing more than dolls in your playhouse."
She went further, warning him with a hard expression.
"I'm warning you. If you use that power just because we're in danger, I will never forgive you."
"…Heh."
Jincheon smiled, genuinely pleased by the warning. In the way she calmly accepted the possibility of death, he saw the qualification to become one of his women.
They have the nano-suits, so they won't drop dead out of nowhere. And their Inner Qi will only grow stronger with time.
"Fine. On one condition."
There was one point on which he would never compromise.
"If either of you dies or is hurt, I will pour my rage onto whoever is responsible. Being unable to avenge harm done to my women would be a denial of the life I've lived until now."
"So now I've got one more reason I absolutely have to stay alive. For the sake of the entire universe not getting flipped upside down."
If Jincheon ever revealed his true power, the whole cosmos would reel in shock. Heliane knew that perfectly well—yet the serious face with which he declared he would risk it for them was more than enough to flush her cheeks.
That proud bearing even carries beauty and dignity. My eye for women really is flawless.
Once again certain that claiming Heliane had only burnished the name of the Lust Emperor, Jincheon remembered they still had plenty of time left.
"Heliane."
"Hm? Kyah?!"
He shoved the two arms that rose from her shoulder blades and pinned her against the wall.
"W-wait! My body's still hypersensitive—!"
"Hff—"
"Nngh!"
They had escaped the full-body pins and needles, only to inherit the next aftereffect: every nerve turned razor-sharp. Jincheon stripped her clothes away and, in the same motion, shed his own until both of them were bare.
Not a scrap of excess flesh. Smooth, gleaming skin. A waist so cartoonishly narrow one wondered where the organs even fit. On anyone else those proportions might have looked gaunt and ugly; on her they only radiated healthy, vital beauty.
He buried his nose against her collarbone, drawing a rough breath, and began to caress her.
"St-stop… this is… really… dangerous…!"
Heliane shoved and slapped at him with the arms on her shoulders, but Jincheon simply forced those arms down and dropped to one knee.
Fwaah—
"Hnn!"
Both hands spread her thighs. The sex that already knew a man parted slightly.
"You can take this as an honor. The only time I ever kneel for anyone is when I'm burying my face between a woman's legs."
"There's nothing honorable about it!"
All four of her arms strained to push his head away.
Slurp—
"Haaahnnn~~~!"
Despite her frantic efforts, his tongue slipped lightly inside her.
Slurp— schlick schlick schlick—
"Hnn-haaaah!"
Already hypersensitive, she threw her head back and moaned as his tongue stroked her inner walls.
"J-Jincheon-nim… me too…"
In front of others she had used the polite "ssi," but alone with him the honorific had already slipped back to "nim." Calsira, now naked herself, approached. Her body was just as sensitive, yet once the fire had been lit, only Jincheon's cock could put it out.
She spread her legs toward him, face half-worried, half-eager about what the pleasure would do to her in this state, breathing hard.
"Then let's enjoy both of you."
Needing to satisfy them both, Jincheon rose and seized their arms.
"Ah…!"
"Kya…!"
He shoved them against the wall so their asses were presented. Two pairs of plump, perfectly shaped cheeks waited without resistance for their owner's hands.
Schlick!
Schlick!
"Hah-hooot!"
"Gyaahng!"
Thumbs plunged into their anuses; the remaining fingers curled into their cunts.
Schlick-schlick-schlick!
"Khhnnn~~~! Aaaaaah~~~~~!!"
"Hiiit! Aooooh…!"
Their moans climbed higher than usual. Hypersensitivity made juices already run down their thighs. Two beautiful women presenting their asses, offering no resistance, moaning—more than enough to feed a man's urge to dominate.
Schlick-schlick-schlick!
He bent his hands into C-shapes, assaulting cunt and ass at once, then began to rub the thin membrane that separated the two holes from above and below.
"Aaaaah!"
"Kyaaaah!"
Normally they would have cried out in sweet ecstasy; now the sounds were closer to screams.
"Isn't it about time you admitted it, Heliane?"
"Wh-wh-what…"
"You always say you hate it with your mouth, but the second I touch you, your cunt starts dripping."
"Th-that's… because you made this body—!"
Thwuck!
"Hahooot!"
He timed it perfectly—driving his thumb all the way to the root into her ass the instant she tried to talk back. The forced stretch wrenched a cry from her; her whole body shuddered as she gasped for air.
"Haa… hahh…!"
H-humiliating… It's humiliating, but… it feels good…
All he had done was shove a finger into a hole, yet a warrior who had endured brutal training could only moan like a fragile woman, unable to move. No matter how much time passed, that humiliation never lessened. And yet, bit by bit, the humiliation itself was beginning to feel like part of the pleasure.
"Heh. We've still got plenty of time. Let's take it slow and enjoy ourselves."
He pinched the membrane between cunt and ass between his fingers and pulled his arms back.
"Hiiik!"
"Kihyaang!"
Pinned to the wall, both women were dragged out by that force, ending up half-crouched, legs trembling, barely able to stay upright.
"Shall we head to the bedroom, then?"
"W-wait… take your hands out… hhaah…!"
"G-go away… go awaaay…!"
Pssshhhhh—
Calsira, already teetering on climax, sprayed like a water gun. Juices soaked Jincheon's hand; her legs shook so hard she looked ready to collapse on the spot.
"Ca… Calsi…ra…"
Heliane stretched the arms on that side and caught her.
"Un…nie… hnn…!"
"Hhaaang…!"
Clinging to each other's arms, the two of them somehow managed to follow as Jincheon, still buried in both holes, steered them toward the bedroom.