Chapter 324: Chapter 324 – Akane Got Cornered

A sudden, wet, hacking cough shattered the charged silence.

The name—’the Empress’—was a key turning in a lock in Akane’s mind, a lock she hadn’t known existed. It shocked the air from her lungs. Her throat seized, and her jaw clamped down reflexively.

Tianlong’s cockhead jammed hard against the back of her throat as her jaw snapped shut.

“Kkhk—!?” Her teeth scraped over the sensitive ridge of his crown, the pressure sudden and sharp. A strangled, wounded hiss tore from him as the involuntary bite sent a bolt of pain up his spine.

Akane heard the sound but could not truly process it.

“Khwackk… Ukh…!?!” Her gag reflex convulsed, a thick, ugly choking noise bubbling up as her airway closed for a heartbeat. Her chest spasmed. She tried to inhale and drew nothing. Panic slammed into her, hot and blind.

’N-no—h-how could I forget—’

She jerked back, coughing violently. Spit and pre-cum mixed in her mouth as she pulled away, her throat burning.

The head of his cock slipped from her lips with a wet, obscene pop, and she doubled over, one hand braced on the floor, the other clapped over her mouth as another harsh cough tore through her.

She bit down on nothing, the ghost of that hard, forbidden pressure still imprinted on her teeth, on her tongue, on the back of her throat.

’Calm down… H-how did I forget—!?’ Akane scrambled away from him on hands and knees, like someone fleeing a fire only she could see.

Unbeknownst to her, Tianlong could understand her shock and reaction. He himself had forgotten about that woman, which once again affirmed that she was absolute.

“Aahh—” Akane wiped her wrist across her lips, smearing away saliva and the faint, salty taste from her mouth. Her golden eyes were wide with dawning, horrified disbelief. She wasn’t looking at him, but through him, at the phantom the name had conjured.

’The Empress… I forgot her as if—!’

Her breathing grew ragged, each inhale a sharp, panicked gasp that scraped at her lungs as she realized it.

Akane was trapped in a loop, overwhelmed by her emotions towards Tianlong. Combined with that woman’s subconscious mental play, she had forgotten the need to remember the Wyrm Empress at all.

The room felt too small. The air felt too thick. With a jolt, she was on her feet, pacing the plush carpet like a caged animal, her tail flicking in agitated, jerky motions.

“We need to leave. Now,” she said, her voice tight, strangled with a terror that clawed at the edges of her composure.

’…I can’t lose him.’ Akane, looking at him as if he were the center of her world, had her priorities straight and understood how urgent this situation already was.

“Forget the inner circles. Forget this entire place. We need to go, and you need to learn how to seal your power level. I will teach you. Once you’ve mastered it, we can enter the lower realm, but we cannot do anything more here.”

Her frantic words hung in the air. Tianlong blinked, his expression unreadable as he looked past her toward Sabrina—the one from whom he had expected a reaction after hearing the name of this realm.

Sabrina stood a short distance away, watching the scene unfold as if she’d stumbled upon a lunatic asylum.

Yet, given the earlier poisoning attempt, the mention of leaving and sealing power levels made her suspicious eyes widen.

She didn’t have the context, but she recognized the scent of fear.

’She doesn’t know about her own world…’ Tianlong’s gaze returned to Akane, and he let out a slow, deliberate exhale.

“No,” he stated, his voice calm but absolute. “We will go deeper inside.”

“You can’t,” Akane insisted, her voice rising with urgency as she turned back to him, her protest clear on her face, pulse still skittering in her throat.

The taste of him lingered on her tongue in maddening contrast to the fear squeezing her chest.

Before she could list her reasons, a silken voice cut her off. Xiang rose from the floor, moving with a fluid, predatory grace.

She saw the opening, the crack in Akane’s composure, and slid into it perfectly.

Xiang’s eyes flicked briefly to the faint redness at the tip of Tianlong’s cock, then to Akane’s damp lips and shaken posture.

She didn’t understand why the fox-woman had suddenly panicked or why she had pulled away when she had him so perfectly in her mouth—but she understood a power shift when she saw one.

Moving to Tianlong’s side, she wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging him possessively from the side.

She pressed herself against him, deliberately claiming the space Akane had abandoned. She looked at Akane, a sly, triumphant smile playing on her lips.

“Let’s do what our husband says.”

The word “husband,” paired with the gesture, was a deliberate claim, a clear signal of allegiance. The statement shocked Akane, whose furious glare snapped from Xiang to Sylvea.

She had expected the elf, the fearful woman, to follow her lead.

But Sylvea wouldn’t meet her eyes.

Zhaoshenya—Sylvea, already knowing who held the real power in this room, rose and moved to stand beside Tianlong.

Her gaze was fixed on the floor, her posture one of quiet submission. Her hands curled lightly at her sides, fingers trembling as she tried to will the heat from her face.

She could still see, in the corner of her mind, Akane gagging around his cock, her throat working, the obscene wet sound of it as she monopolized him, while Sylvea could only watch from the side, holding his balls in her mouth.

She swallowed, throat dry, her own body answering that memory with a slow, shameful throb low in her belly.

’I shouldn’t have watched. I should have looked away. But… I wanted it to be me. I still want it to be me.’

She stood closer to Tianlong than she strictly needed to, close enough to feel the faint warmth radiating from his body.

Her eyes stayed locked on the floor, cheeks coloring as she resolutely refused to look at him—or at the still-slick length she knew she’d see if she glanced down.

’T-this bitch—!!!’ Akane realized that Sylvea was in the middle phase of losing her mind, going through the same symptoms she herself had—cock addiction. She still suffered from it, though she was slowly recovering, but unlike Sylvea, she was sane enough to see it.

The message was unmistakable: the pet Akane thought was hers, the one she had dominated and nearly killed twice, had already chosen its new master.

The betrayal infuriated Akane, stirring a maelstrom of emotions inside her. Anger, hurt, disbelief—and beneath it all, a cold, gnawing fear that everything she’d built around Tianlong was beginning to slip from her fingers.

But looking at Tianlong’s unyielding expression, she felt her internal protest waver.

It was a protest born more of profound worry and a desperate, anxious need to protect him than simple defiance, and against his calm certainty, it found no purchase.

“Why are you afraid of someone else when you are with me?” Tianlong reached out, his hand closing around her arm, and gently pulled her toward him.

Akane stumbled forward, her balance lost, and her body collided softly with the hard wall of his chest. The nearness punched the air from her lungs in a different way this time.

She could smell him—warm skin, faint spice, and the lingering, intimate scent that reminded her where her mouth had just been.

He placed his other hand on her head, his fingers sinking into her silvery hair, softly ruffling it.

Her fox ears, which had been rigid with alarm, twitched and then flattened against her skull, an instinctive, affectionate response to his touch she couldn’t suppress.

’N-no… don’t do this… do not make me feel—’

“We are heading to the inner circle,” he said, his voice a low, soothing rumble against her ear. “And you are not going anywhere away from me, my wife. Understand?”

Hearing his words, Akane wanted to fight. She wanted to scream. Her hand lifted, her fingers curling as if to push him away, to argue her case, to force him to listen.

But the warmth of his body, the possessive weight of his hand in her hair, and the unshakable command in his voice broke through her panic. His certainty settled over her fear like a heavy cloak, suffocating but stabilizing.

Instead of pushing, she hugged him. Her arms wrapped tightly around his torso, her fingers hooking desperately into the fabric of his robes.

It was the silent, total surrender of a woman who could not, and would not, fight the pull of her loyalty and her love.

And there, Akane’s last defense shattered…

’If you insist… then I’ll walk there with you.’

He allowed the embrace for a long moment before taking a step back. He straightened his coat, adjusting his robes with a sense of finality before turning toward the opulent, velvet-draped wall.

“Let’s go,” he said.

The group moved as one, following him toward the wall. As they approached, the solid surface began to shimmer, rippling like liquid mercury.

Black butterflies, born from shadow and will, materialized in the air around them, fluttering in a silent, ethereal swarm as a dark, hollow portal tore open in reality before them.

Xiang moved first, her steps quick and decisive.

She reached out and grabbed Sabrina’s hand.

’!’

Sabrina’s eyes twitched with irritation, and she tried to yank her arm back. “What the hell are you—”

“I need the coordinates from your mind,” Xiang interrupted, her voice smooth as silk, her grip like steel.

“What the hell?” Sabrina yelled, truly outraged now. “Are you trying to read my mind?”

But it was too late. The portal’s pull was irresistible.

Xiang just laughed, a low, musical sound, as she pulled the now-furious Sabrina along with her, clearly amused by her spluttering outrage.

Akane and Sylvea flanked Tianlong on either side, their earlier conflict forgotten in the face of his authority, as all of them stepped through the portal.

Sylvea kept her eyes down as they crossed the threshold, lashes trembling. ’Later. Think about it later. For now… just stay close to him.’

Behind them, the pleasure room warped, its lush velvets and silks twisting and folding in on themselves, swallowed by the void as they all vanished into the fifth inner circle, toward the Tiger clan territories.

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