Chapter 2: Awaiting Punishment

At the end of the hall, a giant steel door groaned open, revealing a domed office bathed in cold sapphire light. Marble tile, steel desk, walls covered in runes, chains, and one very tired-looking teapot still steaming on a tray.

And there he was. Yolmear.

The Sectional Warden stood behind his desk like he’d been sculpted from salt and misery. Bald, rail-thin, with a single thick scar slashing across his face like a crack in old porcelain. His pale blue eyes looked damp, as if always on the edge of tears — or violence. His lips twitched as I entered.

We stared at each other.

And we kept staring.

Long enough for it to be awkward. Long enough for the guards to shuffle uncomfortably. Long enough for me to pluck at the waistband of my pathetic linen shorts and let one hand drift down to scratch my ass just to see if I could break the silence.

I did.

“You smell different today,” I said lightly. “Is that—burnt ego?”

He twitched. Then erupted.

The desk slammed with both fists, rattling the teacups. A paperweight shattered on the floor like glass bones. His face went red and then whiter than bone. When he finally spoke, it was less a voice than a serrated hiss of air torn through clenched teeth.

“Two. Minutes.”

I blinked. “Hm?”

“TWO. FUCKING. MINUTES. I left you alone in Special Holding and already you’ve incited multiple complaints, two injured guards, and an arousal rate spike across my entire wing!”

My grin widened. “Wait, you’re tracking arousal now? What a perv.”

“I am tired of your insolence, creature. I am tired of the reports, the mess, the stench of lust everywhere you go. You are a parasite. A walking infection. I should have let the Butchers pick you apart the moment you dropped into my sector!”

I pretended to pick at something under my nail. “Mmm. But you didn’t. Why? Afraid you’d miss me?”

That was when the tea arrived. A slim, silent attendant entered the room with perfect posture and a silver tray. He placed another cup gently on the desk—

And Yolmear slapped it off.

Porcelain exploded like white sparks as steam began rising from the ground. The attendant didnt even flinch.

I raised an eyebrow. “Drama queen.”

He exhaled sharply, nostrils flaring. His voice, when it returned, was smoother. More dangerous.

“You are being transferred. Effective immediately. Maximum Isolation. Sectional Basegate Display Cell. You will remain there until punishment is decided.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Then opened it again to let out a dramatic sigh.

“Oh no. Naked again. Whatever shall I do?”

He didn’t respond.

I was dragged back out by the guards, one on each arm, my collar burning faintly with the Warden’s command rune. The hall lights grew dimmer. We descended, past the blood-bricked corridors, into a space that sang with wrongness. I heard moans echoing through the stone like ghosts reliving their last regret. The scent of sweat, iron, and sex saturated the air like an opium fog. I could feel my heartbeat syncing with the pulse of the prison itself.

We arrived at a massive iron gate — or rather, the iron gate. The one everyone talked about but few had seen from the upper floors. Black steel bars twenty feet high, opened in the middle like fangs. A platform ran around the perimeter of the pit, like a stage for the worst kind of performance.

I was stripped without ceremony. Not that I had much on — a loose fitting loincloth, threadbare shorts, and a small belt. All of it dropped to the floor. Cold air kissed every inch of my body.

Naked, collared, displayed.

The cell was cylindrical. A cage, really. Positioned right at the center of the chamber, on full view for all surrounding walkways above. No shadows. No corners. Just bars and eyes.

They threw me in. The gate clanged shut. My collar clicked with new magic — I could feel the isolation rune settle in, cutting off any active enchantments. My succubus nature recoiled from the restriction.

But then, it began.

Eyes. Watching. Dozens. Hundreds. Prisoners pressed up to the railing, guards too, overseers on their observation towers.

And me, at the center, naked and grinning.

I raised both arms, flexed my nonexistent muscles, and struck a ridiculous pose.

“Welcome to the show, boys. Try not to jerk off all at once.”

I didn’t mind the attention. In fact, I fed on it.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

They stared. They hungered. Some moaned. Some…more than moaned.

I was a succubus — well, half, technically. My kind weren’t meant to exist in the Underground, where bloodlines were monitored and “corruptive traits” banned. We were classified as anomalous contaminants. Just another reason they tossed me in here and locked the door.

But they didn’t know my secret: I could steal attributes through pleasure. One taste, one moan, one moment of contact — and I could siphon a fragment of who you were. Not much, not yet. But enough.

Enough to climb.

Because Prismillya wasn’t just a city — it’s a game. A glimmering, gold-dipped hell built in layers like a decadent cake rotting from the inside. On the surface, it’s pearls and poetry. Marble balconies, perfumed nobles, fountains that cry silver. The elites pretend their hands are clean while their tongues drip sin. But beneath it, deeper than any dungeon’s bottom, is the real city. The city of holes. The Undernet.

A system built in five massive layers, each one hosting its own rank of slaves.

At the bottom, where I started, we’re Guttermeat. Barely better than fertilizer. Used for punishment, intimidation, sadism. No rights. Minimal bedding. Collars that burn if we even so much as looked at a noble.

Above that? Drudgewhores, broken but obedient, trained for the nastiest nobles who like their pets compliant and dumb. Above them, Silkbacks — prettier, cleaner, used in courtships and noble dramas, often trained in etiquette and poison. Then came the Velvets, who serve openly in the city under contracts, walking property in silken collars. High class. Coveted. But still owned.

And then… the Glasswicks.

They’re rare. Elusive. Treated like art pieces more than people. Each one is a symbol — a gift from the city’s shadow rulers to their most loyal nobles. They don’t work. They exist. They sit in gold cages in marble foyers, chained in place, dressed in translucent robes and precious metals, used only for display or ceremonial pleasure.

At the top is the dream: High Servants.

They live on the surface. Paid. Named. Given homes. Technically slaves, yes, but powerful ones. They own other slaves. They’re whispered about like ghosts of success — and they can buy their freedom. Rare, of course. But it happens. Maybe once a decade.

I snapped back from my trace and settled into my new cell.

It started slow. A guard would pass by the bars, half-drunk and bored, see me sprawled on the floor like a cat and lose his resolve. One reached through the bars to grope me, and I laughed in his face. He came in his pants without even touching me properly. I took a sliver of his stamina.

Another time, a hulking inmate known for snapping wrists pulled in close to jerk off while whispering filthy secrets in my ear. I let him touch my thigh. He screamed before he released his fat, sticky load all over my belly. I took a fragment of his strength.

My favorites were the fallen nobles — addicted to shame. They came down here wrapped in stolen cloaks and broken titles, looking for pain, humiliation, and a pretty face that wouldn’t judge them.

I judged them anyway. With a smile.

They’d stand outside the bars, panting through velvet masks, their trembling hands already slick with expensive oils. Whispering confessions, craving degradation. One touch, one glance from me — and they’d unravel like ribbon.

And when the moment broke — oh, they came.

Hard.

Loud and shaking like their birthright had been yanked from between their legs. Most of the time I tilted my head back, and let it land on my face in massive, lapping waves of heat, allowing the musky smell of their semen to hang in the air just long enough to make them crumble.

Some nights, I let them stroke themselves while I whispered dirty nothings.

Others, I offered a single stroke in return — a hand on the bars, a breath, a lick across my lips. Sometimes, I gave more. Always in exchange.

Always with a purpose.

I could feel my power building. Slowly. A little more endurance. A little less ache in my bones. I felt stronger than when I first arrived — but not enough to break free. Not yet.

Not with the Gutterbrand still locked around my throat.

I’d learned about it from a cursed inmate — a twisted thing with eyes that leaked tar and a voice like dry leaves. He told me about the sigil burned into my collar. “If you go above your floor without permission, it burns through your spine,” he rasped. “I’ve seen a man burst like boiled meat.”

Lovely.

I needed a way to break it. Or override it. Or someone who could.

And that’s when I heard whispers, rumors between broken moans.

Old tunnels from past uprisings buried somewhere beneath the prison. Sealed, not destroyed. Half-lost maps. Secret doors. A path, perhaps, to freedom — or at least, to the Velvet Chambers, where the prettier slaves with better ranks, The Drudgewhores, resided.

But plans required patience. And power.

And first…I had to survive whatever “punishment” Yolmear had in store.

I was mid-daydream, lounging on the cold stone like a martyr of lust, when I heard the bolts unfastening.

The gate creaked.

A shadow loomed.

He ducked under the frame to enter, and even then, he barely fit. A mountain of a man. Bigger than Brutus. Bulk like carved obsidian, wrapped in ragged linen. He had pale skin and a dark brown sack covering his head, with holes for breath and two red glows where his eyes should have been.

But the most unnerving thing of all? Sprouting right through the holes in the top of that wrinkled mask of his were two tall, black wolf ears, rigid and twitching with every sound, every breath. They looked almost too alive for the dead weight he carried.

Shackles hung from his wrists like toys. He smelled like sweat, blood, and smoke.

A beast folk, and by the looks of it, one at the top of the food chain.

I sat up slowly.

Well.

This was going to be interesting.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep