Chapter 511: His Laugh **
"Father Isaiah was clear about one thing," Oathran said, his voice steady now. "The spell... or the Key... had always required a sacrifice."
There was no running away from the sacrifice.
Cecilia nodded.
The other rifts’ Keys, the normal ones, if any part of this could be called normal, didn’t need to be passed down through future generations. They were one-time transactions. A life for a door, a soul for a seal.
In Ierofey’s original world, the Key to the other ordinary rifts only needed to be embedded into the sacrifice once the rifts were ready to be closed. And the volunteer would certainly die.
The order for the normal Key went like this.
First, clear up all the monsters and find the rift core, but don’t destroy it. Then, infect the rift core with the spell, which worked like a virus to the core’s circuits, draining its energy to power the spell, rewriting its purpose, turning it into a mechanism of containment.
And then, you chose the sacrifice. The Key that had been created from the spell infecting the rift core was embedded into someone’s soul, and that person must die to seal the connection between the two worlds.
"But because Ierofey had to bring it outside of their world to seal the twin doors, there were extra measures he had to take," Oathran clarified.
The twin doors were an anomaly, twin extremely identical rifts instead of a singular one.
No matter what anyone did, no one could close them from Ierofey’s original world’s side. They couldn’t even find the rift core in the first place.
They started to suspect that the Voidcrawlers had started forming camps on the other side, with the core bearer ready to attack that different world.
So, they were sure they could only be sealed from the other side, which was the world Cecilia and Oathran called home.
Not to mention they were also sure that even with their rift core infected with the spell, becoming stabilized, permanent doors that wouldn’t change location, timeline, or parameter... it would still be hard to close both rifts from the other side at the same time.
Ierofey was the strongest of them. And the rest were still fighting for their life here. That, or at least, prevent more of those monsters escaping the rift into the other world.
Ierofey had to go alone.
"So they reversed the order of the embedding," Oathran said.
They embedded the spell itself into Ierofey’s soul first. Not the core, but the spell.
They made him the carrier before he ever touched the rift, and for extra measure, in case Ierofey failed to close the rifts from the other side at the same time, or died before completing his mission, they also extended the spell to his next generations.
His children. His children’s children. An unbroken chain of backup plans stretching into eternity.
Then they sent him out.
Ierofey was required to find the rift core and swallow it, infecting it with the spell already woven into his soul. Once infected, the spell and the core became the Key.
The next step was to clean up the rifts from Voidcrawlers, collapsing both doors at the same time.
And finally, the last step, die.
That would be the end.
Thanks to the order of the procedure and the nature of the spell itself, his Key was more permanent, more attached to his soul, than the usual Key.
"Then... why did the generations of Dragon Lords... pass down such an incomplete story like that?" Cecilia asked.
Oathran shook his head. "I don’t know."
Perhaps Ierofey didn’t want to tell his offspring that his people had created such a cruel spell from the start.
Perhaps he wanted to tell them that it was only cruel because of circumstance. That their particular sacrifice was necessary, not designed.
Ierofey was the last of that world’s survivors. His world had been sealed forever, from any and every other world, except for theirs, every hundred years.
Perhaps he wanted the last tale of his kind to be more heroic... than sacrificial. More epic... than tragic.
"Was that... the only thing Isaiah told you?" Cecilia asked.
The man smiled. "No." He laughed a bit, seeing Cecilia’s hope slowly disappearing in her eyes, then quickly rushing back. "He actually told me there might be a chance."
"For...?" Cecilia’s hope grew again.
"For... hmm." Oathran grasped his chest, right over his heart, where the Key had been embedded to his bloodline long before he was born. "You know, to loosen it away from my soul."
Cecilia’s eyes widened.
Thousands upon thousands of years had passed. After so many Dragon Lord generations, and so many souls carrying the spell and passing it down, perhaps the Key wasn’t as ’sticky’ as it once was.
The spell might have weakened its grip on the bloodline. It was a reasonable hypothesis, yes, but also... just a speculation.
Isaiah didn’t know for sure.
Oathran chuckled. "He also said that he was sorry that his humble answer might never be able to satisfy us."
Cecilia frowned, a bit sad. "He... said that?"
Oathran nodded. "Father... I didn’t know a being that strong, that vast, is also such a gentle and indulgent being."
Like Momo and Bunny, huh?
Strange.
Gods in textbooks and holy scriptures were never depicted as such. They were distant, capricious, demanding. They smote and judged and required worship.
But whether those recorded gods were the same gods Cecilia had met, or the ones the System mentioned, she didn’t know.
People made up gods all the time. Deities who were beyond stronger than normal people, yet sometimes behaved worse than monsters in stories.
The three gods she had met so far were flawed. But in the best way possible.
"Isaiah decided to tell me all this because the spell was made by a mortal. Perhaps there were undeveloped or unknown methods to separate it from my soul. Or perhaps I do indeed need to die." Oathran paused, his grey eyes glinting. "But not ’die’ die."
"A loophole." Cecilia nodded slowly. "But it sounds dangerous. I don’t want to risk everything for an uncertain loophole in the rule."
"I know." Oathran took her hand, his thumb brushing over her knuckles. "But it’s different now."
Cecilia blinked at him. What was different?
Seeing her confusion, Oathran exasperatedly hugged her and kissed the top of her head. "Later. After you give birth... after we return to our own world. I’ll tell you, alright?"
She started narrowing her eyes. "Oathran," she said in a low, dangerous tone. "That’s a death flag."
"BWAHAHAHAHAH!" Oathran burst out laughing—
Ah... she... missed this laugh.
"Isaiah said that with you here, there will be a method. That divine power you possess, the one gifted by the gods, that allows you to bond with the three of us..." He leaned in, his breath warm against her ear, his voice dropping to a whisper. "...might have a creative solution..."
Cecilia’s face became hotter and hotter. This... this felt like her Oathran again. He had returned.
The teasing.
But. "T-this is... this is a temporary medic tent..." she whispered, her voice strangled. "Stop touching a pregnant lady inappropriately..."
"Hmm." He glared down at her, his grey eyes dark with mischief. "I’m just examining. My girlfriend’s breasts feel fuller than weeks ag—"
SLAP!
"YOUR MAJESTY!"
"Ow."
The medical tent was ordinary in every way that mattered. White canvas walls, a small table with a basin of clean water and a stack of folded towels. A single chargeable electric lantern hung from the center pole.
The air smelled of antiseptic, giving them the authentic sensation of being inside the kind of tent where hunters were patched up after rift closures.
But tonight, or perhaps in the next couple hours, courtesy of Damon Iondora, it was theirs alone.
The Association Director had cleared the surrounding area, ushering the medical staff toward other duties and other patients.
Everyone had complied without question.
They had seen the vortex collapse, with the blue light and the glittering snow. Even most of the people saw the white dragon falling from the sky.
They had earned their privacy. No one asked questions and no one disturbed them.
Outside, the muted sounds of the de-evacuation filtered through the canvas.
Most of the people still moving through the medical area were the walking wounded, civilians who had been trampled in the rush to the shelters, hunters who had taken minor injuries during the containment efforts, or elders who had collapsed from exhaustion and were now being helped to their feet by volunteers.
The city was battered but alive.
Meanwhile, inside the tent, Oathran was kissing her.
His mouth was hot and urgent against hers, his hands cradling her face gently, belying the hunger in his touch. He had been holding back for so long. Weeks of absence, months of fear, a lifetime of believing he was cursed and unworthy...
His tongue swept into her mouth, and Cecilia gasped against his lips.
She felt it change, how the familiar human shape of it lengthened and fork, the two tips curling upward like the twin flames of a dragon’s fire.
It was a transformation she had felt before, but it never failed to make her dizzy.
The forked tongue stroked the roof of her mouth, tracing the sensitive ridges there, and her vision swam. She clutched at his shoulders, her fingers digging into him, and let herself drown in the sensation.
Oathran’s hand, true to his previous comments, began to grasp her breasts. It started gently. A soft squeeze, his palm cupping the weight of her through the fabric of her clothes.
But his touch grew bolder with each passing breath, his fingers kneading the tender flesh idly, yet possessively. His confidence too, was slowly building up.
Cecilia noticed, not for the first time, that both Oathran and Arkai gravitated strongly toward her breasts.
She didn’t know what was special about them.
She had seen better-shaped pairs out there. Bigger pairs, sexier pairs, pairs that hadn’t been swollen by pregnancy, still perky and not stretched by the approaching demands of motherhood.
But her men still seemed helplessly fascinated.
Arkai liked to rub his cock on her nipples, the friction making them both shudder. Oathran loved massaging them idly, even when he wasn’t turned on. Though it never took long before he was.
Eastiel, meanwhile, liked to put them in his mouth, claiming seriously that it was "great training for tongue stuff down there." At least he seemed to be the least interested about her breasts among her men. But not by a wide margin.
Oathran’s fingers found her peaks, teasing them in turn with slow, idle circles. His touch was lazy, almost contemplative, as though he had all the time in the world and intended to use every second of it.
But Cecilia could see the two junior dragons downstairs waking up in tandem, the growing tents in his trousers that betrayed the effect his own ministrations were having on him.
His breath was coming faster now. His forked tongue had retreated from her mouth, but his lips had found her throat instead, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses down the column of her neck.
The hand not occupied with her breasts had found her hip, his thumb tracing slow circles against the curve of her belly.
Cecilia lost all patience. The teasing, the idle fondling, the slow way he was reacquainting himself with her body, it was all too much and not nearly enough.
She pulled down her pants with one swift, impatient motion and swung her leg over his hips, climbing on top of him before he could protest. Oathran’s breath hitched, his hands flying to her waist on instinct. "Saintess..."
"I’ve been training this pelvic floor exercise lately, Your Majesty." She murmured sultrily, her lips brushing against the shell of his ear. "Let me demonstrate to you, alright?"
She reached down and pulled his trousers open, freeing William and Richard from their confines. The twin cocks sprang up eagerly, already slick at the tips, already aching for her touch.
Her hand wrapped around them one by one, stroking slowly, contemplatively, as though she were choosing between them, deciding who would be the lucky one to enter her today.
Her thumb traced the ridge of William’s head, then Richard’s. Both twitched in response. Oathran’s breath came in ragged, desperate gasps.
"Tell me if you feel someone approaching, alright...?" She glanced toward the tent flap, her eyes dark with mischief.
"Not scared of getting caught?" Oathran scoffed, though his voice cracked on the last word. "You’ve become bolde—aaaaaaaaaaahhh..."
She chose William.
With a slow, deliberate roll of her hips, she sank down onto him, taking him inch by inch until he was buried to the hilt inside her.
"Mmmm..."
The sensation was exquisite. The stretch, the fullness, the way her body welcomed him home after so long apart.
"Aaaahh... so... big..."
Her head fell back, and a low, satisfied moan escaped her lips.
Then her hips began to move. The belly dancing five-star skill she had acquired long ago took over, her body undulating in slow, sinuous waves that made Oathran’s vision go white at the edges.
She ground down against him, circling her hips, her inner walls clenching and releasing in rhythms that seemed to have been choreographed by the gods themselves.
"Mmm..." She huffed satisfiedly. She reached out with her telekinesis, the power lifting her slightly, allowing her to hover just above him and then sink down again with perfect, controlled precision. "Haa..."
Cecilia rode him masterfully. Oathran’s eyes swam, wondering whether he was a crazy bastard for thinking her pregnant body movements turned him on more than usual.
Her hips rolled and undulated, the belly dancing skill guiding her movements in waves that made Oathran’s claws dig into the cot beneath them.
The telekinetic lift allowed her to control every descent, slow and teasing, then fast and deep, then slow again, keeping him teetering on the edge without letting him fall.
"Saintess—Cecilia—I—"
Oathran’s voice was wrecked, his grey eyes wild and unfocused. His hands had found her hips, but he wasn’t guiding her, he couldn’t. He was just holding on, his fingers dimpling her flesh.
"Shh," she whispered, leaning forward to press her lips to his. "Let me take care of you."
"Is this too big...? Too small...? Want me to change the shape...?" Oathran’s breathing grew more ragged with every word.
"It’s perfect... all nine inches..."
"Really...? You like it this big...?"
"This big, Daddy..."
Oathran glared at her choice of address, blood trickling from his nose. Yes. He was going to be a Daddy. For real. And his silently wrathful expression in the middle of all this, because she had called him the one thing he hated to be called, made her even wetter.
She picked up the pace. Her inner walls clenched around William in rhythmic pulses, the ’pelvic floor exercises’ had clearly paid off, and she felt him swell inside her, the telltale twitch that meant he was close.
Richard, neglected but not forgotten, was trapped between their bodies, rubbing against her belly with every movement. She reached down and wrapped her hand around him, stroking in time with her hips.
It was so... so close...
"Together..." she breathed against his mouth. "Come with me—"
That was all it took.
"Fuck—" Oathran arched beneath her with a strangled cry, "Aaahhh—!"
SPLRT! SPLRT!!!
His release flooded into her in hot, pulsing waves. The sensation pushed Cecilia over the edge a heartbeat later, her climax crashing through her like a wave, her inner walls spasming around him, her telekinesis flickering and failing as her concentration shattered.
She collapsed onto his chest, both of them trembling and gasping.
"Let’s... go home... and continue..."