The air within the Grand Protector's secluded courtyard in the heart of the royal Balfton capital was thick with primal energy, shimmering like liquid gold in the twilight. Here, under the watchful gaze of ancient statues, the might of the Balfon Dynasty was personified not in armies, but in concentrated, terrifying personal cultivation.
The Grand Protector himself, one of the legendary eleven Dao Lord Emperors who anchored the Balfon Dynasty's unshakable rule, sat upon a simple stone platform. His face was etched with lines of wisdom and immense power. Across from him, energy vortexes swirled and coalesced around a cultivating figure—his foremost disciple, Kaelen.
At forty, the man's frame was carved from mountain stone and tempered lightning, broad-shouldered and taut with power that hummed beneath his skin. His jaw was set in a line of unwavering determination, and his eyes, now closed in deep concentration, were said to spark with the fury of a blazing sun when opened. He was a prodigy unseen in a century, a comet blazing across the firmament of cultivation. And today, that comet had reached its zenith. The last wisp of spirit energy solidified around him, resonating with a profound, earth-silencing thrum that shook the very foundations of the courtyard. The aura of a Dao Lord Emperor settled upon him, firm and glorious.
A rare, deep smile touched the Grand Protector's aged lips. "Rise, Kaelen," his voice was the joy praise. "Rise not as my disciple, but as my peer. The dynasty gains its twelfth pillar this day. You have swallowed the essence of heaven and earth and refined it into a dominion of your own. A true Dao Lord Emperor."
Joy, fierce and triumphant, flashed in Kaelen's newly opened eyes. He bowed his head, not in subservience, but in profound respect. "Master, this path was lit by your guidance. I..."
The celebration died unborn.
A scent—faint, metallic, reeking fresh despair—threaded through the celebratory moment. Simultaneously, a faint, bloody luminescence painted the distant sky above the noble district, a subtle stain against the darkening blue. To the senses of ordinary cultivators, it might have been nothing. To the two Dao Lord Emperors, it was a shrieking beacon of violence and violation.
Their gazes snapped toward the source, their divine senses stretching towards that location in an instant. Manor house of the Prime Minister, the administrative heart of the dynasty.
"An attack," the Grand Protector's voice turned to winter ice, all warmth vanishing. "At the Prime Minister Boner's manor. This aura... it is savage, bloodthirsty and pure evil. Demons… they dare?!"
Kaelen was already on his feet, the air around him crackling with barely restrained thunder. His youthful triumph morphed into razor-sharp fury. An assault on a key pillar of the kingdom was an assault on the order they were sworn to protect. The duties of a Protector, now his duties, brooked no delay.
"Master," Kaelen's voice was a low growl, the promise of a coming storm. "The vermin have picked the wrong day to court annihilation."
The Grand Protector gave a single, grim nod. No further words were needed. In a blur of motion that defied space, the old master vanished from his platform. Kaelen followed, not as a shadow, but as a simultaneous bolt of righteous fury. Two sovereigns of the Dao, one ancient and one newly ascended, dashed across the capital path in heavy rain.
——
In the pouring rain that lashed the rooftops of the Balfton capital like the wrath of aggrieved heavens, the Grand Protector and Kaelen leaped from tile to tile, their forms blurring into streaks of sovereign might. The storm howled around them, yet it could not drown the thunderous pulse of their Dao Lord Emperor auras. In mere breaths, they arrived atop the Prime Minister's manor, where the ten Kingdom Protectors—excluding His Majesty the King—had already converged. These unparalleled pillars of the dynasty positioned themselves at strategic corners, their divine senses weaving an inescapable net as they closed in, intent on encircling and annihilating the demonic intruder.
But before they could tighten the noose, a colossal blood-red skull erupted from the western wing of the manor, surging skyward in a torrent of foul, heavens-defiling crimson miasma. It streaked into the distance with velocity that mocked the laws of the world, a harbinger of unspeakable evil vanishing beyond pursuit.
Kaelen, alongside his master and the assembled Protectors, gave chase for several fleeting breaths, their figures tearing through the tempest. Yet they could only watch helplessly as the skull dissolved into the horizon. Faces grim, they exchanged glances—interception had slipped through their grasp.
"Master... what manner of vile sorcery is this?!" Kaelen's voice carried horror, his newly ascended Dao Lord Emperor's aura flickering with unease.
The Grand Protector sighed deeply, shaking his head with ancient weariness. He dispatched two Protectors to survey the manor for casualties and injuries, then led Kaelen and the rest in a swift descent to the western wing. There, amid the deluge, lay the Prime Minister's corpulent son—Boomer—sprawled naked upon the rain-soaked ground, his face streaked with blood, his mind lost in delirious haze.
The Grand Protector stepped forward, pressing several acupoints with precise fingers while channeling protective spiritual energy to stabilize the fat young man's vital meridians. "The demon showed restraint; no killing intent was unleashed. Fortunately, the Prime Minister's heir suffers no mortal wound."
Kaelen ground his teeth in fury, eyes blazing. "Damnable demon! Too craven for open combat, resorting to such despicable assaults on the innocent."
At that moment, the two dispatched Protectors returned, reporting no fatalities throughout the manor. Tension eased like a drawn bow slowly released. A bald-headed Protector grinned broadly, clapping Kaelen on the shoulder. "Congratulations, Kaelen! Stepping into the Dao Lord Emperor realm at last!"
Kaelen managed a shy smile, opening his mouth to respond—
A thick, cloying stench of blood suddenly assaulted their senses. The pounding rain ceased abruptly, as if severed by an invisible blade. The group looked up in shock, only to find the enormous skull hovering directly overhead, its grotesque form blotting out the storm entirely.
Under the flickering torchlight of the manor, dancing wildly in the wind, Kaelen felt chills race through his marrow. The skull resembled the freshly flayed head of some titanic giant, chunks of gore and flesh dripping ceaselessly in rivulets of crimson.
The demon had returned!
The Protectors bristled, assuming battle stances, their auras erupting in righteous fury.
Kaelen could not contain his astonishment. "The demon's actions are bizarre beyond reason. Does he truly possess the power to contend against eleven Dao Lord Emperors?"
The Grand Protector shot him a sharp glance, silencing further words.
From within the skull, a figure leaped down, landing with feather-light grace, silent as falling snow. He approached unhurriedly. Kaelen scrutinized him: a young man, appearing no older than twenty-seven or twenty-eight, with features warm and amiable—yet when he smiled, an insidious evil seeped through.
"Hmph, a mere ninth-layer Dao Lord demonic cultivator," Kaelen sneered inwardly, disdainful of such theatrical villainy.
The intruder paid no heed to the mockery. He halted ten paces from the eleven poised emperors, their killing intent thick enough to coagulate the air.
"Fellow daoist," the Grand Protector intoned slowly, "intruding upon our Balfton capital in the dead of night, employing wicked arts to harm the kingdom's subjects—pray, offer an explanation."
Unseen, the eleven Protectors had already dispersed: some ascending nearby rooftops, others circling to the youth's rear, forming a seamless encirclement for joint subjugation.
The young man remained utterly unconcerned, his smile gentle and disarming. "My apologies. I come merely to deliver a message to your esteemed kingdom. Each Vermithys kingdom is permitted no more than ten Foundation Stage... ah, pardon me—ten Dao Lord Emperor stage cultivators. Hehe. Now, which of the extra ones shall I kindly eliminate on your behalf?"
Kaelen's eyes flashed like lightning, his face twisting in rage. He roared, "On my territory, you dare threaten us? You, a paltry ninth-layer Dao Lord!"
The youth sighed softly, his warm smile unchanging. "I haven't granted you permission to speak yet."
The Protectors stood stunned—a Dao Lord cultivator daring to demand the death of a Dao Lord Emperor before eleven such sovereigns? Absurdity crazy.
Stunned silence gave way to volcanic wrath.
"Ha... haha!" Kaelen laughed in extreme fury. "Arrogant demon! You're digging your own tomb of oblivion!"
No more words. Through prior divine sense transmission, Kaelen, his master, and the others had coordinated perfectly. They struck as one—eleven Dao Lord Emperors assaulting from every angle, their combined might enough to shatter mountains and sunder seas!
The young man's smile endured, unchanging. Abruptly, a long sword materialized in his grasp.
It slid from its sheath with a whisper that silenced the world. Dark, abyssal energy coiled along the blade as he flicked his wrist—once, lazily.
In an instant, the courtyard filled with the shrieking wails of phantom crows, their eyes burning crimson like infernal coals, spectral wings eclipsing all light in a tide of unrelenting shadow.
——
High above in the air. Within the hollow of the colossal crimson skull, a place of opulent ball room unfolded, veiled from the chaotic stormy rain outside. The interior glowed with a soft, crimson light, as though the very bones pulsed with stolen life.
To the east, more than a dozen cultivators at the early phase Foundation Stage—equivalent to the exalted Dao Lord Emperor stage in the eyes of the below lesser worlds—sat in perfect stillness upon cushions of embroidered silk. Their eyes were closed in deep focus, hands cradling identical jade slips. These slips were seemed to be some recording artifacts.
At the heart of this lavish chamber rested a wide, indulgent couch draped in layers of velvet. Upon it reclined a young man whose countenance radiated gentle benevolence, yet there's white at his temples and the ash-gray on his brows. He lounged against a low table carved from golden wood, upon which stood a white-jade flask and two delicate porcelain cups. With leisurely grace he filled one, savoring the fragrant spirit wine.
To the west rose an ornate latticework of rosewood cabinets, their shelves glittering with treasures: luminous jade carvings, porcelain of imperial antiquity, artifacts that would drive sects to war. Yet in one shadowed corner, lay a severed human head. It belonged to Zephyr Zinger, eyes serenely shut as though in dreamless slumber. A faint twitch of the nostrils and the barest rise of breath proved he yet lived—preserved by some unspeakable demonic art.
In one of the giant flying skull's vast eye sockets, perched Sun Elaine. Now modestly robed once more, her sexy frame pressed against the bony rim as she gazed downward in mounting dread. Below, Luca Dawnwick stood alone against eleven Dao Lord Emperors of the Balfton Dynasty. Sword light tore through the night like comets, fist intents shattered the void, and legions of blood-red phantom crows wheeled in frenzied chaos. The Prime Minister's manor crumbled beneath the cataclysm—marble statues toppled, grand halls collapsed into splinters and dust.
Elaine turned away from the spectacle, her delicate features etched with worry. She bowed respectfully toward the lounging figure at the center.
"Boss Enzo," she ventured, voice soft yet trembling, "will Senior Brother Luca be safe? Eleven Foundation Stage cultivators… all of them striking together. Should we not dispatch some of our Foundation Stage seniors to aid him?"
Enzo's lips curved in a smile as warm and disarming as Luca's own, yet infinitely more chilling. "Elaine-chan, have faith. There is no need for concern."
"Luca still needs a bit more real-world tempering," Enzo said gently, his voice carrying the warmth of an elder brother guiding a promising junior. He took a slow sip of the spirit wine, eyes crinkling with quiet confidence.
"Those rogue cultivators down there may hail from a lesser realm, and yes, their foundations are a full stage above his, but they truly don't possess the strength to endanger Luca's life. This is the perfect opportunity for him to grow."
He set the porcelain cup down with a soft clink and smiled kindly toward Elaine.
"Time is precious, after all. In just three months, Luca will step onto the arena of the Grand Outer Sect Tournament, facing countless talented disciples from every major sect. A little practical experience now will steady his heart and sharpen his edge when that day comes."
His tone was encouraging, almost affectionate, as though he were speaking of a cherished younger sibling destined for greatness. "Let him struggle a little today—so he can stand taller tomorrow."
Elaine forced a brittle smile and fell silent, though fear coiled tighter in her chest.
Enzo's gaze lingered upon her, as though he could peer straight through flesh to the terror beneath. He spoke slowly, almost kindly. "You performed admirably this time. We Wraith Bone Studio is always in need of talents such as yours."
He lifted a languid hand, directing her attention eastward toward the silent row of cultivators feeding their essence into the jade slips. "Once these recording films are released to the black market in Vermithys, it will surely shake the cultivation world. A masterpiece. Your share of the Spirit $tones will be most generous."
Elaine lowered her eyes, a shy, practiced smile masking the revulsion that churned within. "Thank you, Boss Enzo."
She had been forcibly joined into the Wraith Bone bloodline. At first she had rejoiced—believing she had found an unbreakable patron, a mountain to lean upon in the cruel world of immortals.
How could she have foreseen that this "kind" Senior Brother Enzo Dawnwick would drag her into the infamous adult division of the Wraith Bone Studio, compelling her to star in depraved recording jades—scenes of proud female cultivators debasing themselves with mere mortals, all for the voyeuristic delight of demonic devotees across the realms?
Her gaze flickered involuntarily toward Zephyr's severed head, a shiver crawling up her spine. Boss Enzo had explained it once, in that same gentle tone: an inner elder of the Wraith Bone lineage had, during a routine harvest of mortal souls, stumbled upon a peculiar one. In rifling through their memories for secrets, the elder had discovered one soul utterly alien—an extra-dimensional transmigrator, a being who had crossed the void from another world entirely. That soul had belonged to Zephyr Zinger. So Wraithbone used that alien but attractive sexual fetish to shot adult video especially for lustful cultivators in the world.
——
The night was silent now, save for the relentless drum of rain upon shattered stone. The phantom crows had vanished as abruptly as they came, their shrieking echoes swallowed by the void. The colossal skull lingered overhead for one final heartbeat—then dissolved into wisps of blood-mist that the storm greedily devoured. The demon was gone.
Kaelen collapsed to his knees amid the ruins of the Prime Minister's courtyard, lungs burning, every breath a ragged sob. Agony lanced through his limbs; both arms hung twisted and useless, bones pulverized to gravel within flesh. His legs had fared no better—shattered femurs grinding with each tremor that wracked his body. He, the newest Dao Lord Emperor, reduced to a broken doll in the mud.
All around him lay the fallen pillars of the Balfton Dynasty.
He crawled on blood-slick elbows toward the nearest crater, a gaping wound in the earth filled with rainwater now tinged faint pink. There floated the body of his master—the Grand Protector—face-down like a common drowning victim claimed by some tranquil lake.
With trembling, mangled hands he rolled the corpse over.
A sound escaped him—half scream, half retch—that no human throat should make.
The face was simply… gone.
Not destroyed. Gone. As though some meticulous butcher had taken a scalpel and excised every feature with deliberate care. Where eyes had once held the calm of starry abysses, only raw, hollow sockets remained, scraped clean to the bone. Nose, lips, cheeks—flayed away in perfect, bloodless circles. Only the ears remained untouched, obscenely intact, as if to ensure the corpse could still hear the rain.
The mouth gaped in a silent, eternal howl. The tongue had been severed at the root and removed; the front rows of teeth punched inward and extracted one by one, leaving jagged, bleeding pits. Lower, the abdomen had been split from sternum to pelvis in a single, savage stroke. Coils of intestine spilled into the crater water like pale, drowned serpents—yet not all. Some lengths were missing entirely, taken, perhaps, as trophies.
Kaelen's gaze drifted, uncomprehending, across the courtyard. Every single Dao Lord Emperor—ten immortal sovereigns who had anchored an empire for centuries—lay in identical desecration. Faces erased. Tongues stolen. Teeth harvested. Guts partially excised. The wounds were not those of battle; they were ritualized cruelties, inflicted long after death to prolong unimaginable torment upon the already slain.
Rainwater mingled with blood and streamed into Kaelen's eyes, but he could not blink it away. His body shook uncontrollably, not from cold, but from a horror that clawed at the roots of his soul.
The demon's parting words drifted back on the wind, soft and warm as a lover's murmur, yet colder than the abyss:
"Leave one alive… so the tally does not exceed ten. Yes, each kingdom on the Vermithys is permitted no more than ten Foundation Stage cultivators… Ah, forgive me—ten Dao Lord Emperor stage cultivators."
A gentle laugh had followed, fading with the blood-mist into the storm.
Kaelen pressed his ruined forehead to the mud, a low, animal keen rising in his throat. The dynasty's twelve pillars had been reduced to one shattered remnant in the space of a few breaths.
——
Hey you!
You made it to the end of Part One! A huge, warm, and slightly mischievous thank you for reading this detour full of NTRS with me. I hope you had as much fun with it as I did!
Just a quick refresher: this spicy little side tale spins off from the main story, "Why is My System Glitching?"—my first dive into the wild world of xianxia! If you're curious about where Sun Elaine first dazzles everyone (Chapter 17 👀) or when the enigmatic Luca Dawnwick struts onto the stage (Chapter 82 😏), you're totally welcome to jump into the main plot. And don't worry—it's absolutely free!
Part Two of this story will pick up after the main plot wraps up the "Grand Outer Sect Tournament" arc. So there's plenty more chaos to come!
I'd love to hear from you! Drop a comment or hop into the Discord. Tell me your wildest fetishes, NTR, NTL, NTRS, Futa, role-playing, Lingerie, Sadism & Masochism, wax play... which character you're secretly (or not-so-secretly) obsessed with, or even which classic novel you'd love me to, ahem, re-spice with a twist. Consider me your friendly neighborhood story tailor—I'll do my best to craft the tale you're itching to read!
https://discord.gg/ByV8Cb8K
Oooh, and a secret teaser!
Okay, let me put on my speculation hat... 500 years later in Vermithys? A whole new, long novel brimming with xianxia clashes, sword battles, and—of course—delicious NTR fun? My mind is racing!
Is the leading character... someone we already know?
Whoever it is, I hope you will read it. The promise of more Vermithys lore, layered with swordplay and spicy netorare, netorase drama.
Until next time, stay curious and a little naughty!
With all my thanks,
YoungPeasant