Two years had vanished inside the Crystal Dome.
Three weeks ago, Yù Méi, Mò Yán, and Bái Wǎn had already crossed the Weaving of the Tides. Yù Qíng, however, was still struggling against her own ocean. Her receptacle was simply too large. She absorbed more Qi than her sisters, but it took her much longer to condense it.
The room smelled of sex. A sweet, dense, and humid scent that permeated the air.
Zhì Yuǎn was reclined against the headboard of the large bed of white spiritual marble. Yù Qíng rode him, her forearms resting on her husband's broad shoulders. Her hips rose and fell in a heavy, wet rhythm, the obscene sound of flesh meeting flesh echoing low through the room.
Ploc… ploc… ploc…
Scattered along the sides of the bed, the other three watched in silence. Their breathing was no longer as controlled. Their eyes followed every movement of the eldest, the way Zhì Yuǎn's cock disappeared and reappeared between her thighs, glistening with fluids.
Yù Qíng trembled. Her fingers gripped the man's shoulders tightly. The fourteenth consecutive orgasm approached, and she could no longer hold back.
"My heaven… ahn… I can't take it anymore…" she whimpered against his neck, her voice hoarse and choked. "The ocean is at its limit… I'm going to break… cum already… fill me…"
Zhì Yuǎn raised his left hand and firmly held the nape of her neck. His fingers tangled in Yù Qíng's damp black hair, pulling her head back just enough for her to look at him. At the same time, his right hand descended and gripped her hip with force, pinning her against his body and preventing her from descending.
He no longer let her move.
Yù Qíng gasped, eyes half-lidded, her entire body trembling while held in place.
Zhì Yuǎn leaned his lips to her ear and spoke low, his voice rough and heavy:
"Then endure while I fill your womb, my goddess."
He drove his hips upward in a deep, hard thrust. Yù Qíng let out a strangled moan. In the next second, Zhì Yuǎn came.
His seed gushed out hot and thick, flooding deep inside her without stopping. Yù Qíng shook violently. The impact of the hot seed against the limit of her Dantian was the final push. The ocean of Qi within her collapsed.
The Inner Star was born.
Not a star. A black sun. Dense. Heavy. Immense.
The pressure that followed was brutal. The weight of that black sun expanded violently, threatening to crack the marble of the bed and shatter the entire room. But nothing moved. Zhì Yuǎn maintained absolute control over the environment, holding his wife's gravity with his own strength while continuing to cum inside her.
Yù Qíng screamed.
Her body arched backward, eyes rolling back as the orgasm of advancement mixed with the obscene pleasure of being filled to overflowing. Her inner walls clenched and sucked his cock forcefully, milking every spurt as if she did not want to waste a single drop.
"Haaah…! My heaven… it's so hot… it's filling me so much…!" she moaned without control, nails digging into his shoulders.
Zhì Yuǎn continued holding the nape of Yù Qíng's neck with one hand and her hip with the other. He tilted his head and slowly licked her damp neck, nibbling the skin just below her ear while watching the other three wives.
His dark eyes analyzed the Inner Stars of Yù Méi, Mò Yán, and Bái Wǎn. The three already-formed stars trembled in a subtle vibration, synchronized with the Black Sun still stabilizing inside Yù Qíng. It was not a connection made by Laws. It was something more primitive, something he still did not fully understand.
Even while mentally dissecting that strange resonance, Zhì Yuǎn felt Yù Qíng's body milking him. Her inner walls clenched and pulled at his flesh in slow, involuntary spasms, as if she still did not want to let him go.
He did not interrupt what he was doing. He simply continued licking and nibbling his wife's neck while enjoying the low, constant pleasure of being sucked by her.
The heat generated by the birth of the Black Sun in Yù Qíng's womb finally began to subside.
After a few minutes, Zhì Yuǎn pulled out of his wife and sat on the edge of the bed. His eyes swept over the four women around him. Their Inner Stars pulsed, dense and already stabilized.
"Your foundation is ready," he said, his rustic voice cutting through the heavy air of the room.
He extended his hand and pulled Yù Méi by the wrist.
The youngest fell to her knees between his legs. Zhì Yuǎn held her face with one hand and kissed her. His tongue invaded the warrior's mouth without warning. At the same instant, he poured directly into her mind his own comprehension of the Law of Rupture, along with the Laws of Space and Illusion for disguise, plus another three dozen minor Laws.
Yù Méi's body stiffened. Blood burst from her gums, hot and absurdly sweet. The taste exploded on Zhì Yuǎn's tongue like a drug. He felt the Hunger in his own Dantian roar, famished, but forced himself to pull his face back before he lost control. Yù Méi fell seated on her heels, holding her head with both hands, gasping and dizzy.
Mò Yán was next.
The diplomat crawled to him and offered her mouth without hesitation. Zhì Yuǎn kissed her harder, gripping her throat with one hand while injecting the Law of Mandate and another forty elemental rules. Her sweet blood ran between their teeth. Mò Yán moaned muffled, thighs trembling, until he released her. She collapsed sideways onto the marble, coughing and holding her head.
Bái Wǎn approached in silence. She pressed her mouth to his calmly. The kiss lasted longer. Her academic mind absorbed more than two hundred Laws in Elemental State with frightening fluidity. Only when blood began to trickle from her nose and mouth did Zhì Yuǎn pull back. Bái Wǎn sighed heavily, resting her forehead against his knee while her skull throbbed.
Finally, Yù Qíng.
The priestess did not wait to be called. She rose from the bed and mounted directly onto his lap. Her sweaty body pressed against Zhì Yuǎn's chest. She held her husband's face with both cold hands and crushed her lips against his mouth.
Zhì Yuǎn began the transfer.
He passed the Law of Devotion. He passed the rules of Space and Illusion. And he continued pouring dozens of elemental Laws into her mind without stopping. Yù Qíng lasted longer than her sisters. Blood only began to seep from her gums after nearly a minute. The taste that invaded Zhì Yuǎn's mouth was the densest and most addictive of all — the pure essence of his main altar.
He tried to pull back when he felt he was reaching her limit.
Yù Qíng did not allow it.
She smiled against his mouth, bleeding, and pushed her tongue inside, rubbing the delicacy directly against his tongue. Zhì Yuǎn's control broke for a second. He growled low, grabbed the nape of her neck with force, and began sucking the blood from his wife's mouth while continuing to shove more knowledge into her mind.
Yù Qíng moaned against his lips, a low and sickening sound of pleasure. A thin trickle of dark blood ran from her left ear. Two red tears ran from the corners of her eyes. Even so, she did not pull back. She continued kissing him, forcing more contact, as if she wanted him to suck her dry.
Only when her body truly began to go limp and her breathing failed did Zhì Yuǎn regain his reason. He held her wrists and firmly pushed her away, breaking the kiss.
Yù Qíng gasped. Her face was dirty with blood coming from her mouth, eyes, and ear. Her mind was shattered by hundreds of Laws, but her lips curved into a trembling and manic smile.
She pressed her bloodied forehead against his. Her voice came out hoarse, low, and fanatical:
"Suck me dry, my heaven. Everything you have… I absorb. I store all your laws in my ocean… my god."
The euphoria ended the next second. Her mind could no longer handle it. Yù Qíng collapsed limply against his chest, trembling with fever. At the edges of the mattress, Yù Méi, Mò Yán, and Bái Wǎn were already unconscious, faces with small bloodstains and short breathing. Zhì Yuǎn pulled the sheet over the four and waited in silence.
------
The headaches lasted almost three weeks.
When the minds of the four women finally finished processing the ocean of information Zhì Yuǎn had injected, the routine inside the Crystal Dome changed.
In the morning, sunlight struck the white slabs of the inner courtyard. Zhì Yuǎn was reclined in a wooden armchair under the shade of a tree. Bái Wǎn slept deeply on his lap, her chubby cheek pressed against her husband's broad chest, a thread of drool running from the corner of her mouth and staining his gray tunic.
A few steps away, Mò Yán watched attentively while Yù Qíng projected threads of light in the air using the Law of Illusion, teaching her to sew without a needle. On the other side of the courtyard, Yù Méi was lying on her back in midair beside a stone. Instead of getting up, she simply raised her hand. The air bent around the fruit basket and an apple simply appeared in the warrior's palm. She took a noisy bite without even opening her eyes.
Zhì Yuǎn observed the apple flying on its own.
"The soul cultivation I passed to you serves to sustain this," he said, his voice calm. "Your soul is the cup. The comprehension of the Law is the water. I only injected the elemental state of each rule. If I had passed something denser, your minds would have fried."
He pointed his chin at the apple in Yù Méi's hand.
"You don't need the specific energy of each element. The Primordial Qi we forge in bed works as a universal key. With it and the basic comprehension you received, you can manipulate almost any Law in a crude way. When the cup of your souls grows, I'll pass more."
Yù Qíng, who had just undone the illusion threads, smiled faintly.
"We have time for that, my love."
Zhì Yuǎn did not respond. The relaxation in his shoulders disappeared. He looked at the clear sky above the courtyard, observing the dozens of threads stretching straight upward.
"We've stayed here long enough."
The light atmosphere of the courtyard died instantly. Yù Méi stopped chewing. Mò Yán straightened her spine. Even Yù Qíng stopped what she was doing.
"I can no longer locate them," he continued, his voice deeper. "The Karma threads go up and disappear after a few million kilometers."
He looked at the four wives.
"The coordinates are not fixed, and the longer we stay here, the more imprecise they will become. The villainous heavens will not stay still while we try to break down the door to their house."
The silence that fell over the courtyard was heavy.
Yù Méi furrowed her brow and sat in the air, still holding the half-eaten apple.
"Why the hurry, my heaven?" she asked, taking another bite. "If the coordinates disappeared, we can capture one or two more old men later. Throw one into the sky and use it as a compass. Why ascend blindly now?"
It was then that Bái Wǎn stirred, rubbing her sleepy face against his tunic.
The movement was small, but Zhì Yuǎn stiffened completely. In a sudden and almost rude gesture, he grabbed the girl by the shoulders and pushed her away from his body, placing her on the seat beside him. He stood up from the armchair in a quick motion.
The silence that fell was different.
Yù Méi's eyes widened. Bái Wǎn blinked, confused, still half-asleep. Mò Yán furrowed her brow.
Yù Qíng observed the sweat on her husband's temple. Her smile disappeared.
She stood up, took a linen towel from the table, and walked to Zhì Yuǎn. She stopped in front of him and dried the drop of sweat without saying anything. Then she turned her face toward the other three.
"He's not in a rush, Méi," she said, her voice low. "Our husband is running from himself."
Yù Méi sat on the bench, still holding the apple.
"What are you talking about?"
Yù Qíng looked at Zhì Yuǎn for a second before answering.
"It seems that ever since he tasted our blood, his Hunger has become… unbearable. It's no longer just our Yin Qi he wants. Now he sees us as delicacies to be devoured whole."
The silence grew heavier. Bái Wǎn finally seemed to wake up for real, processing the reason he had pushed her away so forcefully.
Yù Qíng continued, lower:
"There are times when I wake up and he's sweating on the edge of the bed, trembling. He's almost lost control several times in the last few weeks. That's why he stopped touching you properly. He only comes to me. Because he knows I can handle it."
She looked at her sisters. A sick smile, which did not match her words, appeared on her lips.
"He's draining my vitality faster than I can replenish it with Primordial Qi."
Zhì Yuǎn turned his face, refusing to look at the three. His fists were clenched tightly.
Yù Qíng stepped closer and touched his chest.
"If he stays here any longer, the Hunger will take over. He knows that. That's why he wants to ascend soon."
Zhì Yuǎn closed his eyes for a moment.
He knew that if he said it outright, it would only feed their madness. They would willingly offer themselves to be devoured, just as Yù Qíng had done.
The courtyard fell silent.
Yù Qíng simply pressed her forehead against his shoulder.
From the side, Bái Wǎn slowly stood up from the armchair. Still with her face marked by sleep, she walked to Zhì Yuǎn and wrapped her thin arms around his waist, pressing her face against his chest, right where the Hunger pulsed.
"Don't worry, my god," she said, her voice soft and certain. "Nothing can separate us from you."
Zhì Yuǎn did not reply. He simply passed his large hand slowly down her back. The panic in his eyes slowly gave way to something more tired, almost resigned.