Chapter 470 – Final Ultimatum
“W-What?” Noir fearfully choked out, frantically looking between her captor and the others.
She did not expect such a swift turn of events.
Asterios’ stony expression didn’t change as he snapped his fingers, the shadows under his control lifting the Dragon girl. Her gaze snapped to them as they brought her to his level and held her limbs extended. She twisted and wriggled as much as she could, but the weird clawed tendrils continued to sap at her draconic powers.
Her eyes widened to the brim as she saw his right arm transform up to his elbow.
“D-Did you not hear what I said?” The raven-haired woman tried to grin defiantly, but it had no effect. “If you kill me you will really be dead, do you not understand?”
His claws unhurriedly moved closer, starting to hover in front of her chest. She subconsciously pushed herself backward as much as her restraints allowed, her thin pupils locking on his hand in bewilderment, shaking slightly.
“You are bluffing… Aura Domination is one thing, but you can’t seriously think you are able to…” Noir shook her head, more to herself than anyone else.
It stopped the moment a soft coating of darkness covered his palm, wafting in sinister smoke from his black scales. She paled so much that it contrasted with her own scales, hair, and attire.
“You can’t do this!” the female cried out in desperation. “My mother will chase you to the ends of this universe and beyond! You’ll paint a target on your back and on everyone you’ve ever interacted with forever!”
Asterios paused for a second, peering into her despairing eyes. “Will she sense your demise?”
“YES!” she screamed.
“Will she immediately know who did it?” he asked.
Her mouth opened for another quick response, but the sound died in her throat after the first vowel. That much was enough to give him an answer and she immediately realized it too.
“Even if she doesn’t, she’ll figure out the general direction and find this place! She’ll stop at nothing to break it into pieces!” Noir stated hastily.
“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Asterios smirked, shocking her again. “She’s welcome to try. The new management is much more hands-on than the previous one. And we’ll be long gone by that time.”
“It might take her a year or two, but she will follow the traces of whatever method you used to get here!” the scared girl continued her reasoning, trying to grasp at every possible last straw.
They had to give it to her, she was clever and didn’t fail to keep that apt brain of hers working to its limits no matter the situation she was in. Plus, she might not be entirely wrong there. Even assuming Black wasn’t proficient in traveling through shadows, there was the slightest hint of a chance the clan leader knew how to tear through dimensions like Red. It had been a while since they used it to get in so perhaps not in a year or two, but who knew what a few decades of tenacious investigation could bring forth.
Still, Asterios just shrugged. “Then we’ll just be moving the timeline slightly ahead. Her coming after me is something inevitable from the day she learns about my existence, and I won’t be able to keep it hidden for much longer. I’ll take this opportunity to weaken her and possibly throw her off whatever schemes she might be devising back there.”
Noir gaped at him with her jaw hanging low, stunned by the unexpectedly contrived argument. Her mind swirled to the extreme while deciphering his response and figuring out something to say that bought her more time, but the negotiations were over. They weren’t even on the table from the very beginning.
Ast’s claws neared the middle of her torso mercilessly, clearly going for her Heart.
“Wait, wait, wait!” Noir struggled in her bindings but no matter how much she did, it was hopeless. “No, no, no, no, no!”
The second she felt the ruthless tips press into her skin, her eyes snapped shut and she threw her head back.
“I SWEAR ON MY HEART TO OBEY EVERY SINGLE WORD OF YOURS!” she yelled out at the top of her lungs.
Even amidst the flat wasteland that surrounded them, her declaration echoed powerfully all around for a good while. Everyone stilled, her rough breathing being the only thing interrupting the serious atmosphere.
Noticing that she wasn’t yet in unbearable pain, the girl lifted one eyelid to gauge Ast’s reaction. He appeared pensive, his claws halted in their advance. She didn’t dare to exhale in relief or even twitch in the slightest, making herself appear as unassuming as possible.
Drawing his arm back, Asterios turned to his mates, specifically Althea.
“What if, and let’s make sure that I’m not meaning it right now, I ordered her to stop breathing?” he wondered out loud.
Noir’s tense swallow was fully audible to them.
His wise mentor gazed upon the bound female thoughtfully. “At best, she does exactly that and dies naturally. At worst, she becomes a spiritual cripple by betraying her Heart, which to most is a fate worse than death as it reduces them to something lesser than even bugs.”
“So, no matter what I tell her to do, she will do it unquestioningly,” Asterios noted.
“She’s stuck hanging on your every word, as she has phrased it herself,” Althea confirmed.
“Isn’t that kind of… dangerous?” He frowned.
“Like walking a thin thread over an endless canyon.” She nodded solemnly.
Keeping their gazes locked in consideration for a few seconds, he ran his claws through his hair.
“That’s going to be unbelievably vexing if we do decide to keep her.” Asterios grunted. “What do you all think we should do?”
The ladies exchanged a few glances amongst themselves before the first one spoke up.
“She is strong, both physically and spiritually. That’s not exactly common in her bloodline. I believe she would be a good addition to the group,” Tia began.
“And she’s an experienced True Dragon,” Althea continued after her. “There are limits to what I can teach you through indirect knowledge. Her expertise would aid you greatly.”
Nodding, he shifted his gaze to the second duo.
“I vote no. You don’t need any more crazy bitches in your harem.” Grea crossed her arms under her chest, which was now much more emphasized in her new outfit, her cheeks darkening a tad from her obvious reference to herself.
“I agree,” Bryn joined in with a critical look towards the True Dragon. “I can feel the chaos in her source. And it’s not only because she is of an opposing element to mine. I’ve learned to recognize the malice for what it truly is after being exposed to your decisive and unrelenting but still considerate darkness. I fear she will poison you, Master.”
She certainly was something, that he could admit. Asterios had felt the intensity of her animosity on his own scales.
“From what I understand, she’s high up the hierarchical ladder,” Silvia took her turn. “That provides you plenty of opportunities for the future that the binding of some lower-ranked grunt wouldn’t necessarily ensure. If we do think of Black as the queen and her as the princess, she should possess some considerable influence on at least their main tribe if not most dark True Dragons in general.”
“I’m not sure about this.” Tina put her fists on her hips, her expression tense. “You did just overpower her with your aura, but we have to consider the effects of the binding. Will the Summoning Magic contract even work on such a being? You are going to use the improved one based on the draconic subordination, right? She too will become stronger through that, even as a Slave you will limit greatly. I don’t think taking in someone too powerful is a good idea. At least at first.”
“However, as our dear Master said himself, there are much worse options out there,” Selene added after her. “She might be bratty and somewhat arrogant, but she didn’t immediately declare him her new toy like the last one. If we raise our standards too high because of what we are used to, we’ll never find a cooperative True Dragon. Every choice will be risky nonetheless. I see some potential here. We just have to watch it closely.”
And her opinion brought the vote to a standstill. Counting Ast’s initial reluctance as a no, they had four to four, with just one person who had not yet shared her mind.
Every pair of eyes turned to Miria.
The sweet panthergirl squirmed under their scrutiny, twirling her fingers together as she smiled anxiously.
“Well… I’m not sure how to say it without sounding silly… It’s just… There’s something… Like a hunch or a weird additional sense…” she whispered shyly. “After everything she said since her arrival… I feel something in her… It kind of resonates with me… Like it’s familiar… I don’t know… But, I think we should give her a chance? Would that be okay?”
Asterios peered deep into her adorable eyes as she gazed back into his with a trace of uncertain vulnerability. Letting out a sigh, he brought his draconic arm to the side, reaching out with his normal fingers to affectionately stroke her ears.
“If that’s your wish, then I would like to see it granted.” He offered her a cordial smile.
She beamed at him, trying her best not to launch herself into his chest and snuggle into her beloved master for trusting her so much.
Reluctantly withdrawing his fingers from her soft hair, Asterios turned to the Dragon girl, who watched him attentively. “So, it might be your lucky day. Still, are you willing to come into my servitude or would you rather die? I’m obliged to ask.”
Noir chewed on her lip before lowering her eyes a bit. “Even forgetting my pledge, the fact that you had me beat doesn’t change. I won’t lie that I don’t hate it, but you are, in fact, possibly stronger and could do anything you wish to me. I’ll follow your lead. I’ll… become your familiar.”
She spoke through her teeth, but he could understand how hard it could be for someone like her. They had put her in a crazy situation, and her life was technically in their hands. However, as she had insinuated, might made right in her culture so she might not be utterly abhorrent to his superiority, even if she was going to remain defiant.
“I see.” Asterios nodded firmly. “Then, I order you to swear on your Heart to never harm those I consider close.”
Her face snapped back up. “What? But, why do I need to if I already—”
“Just do it.” He growled, making her shudder.
She peered at him with a shadow of reluctance. “Can I… add intentionally to that? I don’t want to be broken because of some stupid accident…”
“That’s a valid point,” Asterios agreed with her. “Do it.”
“I swear on my Heart to never intentionally harm those you consider close,” Noir swore slowly.
Like during the other time, he felt something tickle his own Hearts since the promise involved his person. Perhaps he would be able to affect the judgment of her actions in case something unfortunate happened.
“Good.” He took a deep breath. “I hereby release you from your oath to explicitly obey every single word of mine.”
Once again, that feeling washed over him, though in a dissipating manner. His captive blinked at him owlishly, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
“You… Released me?” Noir didn’t hide her stupor. “After gaining complete control over my very being?”
With a flick of his wrist, the shadows lowered her to the ground and she daintily landed on her own feet, subconsciously bringing her hands to the front and rubbing her wrists as she still gaped at him like at some unseen before wonder.
“You’ll quickly learn that I dislike the matters of forcing my will onto another if you decide to follow me.” Asterios waved her off dismissively. “It’s different when you force my hand like earlier.”
“Right, how can you even do that?” She perked up, now looking him up and down with clear intrigue and perhaps a trace of honest dread. “You need to be above me spiritually, or at the very least at my level but with a way deeper understanding of your bloodline to enforce this much influence.”
“Let’s just say that your mother and I… share a peculiar connection.” He stroked his chin while choosing his words. “Without her… I most likely wouldn’t be here, in many meanings of that phrase.”
Noir’s pupils dilated a bit. “That’s why your aura felt so familiar! For a moment back when I stepped through the gate, I thought I caught myself in one of her traps and was in deep shit!”
The ladies on the side shared a quiet chuckle at how quickly their prisoner reinvigorated, but she missed it completely, focused solely on the revelations she was experiencing.
“Now, hold on a moment…” Her brows furrowed greatly, her nail slipping between her teeth. “That’s… not possible. You are definitely younger than me, that much is clear. Mother didn’t have any children recently. Not since the…”
She looked up at him and shook her head, chewing on her nail even more.
“Mother has been in seclusion for at least a few centuries if my memory doesn’t fail me, taking no mates during that period.” Noir was starting to pace in her spot as she racked her brain for answers. “And all my direct siblings are already gone, so how?”
“Master is kind of like your… stepbrother?” Miria giggled from the side.
“Not really.” Tia hummed. “More like her stepfather? In the end, it was something akin to a remnant of her mother’s spiritual energy that coalesced into his second Heart.”
“Then that makes him more like Black’s… twin?” Althea’s forehead creased. “That would make him Noir’s… uncle?”
The girls joined together in deep thought as they navigated the confusing situation, their eyes down at the ground as their minds worked to solve this mystery.
“Let’s just agree on something in the likes of Black’s unassociated gender-bent spiritual successor, clone, simulacrum, or whatever. My head is starting to spin from all of this.” Asterios rubbed his forehead unsteadily. “It only makes up half of my being anyway, or less as of now. I do have an actual birth mother and father unrelated to her.”
“Uh, did she just say second Heart?” Noir inserted herself back into the discussion. “And what do you mean by half of your being?”
His mates shared a glance and snickered knowingly.
Asterios sighed softly. “Take a good look.”
He stopped concealing anything, returning to his original, everyday state.
“Wha—” The black-haired girl jerked back. “Your eyes?!”
Then, she noticed that his crimson irises were the tip of the iceberg as a different kind of aura wafted from the individual before her. She instinctively activated her draconic sight and locked on his chest. Immediately, she recoiled so much that she stumbled over her own feet and fell onto her butt, her expression completely taken aback.
“What the fuck?!” Noir pointed at him with a shaky arm. “Why is there that bastard’s energy next to the dark one?!”
“Oh, you know it personally?” Asterios raised a curious brow at her.
“How could I not?!” She snarled openly. “He… He… Mother whipped that cockroach’s ass so many times but he just keeps surviving!”
There surely was more to that as it didn’t feel so one-sided from what Asterios could tell through the unlocked memories. At least until the final fight between the two titans.
“Is that going to be a problem?” He crossed his arms, squinting at her from above. “Does that make you change your mind?”
She worked her mouth open and closed for a moment before escaping his gaze to the ground.
“Just… How?” she muttered.
“Simply speaking, I’m Red’s son,” he answered. “But I never really knew my father, nor my mother, save for the fact that they razed an entire innocent village to hide me in a burning house after locking away my memories, ripping out one of my sources, and sealing the other, perhaps in a different order.”
“They… What...?” Noir’s pretty nose scrunched up. “But that’s…”
“Vile? Savage? Unfit of a parent? Merciless? Stupid?” Miria started listing various epithets as her increasingly louder growls filled the air.
Thankfully, Selene stopped her with an understanding hug, nodding at Asterios that she had the situation under control.
“In any way, whatever happened during one of their clashes, Black left a lot of her spiritual power inside Red, and after he somehow decided it would be a good idea to have a kid with his relatively new mate who is actually a Spiritual Fox like that beautiful lady over there, I popped out with two Dragon’s Hearts, one crimson and one onyx,” he finished the explanation.
“And, as you might have noticed, while Asterios is incredibly talented and driven, he doesn’t have anywhere near as much experience with his draconic side as you do because he only just recovered most of his powers from being scattered by his father.” Althea felt the necessity to add. “So it would be best if you didn’t treat him like any other crimson you might have met. You aren’t enemies. Unless you make yourself one.”
There was a trace of distaste on the black Dragon girl’s face as she stared back at the green-haired woman, but she didn’t seem like she was in the middle of considering how to murder Asterios just for the offense of being born amongst their adversaries.
Tina tapped her cheek ponderingly. “Black must have suffered greatly from that fight too if she went into seclusion right away. She must be hiding her state from her subjects.”
“Who told you that?!” Noir sprung to her feet and snapped at her. “That’s not what happened! That fucker is much worse off than Mother! She’s just tired of all this shit, taking a deserved rest!”
Grea snorted, capturing the angry female’s attention.
“Stop me when I get anything wrong.” The scarlet-skinned demon raised a challenging brow. “At some point, during one of the battles between your lineages, your last brother or sister died at the hands of Red, perhaps acting way too overconfident. Black went mad and launched a full-on assault on them, pulling no stops, acting as a spearhead of the onslaught. Most of his clan was wiped out and they almost killed each other but somehow escaped death. Now that you are all that she has left, she’s not letting you out from under her thumb, locked away in a tower for your own sake. Isn’t that right, Princess?”
“Do not call me that!” Noir sneered at her but never denied anything.
“Tough luck.” Grea sneered back. “Princess Bitch.”
As the two faced off, snarling at each other, Miria tilted her head cutely.
“I wonder if it’s been one huge lover’s quarrel this entire time actually.” The panthergirl scratched her cheek.
The Dragon girl whipped to her in a blink, causing the adorable feline lady to flinch under her bloodlust.
“Is your brain made of rotten fish, you stupid, mentally defective cat?!” Noir shouted. “There’s no way in hell my proud Mother would ever see that ba—”
A sharp smack traveled through the air and she suddenly cut off. Frozen in pure disbelief, she stared at Ast’s raised palm incomprehensibly, her own touching her stinging cheek.
Then, her face turned red and she lunged forward with a vicious growl. However, her punches were nothing like the mountainous blows from their fight and Asterios sidestepped them with a surprising ease as she fumbled around. Growing tired of her wild swings, he shoved his fist into her stomach.
This time, no layer of scales surfaced over her skin to protect it and his knuckles completely knocked the wind out of her lungs, causing the aggressive girl to double over and crash to the ground, forehead pressed into the coarse rock as she heaved. If he knew she would allow herself to be hit like that, he might have held back more, but maybe this was a good thing.
Lowering himself to a crouch, Asterios grabbed her hair and lifted her head to bring his face into her field of view. She glared at him with one eye closed, her expression twisted wrathfully.
“You are not going to speak to my mate like that, are we understood?” He matched her glare, speaking with a tone brooking no argument. “I’m still on the fence about letting you live and her vote is the only thing that keeps the scale from going the other way, which stops me from completely erasing you from existence.”
Her lips thinned out and she stopped growling.
“Therefore, I would be careful of how you behave from now on,” Asterios added. “Are we clear?”
After a moment of intense staring, she looked away.
“Like a cloudless sky…” Noir whispered. “Sir…”
His brow lifted but he decided not to comment on that, choosing to assume the tinge of scarlet on her cheeks was still from her earlier rage.
“Good.” Asterios brought them both up, moving his grip to her collar instead.
Bryn appeared by his side and relieved the hunched girl from her discomfort, receiving a thankful smile from him.
“What about them?” Noir grumbled, throwing the winged lady a stinky look.
“Them?” He faced her again.
“Are they allowed to just call me names as they wish?” She huffed, trying not to look him directly in the eyes.
Chuckling to himself, Asterios shook his head. “I’ll let my mates know not to antagonize you unnecessarily later. But, you can’t run to me at every mean thing you hear with how clean your own mouth seems to be.”
“Wait, mates?” Noir blinked at him incredulously. “As in, all of them?”
He rubbed his eyes.
Oh boy, it looked like they weren’t ready to jump into the contract just yet.