Click.
Alex stepped across the threshold of the third-floor bridal suite, shutting the heavy doors behind him with the short, solid heel of his boots.
The corridor was freezing.
Compared to the suffocating heat and stagnant draft of the tower, the corridor felt like ice water dumped over bare skin.
Iron sconces lined the volcanic stone walls every few paces, holding flickering blue spirit candles whose cold light washed over his new clothes.
Every tiny movement was a sharp reminder of how much his body had betrayed him.
The black crop bodice hugged his heavy D-cup breasts with merciless precision.
The stretchy matte fabric was thick enough to keep his dark pink areolas from showing through, but the scoop neckline sat so low that every breath pushed the full, creamy swell of his cleavage into plain view.
Below that, the fabric cinched tightly around his narrow waist before giving way to the pleated skater skirt.
The hem barely brushed the tops of his bare, pale thighs, fluttering with even the slightest shift of his weight.
He hated putting it on, but Alex had no other option.
After his sudden Phase 3 evolution, his skeletal frame had lengthened, his hips had widened into an unmistakable hourglass, and the trousers or leggings he recently bought didn't fit at the seams.
This outfit, stashed away during his hasty shopping with Elena, was the only thing in his system storage that could stretch over his new curves without tearing.
Alex swallowed hard, feeling the snug band of the black fabric choker press against his throat.
Clink.
With a subtle mental command, his Blackiron Longsword materialized in his right hand.
The familiar, comforting weight of cold steel settled into his slender, jade-white fingers.
Just holding the hilt grounded his spinning thoughts.
His mana circuits, freshly expanded into a three-dimensional matrix by his Level 5 Yin-Mercury Body Art, hummed quietly, ready to unleash the silvery-grey liquid mana pooling in his core.
Behind him, soft footsteps sounded against the dark flagstones.
Mia and Selene followed half a pace behind.
The two ghost maids had put their gothic uniforms back on, but they looked completely different from the haughty predators that had entered the bedroom an hour earlier.
Mia kept her head bowed slightly, her thick silver braid draped over one shoulder.
The ruffled lace of her maid bodice strained tightly against her plump C-cups, rising and falling with hurried breaths.
Beside her, Selene stood taller, her generous D-cup bust pressing heavily against black lace, her sharp eyes still glossy, dazed, and shadowed with lingering pleasure.
Faint, dark kiss marks marked both of their pale throats, and beneath their skin, the invisible brand of Alex's Desire Mark pulsed like a steady ember, binding their spiritual cores irreversibly to his will.
"Master," Mia whispered, her voice still raspy and slightly hoarse. "The entrance to the Gallery is less than twenty paces ahead, just past the archway."
Selene stepped up to her side, her gaze darting cautiously down the dim hallway as she spoke up. "Four Bone Sentinels guard the central dais where the staircase to other floors is."
"The doors to the gallery are made of bone-lattice; the moment we unlatch them, the sentinels will sense the change."
"Then we don't give them time to think or sound an alarm," Alex replied. His words came out with an airy, melodic, soft, and breathy tone, like a young woman trying to sound stern.
Alex clicked his tongue in pure irritation, his cheeks warming with a sudden flush. 'Damn it... my voice is getting softer by the hour.'
A bitter thought flashed across his mind: 'Well, looking at this chest and what's between my legs, I'm practically a girl anyway...'
The realization hit him like cold water.
Alex violently shook his head, biting the inside of his cheek to snap himself out of it. 'No. Stop thinking like that. I'm a guy.'
'I just need to get out of this cursed tower, break through to Master Rank, and find a way to reverse this nightmare.'
He turned his grey eyes toward the two maids, his expression turning sharp and decisive.
"You two go in first," Alex commanded, keeping his voice low. "Act as if you're inspecting the gallery on Lord Vincent's direct orders."
"Divide their attention. Draw two of them toward the western balcony. I'll take out the other two from behind before they can react. Once I engage, handle the two you distracted."
"Understood, Master," Selene murmured, bowing her head in total reverence.
"We live to serve you," Mia echoed, her fingers lightly brushing against the hem of her apron.
Alex drew in a quiet breath and pulled his aura inward, suppressing his mana fluctuations until he felt as quiet as a shadow.
But as he took his first step, the short hem of the skater skirt swished against his bare inner thighs.
A sharp, electric tingle shot straight up into his pelvis.
Down between his legs, his dick was trapped between his own tender, hyper-sensitive pussy in a half-and-half state.
The shrunken, resting cock sat directly above the newly deepened pussy slit, and the gentle friction of his black cotton underwear against the swollen, delicate folds dragged a thin, warm slick of nectar across his skin.
Every stride caused his body to involuntarily vent faint wisps of sweet, honey-scented pheromones from his pores.
The vapor curled into the cold air like lavender smoke, drifting toward an iron floor grate and getting sucked into the tower's necrotic ventilation ducts.
'Darling,' the Silver Serpent Empress purred lazily inside his skull. 'Look at how you walk."
"You're swaying those wide hips like a ripe little enchantress who just spent three hours getting thoroughly bred on silk sheets. The entire tower can smell that delicious juice leaking between your legs.'
'Shut the fuck up,' Alex fired back coldly in his mind, his hand tightening around the sword hilt until his knuckles went pale. 'I don't need your running commentary.'
'Hehehe...' The Empress giggled, stretching out her phantom consciousness within his sea of soul like a contented cat. 'That rotting bag of bones up in the pool is going to catch your scent.'
'If you keep leaking like a broken faucet, he might just abandon his body reconstruction and crawl down here to take you right on the floor before midnight. Isn't that exciting?'
'I said shut up! Don't jinx it,' Alex cursed inwardly. 'Six hours.'
'According to Mia, Vincent can't step out of the Necrotic Pool without risking a mana backlash.'
'That gives me enough time to harvest what I need, find a quiet spot, and simulate again. If I can grasp the next layer of sword intent, I won't need to run from him.'
'Mmm, keep dreaming, little vessel,' the Empress chuckled, her tone turning pitying.
'Do you really think crossing from Expert to Master is something you can do without prior planning?'
'Not to mention, an evil spirit's domain isn't a parlor trick. You're far too naive.'
'The moment you realize how hopeless you are, just beg me to take your body. I'll turn that skeleton into bone meal in three seconds... and then we can go find some real fun in the city.'
'How about it, honey?'
Alex ignored her, completely cutting off his mental link. Arguing with that ancient snake only wasted his focus.
He reached the end of the corridor.
Ahead stood the entrance to the Grand Gallery: an enormous double archway framed by polished pillars carved to resemble intertwined serpents and screaming human visages.
The doors were made of interlocking ribs of some colossal beast, leaving wide gaps through which the interior was plainly visible.
"Damn, this asshole has some talent in building his own palace… But it's too old-fashioned and weird." Alex pressed his back against the cold stone wall, peering through the bone-lattice.
The Gallery was massive, a cavernous circular rotunda spanning at least fifty meters across.
Overhead, three large chandeliers crafted from human pelvic bones and skull clusters hung suspended from vaulted rafters, holding burning globes of pale blue soul-fire.
The floor was a smooth expanse of dark marble, inlaid with radiating lines of bleached ivory ribs that converged toward a wide spiral staircase at the center.
Standing guard at the cardinal points around the staircase were four Bone Sentinels.
Each creature stood over nine feet tall, assembled from dense, calcified bones that glowed like polished slate.
They wore jagged chestplates of black iron and gripped large, four-foot tower shields made of interlocking human scapulae in their left hands, while their right hands held jagged, saw-toothed bone cleavers.
In their hollow eye sockets, dual embers of crimson-blue soul-fire burned steadily, scanning the quiet hall like searchlights.
Alex narrowed his eyes. "Early Level 1 B-Rank constructs. Heavy armor and long knives. If they were given enough time, they would definitely form a shield wall."
"Then just using brute force won't cut them quickly enough."
Taking a slow breath, Alex let his consciousness sink into his mana core to use his Lust Domain. "Lust Domain... Small Scale."
He didn't release the domain outward into the hall; instead, he condensed the field into a tight, three-meter radius around himself and the two maids.
Instantly, the air around his skin thickened into a warm, faint pink haze.