Vienna nodded because her eyes were hard and cold.

She did not bother with clever tavern distractions this time and just raised her iron poker, charged straight into the nearest cluster of thralls. She cracked a male monster across the skull, dropping him instantly to the floor.

Kai followed her lead.

He used his Shadow Step to jump into the center of the writhing pile and slashed his blessed dagger left and right, severing heads and piercing hearts.

’Fucking insane.’

The thralls were too deep in their breeding trance to fight back effectively at first.

They just moaned and reached blindly for him while he cut them to pieces.

One female thrall broke the trance and lunged at Kai with bared fangs.

He spun around and kicked her away from a stone altar.

The creature hissed, but Vienna stepped up and drove her poker straight through its chest.

"Keep moving," Vienna shouted over the chaos.

"They are waking up."

They moved through the basin like a scythe through wheat.

The fight was brutal and fast.

It was entirely devoid of mercy.

Kai parried a clumsy swipe from a tall monster and gutted it with a smooth upward thrust.

Vienna smashed knees and crushed skulls, letting her anger fuel her heavy swings.

When the last monster finally stopped twitching, Kai walked toward the far corner of the room.

He found three normal villagers chained to the wall.

Two women and a young man shivered in the dark.

They had bite marks on their shoulders, but their eyes were still human and full of terrified tears.

"They are only half-turned," Kai told Vienna as he slashed the iron chains with his sharp dagger.

"The corruption has not reached their brains yet. We can get them to Eliza for treatment before the rot settles."

Vienna helped the sobbing women stand up.

She offered them a gentle smile that contrasted sharply with her bloodstained clothes.

"You are safe now," Vienna promised them. "Just keep quiet and follow us."

[Quest Updated: Purge the Breeding Pits]

[Progress: 100 Percent]

[Survivors Rescued: +300 EXP]

They guided the three shaking villagers back up the ladder and pointed them toward the western road.

Kai watched them run toward safety before he turned around to face Vienna in the narrow stone tunnel.

The horror of the lower pit still clung to them.

The air felt sick with leftover adrenaline and a desperate need to feel something human and alive to wash the filth away.

Vienna looked at him with dark eyes.

She dropped her iron poker to the floor, grabbed the front of his shirt, and shoved him hard against the rough wall.

Kai caught her waist.

His own instincts flared up instantly.

The intense stress and the deep disgust from the pit boiled over into a rough, aggressive heat.

He spun her around and pinned her back against the brick, pressing his body flush against hers.

"I need this," Vienna breathed heavily.

She tilted her neck back to expose her throat.

"Right now. Make me forget that room."

Kai bit her neck with gentle foreplay.

He reached down and bunched her skirt up over her hips, grabbed her thighs, lifting her slightly off the floor, and thrust inside her with a push.

Vienna let out a loud, breathless gasp that echoed off the tunnel walls.

She wrapped her legs tightly around his waist to anchor herself.

Her fingernails dug deep into his shoulders, scratching his skin through his shirt.

’She wants it rough to forget what we just saw,’ Kai thought, setting a brutal pace.

He drove his hips forward again and again.

The loud slapping of their bodies filled the tunnel.

It replaced the awful sounds of the pit with something real and raw.

Vienna bit his neck, drawing a tiny drop of blood in her frenzy.

She kissed the scratch immediately, her tongue hot and demanding against his skin.

"Harder," she commanded, grinding her hips back against his thrusts.

Kai obliged her without hesitation.

He gripped her hips tight enough to leave bruises and let his own frustration pour into every single movement.

It was a hateful release directed at the ruined world around them.

They did not exchange sweet words or soft kisses.

It was purely physical.

It was a frantic collision of two survivors needing an anchor.

Kai slammed into her with a rhythm, and Vienna took every inch with needy whimpers.

She squeezed her inner walls around him, drawing out the intense friction until neither of them could think straight.

Vienna cried out loudly.

Her body spasmed in a tight climax.

The sudden friction broke his control.

Kai groaned and buried himself deep inside her, spilling his release as she climaxed hard against the cold stone.

They stayed pinned to the wall while their breathing slowly returned to normal.

Kai buried his face in her hair and let the comforting scent of her sweat wash over him.

Vienna kept her legs wrapped around him for a long moment before she finally let her feet drop back to the floor.

She looked up at him with a tired, genuine smile.

"I feel much better."

"Me too. Let us go secure the rest of this village."

’What is happening to me?’

With those thoughts, they walked to join others in the village.

The midnight sky hung over the quiet village.

Kai sat in the dark study of the mayor’s manor, resting his tired muscles in an armchair near the open balcony window.

He kept his dagger resting on his lap because the night was never truly safe.

A soft rustle of wind caught his attention.

It sounded like silk dragging across stone.

A woman stepped out of the night and stood on the balcony ledge.

She possessed flawless pale skin that seemed to catch the moonlight.

Large, elegant wings folded neatly behind her back. She wore a sheer black dress that clung to her curves, and her eyes burned with a bright, unnatural crimson glow.

Kai’s eyes widened.

Raviel found me already?