Chapter 90 Reunion

His three-day furlough had vanished into thin air. What was meant to be a leisurely family visit with his mother, Aunt Ling, and his cousin had devolved into a tense security drama. Richie had not even been permitted to stay the night; bundled into an ambulance, he had undergone an exhaustive medical examination at the military hospital before enduring rounds of formal debriefing.

Naturally, the inquiry was mere bureaucratic protocol: while interrogators questioned him with utmost deference, backstage political factions were already horse-trading over who would bear the blame. Amid the multi-layered power struggle, only one certainty emerged: the lion's share of culpability was dumped squarely upon the venal patrolman and the senior intelligence operative, both of whom were incarcerated while their immediate families were placed under armed quarantine.

Once the depositions were concluded, Richie returned to the military compound. The days that followed were exceptionally tranquil; he eschewed even visits to the academy library, remaining sequestered entirely within the barracks.

Surrounded by an abundance of female companions, he experienced not a shred of boredom. Moreover, having witnessed the terrifying resilience of the Vajra art firsthand, his eagerness to cultivate the discipline to initial mastery burned fiercer than ever.

Naturally, Richie did not spend twenty-four hours a day engaged in lovemaking. He had numerous pressing matters to attend to, chief among them organizing the torrent of revelations he had witnessed within the Crown of Wisdom.

The imagery he had perceived that day was voluminous and sprawling: martial arts principles had imprinted clearly in his memory, whereas battle armor schematics remained somewhat indistinct and fragmented.

Fortunately, he harbored no intention of overhauling Wisdom King from top to bottom; doing so would have appeared glaringly unnatural. Everyone familiar with him knew he was an intuitive tinkerer rather than an academic scholar. Mentors like Manuem prized him not for rigid engineering orthodoxy, but for his uninhibited conceptual thinking and spontaneous flashes of inspiration. Had he suddenly unveiled a flawless, mathematically perfected machine, suspicions would have flared across the continent.

The only prudent path was to adhere to his established habits: drafting rough conceptual sketches accompanied by broad structural explanations, then dumping the blueprints upon Princess Mithra for her imperial workshops to fabricate.

Richie harbored zero anxiety that no one could realize his designs. The Parkington Holy Kingdom was the birth cradle of operational battle armor, investing resources into the training of armor artificers far surpassing any rival realm. Consequently, in the sheer headcount of artificers, Parkington led the continent; in the roster of accredited Grandmasters, it was likewise peerless.

Yet its ancient pedigree and stifling feudal hierarchy bred a culture of seniority thousands of times more entrenched than elsewhere. Its master artificers possessed the most unshakeable foundations, the most encyclopedic knowledge, and the most exquisite craftsmanship, yet they suffered a chronic dearth of creative vision. Though boasting an army of Grandmasters, centuries had elapsed since a transformative visionary had stood at the pinnacle of their guild.

Within the Grand Guild of Artificers, Parkington’s craftsmen were labeled the "Classical School"—and behind that classical moniker lurked undeniable conservatism and stagnation.

Richie had minimal acquaintance with these Classical Grandmasters; the mentors surrounding Espol and Madam Shar belonged either to the Reformist or Free Artisan factions, whose philosophies clashed violently with the traditionalists. Having fraternized with innovators, Richie felt a natural estrangement from the old guard.

Nevertheless, Richie had no fear that the Classical masters would dismiss his drafts.

The Classical School possessed one endearing virtue: a devout reverence for authority. Furthermore, in an autocracy where sovereign will was supreme, when an imperial princess carried sketches into the workshop, no artisan would dare offer half-hearted compliance; they would dissect every line with reverent precision. Richie possessed absolute faith in those schematics—or more precisely, absolute faith in the divine computations of the Crown of Wisdom.

Aside from drafting schematics, his other primary occupation was sparring with the garrison's personnel. Naturally, he avoided challenging the thirty female Honor Knights; doing so was merely inviting a brutal thrashing. Piloting Wisdom King, he held full confidence in defeating an Honor Knight, yet in unarmored melee he was hopelessly outmatched.

In daily drills, he refused to deploy Wisdom King: the machine remained neuro-mechanically volatile, guaranteeing chassis damage upon every high-intensity clash, and he had zero appetite for conducting major overhauls after every training session. Outside the thirty Honor Knights, the only suitable sparring partners were the newly promoted Ace female knights of his expeditionary detachment. Against them, Richie held a decisive physical edge.

To ensure no one accused him of bullying weaker opponents, Richie took on ten to fifteen opponents simultaneously in every round. This permitted him to master his new evasive combat style while simultaneously instilling the intricate battlefield formations among his newly elevated Aces.

Days slipped past in steady rhythm as the Festival of Heaven drew near.

As Richie's nocturnal passions deepened, the combat prowess of the women surrounding him surged with astonishing velocity.

More and more female knights broke through into the Ace rank, their execution of collective squad battle arrays growing remarkably polished and lethal.

Just as on preceding mornings, the subterranean gymnasium echoed with a furious cacophony of clashing shields and grunts, before settling into sudden silence.

Lined along the timber racks against the stone wall were a dozen female knights, bound securely with their hands pinned behind their backs and their legs elevated in stirrups, exposing their intimate portals.

They were lashed down tight, rendered incapable of the slightest movement.

Richie stood behind one of the pinned maidens, holding a medical syringe whose needle was driven into her swollen, flushed pearl.

The sensitive flesh was engorged to the size of a dark grape, blushing like a crimson ruby, swelling further as the amber fluid was steadily depressed into its tissues.

Beyond her pearl, tiny injection marks adorned her breasts, mons pubis, intimate vestibule, and rear threshold.

The syringe contained an aphrodisiac serum—the precise stimulant formula engineered by Valentin alchemists to condition sensual thralls. Randy had decoded its molecular composition in hopes of synthesizing an antidote to relieve their captive maidens. During their stay in Stein, Richie had cajoled and wheedled until Randy finally surrendered the formulation. In daily drills, he instituted the serum as a wager of defeat: any knight who fell in sparring was subjected to the needle.

Over recent weeks, virtually every female knight under his command, including Victoria, had tasted the syringe, many enduring the discipline multiple times.

Following the injections, the maidens were unlashed, and Richie personally secured reinforced chastity corsets over their hips. These leather-and-steel undergarments were locked with padlocks, their gussets shielded by solid steel plates that prevented any manual self-relief, mirrored by matching locked brassieres above.

Injected with burning stimulants yet denied all physiological release, the maidens suffered agony so acute that their spines bowed helplessly, barely able to take a halting step.

Unpunished female knights watching from the perimeter immediately hurried forward, supporting their trembling comrades and helping them down to the recovery quarters.

"Next squad, step forward," Richie called out toward the gymnasium entrance.

A rhythmic chorus of crisp, disciplined bootsteps echoed as the next dozen female knights trotted briskly into the hall, swiftly deploying into an encircling perimeter around him.

Taking no chances, Richie promptly lowered his steel visor.

In unarmored combat, facial injuries were the greatest peril; the visor was an indispensable safeguard.

The helmet featured small auditory apertures, yet compared to an armor cockpit's acoustic receptors, it dulled spatial hearing—one of the reasons Richie had to rely heavily on tactile reflexes during sparring.

Once the drill commenced, neither side showed the slightest mercy. Richie opened with a devastating shield rush; having cultivated the third tier of the Vajra art, a direct collision from his body matched the kinetic impact of Wisdom King ramming a standard machine. The knights had sparred with him daily and were far too cunning to contest his momentum head-on.

The knight directly before him executed an agile slip-step, opening a lane as two flanking comrades surged forward to pincushion him from left and right. Simultaneously, four knights charged from his quadrants in coordinated assault, shielded by designated defensive partners.

Richie executed an immediate rolling tumble across the floor. His maneuver was astonishingly supple; as he tumbled, his heavy steel buckler tucked tightly against his frame, presenting zero exposed surface area.

Just as the maidens had endured countless blisters to master their collective formations, Richie had absorbed hundreds of stinging blows to perfect this lightning-fast roll. The knights held nothing back in sparring, seizing the opportunity to vent their daily grievances with ferocious, stinging strikes.

Compared to the preceding squad, Richie immediately noticed that this detachment was immensely harder to suppress.

While he labored under their assault, the surrounding maidens were equally taxed: the combat style demonstrated by the Crown of Wisdom was uniquely engineered to dismantle multi-target encirclements. Richie rolled across the pavers like an oversized, armored hedgehog, deflecting strikes while threatening sudden counter-attacks.

In the wild, the badger and the tortoise were humble creatures, yet their survival rates dwarfed grander beasts: one possessed elusive speed, the other impenetrable armor. An entity possessing both virtues stood virtually devoid of natural predators.

At this moment, Richie embodied that very hybrid perfection. Far from being a passive creature of the lower food chain, his offensive counters were vicious, razor-sharp, and unrelenting.

Over a hundred clashes flashed past in the blink of an eye, battle qi whipping across the hall as both sides reached a pitch where holding back became impossible.

Richie’s tumbling cadence accelerated, his counter-blows turning blistering; in response, the opposing formation locked down with suffocating, seamless discipline.

The longer the clash raged, the more uneasy Richie became. He knew the capabilities of every knight in the detachment; by his estimation, none possessed combat instincts of this caliber. Furthermore, he sensed instinctively that several warriors within the ring were consciously holding their power in reserve.

"Who in the blazes are you?!" Richie shouted, rolling three consecutive times to plant his back firmly against a corner wall.

"I told you he’d sniff it out," a familiar feminine voice chuckled from beneath a visor.

"We should have held back more; the brute deduced the deception from our combat output," another chimed in.

"Hold back more? His power has surged terrifyingly—did you want us to throw the match and get strapped to the rack for his needles?" a third retorted with laughing defiance.

A helmet was unbuckled and cast aside.

Recognizing the radiant, smiling countenance beneath, Richie leaped to his feet in jubilation, hurling his buckler to the pavers and rushing forward: "Merlin! When did you arrive?!"

Several more helmets clattered to the floor, revealing the beaming faces of the three sisters—Ailie, Aileen, and Aima—alongside Rosa and Nora.

"Where are the Captain, Lina, and Master Dana?" Richie asked in surprise.

"Calli and Dana have urgent duties to attend to, and Lina went directly to the imperial palace to meet her noble kin," the eldest sister replied with her trademark bluntness.

"When our carriages rolled in, we arrived just in time to watch you giving injections to the front squad," Rosa chuckled mischievously.

The youngest of the three sisters wrinkled her nose in feigned disgust: "You wretch, you grow more degenerate by the day. Mind that your master doesn't take a switch to your backside."

"Why don't you try disciplining him yourself?" Rosa teased.

"I hate to admit it, but the little monster has grown far too formidable—especially that detestable, rolling hedgehog style of his," the youngest sister muttered, stepping forward to playfully ruffle Richie’s hair. "Tell us, where did you unearth such an unorthodox martial discipline?"

"Hey! Hands off the merchandise," Richie laughed, swatting her fingers aside.

"Growing haughty, are we?" The youngest sister glared with mock ferocity. In months past, she would have cuffed his ears without hesitation, yet she possessed clear self-awareness: with their present prowess, the three sisters could no longer manhandle Richie. While his absolute strength might not surpass Lina, his slippery evasive style was the absolute nemesis of their squad tactics.

"Wait—how did you master our new formation maneuvers so quickly?" Richie asked, suddenly realizing a glaring oddity.

A sharp slap landed squarely upon the crown of his skull; the youngest sister had failed to suppress her old habit after all.

"We maintain active military communications with headquarters, idiot! Your tactical maneuvers consist of only a few core principles; reviewing the recorded crystal footage and analyzing the vectors was all it took for us to crack the code."

She pinched Richie's cheek with vicious affection: "In fact, the three of us deduced that you held back a secret refinement when you instructed the garrison."

Richie felt entirely maligned; he had never harbored any intent to withhold knowledge.

Yet while feeling wronged, he wondered what the sisters had uncovered. He knew they were not boasting; having practiced collective formations from childhood, they were consummate master tacticians. The maneuvers he taught had been mechanically memorized from the Crown of Wisdom's simulations; it was entirely plausible that their professional eyes had perceived underlying martial nuances that had flown completely over his head.

Richie dared not dispute the charge; the matter touched the supreme state secret of the Holy Kingdom, leaving him no choice but to tacitly accept Aima’s accusation. In knightly tradition, withholding a trump card when instructing subordinates was standard practice; only among lifelong comrades were ultimate secrets unveiled without reservation.

While Richie sparred playfully with the vanguard of Unit 105, Lina sat within the private solar of the Emerald Palace.

The surroundings evoked a poignant mixture of nostalgia and estrangement.

Every furnishing retained its historic elegance, yet the figures inhabiting the chamber were irrevocably altered. When she had visited this sanctuary in her youth, her father had ever stood by her side; today, she sat alone.

"Do you... miss your father?" Empress Annielia inquired gently, possessing eyes that perceived the deepest recesses of the mortal soul. "Many treasures are recognized only after they are lost to us."

The sovereign sighed softly: "Your father was the same. Only after you departed the household did he realize how deeply he cherished you, though before court peers he would never betray such longing."

"I am aware," Lina replied, reigning in her emotions to prevent a tremor in her voice.

"You are now the sovereign head of our Monstoke branch. There are matters of imperial heritage you must understand..."

Before the empress could continue, Lina interrupted: "Why was the mantle bestowed upon me? Does our branch not possess several elder uncles?"

Annielia studied Lina with calm appraisal. Lina’s deliberate challenge revealed unmistakable alienation between herself and the imperial house. Under classical protocol, a cadet member harboring resentment toward the senior branch could never be elevated to clan leadership; yet with Lina, normal rules were suspended.

"Had your uncles possessed genuine leadership, I would gladly have confirmed any of them upon the seat," Annielia replied evenly. "Yet when my imperial father confirmed your sire decades ago, it established that your uncles lacked the mettle. That decision bred lingering bitterness in their hearts. You know far better than I what disgraceful intrigues your uncles pursued."

Lina offered a cool smile, indifferent to administrative platitudes: "My elevation is primarily due to Richie, is it not?"

"That is undeniably a factor," the empress conceded without hesitation. "When that youth first appeared before our eyes, Mithra and I took note of him immediately."

"Back then, he was an obscure recruit," Lina noted with mild skepticism. When Princess Mithra had visited Penece, she had specifically requisitioned Unit 105 as her royal escort; Lina had assumed the honor stemmed from her own imperial lineage. Annielia’s words, however, implied the crown had foreseen Richie’s ascent from the outset.

Lina dared not underestimate the sovereign house. Though sharing the Saint Emperor's blood, she knew little of the mystical gifts inherited by the direct imperial line. Legends claimed the earliest Saint Emperors possessed the divine power of prophetic foresight.

"It seems you remain ignorant of the truth," Annielia remarked with an amused smile. She had assumed Richie kept zero secrets from Lina, yet it appeared the youth harbored mysteries of his own. Or perhaps the lad remained entirely blind to his own destiny; regardless, the revelation offered an exquisite diplomatic lever.

Her tone turned solemn and hushed: "Do you know what I beheld upon Richie's person the very first time I laid eyes upon him?"

Lina’s heart quickened. The empress’s gravity signaled a matter of momentous import; very few phenomena in the mortal world could elicit such reverent solemnity from this imperial monarch.

"I saw that he carried the Sword Saint Inheritance," Annielia revealed, articulating each syllable with monumental weight.

Lina froze in stunned disbelief. She had never heard the phrase 'Sword Saint Inheritance,' yet the title was self-explanatory. In a flash of insight, she deduced how Richie had obtained such a benediction: the only figure capable of bestowing such an inheritance was that eccentric titan she had introduced Richie to when escorting him to meet her father.

In her memory, prior to Annielia meeting Richie, the youth had crossed paths with that legendary recluse exactly once—the very encounter she had orchestrated.

The scattered enigmas of recent years snapped into flawless alignment.

She had always wondered why that reclusive titan had taken such extraordinary interest in Richie, even introducing him to Grandmaster Espol and Madam Shar when the boy had displayed zero aptitude for armor engineering.

She had once suspected the elder could perceive the future; now the truth was laid bare. From that initial glance, the legendary master had anointed Richie as his sole martial successor.

A surge of envious wonder touched her heart, yet it was swallowed instantly by profound joy for Richie’s boundless fortune.

"In other words... barring catastrophe, he is destined to become a Sword Saint?" Lina asked, seeking absolute confirmation. She knew secrets of Richie that no high monarch possessed: that despite being an Ace, he had awakened a 'Field'—a secret known only to herself, Nora, Dana, Merlin, and Calli.

She knew as well that in Balmer, Richie had briefly stepped into that miraculous trance—the 'Time Stagnation' state belonging exclusively to the Celestial Realm.

Within Unit 105, they had debated his ultimate ceiling: she and Trisli had calculated a ninety-percent likelihood of him achieving the Celestial Realm, and a thirty-percent chance of ascending to Sword Saint within a decade.

Now she recognized that their grandest estimates had been far too conservative.

"A future Sword Saint, the youngest Grandmaster Artificer in continental history, possessing unprecedented mastery of battle formations, and endowed with an esoteric gift capable of dramatically accelerating the cultivation of fellow knights—fortunately restricted solely to women," Empress Annielia observed with a profound, lingering sigh. "That unassuming lad who crossed my path has grown into a titan that inspires genuine trepidation within my breast."

"Why divulge this to me?" Lina inquired, striving to fathom the imperial matriarch’s motives.

Had the empress perceived Richie as an existential threat, the imperial house could have orchestrated his assassination before his wings matured. To speak of it openly meant assassination was off the table.

"Fortunately, he is a citizen of Monstoke," Annielia chuckled softly. "Imperial autocracy finds no fertile soil there."

Comprehension dawned upon Lina. "You wish for me to steer his trajectory?"

"Far more than that; you have ever been his primary guide," the empress stated plainly. "In his present stature, those who hold sway over his choices are exceedingly few: yourself, his mentor Dana, your commander Calli, and that revered titan." She pointed toward the southwest, toward the distant free city of Capeci.

"Among them, Calli and Dana harbor zero political ambitions. That revered master is a classical libertarian who refuses to impose his will upon others. Consequently, you alone possess the authority to shape his political alignment."

"You overstate my influence," Lina deflected, seeking to decline the burden. "If political patronage is your aim, you should approach Malone; he is far better suited to negotiate statecraft."

"Malone?" Annielia dismissed the name with a light scoff. "The Monstoke populace harbors an instinctual, deep-seated dread of military knights; their political honeymoon is drawing to a close. Malone and Richie will not rupture their alliance, for each requires the other, yet they will never achieve true intimacy. As for his father, while holding minor domestic sway, the man is far too pliable—we can manipulate him effortlessly, as can our rivals."

Having dismissed the alternatives, Annielia pivoted back to her proposition, dangling an irresistible prize: "Trisli has eclipsed your martial renown across your entire youth; do you truly harbor no desire to reclaim your glory?"

Lina’s reaction defied the sovereign’s calculations. Falling into a brief, contemplative trance, Lina murmured softly: "I must concede: she is genuinely superior to me. In years past I dismissed her as an arrogant poser, but with my recent martial awakenings, I realize she achieved this threshold years ago. Her physical cultivation merely lagged behind her transcendent spiritual comprehension."

Annielia shook her head gently: "You sell yourself short. Had you not endured those years of trauma, you would not stand a step behind her. Furthermore, Monstoke is a wasteland for knightly development, offering zero masters capable of guiding your potential. Your father was the natural mentor, yet between the two of you..."

Her voice shifted into regal intrigue: "There is another paramount factor: you carry the blood of the Saint Emperor. If you tread the conventional path of ordinary knights, your ceiling is severely constrained. The imperial lineage possesses its own sacred, secret pathway."

Lina locked eyes with the empress. For years she had suspected that the senior imperial line guarded an esoteric rite to awaken dormant bloodline power.

Her father had never been a prodigy, being conservative and cautious to a fault. Yet though he achieved Ace and Honor ranks far later than his generational peers, he had achieved the Glorious tier with effortless, unshakeable grace.

In her academy days, tutors held up her father as the paragon of methodical foundation-building. Other students believed the myth, but Lina had nursed doubts ever since overhearing an argument between her father and uncles—wherein an uncle had bitterly spat that her father’s ascension was the fruit of secret imperial patronage bestowed upon the branch leader.

In youth she had failed to grasp the mystery, but recently, observing Richie, Nora, and Randy, she had uncovered an unprecedented truth: the magnitude of mental spiritual force dictated a knight's combat potential far more than physical battle qi ever could.

"You possess the means to awaken the dormant authority of our bloodline within me?" Lina asked directly.

"If you are prepared to consummate this covenant," Empress Annielia nodded with serene certainty.

The arrival of the main convoy marked the official formation of this unprecedented expeditionary brigade composed almost entirely of female knights.

Such an auspicious milestone demanded a grand celebration.

That evening, a lavish feast unfolded within the compound, though the dining banquet was merely the modest prelude; the true jubilee commenced only after the hall doors were barred.

With the compound partitioned into smaller barracks, the only chambers capable of hosting the entire contingent were the mess hall, the gymnasium, and the second-floor grand conference hall. Considering acoustic discretion, the conference hall was chosen as the sanctum of revelry.

The conference chamber could accommodate barely two to three hundred occupants, yet that capacity proved more than adequate; after all, Richie was the sole virile master among them, and attending to such a vast host of beauties single-handedly pushed mortal limits.

The conference chairs had been cleared into the hallways, leaving only the colossal mahogany table anchoring the center.

Quilts and plush mattresses gathered from across the barracks carpeted the floorboards and conference table from wall to wall. Richie stood atop the mahogany table—the undisputed monarch of the revels, the master of the stage.

The female knights had long since stripped bare, having thoroughly cleansed themselves in the bathhouses.

Clustered closest to the central table were the veteran members of Unit 105, alongside Richie's hand-picked captives and their newest addition, Victoria.

All was harmonious, save for an undercurrent of venomous friction: Richie perceived an unmistakable aura of bitter animosity crackling between Victoria and Lina.

Lina was famously untamed, harboring rivalries with many peers; within Unit 105, her dynamic with the three sisters was famously prickly, and her rivalry with Trisli was continentally renowned.

Yet between Lina and Victoria, the tension felt infinitely darker: whenever their eyes collided, invisible sparks seemed to ignite across the chamber. Richie resolved to investigate the history between the pair in due time, though the present hour called for far sweeter pursuits. He beckoned toward Calli standing nearby. As commander of the brigade, she ought to set the standard.

To his bewilderment, Calli shook her head with a mysterious smile, her posture conveying deference rather than refusal.

Before Richie could process her hesitation, several female knights stepped forward carrying a massive wooden crate wrapped in lavender silk and bound with golden ribbons.

The chest was hoisted onto the center of the conference table.

"Is this a tribute for me?" Richie mused, wondering whether it held exotic instruments of pleasure or delicate silk lingerie.

"Why not unwrap it and behold for yourself?" Merlin urged with a playful giggle.

"Open it! Open it!"

"Unveil the tribute!"

A chorus of boisterous cheering rippled through the assembled maidens.

Seizing the gilded ribbon, Richie tugged gently. The silk slid away, revealing a pristine white gift box beneath.

Lifting the lid, Richie froze in stunned silence.

Curled asleep within the satin lining was a woman—unclad, with not a thread upon her plush contours save for a crimson silk scarf tied in a delicate butterfly knot about her slender neck, lending her mature grace an enchanting aura of youthful innocence.

The woman was Velia.

Velia appeared lost in deep slumber, curled peacefully within the box like a slumbering beauty.

"Are you ladies mad?" Richie stammered, caught off balance. Aside from the three sisters, he had never forced an unwilling woman; even the subjugation of the sisters had been orchestrated under Lina’s explicit orders.

"Cast aside your doubts; no harm will come of it," Aima declared cheerfully.

"You exhibited precious little hesitation when you ravished the three of us back then!" the second sister chimed in with lingering petulance. Though she had long surrendered her heart to Richie, the memory of her initial conquest remained a point of mock grievance. Having another senior comrade initiated under intoxicating draughts offered sweet psychological restitution.

"Cease your dawdling—are you a virile knight or not?" the eldest sister shouted, joining the chorus.

Richie had long nursed an unspoken attraction toward Velia, though it had remained untainted by romantic obsession.

Encouraged by the cheering host, he leaned forward, lifting Velia from the satin box and gently laying her upon the quilted table.

Velia was a handsome beauty, though her casual, tomboyish swagger often caused men to overlook her feminine charms.

Having raised a daughter to adulthood, her allure possessed a lush, intoxicating ripeness. Her silhouette was generously contoured, her breasts elevated and crowned by rich, darkened aureolas; her long, shapely limbs parted slightly in slumber, framing a flat abdomen that betrayed no trace of childbearing, resting above a lush, dark thicket.

Richie recalled the ancient folk proverb: women endowed with dense feminine thickets harbored insatiable sensual passions.

He wondered whether Velia conformed to the lore.

Her delicate lips were full and ripe, tightly sealed from months of romantic abstinence.

Leaning close, Richie parted her petals, beholding the exquisite sight beneath: an unfolding crimson rose glistening with moisture.

Only then did he notice a slender metallic conduit trailing from her rear threshold.

Though drugged into slumber, the presence of the apparatus had brought her intimate passages to a flush of expectant warmth.

Faced with such an exquisite, defenseless beauty, Richie was no ascetic monk; his discipline shattered completely.

Lifting her knees until her thighs rested against her ribs, he guided his virile shaft toward her warm entrance.

Her passage was damp, yet not drenched; sleep inevitably muted physiological response.

Lowering his hips, Richie guided his thick member smoothly into Velia’s tender depths.

Cultivating fire-attribute battle arts, her passage radiated intense, intoxicating warmth. Richie paused, reveling in the snug, feverish embrace of her flesh.

Moments later, he initiated a rhythmic, accelerating cadence of deep thrusts, driving with compounding vigor at each stroke and rotating with firm pressure at the crest of each impact.

Whether due to the dissipating draught or the intense stimulation waking her senses, her dormant form began to stir. Initially registering as faint muscular tremors, her hips soon began to gently undulate in instinctive harmony with his cadence.

Her responsive movement ignited Richie’s primal fervor. Seizing her hips, he drove down with full body weight, slamming home with resounding percussive slaps that echoed across the quiet hall.

Velia’s consciousness cleared rapidly, her rhythmic participation growing wilder as her hips arched to meet his thrusts, breathless whimpers slipping through her parted lips.

Suddenly, her eyes snapped wide open.

At the very instant of awakening, a tsunami of soul-shattering pleasure engulfed her senses.

A sharp cry escaped her lips as her entire frame locked in rigid spasm.

The violent muscular contraction clamped down upon Richie’s embedded length like an iron vice. The sudden arrest caught him entirely unprepared, nearly straining his member under the abrupt deceleration.

The brief pause allowed Velia to draw a frantic, shuddering breath.

As cognitive awareness returned, a crushing wave of mortification swept over her soul.

She could not discern whether her shame stemmed from engaging in passionate intimacy before a gallery of hundreds of peers, or from the dark guilt of betraying her marital vows.

Before her thoughts could resolve, Richie resumed his offensive.

Deploying his consummate sensual techniques, his hands roamed expertly across her sensitive meridians, awakening every dormant chord of sensation.

Under his calculated assault, Velia was cast into a tempest. She felt as though she had been launched into the boundless heavens, or adrift upon a tiny skiff tossed between mountainous oceanic swells, plunging from crest to abyss in terrifying abandon.

She was a wedded woman who had known wild seasons in her youth, yet never in her life had she tasted such transcendent ecstasy.

She had heard tales of Richie’s legendary prowess, yet only upon experiencing it firsthand did she comprehend that rumors paled before the reality.

Richie paid little heed to her inner turmoil. Compared to other conquests, he treated Velia with remarkable gentleness; while establishing his authority, his methods eschewed raw brutality in favor of profound, resonant stimulation.

Sensual pleasure was akin to vintage wine: greatness lay not in sheer alcoholic burn, but in mellow depth and lingering aftertaste.

He guaranteed that after this night, Velia would awaken from every future slumber yearning for the memory of his touch.

Physical senses remained incorruptibly honest. Despite her psychological shame, her body yielded completely to Richie’s mastery, her hips resuming their serpentine undulations to receive his every plunge.

Mortified by her body’s shameless compliance, Velia wished to weep aloud, yet her throat yielded only breathless, melodic cries of surrender.

Suddenly, her flesh seized anew as the apparatus embedded within her rear threshold vibrated with electric intensity, severing all neural control over her lower limbs.

For a woman experiencing Richie for the first time, ordinary passion was already an overwhelming ordeal; combined with internal vibrations, it became the straw that shattered her psychological defenses.

Just then, a stream of refined battle qi surged into her meridians, dispersing through her core.

The battle qi acted as a lifesaver, granting her a fleeting respite from collapse; yet moments later, she discovered the reprieve was a bittersweet curse, as her imminent climax refused to disperse.

If she had previously dreaded the abyss of release like one standing upon a precipice, she now yearned to leap headlong into the void to end the exquisite torment.

Her hips slammed upward in desperate, ravenous abandonment, her whimpers rising into frantic, breathless squeals.

Burying her face in her hands, her body locked into a violent tremor, her arched waist lifting her hips completely off the table. Her clamped walls gripped his length in rapid, rhythmic spasms, vibrating in unison with her trembling thighs.

Richie had known countless women, yet this unique, vibrating climax was an unprecedented wonder—a sensation as delightfully soothing as an internal massage.

More amusingly, Velia experienced a copious, gushing tide of feminine release, soaking the quilts beneath her in warm moisture.

Reaching beneath her hips, Richie touched the fluid, confirming it possessed the viscous, fragrant richness unique to feminine rapture.

His member pulsed twice within her depth as he simulated release, coating her passage in a warm burst of seed. Though a strategic trick to conserve vital essence, its psychological potency was unassailable: experience had taught him that once a woman felt a man's seed flood her womb, her psychological defenses crumbled into absolute, devoted surrender.

To conquer a woman was to claim sovereign domain over territory; to plant seed was to establish everlasting dominion.

After a long interlude, Richie finally disengaged from Velia’s exhausted form.

Lurking in the afterglow of release, Velia lay motionless upon the quilts, her limbs sprawling in limp surrender, her flushed contours shimmering with residual perspiration.

Her intimate gateway was thoroughly drenched, creamy froth trailing down her thighs alongside the lingering essence Richie had deposited.

Basking in her radiant post-coital grace, Velia exuded an intoxicating, mature bloom that left Richie momentarily spellbound.

A strange, magnetic fascination rippled through his heart.

Velia was neither the most striking beauty nor the most accomplished courtesan; why did she command such an overwhelming hold over his senses?

In that fleeting second, an image of another mature silhouette flashed unbidden across his mind’s eye—a figure sharing only one trait with Velia: transcendent, ripe maturity.

Terror seized Richie’s soul, and he slammed his thoughts shut against the vision. That was an absolute taboo—a dark abyss he dared never contemplate. A single stray thought felt as though the gates of hell were swinging wide, with a throne carved with his name waiting in the fire.

"My turn has arrived," Calli's commanding voice shattered his trance, grounding him back in reality.

To Richie's utter astonishment, the brigade commander knelt between his thighs, cradling his glistening member in her palms and taking it into her lips with meticulous, reverent care.

Having just emerged from Velia's body, the shaft was coated in intimate fluids, yet Calli displayed not a flicker of distaste.

Looking down upon his commander, Richie met Calli’s steady, upturned gaze.

In that instant, Richie understood everything.

Through this public act of unreserved submission, Captain Calli was demonstrating to every female knight in the hall that Richie stood as the supreme, sovereign master of this entire military host.

Richie’s gaze swept across the veteran ranks of Unit 105.

In the eyes of Randy, Margaret, Merlin, Lina, and Master Dana, he read the exact same unshakeable allegiance. Only the three sisters and Rosa looked on with their customary, thoughtless camaraderie.

The sole presence he could not decipher was Nora.

Nora stood silently in the shadows, her ethereal composure making her appear as though she were a ghost hovering outside the mortal realm.