Chapter 203: My Touch Ate The S-Rank Core

Chapter 203: Chapter 203: My Touch Ate The S-Rank Core

Giselle moved before I could.

She pulled off one glove, stepped up to the barrier, and laid her bare palm flat against the light.

The crystal’s white pulse shifted at once: red warning bleeding away into a clear, steady green. The change was smooth, almost respectful.

Draven gave her an approving nod and a thumbs-up.

"Nice. Clean registration. No hostility, no greed spike. Exactly what a properly raised niece should read."

Both of them turned to look at me.

I laughed, too short and too loud, trying to push the moment sideways.

"Is it really that important? I’m fine just seeing it. Really. Satisfied."

[Do it.]

The voice was soft and absolute.

’No. If you want it this badly, it’s something bad.’

Draven’s eyes narrowed.

The cheerful mask thinned.

"Come on. No harm done. I want to see what colour it gives you. Curiosity is healthy. Refusal is interesting in a different way."

Giselle’s mask lenses reflected the green light.

She nodded once.

"Do it, Revien."

I stared at the crystal.

The Sybaritic Nexus structure tightened like a muscle preparing to flex.

Inside my skull, the foreign presence waited with the patience of something that had already decided the outcome.

I moved anyway.

’Suppress Succubus core.’

[Suppressing Core — In Progress...]

[Failed.]

[Huhu... You don’t like me?]

Of course it failed.

I had known it would.

Standing between an unknown entity living in my head and the apex predator watching me with yellow eyes, I still chose the danger I could at least see.

Draven was a known quantity.

The voice was not.

I walked forward.

The warmth of the core reached my palms before I even touched the barrier: a dry, penetrating heat that had nothing to do with temperature.

I raised both hands, hesitated one last second, and pressed them flat against the light.

’Here goes nothing.’

For ten full seconds nothing changed.

The green Giselle had produced held steady. The crystal pulsed on the same rhythm. Draven tilted his head, expression caught between curiosity and mild disappointment.

"Weird. Flat response. Almost like it’s ignoring you."

’Thank god.’

[Thank me.]

The system window bloomed directly in my vision, sharp and unavoidable.

[Core Draining Initiated...]

[Accelerating Draining Speed...]

A dark patch bloomed under my right palm.

It started as a pinprick of absolute black at the centre of the contact point, then spread outward in thin, vein-like threads, corrupting the white-green lattice of the crystal.

The pulse stuttered. The barrier’s hum climbed into a higher, strained register.

Heat lanced up my arms, not the earlier intimate warmth, but something greedy and one-way.

I ripped my hands back.

The dark threads froze, then slowly began to fade, but the damage was visible: a faint, smoky discoloration remained in the facets I had touched.

Both Draven and Giselle had seen the entire sequence.

Fuck me.

Giselle stepped in close, voice tight.

"What happened?"

"I don’t know. I think the core wasn’t suitable for me. Maybe a signature rejects it. Or the other way around."

The lie tasted thin even to me.

Draven’s gaze had gone flat and assessing in a way that no longer bothered with performance.

He looked from the faintly marked crystal to my hands and then to my face.

"You are very strange...," he said at last.

"I’ll ask Milana to take a proper look at you when we get back. Quietly. Before the academy term starts."

I let out a breath I had been holding and managed a nod.

Giselle said nothing, but the fragment of her core under my ribs pulsed once in questioning pressure.

She had felt the drain attempt through the bond.

She knew the excuse was incomplete.

Draven spent another ten minutes walking us through residual spawn markers, the way smaller cores formed in high-density kills, and the guild protocols for sealing a cleared chamber.

I heard less than half of it.

The voice in my head had gone quiet again, but the quiet felt satisfied rather than absent.

When he finally led us back up the ramp and through the amber membrane, the transition felt longer than the entry.

The orange containment field of the sealed city closed over us.

Outside the barrier, the ordinary light of Sector 5 returned, thin and colourless after the dungeon’s dense mana.

We stripped the combat suits in the staging area.

Giselle’s civilian clothes were simple: dark fitted pants, a sleeveless top that left her shoulders and the faint marks on her throat visible.

I watched her for a second longer than necessary while she sealed the suit into its case.

[She looks sensual, doesn’t she?]

The voice returned as if it had only been waiting for the privacy of open air.

’The hell?’

[What? Don’t you remember how good you fucked her?]

[The way she broke when you finally stopped being careful?]

[The sounds she tried to keep behind her teeth?]

’I remember. That doesn’t make it any of your business.’

[Oh, it is everything. Your body is my window.]

[Your pleasure is my reference library. Embrace her.]

[She’s already carrying a piece of you. The Nexus is hungry for another investment.]

I turned away before my face could give anything else away.

Draven was speaking with the senior analyst, already half-distracted by the next obligation on his list.

He glanced back once, yellow eyes amused again, and raised his voice just enough to carry.

"I have things to do. You two... continue your date from last night."

A wink directed squarely at Giselle.

"Don’t forget — academy intake is nine days out. You’ll be seeing each other under much less private circumstances. Try not to spend everything here."

He left us with a careless wave and a trail of camera operators still hoping for one more usable shot.

The staging area suddenly felt too open.

Giselle sealed her case, collected mine without asking, and started walking toward the vehicle that had brought us.

I fell in beside her.

[Embrace her,] it repeated, softer.

[Or I will keep reminding you how she felt until you do.]

Giselle spoke without looking at me.

"I want to have a spar. Let’s go to the guild."