Humans are beasts, devouring insatiable desires and bottomless lust. They bare their fangs to defile beauty, salivating at the utility of others. They squander time to sate their greed, grinding their lives to dust. Adrift on a sea of desire in a frail boat of humanity, they go mad for their own ego, crushing everything in their wake.

  Bisected, vomiting blood, Aeshma laughed. Her bizarre, maddening cackle, grating every listener’s sanity, echoed through the room as she clutched her spilling organs and gushing lower half.

  Her porcelain skin stained red, the pristine white sheets soaked in blood. The sight was grotesque beyond enduring. No screams of pain, no lament of suffering. The hardness of Danan’s boots trampling her face, the searing heat of her wounds—mere stimulants feeding her lust, like spices sprinkled on a dish, an appetizer to the main course.

  A youth who rejected her irresistible temptation, facing her with genuine murderous intent, piqued her interest. Only Damocles had ever resisted Aeshma’s overwhelming lust. Now, another joined him—a young man in black armor, with tanned skin and gray hair… Danan. Touched by his killing intent, her body torn, Aeshma couldn’t hide her joy at the deathly aura akin to Damocles’. No, she couldn’t resist it. Her flesh burned, her passion mingling with gushing blood, her golden eyes blazing with desire, panting heavily for more.

  Aeshma’s essence was unmistakably masochistic. Pain was pleasure, suffering a means to sate her lust. Agony was embraced, joy and pleasure mere tools for desire. Her ultimate goal: individuals fulfilling their own desires, liberating everyone’s lust. This was the Crucible’s wish, its prayer as an organization under her leadership. Even without her command, members chewed her will, paving the path for the organization to follow. Blind devotion turned to fanaticism, and the creature named Desire, with Aeshma at its apex, burned in sin and reveled in evil, never acknowledging its errors.

  Members served Aeshma, believing her desires were just. They’d trample others, drug them into brothels, sever limbs to please her, or toss newborns into organ tanks without hesitation. Kidnapping debtors or innocents, turning them into breeding machines or organ trade fodder—crimes committed without guilt, dying without grasping the retribution for their sins. The Crucible’s members, and those living in the pleasure district it ruled, were lunatics… broken humans. Broken, they burned in the flames of guilt, falling like moths. They died, multiplied, were killed, and died again. This self-contained, aberrant world existed for Aeshma.

  Yet… no matter how much her members devoted themselves, Aeshma couldn’t understand why they followed her. Not from low self-esteem—she genuinely couldn’t comprehend. She couldn’t read the emotions behind their actions or grasp their intent to serve. To her, the organization’s members and the district’s denizens were pitiful souls clinging to her, craving pain like she did, a selfish misinterpretation.

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  If they clung, weeping, she’d shoot their guts with drug-laced bullets, watching them break in pain and pleasure. If they resisted their lust, she’d open her legs to accept them. If they confessed sins, seeking punishment, she’d embrace their desires, forgiving all. If everyone sought it, Aeshma would become sadist or masochist, endorsing guilt and worshipping lust if her desires became theirs.

  A mad saint’s mirror, a fallen slothful mother, the womb of lunatics… Many names reviled her, but none surpassed Empress of Lust. Recognizing her madness and brokenness, Aeshma not only refused to correct it but affirmed it, ruling the lunatics. A sane person would be consumed by her words and charm, reduced to a blind sheep, screaming her name as supreme, defiled by sin. Thus, Aeshma was the most human, yet beastly, of beings.

  But calling her human stretched reason. Even infants have desires, vaguely aware of what they seek—crying when hungry, wailing when uncomfortable. Adults are the same; no matter how they endure, restraint eventually breaks, and a torrent of desire breeds atrocities. Why was Aeshma not human? Because she didn’t clearly know what she wanted or sought. Ambiguous, empty, a hollow illusion, the embodiment of a vacant cathedral. Even if she desired someone, it might not be true. A non-human… a paradox steeped in nihilistic madness. Aeshma was broken, insane.

  Kicking the giggling, moaning Aeshma, Danan felt an indescribable fear crawl up his spine. He drove his sword Heres into her chest, gouging it. Blood sprayed, but inferior Lumina bugs sealed the wound, crawling over the translucent blade like glass, eroding it.

  No more of this! Spitting the words, Danan yanked out the blade as an alarm blared from his mechanical arm. Unplugging the hack cable, he pulled an expansion terminal from the Deck—an unfamiliar device, electronic particles dancing in a transparent package, like glowing bacteria adrift in the sea.

  “Black Man… no, Danan,” Aeshma said.

  “No need to talk,” he snapped.

  “You’re… so very like him. Like Damocles.”

  “Like him? Ridiculous. Your head’s not the only thing broken—your eyes too, whore?”

  “We’re both mad, aren’t we? We’re insane, the undercity’s broken. Mad and broken, everyone laughs hysterically, deaf to sorrow or grief. Oh… you’re like us, not normal, so you can kill so easily.”

  “That’s—”

  “You’d say if you don’t kill, don’t take, you’ll lose everything, right? You want to protect your life… not others, just yourself. That’s not wrong. I won’t deny your thoughts—I’ll affirm them. So, Danan… become mine, and I’ll accept everything. I’ll give you the Hakara, protect those close to you. Isn’t that nice? Take my hand… come on.”

  A dry gunshot rang, empty casings flying. Shotgun blasts tore Aeshma to pieces, shells falling on the carpet, trailing white smoke.

  “Shut up, whore… Say one more word, and—”

  “What’ll you do, Danan?” she taunted.

  Her horrific form, covered in black nematodes, bore no trace of her peerless beauty. The being before Danan was an aberration, regenerated by copy nanomachines. Normal weapons couldn’t kill her. Judging it a waste of time, Danan pulled a grenade’s pin, hurling it at Aeshma as he ran backward.

  An ear-piercing explosion, flames spreading. Yet she laughed, fixing Danan with a sticky gaze, muttering:

  “I’ll have you… and Damocles.”

  Shaking off her curse-like words, Danan, Hakara in hand, fled the palace.