Succubus World - Start with Incubus System

On the other side of the city, the crack of a whip tearing through the air rang out in a vast main hall.

Smack!

Carmilla’s head snapped to one side. A red welt stretched from her shoulder down her arm, the black high-collared garment torn open to reveal skin that was already swelling. She staggered two steps and only kept from falling by bracing a hand against the table.

Naron sat in a leather-upholstered electric cart, his obese face flushed red with rage. Merely swinging the whip a few more times left him gasping for breath, his massive belly heaving beneath an expensive nightrobe.

On the wall opposite, a magical screen was still playing the video from the Transfer Center.

Carmilla bowing her head before Erik and Elowen.

Carmilla admitting that Nathan was the one at fault.

Then Erik stopping the guard, taking her hand, and gently reassuring her.

The video had been recorded by passersby and spread across the network. Within a single night, nearly all of Silver Moon’s upper class knew that Carmilla had personally apologized to the man who had beaten her son.

Naron jabbed a finger at the screen, the hand holding the whip trembling with fury.

"I told you to go handle this, not to kneel down and humiliate me!"

He pressed a control button. The cart rolled forward, forcing Carmilla to back away.

"Your son gets his teeth knocked out by someone, and not only do you fail to get revenge, you admit he was in the wrong. How do outsiders look at this family now?"

Carmilla wiped away the blood running from her temple. The old wound on her forehead, barely closed, had been split open again by the whip handle.

"Nathan harassed another man’s Partner first." Her voice was hoarse but still calm. "Erik spared his life. If we keep pursuing this, we’re the only ones who lose."

"Shut your mouth!"

Naron swung the whip again.

Smack!

This time the lash wrapped around Carmilla’s waist, tearing a long line through the black fabric. Her body curled inward from the pain, her breath catching in her throat.

At Silver-tier strength, Carmilla could have caught the whip before it ever touched her. A single surge of mana would have been enough to overturn the cart along with the obese man sitting in it. But her hands hung limp at her sides.

Nearly twenty-five years of submission had turned endurance into reflex. The Contract in her soul sent waves of suppression through her every time the intention to resist her Partner surfaced.

Nathan sat on a sofa not far away. One of his cheeks was still swollen, and the gap where the tooth had been knocked out made his smile even more crooked.

"Father, I already told you she’s been bewitched by that Erik."

He replayed another video and zoomed in on the moment Carmilla gripped the hem of Erik’s shirt.

"Look at the way she’s looking at him. She even reached out and touched him in front of all those people. If the guard hadn’t stopped her, who knows what she would have done?"

Carmilla turned to look at her son. A disappointment she no longer bothered to hide surfaced in those dark red eyes.

"Nathan, I did that to save you."

"Save me?" He sneered. "You just wanted to find a man younger than Father."

Hearing that, Naron’s expression grew even uglier. The whip in his hand came down again and again.

Smack! Smack!

Two more tears opened across Carmilla’s back. She dropped to one knee, her black hair falling forward to hide her face. Blood soaked through her clothes and dripped onto the white stone floor.

A black-haired Succubus standing behind Nathan unconsciously stepped forward. She was the one who had accompanied him at the Pairing Center, the same one who had silently picked up the tooth Erik knocked out and hurried after him to tend to his injuries.

Her fingers clenched until they went white, but when she looked at Nathan, her step halted halfway.

Naron panted and tossed the whip onto the cart’s armrest.

"Carmilla, you’ve forgotten who gave you the life you have now."

She braced herself against the table and rose. Blood trickled slowly from the corner of her mouth down to her chin.

"I founded this corporation before I married you."

The answer struck the hall silent. It was the first time in nearly twenty-five years that Carmilla had spoken to Naron in that tone.

He glared, his obese face twitching.

"But you gave it to me as your dowry!"

Naron slammed his hand against the cart.

"The building, the accounts, the shares, every last piece of it is in my name. You’re just a Succubus I permitted to sit in a management chair. Without me, you own nothing!"

Nathan immediately chimed in:

"Father’s right. Mother only manages the company on the family’s behalf. Don’t think that just because outsiders call her the matriarch, she actually has any authority to decide anything."

Carmilla looked at the two of them. Naron had neglected her for nearly twenty-five years, yet still regarded everything she built as his own. Nathan was the child she had carried, given birth to, and raised with her own hands, and in the end he stood at his father’s side and watched her be beaten.

Before, Carmilla would have bowed her head and apologized. She would have found a way to placate Naron, then gone right back to work to hold together a family that existed only in name.

But at that moment, a pair of dark eyes surfaced in her mind.

Erik had stood before her, gently taken her ice-cold hand, and said, "Don’t be afraid."

He hadn’t demanded money, hadn’t held her responsible for Nathan’s mistake. Before leaving, Erik had even told her not to be so hard on herself. Just a few simple sentences had let Carmilla see her own life more clearly than ever before.

This place had never been a family.

Everything she’d fought to hold together for twenty-five years was nothing but a cage she had built with her own hands, then handed the key to someone else.

Carmilla’s gaze slowly went cold.

"You’re right."

Naron narrowed his eyes.

"What did you say?"

"It’s all in your name." Carmilla braced her hands on the table and slowly straightened despite the wounds covering her body. "If you want to throw me out, I’ll go."

Nathan laughed. Naron wasn’t nearly as pleased. He stared at Carmilla, seemingly unable to believe the woman who had always submitted to him was agreeing this easily.

"You think I’m only threatening you?"

"I know you aren’t joking."

Carmilla looked at him. Those dark red eyes were calm to the point of being unrecognizable.

"From today on, I won’t be managing the company for you anymore."

Naron felt his authority being challenged. He gritted his teeth and raised the hand bearing the Contract ring.

"Fine. If you want to get out, then get out with nothing at all."

A surge of dark red light flared from the ring.

Carmilla immediately realized what he intended to do. Her face went pale, but she didn’t beg. Naron watched her, waiting for that familiar look of terror. Seeing only silence, he grew angrier still.

"I, Naron, by the authority of a Partner, hereby terminate my formal Contract with Carmilla."

Boom!

A deep, muffled sound rang out from somewhere within her soul.

The Contract mark that had existed for nearly twenty-five years appeared on Carmilla’s chest. The tangled red lines of light shuddered, then fractured all at once.

Naron only frowned slightly. The glow on his ring quickly faded, and his body suffered no harm whatsoever.

Carmilla, on the other hand, felt as though an invisible hand had struck her square in the chest. She coughed up a mouthful of blood. All strength drained from her legs, and her whole body collapsed onto the stone floor.

The mana in her body, already weakened, immediately fell into chaos. Her Silver-tier aura wavered violently, nearly dropping all the way to Bronze. Carmilla’s face went bloodless, her lips losing all color, every breath dragging a tearing pain through her chest.

Naron looked down at her from above, his expression holding nothing but contempt.

"That’s the price for a Succubus who forgets her place."

He backed the cart up and waved a hand at the steward.

"Throw her out. Don’t let her take a single thing belonging to this house."

Two female guards moved toward Carmilla. Before they could touch her, the black-haired Succubus beside Nathan rushed forward and knelt down, shielding her.

"Stop!"

She spread her arms wide. Her body trembled with fear, but she still faced the approaching guards.

"My lady is severely injured. At the very least, let a Healer examine her first."

Nathan slowly rose to his feet.

"Rhea."

The black-haired Succubus turned. A last sliver of hope remained in her eyes.

"Nathan, she’s your mother."

"Are you telling me what to do?"

"I only-"

"Get out."

Rhea went rigid. Nathan pulled the ring off his hand and threw it down in front of her.

"You stood there and watched Erik humiliate me. Now you dare disobey me to protect her. I don’t need a useless Succubus like you."

Rhea watched the ring roll across the stone floor, tears rising fast.

"I handed over all my assets to you. I signed the Contract-"

"That was your own choice." Nathan cut in coldly. "Isn’t feeding you all this time already enough?"

He extended a hand toward the mark on Rhea’s neck.

"I terminate the Contract."

Light flashed.

Rhea cried out in pain and fell, clutching her chest. Blood spilled from the corner of her mouth, and her young face went white in an instant.

Lying on the ground, Carmilla forced her arm out and pulled the girl into her arms.

"Rhea..."

Naron snapped impatiently:

"Throw them both out!"

No one in the hall spoke up. The servants who had taken orders from Carmilla every single day all bowed their heads low, avoiding her gaze.

The two guards escorted Carmilla and Rhea out of the estate through a side door. Their spatial pouches, jewelry, and every device registered under the family name were confiscated. The only thing Carmilla was allowed to keep was her personal phone, its screen cracked from hitting the floor when the Contract shattered.

The iron door closed behind them.

At some point the sky over Silver Moon had turned dark. Heavy rain poured down, quickly soaking through the hair and bloodstained clothes of both women.

Rhea had just suffered the backlash and could barely stand. Carmilla was weak enough that every step made her vision darken, yet she still wrapped an arm around the younger woman’s waist, using her own body to hold her up.

"Careful."

Rhea wept without a sound.

"My lady... where do we go now?"

Carmilla looked at the road blurred behind the curtain of rain.

She had no answer.

The company belonged to Naron on paper. The house, the accounts, and the shares had all been transferred into his name after their marriage. Even the car she normally used was corporate property.

Rhea was younger, but her situation was no different. After signing the Contract with Nathan, she had handed over all her assets as a dowry and moved into this estate. Now that the Contract was destroyed, she had no money and nowhere to return to.

Two women who had once managed and served a wealthy household ended up standing in the rain with nothing, strangers to the entire city.

Carmilla helped Rhea to the shelter of a public transit stop. She had barely settled the girl onto the bench when her own strength gave out, and she crumpled to the ground beside her.

The phone in her pocket suddenly buzzed.

The cracked screen glowed through the rain. A name appeared that made Carmilla’s hand tremble.

Meira.

She stared at the incoming call for several seconds before daring to answer.

"Meira..."

The voice on the other end turned serious at once.

"Your Contract was just destroyed, wasn’t it?"

Carmilla looked at Rhea curled up against the cold, her lips trembling.

"Yes."

"Your medical file just sent out an emergency alert. Your condition right now is extremely dangerous." Meira paused a beat, then spoke plainly. "Send me your location. I’ll have a car pick you up."

Carmilla froze.

"But I..."

"Come to my hospital." Meira’s voice remained calm, giving her no room to refuse. "You’ve got a Succubus with you whose Contract was just broken too, haven’t you? I’ll treat you both. We can talk about the costs later."

Heat rose behind Carmilla’s eyes. Meira continued:

"Erik and Elowen just arrived at the hospital as well. I told him what happened to you. Erik insisted that I bring both of you here."

That last sentence shattered the composure Carmilla had held onto ever since the estate.

Her knees hit the wet ground. One hand still gripped the phone while the other covered her face. Tears mixed with rainwater, running down over the streaks of blood on her cheeks.

"Thank you..."

Carmilla’s voice broke. She bent forward, her shoulders shaking violently.

"Thank you. Please... thank Erik for me."

On the other end of the line, Meira was quiet for a moment, then softened her voice.

"Tell him yourself when you get here. For now, stay conscious. The car will be there in five minutes."

The call ended.

Carmilla clutched the phone to her chest. In the freezing rain, she suddenly recalled the warmth of Erik’s hand.

For the first time in nearly twenty-five years, the Contract binding her was gone.

Carmilla had lost her home, her company, all of her assets, and nearly all of her cultivation. But as she looked at Rhea leaning against her shoulder, then at the silver-white headlights appearing at the end of the road, she felt that the cage confining her had finally opened.

Somewhere else, on the top floor of the largest media building in Silver Moon, Laviana set her phone down on the desk. A rare smile appeared on her alluring, mature face.

She pressed the internal call button.

"Tell Vylana to come see me."

Less than ten minutes later, the office door opened. Vylana walked in, her red hair slightly disheveled as though she’d just rushed out of the training room.

"You called for me, Mother?"

Laviana stood, walked over to her daughter, and adjusted her collar. The gesture was gentle, but her eyes gleamed like a businesswoman who had just spotted the most valuable opportunity of her life.

"Go back and change. Pick your best outfit."

Vylana tilted her head.

"Are we going somewhere?"

"No." Laviana smiled. "Today, we’re receiving a guest."

Vylana still didn’t understand.

"What guest is worth you preparing personally?"

Laviana pulled up the display on her desk. The message Meira had just sent was still there, its contents nothing more than a brief request for a meeting regarding a media project.

She looked at her daughter, her smile deepening.

"This is our opportunity."

Vylana’s heartbeat suddenly quickened. Laviana slowly spoke the name neither of them had been able to stop thinking about these past few days.

"Erik is coming."

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