Han Yasheng's incredibly smooth and pleasant voice rang around the place, making everyone feel as if everything else suddenly became silent just to hear him.
"This year, we have new participants. So, unlike usual, His Majesty has asked me to explain how the Royal Hunting Competition develops. First, for families that hunt high-level prey, rewards await. This is an event to gather the pillars of the empire, and at the same time an opportunity to get some treasures from the Royal Treasury."
Yasenia listened silently. If something like this would tempt her, she would be falling straight into the schemes of her enemies. Even if what was announced was something of value, Yasenia had no desire to perform exceptionally and stand out.
"The Royal Hunting competition will last for six months. During this time, the royal plains will be open, and you will be able to explore and hunt all beasts within at will. You can collect herbs, gather precious minerals, and more. As long as you are collecting valuables, you are allowed to do it."
A Young Lady gathered courage and shouted shyly. "C-Can I collect you, Lord Han?"
Yasenia blinked and looked over as other people laughed or glared in her direction. Han Yasheng, as if accustomed to such things, smiled handsomely at that woman and spoke softly. "Sadly, I am not a trophy that can be claimed. Only I claim the trophies."
Many Young Ladies shouted a small, girlish scream, and even some madams blushed slightly.
Yasenia couldn't help but comment to her girls. "Even when the lines are somewhat cheesy, with that face and voice, no wonder he is considered one of the most desired men in the Empire."
The girls agreed with Yasenia, but they weren't showing any reaction to him. Yasenia had pumped all of them full of Yang energy during the last week so that they had enough inside of them, just in case. After all, Yasenia's Yang Energy was beneficial and could even be used during combat as auxiliary energy.
So, they were currently in their sage mode and couldn't feel much other than peace of mind.
Han Yasheng continued explaining territories, zones, point systems, etc. Yasenia listened but didn't care much about it. As said before, she would enter, get a few nice treasures at a leisurely pace, and finish wherever that placed them.
Tatyana, meanwhile, was looking at Han Yasheng with a confused expression, as if trying to recall something. Yasenia noticed and asked, confused. "What's wrong, Mom?"
Tatyana crossed her arms and tilted her head. "I think I know him… But I am not sure."
This Heavenly Layer was where Tatyana spent most of her life. Before arriving at the Sky Continent, and even after doing so, Tatyana had traveled around the worlds and explored the area.
So, she had been in quite a few worlds in this layer.
Yasenia glanced at Tatyana and hugged her from behind, resting her chin on her shoulder with a squint. "He isn't one of your past lovers, is he?"
While she had not mentioned it, that didn't mean Yasenia forgot about them. Be it the two Sect Leaders of the Demonic and Heavenly Sect back in Sky Continent, Jurtok, that demon, or the others that Tatyana never mentioned.
Tatyana looked at Yasenia, and an amused light flashed in her eyes. "What if he is?"
Yasenia's golden-slit eyes gained a trace of red color. "Then… He might suddenly disappear."
When she was younger, she had said that she didn't really care about them. However, as she loved Tatyana more and more, a touch of jealousy appeared in her heart.
Wanting Tatyana to be completely pure after almost 500,000 years of life and, furthermore, developing a [Love Law] was ridiculous. Still, Yasenia had become increasingly possessive as her dragon traits developed.
Her tail, tightly curled around Tatyana's legs and waist, spoke volumes about how Yasenia's heart was feeling. Tatyana laughed and looked back at Han Yasheng. Rubbing her chin, she tried to recall.
"I will be honest, love. After my [Love Law] manifested using you as its base, my past love history has become immensely… blurry. It seems that because my [Love Law] developed to suit you, even my soul was modified to a large extent, affected by the [Love Law] that only answers to you."
Tatyana basically hammered home how she currently felt in that paragraph so many times that even Yasenia began blushing slightly. The tail coiling around Tatyana tensed up again, slithering with alluring and slightly erotic motions.
Cecile stepped forward and, after creating a simple sound-canceling formation, her hand swung and landed squarely on Yasenia's left cheek.
Slap~!
Yasenia jumped a little, turning around with a puzzled face. "S-Sweetheart?"
Cecile glanced at Yasenia with a squint. "Control yourself. We are in public."
Yasenia glanced around and noticed a few glances moving in their direction, making her lips twitch. 'Crap. Didn't I say I didn't want to stand out? I just placed a lightbulb on my head…'
Tatyana covered her mouth to hide the smile that almost threatened to form in full bloom. Yasenia's reaction to her suspicious attitude had been so adorable and lovely that even she almost lost control and pushed Yasenia down.
'If she keeps acting this lovely, my will to have my second child only with my main body might weaken~. Ah. I love her so much.'
Tatyana froze for a moment, her sight sinking into her inner mental space. There, her figure chained to the four massive pillars knelt on the bloody sea as several other selves clung to her and whispered, caressed, and tried to seduce her.
In the black sky, the two red suns floated behind her, creating a long, overlapping shadow on the red, blood sea in front of her. Skeletal corpses of countless beings floated beyond the horizon, while hundreds or even thousands of Heart Demons looked at her from different angles with myriad different expressions.
"Oh. Look who has opened her eyes?"
"I wonder why you've come here? Were you feeling my fingers so nicely?"
"It was probably my whipping, hahaha. Compared to Yasenia, we are much better at everything, after all."
Of course, Tatyana didn't even flinch at their antics. Her willpower was unbreakable as long as her mind stayed clear. Tatyana's calm, indifferent red eyes glanced around, ignoring her mostly disheveled clothes and the chains keeping her four limbs tightly bound. As if that wasn't enough, thorny vines constantly moved and dug around her body, creating and healing wounds and causing constant agony.
Just those vines would've been enough to bring almost all cultivators to their knees and make them writhe and scream in pain.
At her sides, one of her copies licked her neck, another clung to her legs, two hands seductively slithered between her legs, and another whipped her back with a thorny whip. That wasn't all, many would walk over and whisper terrible things, trying to chip away at Tatyana's mental strength… and yet, Tatyana's body didn't even make an involuntary flinch.
She was like a gorgeous yet tragic statue… or so she seemed. Instead of the reaction they wanted, Tatyana's face formed a cold, ruthless, and maniacal smile.
The Heart Demons flinched. They've seen that expression before, and it happened when Tatyana recently killed some of them.
In an instant, all the Heart Demons around Tatyana jumped back in fear… but it was too late.
CLANGG!!!!!
Tatyana's injured arms tensed up, blood bursting from the open wounds as her arm muscles tensed up. The chain made a terrible sound, and an instant later, the right-arm chain exploded.
"HAHA! So it was you…!"
Her hand plunged down, driving into the blood, and the blood sea around Tatyana churned. Her wide grin, together with her wide-open red eyes, gleamed with bloodthirst and delight. "Do you think you can escape me inside my SOUL? DIE!"
Blood tendrils burst from the sea, latching onto over three dozen Heart Demons. Those Heart Demons, looking exactly like herself, showed terrified expressions as they were dragged back in a single pull.
"W-Wait! How can you forget that hurt!? He left—"
Tatyana laughed loudly. "HAHAHA! Why would I care what happened!? All of you, disappear!"
A chain shot from the pillar toward her arm, attempting to stop her movement. Sadly, Tatyana was far too fast.
The several dozen Heart Demons that were brought near her entered the zone between the four pillars, and once they did, the blood sea churned and several spikes shot up, impaling all of them through the head, heart, dantian, arms, stomach, womb, legs, throats, and even lungs.
It was a brutal death.
The chain arrived a beat too late and re-chained Tatyana's arms, tightening up like before and placing her back in her initial position.
Once she was rechained, the Heart Demons flew back with varied expressions. Anger, sadness, embarrassment, dismay, hatred, and many other emotions mixed among the remaining Heart Demons.
Truthfully, their failure to break Tatyana's willpower, even with so many of them, was already quite shameful. At least, their numbers meant they could completely chain Tatyana up within her and completely block her from reducing their numbers.
Eventually, they would become enough to create a crack. Once that crack formed, the game would be decided.
One of the Heart Demons approached and slapped Tatyana's face with her nails. "HOW DARE A BROKEN AND USED WOMAN LIKE YOU RAISE YOUR HAND?"
Another grabbed her hair and pulled her face up, using her nails to dig into Tatyana's flesh. "We are your masters, Tatyana. Dance around as much as you want, but you and us know you are already broken beyond repair."
Tatyana coughed up a mouthful of blood, but her arched lips remained, showing delight within her innate madness.
"Repair?"
Tatyana's glowing red eyes showed mockery and contempt.
"I was never meant to be repaired, you annoying fleas."
Even as her flesh was being dug and hundreds of screams came at her from all directions, Tatyana's face softened as she smiled gently.
"What I am… Who I am… is someone who doesn't need to be repaired. I am someone who needs to be reforged, and my personal blacksmith has already appeared and is doing a wonderful job."
CLANGG!!!
She tensed her arms again, creating a deafening chain-rattling sound. The Heart Demons jumped back again, looking at Tatyana with wary and scared gazes.
Tatyana burst into laughter. "HAHAHA! INSECTS. YOU SCATTER LIKE COCKROACHES WITH JUST A SINGLE GESTURE! HAHAHAHAHA! My Masters!? You are all just bedbugs to be disinfected! Pathetic creatures!"
Tatyana's maddened laughter echoed around, and a second later, her laughter was drowned out as the Heart Demons rushed at her, furious. Even then, Tatyana just laughed.
"Mom?"
Tatyana blinked, returning to reality. Looking up, she saw a pair of gorgeous yet slightly worried golden slit eyes looking at her. Within them, endless love and care flowed, full of vitality and reflecting only her.
Tatyana couldn't help but raise her hand, caressing Yasenia's soft cheek as her gaze became lost in Yasenia's eyes. Even as pain assaulted her from the deepest part of her soul constantly, Tatyana smiled gently and spoke softly. "Don't worry. I was just remembering."
Without looking away from Yasenia's gorgeous eyes, Tatyana spoke nonchalantly. "As for that guy, he is indeed someone I met in the past. So, do as you please. Ignore him, roast him, capture him, torture him, kill him… Whatever you want to do, I will help you. Even if you want to transform this world into a graveyard… I'll help you."
Yasenia blinked as she felt Tatyana's madness-coated love cover her like a sticky substance. Yasenia didn't cower, though. She instead smiled and hugged Tatyana, laughing softly. "Silly. Do you think I don't know that? I love you, Tatyana."
Tatyana buried her face in Yasenia's breasts and took a deep breath, filling her lungs with her scent.
"I love you too… My Little Treasure."
(Author Note: For new Patreons, you have an image named [Death Empress's Chains: Heart Demon Inner World]. That shows her inner world. It's quite a cool illustration, hehe.)