Airi's room was quiet now. Her slow breathing echoed in the hush as she lay tangled in the bedsheets, a soft smile still resting on her lips. Her fingers twitched in her sleep, as if searching for me even now.
I sat at the edge of the bed, fully clothed, watching her for a moment longer. The glow from her night lamp wrapped her in gold, as if trying to hold me there.
She had fallen asleep whispering my name.
I kissed her forehead gently, careful not to wake her, and slipped out of the room.
The night air outside was crisp and cool. Stars blinked dimly overhead, scattered above our quiet neighborhood. Our houses stood side by side—modest, neat, peaceful.
I walked the short distance home in silence, letting the weight of my second life settle back over my shoulders like a familiar coat.
The porch light at my place was still on.
"Ren?" my mother's voice called the moment I stepped inside.
She peeked out from the kitchen, her apron dusted with flour. My father was already seated at the table, glancing over his glasses with a small smile.
"You're back late," he said. "Studying again?"
"Yeah," I replied softly, offering the same shy smile I always did. "Airi's been helping me review for next week's tests."
My mother beamed. "She's such a sweet girl."
We sat down to eat. Chicken curry. Warm rice. Familiar warmth.
I answered their questions. I laughed at my dad's dry jokes. I washed my plate when I finished.
A normal night.
A normal boy.
That's what they saw.
Later, the house dimmed into stillness.
My bedroom door closed behind me with a soft click. The desk light glowed faintly.
To anyone watching, Ren had gone to sleep.
But beneath the surface, everything shifted.
I lifted the corner of the rug, pressed a hidden switch beneath the floorboards, and watched the panel slide aside, revealing the staircase into another world entirely.
The air grew cooler as I descended.
Smooth metal walls. Whispering tech. Subtle sensors scanning every step.
The base came alive with my presence.
Monitors lit up. Servers hummed. Glass panels shifted to life.
This was my real world.
I sat at the central console and placed my hand on the biometric core. In seconds, layers of encryption fell away. Dozens of encrypted agency channels opened across the globe — messages flooding in from governments, corporations, operatives who didn't even know my name.
I answered each query in silence — moving data, collapsing networks, falsifying locations. To them, I was a ghost. A miracle. A weapon.
To me, it was simply a routine.
I stood.
Passed the vaults. The sealed labs. The halls lined with prototypes decades beyond the world above.
And entered a private chamber where only one person waited.
She knelt on a velvet-lined platform in the center of the room.
Elira.
Her silver hair shimmered under the low lights, falling down her back like silk. Her clothes were delicate — minimal strips of black lace and silver thread that clung to her like reverence.
She looked up the moment I stepped inside.
"Master…"
Her voice was soft, trembling — not with fear, but with longing.
"I heard the door," she whispered. "I didn't move. I didn't speak. I wanted to be good."
"You were," I said quietly.
She let out a soft, breathless sound — a mixture of relief and aching joy.
Elira had once been a runaway — abandoned in a dark, nameless market. A slave too broken, too defiant, and too dangerous to be sold. The next in line to be discarded.
Until I appeared.
No one knew why I chose her. Not even her.
But from that moment on, she had never looked at anyone else.
She crawled forward slowly, her golden eyes glowing as they met mine.
"I waited all day," she whispered. "Did you miss me?"
I didn't answer.
She pressed her forehead to my thigh, her voice trembling. "You saved me. You gave me this life. I live only for you. Please… let me serve."
Her hands clung to my waist, trembling with desire.
"Please," she whispered again. "Let me be yours tonight."
I touched her cheek. She leaned into it instantly.
"I want to be filled by you," she breathed. "I want you to fuck me until I forget everything that came before you. Until my body only remembers your touch."
I remained silent, cold, unreadable — and that only made her want me more.
She guided us to the bed in the far end of the chamber — black velvet sheets, crystalline walls pulsing with soft, rhythmic light.
Clothing fell away.
Her skin glowed with heat, her voice low and desperate as she whispered again and again.
"Use me. Break me if you want. Just… stay."
I said nothing. My touch was commanding. My rhythm—absolute.
She gave herself completely, worshipfully, holding me as if the act itself proved her existence.
And she knew nothing of the other world I had built. The goddesses who waited in my private realm. The dimension I created from nothing, where time stood still, where empires flourished and bowed before me.
To Elira, I was only a man with a secret power.
A god she would never truly understand.
But she didn't need to.
She loved me with the intensity of someone who had nothing else to cling to.
When it was over, she collapsed against me, breathless and shining with sweat.
"I love you, Master," she whispered. "Even if you never say it back."
I ran my hand through her damp hair.
And said nothing.
End of Chapter 5