Before leaving the warehouse, Alex tried desperately to fix his clothes, but it was like trying to fit a gallon of water into a pint glass.
The thin black sports bra had completely surrendered. The elastic band under his ribs was stretched so far it was leaving red indentations against his pale skin.
He gathered the long, silky black hair cascading down past his waist and tied it into a high ponytail, though several glossy strands still escaped over his flawless, glowing, beautiful face.
After leaving a few instructions to the snakes, Alex closed his eyes and channeled his mana.
'Pheromone Control…' He visualized the microscopic pores across his skin, forcing the sweet, intoxicating scent back beneath his flesh.
The overwhelming smell in the air faded slightly, but his Phase 3 evolution had just finished minutes ago; his mana circuits were still filled with volatile, excess Yin energy.
The heat radiating off his body was too intense. The moment his heart rate spiked from the friction of walking, the invisible seal cracked.
Thick, intoxicating waves of sweet, womanly smell from his pores.
During Phase 1 and Phase 2, his pheromones had primarily targeted females and slightly confused male instincts.
But now, with Phase 3 officially underway, the ancient Enchantress bloodline had fully awakened its universal biological effect.
To any living creature with a pulse, male or female, the scent was pure, concentrated aphrodisiac poison.
"Advanced Mirage Scale," Alex whispered, forming an arcane hand seal he had memorized from Reina's study during the simulation.
His first few tries failed, but as the memories and instincts deepened, he was able to activate the bloodline spell with ease.
Shhhk.
A thin, translucent layer of micro silvery white mana scales rippled across the surface of his skin all over his body.
In the dim moonlight, the light bent around his body.
His distinct hourglass figure slowly disappeared, as it was an optical and sensory illusion; as long as no high-tier cultivator stared directly through him, or someone with specialized detection spells, ordinary eyes would never find him.
Gritting his teeth against the friction of his wet leggings rubbing his sensitive pussy slit, Alex stepped through the shattered side doors of the warehouse and walked into the midnight wilderness of the outer district.
The silent walk through the abandoned industrial outskirts toward the Inn was eerily silent.
The midnight breeze was sharp and cold, yet to Alex's ectothermic, cold-blooded body, the freezing air felt soothing against his overheated skin, as his clothes began to dry.
Every step on his long, athletic legs made his full D-cups to sway inside his tight shirt.
He crossed the rusted iron bridge that separated the outer waste zone from the edge of the residential district.
Just a few more blocks, and he would reach the hidden entrance behind the Whispering Willow Inn.
Suddenly, his boots stopped near a dimly lit alleyway corner between an old mechanic shed where four men were sitting around a metal barrel fire, drinking cheap spirit liquor.
They were rough-looking, middle-aged mercenaries from a wasteland squad, dressed in soft leather armor and daggers at their waists.
In fact, Alex knew one of them, a slightly younger-looking guy among them, named Sid, who used to bully him often.
"I'm telling you, the coliseum riot was crazy," the half-drunk Sid grunted, taking a sip of the liquor. "Some chick in a white suit easily defeated the Gorefang, and then the whole damn basement started shaking like it's about to break, and became chaotic!"
"If only I could see her again…" He stopped mid-sentence. His nostrils twitched wildly. "Sniff... what the hell is that?"
The other three men froze as well, their heads turning toward the empty street as the night wind washed over them.
The sweet, heavy scent hit their bodies. In less than three seconds, all four men experienced an instant, violent biological reaction.
Their pupils slightly dilated into dark, glassy pools. Their breathing turned raspy and ragged, and beneath their rough trousers, thick erections strained aggressively against the coarse cloth.
"Holy shit..." one other mercenary gasped, dropping his bottle to shatter on the floor.
He grabbed his crotch with a trembling hand, groaning as a wave of maddening heat rushed to his head. "What is that smell? It smells like... like a woman in heat..."
However, before they could pinpoint the source, the whistling of the wind and the surrounding noises all vanished entirely.
"What the...?" Alex murmured, his soft voice sounding muffled, as if the air itself had turned into thick water.
He glanced around. The familiar streetlights lining the road were slowly turning a pale green hue.
A dense, gloomy fog was rapidly rising from the underground drains, crawling across the pavement like living fingers.
The temperature plummeted by twenty degrees in just seconds. The expressions of the
Light frost spread across the asphalt, but it wasn't the ice of his Mercurial Frost Sword Art.
This frost was dark and greasy, as it smelled foul, like stagnant swamp water and rotting flesh.
Crack..
A new system prompt flashed in the corner of his vision:
[ Warning: Host has crossed the boundary into an Independent Spatial Anomaly. ]
[ Environment Detected: Ghost Domain (Level 2 - High Yin Density). ]
[ Domain Law: Suppression of Mortal Vitality (-30% Stamina Recovery, Exit Locked). ]
"A Ghost Domain?!" Alex cursed loudly, startling the nearby mercenaries as they couldn't see him.
"Fuck..!!" His heart leapt into his throat as he remembered details about the Ghost Domain he saw on the news.
In this world, ordinary ghosts were low-level spectral monsters born from lingering resentment; some with higher resentment could hurt ordinary humans and low-level professionals.
But a Ghost Domain was something entirely different. It was an independent spatial territory manifested only by Evil Spirits, born with the ability to bend the local spatial layers to trap living prey!
"How did an Evil Spirit set up a domain inside the city without the Night Guard noticing?" Alex muttered, his hand flying to the hilt of his longsword he summoned from the system storage space.
'Kekeke…' 'hehe… eekeee!!' Out of the swirling greenish-black fog along the walls and darker corners, dozens of pale, translucent figures began to slowly manifest with low muffled sounds that began to sound louder every second.
They were hollow-eyed wraiths, groaning in raspy, agonizing voices as they drifted.
"Holy shit! Ghosts! Real fucking ghosts!" Sid shrieked, dropping his bottle of spirit liquor. The glass shattered on the frost-coated pavement, the cheap alcohol instantly freezing into murky slush.
The four mercenaries scrambled in sheer panic, drawing their iron daggers with trembling hands.
But before they could even form a defensive stance, the greenish fog surged forward like a tidal wave.
Screeech!
Five scary-looking wraiths mixed within the fog plunged through the mist.
Their spectral claws tore straight through the leather armor of two mercenaries standing near the barrel fire, which was slowly dimming down.
"AGHHH! NO! IT'S DRAINING MY VITALITY!!!" Neither of them had time to defend with their daggers.
The moment the ghostly claws pierced their chests, their flesh withered at a terrifying speed.
Their screams turned into dry, rattling gasps as their blood, vitality, and souls were forcefully ripped from their bodies in glowing crimson ribbons, leaving behind two shriveled, mummified husks that collapsed into the dirt.
"Hehehehe... What an exquisite, delicious little thing wandered into my domain…" In the middle of the wailing souls, a harsh, grating laugh echoed from deep within the fog.
It sounded like rusted iron dragging across a steel alloy, reverberating from every direction at once, carrying a suffocating pressure that caused the remaining two mercenaries to wet their trousers in pure terror.
"A fresh human... so young... so overflowing with pure, delicious vitality..."
The dense fog slowly parted fifty meters ahead.
Floating three feet above the frozen ground was a terrifying humanoid monster. It was a male Evil Spirit, towering over eight feet tall.
His half-skeleton body was wearing heavy, jagged bone armor crafted from the ribcages and skulls of past victims, covering patches of putrid, rotting grey flesh.
His face was a half-rotting, hollow skull covered in stretched, necrotic skin, with glowing crimson flames burning deep within his empty eye sockets.
Long, jagged horns of calcified bone protruded from his forehead, and around his thick neck hung a gruesome necklace of shriveled human skulls that clattered softly as he moved.