Back to the meeting room, back to Hilda and Medea arguing.

I was instantly assailed by uncomfortable internal questions about whether or not evil acts were still evil even if they were immediately undone, but I distracted myself by angling my head downwards and staring at boobs. Maybe if I actually let Medea suffocate me in her chest this time, I would just cleanly forget everything and everything would be forgiven.

"Sophia," I said, hoping to distract myself with conversation.

Once she finished blinking and processing her memories, Sophia looked back at me. "What?" she asked with a frown and a faux-annoyed tone.

"Shouldn't you have retained some of your memories through the loops too? You started off with pretty high love points." (To be clear, I had mentioned love points to all of them off-handedly, and they were just happy to have some external proof of their love. The idea of them being "controlled" by the love points didn't even come to mind for them; from their perspective, they had felt the love grow, and it was the most natural thing in the world to them. Whether I could trust those claims was the big question I was agonizing over, especially because, I mean, Daiya existed.)

Sophia's cheeks reddened, and she turned away from me. "Hmph! Maybe I did! So what?!"

"Shouldn't they have convinced you the assassination was real or something...? Why did you act like it wasn't happening each time?"

"Idiot! I was obviously asleep during most of those attempts. How can I remember something that happened while I slept? And every time I woke up, you died like a huge dummy. Not very romantic."

"So your memories are...?"

She blushed slightly harder and continued to avoid eye contact. "Wh-What's it to you?! So what if it was the first time I saw and smelled you?! So what if I just thought it was a prophetic vision telling me my fated soulmate was coming?! Shut up!"

I waved a hand. "Cool, thanks. All I needed to know. Love you." She sniffed and didn't respond, but smiled slightly.

In short, Sophia had remembered some stuff, but it was just random stuff about me. Dying in front of her, or watching her choke to death, were not particularly romantic moments from her perspective. She just got increasingly lusty for me as she was hit with prophetic visions of my heroic form and smell. The fact she started off almost at the Infatuation milestone was a hint that girls could get love points off the record all along. Okay, that was an important mystery solved, and I should continue to think about this instead of anything else.

Daiya lifted her chin slightly. "The Greater Demon has returned."

The, huh? I was wondering if Xetra would have gotten a love point from my impressive display of magic and decided to evacuate the castle, but in retrospect you would either have to be an insane bloodthirsty warrior or a huge secret masochist to get a love point from that. I would just need to think of another way to get inside the castle; maybe shooting an omega fireball charged for 10 minutes at my new power level or something would be ideal. Then again, did I really want to risk nuking the city again and completely lose any shreds of a moral defense I might have had?

"Alright, I'm gonna basically go do what I did last time except without nuk—..." I trailed off as they looked at me. "Without, uh, accidentally grinding my level up."

Rose gave me a stern look. "What did you do?"

My eyes shifted. "S-So, what's the point of gambling in a doomed timeline? Won't you just lose whatever you gained?" I asked, shifting the timeline.

Daiya tapped her forehead smoothly. "My memory is flawless," she replied dryly, thereby implying she simply recalled the number of chips everyone had.

"Yo, you can cheat with that. Do you know how to count cards?"

"I think you should be going now," Rose said with an alarmed tone.

"Perhaps he should stay and elaborate."

"No no no no," Hilda said, standing up. "Nononono." She pushed me out, then shut the door. "No," I heard from behind the door.

Huh. Was the card game that important to them? I mean, in the first place, they could just exclude Daiya from playing. They would have to eventually, since Daiya would figure out the principles behind card counting sooner or later. But then again, the game was probably a lot more advanced than I was thinking. Hilda furtively Soul Spying, Rose using advanced psychology, Sophia detecting different cards by scent or something... Their card games were probably brimming with highly advanced, highly rational mind games. Daiya's flawless memory was just another chess piece in the grand game of victory. Thank god I wasn't involved; I couldn't keep up. Once again I had to express my thanks for not being embroiled in rationalist mind games every step of this journey.

I was about to start thinking about when exactly they started gambling for my stuff behind my back, but my thoughts were interrupted by a flash of red at the other end of a long hallway. I squinted, and saw a flash of red. Hm. Just my imagination? Just the wind? No, the red was back, and heading this way. The blob turned into something more visible, and soon I recognized it as Flare, sniffing the air while looking upwards and moving her head side to side. Eeeeh. Am I in danger?

She paused, sniffed harder, then looked down and saw me. Her pupils instantly flattened into sharp lines, and she crouched over in a combat stance. I think I'm in danger.

Flare began bolting towards me without saying a word. She turned into a blur, her axe in hand. It was quite possibly the scariest thing I had ever seen in my life. I never should have just knocked Flare out and left; now she was perpetually in heat until I beat her, and the madness drove her to literally sniff me out somehow. I wasn't even sure how that was possible, but her potent dragon blood must have played a factor. Either way, I needed her to fly swiftly to the Demon King castle, so I needed to beat her.

I readied my sword in the half-second I had before she crashed into me like a meteor. Her axe swings couldn't cut through my skin, but I parried and dodged them anyway, since they still hurt a bit and could knock the breath out of me. The fact an incredibly strong dragon princess's axe swings just 'hurt a bit' showed how insane my stats were by this point, but well, she was still the fastest thing I had ever seen.

"Does this mean you remember the nuke? My sins of the past?" I called while deflecting something in the range of 10 axe swings in one second. Don't do the math there.

She let out a dragon roar, saying nothing else. Jesus Christ. Beastkin women sure loved strength, huh? I guess it made sense. Your base genetics prioritize breeding with strong people, then you see someone nuke a massive city with zero effort. I was lucky I only had to deal with Flare here; I probably wouldn't survive six other horny beastkin princesses ranting about wanting my seed because I'm so strong, assuming this wasn't specifically a dragon thing. I kind of imagined all beastkin would value strength, but that opened up questions about whether the same applied to humans and elves too. Did Rose and Sophia flood their southern plains at impressive feats of strength? Should I nuke cities for them as an expression of love? What about Xetra? Did she kneel before the might of the Heir instead of curse my name for murdering both her and an entire city of her people by accident? It was hard to say.

Anyway, Flare was posing kind of a challenge. My illicitly gained levels put me on more than equal footing with her, but I wasn't quite used to thinking in the span of milliseconds during a fight, and I didn't want to stab her in the stomach or something. It was all I could do to dedicate 1/4th of my brainpower to monologuing while using the remaining 3/4ths to block her attacks. I couldn't even properly chant spells; she would have launched like a hundred attacks in the span of time it took to say a single chant. Miasma only worked last time since she was right up in my face and didn't think to dodge it, but now? Knocking her asleep wouldn't solve the core problem, anyway.

We continued fighting, accidentally shattering walls and chunks of the floor and ceiling as we went. The one saving grace here was that she couldn't fly around due to being in an enclosed space, but she would be using her dragon breath soon. Hm.... Okay, I had an idea, but it might get me killed.

I jumped back, then tossed aside my sword and held up my hands like a bear or something. Flare paused, hunched over like a feral animal, then tossed her axe aside and leapt forward, grabbing my hands with hers. The universal symbol for wrestling had been understood. She snarled, digging her clawed fingers into my hands so hard they drew blood, even with my END. My arm muscles bulged as I pushed back against it; it was something of an arm wrestling match but for our entire bodies. I was a bit surprised she was willing to toss away her weapon for this, since her goal was to legitimately kill me, but it worked out.

She opened her mouth, and for a second I thought she was going to breathe fire, but instead she pulled her arms back and bit me in the neck. Fucking ow. Her sharp teeth sunk into my thick neck, drawing plenty of blood. She hadn't seemed to cut anything important, but still, ow. Maybe this was the more natural dragon thing; their instincts said to get up close and bite, not swing weapons around. That worked for me. I pushed against her arms and made ground as she bit into my neck and shook her head vigorously like she was trying to rip me apart. Each step I made forward she took a step back, until eventually she walked backwards into a bed in a nearby room. She fell over, bringing me with her since I didn't let go of her hands. Pomf.

She struggled beneath me for a minute, trying to lift her hands as I forced them down onto the bed. She kicked her legs, but I positioned my knees onto them and stopped that. She sank her teeth deeper into my neck, but I showed no reaction. Her hands and feet were locked onto the bed, and she was immobile no matter how hard she struggled.

I waited on top of her, making no subsequent moves. This was purely to establish physical dominance in her animal-like mind and nothing else. It was either this or cut her legs off or something, who knew.

Eventually, she stopped trying to kick my knees off. She stopped trying to push my hands up off hers. She let go of my neck and let her head back. She looked into my eyes, and instantly her narrow slit pupils dilated, expanding rapidly in width. Her cheeks flushed, and she started wiggling beneath me. Dominance established? She leaned forward, and I tensed myself for being bitten again, but she just lapped up the blood streaming from my neck. Okay, dominance established.

Love Point Gained! Flare +1

I got off her, and she literally ripped her clothes off with her claws, throwing the rags aside. Her tail swished in the air, its base sinking into the bed beneath her before sliding out to the side. She spread her legs in the missionary position, presenting herself to me.

"Er, Flare? Can you speak?" I called, but no response. She just hissed and intensified the tail swishing. Okay, full animal mode, got it. I was pretty sure there were no moral concerns here though. This was something like that one dolphin situation. Actually no forget I ever mentioned that this is nothing like the dolphin situation. Flare was kind of consumed by her dragon blood right now, but as far as I could tell she would be so perpetually until the mating finished with either me dead or her fucked, so I didn't have much of a choice here. Yet again, reality was conspiring against me to force me to take off my pants. And so I did.

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I got on my knees at the end of the bed, my proud erection towering over her lower stomach. I pondered how to proceed for a second, but before I had the chance to do anything, Flare's tail snaked around to me and wrapped itself around my neck. Uh. I moved to get off the bed, and it tightened, cutting off my air supply. I moved back to her and it loosened. I put my hands on her tail to try tugging it off, experimentally, and it tightened again until I stopped.

Hmm. It appeared I was trapped.

Flare was panting heavily, golden eyes and slit pupils locked on me. Her tomboy body was a surprising change of pace; her muscles were far more visible and less concealed behind softness than Rose's, and her extremely modest chest fit the perfect middle ground between Rose's "spilling a bit out of your hand" and Sophia's "nonexistent flatness." Flare's fit the hand perfectly, being small yet no less attractive for it. Her head of short red hair contrasted sharply with her white, barely tanned skin. All in all, she was the platonic ideal of tomboys, as far as I could tell.

I had to say, though, that two elements somewhat distracted me from this platonic idealism. The red scales coating her hands and feet certainly did stand out, as did her claws, but that was small stuff compared to her pussy flooding juices. The skin around her lower stomach was flushed red, and I could see hot steam rising off her love juices. I was actually slightly terrified of going inside; on the one hand, it was such a feminine part of her it kind of contrasted with all the tomboy-ishness, and on the other hand, it was highly possible my human dick would literally melt inside of a dragon pussy.

I paused, contemplating whether I needed to go find a ring of Fire Resistance, but her tail tightened around my neck and I saw her start to growl a little. Wasn't she supposed to be submissive now or something? Because it seemed she was saying 'fuck me or die' in dragon language, without any hyperbole. Well, if I was going to die either way, might as well experience the no-doubt incredible bliss one feels moments before their dick actually melts.

I slid inside of her, and holy shit it was like a fucking volcano. I could barely appreciate the feeling of her tightly clinging pussy walls; they were literally burning hot, and the juices were actually boiling. I was pretty confident my dick would have melted if not for END or Sex Level 100 or something, which was a horrifying image but nonetheless what I was forced to admit here. Once I was fully inside her, my dick pushing against her cervix, I arched my back from the pain and pleasure; it was almost disturbing. The pain felt so good.

Love Point Gained! Flare +1

As I froze in place and struggled with the pain/pleasure combo, Flare extended her arms and legs around me, in a classic leg plus arm lock combo. It occurred to me there was absolutely zero chance of me getting out of this without cumming inside of her; this was the most powerful lock I had ever been in, and her tail-collar would probably literally choke me to death if I tried pulling out. I was a bit intimidated, but far be it from me to complain about cumming inside.

I pulled my hips back, ignoring the slight tightening of her tail, and thrust back in; a wave of heat made me pause, but that just made me feel it all the more when the claws on her hands and feet sunk into my back. How was that even possible? In retrospect, she swung her axe at full speed and it didn't break skin. How were her claws breaking skin...? Oh god. Was Sex Level 100 literally weakening my defense to allow sexy bed scratches? Oh god. That was so messed up. Skills shouldn't do things like that. When I hit max level or whatever, will my one weakness be sexy attacks? Like I can only die if someone kills me in a sexy way? How horrifying.

I started pumping, hoping to end this before I got a bunch of battle scars that were exclusively Flare clawing me during sex. The flurry of Love Point notifications were old news to me now, and I focused on the act itself, rather than the game layer patting me on the back. Her tail and pussy would sometimes clench at the same time, signaling her mini-orgasms from my thrusting. That was a surprisingly effective technique for turning me on, since it was stimulating instinctual arousal towards auto-erotic asphyxiation, and her pussy walls clenching meant burning fire touching my dick directly. All in all my mind was getting as fucked up as my body here. Soon I would be asking Rose to choke my neck every time she orgasmed or something, though she would never want to admit how many times she came during sex. She always tried to pass it off as just one big orgasm at the end, no matter how loud she moaned or how hard her pussy clenched during the thrusting.

Flare must have sensed me thinking about another woman, because she growled and tightened her leg lock around me. Uh oh. I hoped she wasn't too possessive in general. Instantly, I had nightmarish visions of Flare using her tail to pull me off the other girls, or stripping naked and forcing her way into a threesome. I wasn't much of a 3P guy, since I only had one dick and it was always awkward to have two girls in front of me and have to pick one. I wasn't sure how it worked with normies, but here I had to watch both of them look at me expectedly, then gnash their teeth with misery if I picked the other one. That moment of disappointing one of them always hit hard, and it would hit even harder if Flare tried choking me out with her tail if I picked the other girl.

That was a question for another day, though. For now, I wanted to get done here, and fast. I sped up my thrusting, and pulled against her tail such that I was burying my head in her rapidly rising and falling tomboy chest. I inhaled her tomboy sweat to give me power, and unleashed a flurry of hip swings while she hugged my head against her burning-hot chest. She was panting now, letting out groans amid happy growls, her tail tightening and loosening back and forth rapidly without pause. She was close, and while I technically was close at all times, now felt like a good time to me.

I decided to go for a womb strike finale to seal my dominance if it hadn't been already. I didn't mean that in a weird sex way; I meant in a dragon psychology way. If Flare didn't submit in a dragon way here, she would be back to kill me next loop, so I had to be thorough.

I pulled my hips as far back as I could go without slipping out of her, ignoring her tail tightening threateningly, then thrust back in as hard as I could. Her burning walls superheated my dick on the way, and it was practically a meteor of death by the time it slammed into her womb with the force of a thousand suns. Her womb bulged against the muscles of her stomach, and her tail squeezed shut as I unleashed a flood of boiling hot cum right into her.

Love Points Gained! Flare +952

Love Cap Reached! Obsession has become True Love!

Your souls have become one.

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The message popped up as my vision was fading. Huh, I thought to myself. I don't think I can breathe.

I clutched at my throat, and realized Flare was squeezing her tail tighter than ever as she convulsed in a brain-splitting orgasm beneath me. I knew from prior experience those convulsions would last for minutes longer, and I needed air fast. I pulled and pulled at her tail to get it off my throat, but it was just too tight. Not even the strength of the gods could budge her constricting tail. Did Sex Level 100 think this was hot? Fuck you. Fuck you!

"Qu," I choked, barely able to speak. Hopefully the grunts would sound enough like a word to take me to safety. "Quickload."