Sighing, Stan stopped asking questions and simply focused on running.
Behind him, Camilla kept pace, her gaze fixed on the back of his neck.
Her crimson eyes lingered on the pulse at the base of his throat with the quiet, instinctive focus of a predator forcing herself not to strike. She licked her lips, then buried the urge beneath one last, hard-earned act of restraint.
’He thinks several steps ahead,’ she noted internally.
’Unlike the greedy cultivators I’ve dealt with over the centuries, the ones who see a treasure and simply grasp for it, he is gathering information. Calculating risks. Reading me while pretending to run.’
’He’s dangerous in a way I did not expect a mortal to be dangerous.’
’But what use could that possibly be against me, though?’
’Its all pointless...’
She kept running. She kept watching him.
Every minute he ran ahead of her, she noticed something else about him. His stride pattern was unusual for a mortal. His breathing control was better than any modern human should have been capable of. His endurance was significantly higher than his frame suggested. He was, on multiple axes at once, wrong for a New Age human.
She had never encountered a mortal who occupied so many contradictory categories at the same time.
[Camilla Dragomir: Favorability +5.]
[Camilla Dragomir: Favorability 35.]
Stan noticed the notification.
Even with the pressure of the situation weighing on his mind, he made the connection immediately. She wasn’t simply keeping him alive out of pragmatic self-interest. She was interested in him... and that interest was rising faster than it had for most of his earlier targets. He could take advantage of that.
Sighing, he decided to test the system’s new mechanics.
’System. I choose Camilla Dragomir as a consumption target. Bind her.’
The response was instantaneous.
[Ding!]
[You have bound Camilla Dragomir.]
[Reward: Bloodfangs.]
[Description: A pair of daggers capable of evolving through the absorption of the blood of slain targets. Each successful kill enhances the blades’ cutting capability, spiritual resonance, and Qi conductivity. Grade will increase over time.]
Stan’s heart quickened. System rewards usually materialized directly in his palm the moment he claimed them. What would Camilla think if a pair of daggers suddenly appeared in his hands?
’Store the reward directly in my inventory,’ he willed. ’If they appear in my hand now, she’ll see them.’
The system complied without acknowledgment.
He felt the faint sensation of two new objects settling into his inventory space, their presence registering at the edge of his perception, safely stored where Camilla’s senses could not detect them.
Then a cascade of additional notifications flooded his awareness.
[Ding!]
[You have bound your first Cultivator.]
[You have bound your first Vampire.]
[You have bound your first Royal Vampire.]
[Three hidden achievements triggered. System is upgrading.]
Stan almost stumbled.
He caught himself and kept running, but his pace faltered by a fraction. The system was upgrading again, for the second time in seventy two hours.
The upgrade was fast.
[Upgrade complete.]
[Supreme Rebate System 2.0 → Supreme Rebate System 3.0.]
[New feature unlocked: Harem.]
[Any bound target whose favorability reaches or exceeds 100 will automatically enter the Harem.]
[Harem members are permanently loyal to the host. They will not, under any circumstances, betray the host, act against the host’s interests, or cause harm to the host, regardless of ideological, factional, or personal considerations.]
[The host may manually add a bound target to the Harem before they reach the 100 favorability threshold, provided their favorability is at least 50. Once added, all Harem protections apply.]
Stan almost laughed out loud.
His mind grasped the mechanics with immediate, razor-sharp clarity.
’This Harem feature is amazing. Automatic loyalty from someone like Camilla, who’s been breathing down my neck wanting to suck me dry, is exactly what I need right now...’
’But I can only add her once she reaches fifty favorability. She’s still at thirty-five.’
’If I can push her to fifty, I can bind her to the Harem. After that, she won’t be able to kill me. She won’t be able to betray me. She won’t be able to harm me, even if she wants to.’
’Fifteen more favorability.’
’Fuck... fifteen is a bit too much to gain in such a short period of time.’
’How the fuck am I supposed to squeeze fifteen more favorability points out of a Royal Blood vampire within the next hour without doing anything that’ll make her suspicious?’
His mind raced through one calculation after another.
Behind him, Camilla frowned.
He had slowed. Only for a heartbeat. Only by a fraction of a step. But she had noticed.
"Why are you slowing down?"
Stan forced the surge of elation out of his voice and produced an excuse in the calmest tone he could manage.
"Don’t mind me. I just got tired."
Camilla shook her head with a small, dismissive sigh.
’Mortals are indeed too weak.’
Stan was not, in any meaningful sense, actually tired. His system-enhanced endurance had barely registered the run. The excuse had been the least suspicious explanation his mind could produce on short notice.
His speed increased again a moment later.
Camilla’s brow furrowed slightly as she matched him. ’Was he lying to me just now?’
She kept running. She kept watching, but she said nothing.
...
Hours passed.
The polar landscape scrolled by beneath their feet in an endless white blur, the wind changing direction twice, the sun’s angle shifting through the long southern-hemisphere afternoon, the distance to the system’s arrow shortening by kilometer after kilometer with each passing minute.
They ran without speaking. Eventually, the terrain shifted.
Ahead of them, rising out of the ice plain like the fossil of a titan, stood a massive glacial mountain. Its walls of ice glowed a deep, impossible blue in the late-afternoon light. Its scale was staggering. Whatever geological forces had produced it had done so millions of years ago, and the ice had accumulated in slow, deliberate layers ever since.
The system arrow was fixed directly on the mountain’s western face.
Stan slowed and Camilla slowed with him.
He circled the base of the mountain, his eyes tracking the ice with the focused, methodical attention of a man searching for a specific feature.
’It has to be somewhere in this mountain...’
He walked the perimeter once. He walked it again. His hand traced across the ice at various points, testing the texture, feeling for irregularities.
On his third pass around the western face, he stopped.
His gaze settled on what appeared to be nothing more than a solid wall of packed snow pressed against the mountain.
He stepped closer and placed a hand against it.
With a gentle push, the snow gave way.
The compacted layer broke apart and slid to the ground in heavy chunks, revealing that it had only been covering the entrance all along.
Behind it, a wide, arching cave mouth opened into the interior of the glacier. The walls of the cave glowed with the same deep blue as the surrounding ice, while the darkness within stretched deeper into the mountain than his eyes could immediately measure.
He stepped back, turned to Camilla then said with his voice quiet; "We’re here."