Creating A Succubus Army In A Fantasy World!

The first thing Creed became aware of was the softness beneath his cheek—familiar cotton sheets that smelled faintly of the academy's standard-issue detergent.

His eyes fluttered open to the sight of afternoon sunlight streaming through his bedroom window, casting the same warm patterns across his desk that he'd seen just the day before.

The crystal chandelier above him caught the light in gentle rainbows, just as it was the day before.

For a moment, he simply lay there, his mind struggling to reconcile the peaceful normalcy of his surroundings with the vivid, terrifying memories that felt more real than the mattress beneath his body.

The web-filled chasm, the screaming darkness, Nicholas trapped in organic cocoons, the entity with its impossible eyes—all of it crashed over him in waves of recall so intense his stomach lurched with phantom vertigo.

Slowly, carefully, as if sudden movement might shatter whatever fragile peace he'd found, Creed pushed himself up to a sitting position.

His room was exactly as he'd left it that morning. There was no trace of the cosmic formation that had burst through these very walls, no lingering scorch marks from the blazing silver lines that had consumed everything in their path.

What exactly had happened?

"A dream," he whispered to himself, his voice hoarse and unfamiliar in the quiet room. "It had to be a dream."

But even as he spoke the words, every fiber of his being rebelled against the explanation.

Dreams didn't feel like that. Dreams didn't carry the weight of cosmic truth, didn't leave his muscles aching as if he'd actually walked across impossible landscapes, didn't make his lungs burn with the memory of breathing alien air.

His hands still trembled with the aftershock of summoning power gone catastrophically wrong, still felt the phantom pull of that portal that had dragged him into nightmare.

The logical part of his mind began to construct a reasonable explanation.

He'd failed his assessment spectacularly, returned to his room in a state of emotional and physical exhaustion, and had the most vivid stress-induced nightmare of his life. It made sense.

The mind was capable of incredible things when pushed to its limits, capable of creating experiences so realistic they felt more true than truth itself.

But then why did his skin still tingle with the memory of that otherworldly energy?

Why could he still taste metal and ozone on his tongue, still feel the pressure of attention from entities too vast for human comprehension?

Creed swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood on unsteady feet, making his way to the small mirror mounted on his dresser.

What he saw there made his carefully constructed rational explanation crumble like a house of cards in a hurricane.

There, in the center of his forehead, was a mark.

It wasn't large—perhaps the size of a coin—but it was undeniably present.

The design was intricate, geometric in a way that hurt to look at directly, composed of lines that seemed to exist in more dimensions than his eyes could properly process.

It looked almost like a brand, as if someone had pressed a seal of impossible complexity into his flesh, but there was no pain, no redness, no sign of trauma.

The mark simply existed, as if it had always been part of him.

'A slave mark.' The thought came unbidden, carrying with it a certainty that made his blood run cold.

This wasn't a tattoo or a scar—it was a sign of ownership, of binding, of choices made and prices paid.

"No," he breathed, reaching up to touch the mark with trembling fingers. "No, no, no…"

The moment his skin made contact with the strange symbol, memories flooded back in a torrent of sensation and emotion.

Standing at the center of that impossible triangle, feeling the weight of cosmic forces pressing down on him like the gravity of collapsing stars.

The entity's vast eyes blinking in perfect synchronization, waiting with the patience of geological time for his answer.

And he had chosen. He remembered that much with crystal clarity—the moment when he'd opened his mouth and spoken words that had changed everything, that had sealed his fate and perhaps the fate of the entire earth.

But what had he chosen? What words had he spoken? The memory was there, tantalizingly close, but wrapped in shadows that his conscious mind just couldn't penetrate!

His intuition, that deep well of knowledge that existed below the level of rational thought, screamed at him that this had been the most monumental decision of his life.

Not just his life—the most important choice any earthling had ever been called upon to make. The fate of everything had hung in the balance, and he had chosen… what?

The weight of it pressed down on him like a physical thing, making it hard to breathe, hard to think. If his intuition was right, if that choice had been real, then the implications…

"If it was real," he whispered, his voice barely audible even to himself, "then that means the portal was real. The entity was real. The chasms were real."

He checked the time and realized that barely an hour had passed since he returned from his assessment.

Which meant he had spent only 30 minutes?

Well, Creed was sure he spent more than that even walking towards the first chasm! Something was definitely wrong.

It was like it was both real and otherwise at the same time!

The thought spurred him into action. He had to know. Had to test whether any of it had been real or if he was simply losing his mind in the most spectacular way possible.

With hands that shook only slightly, Creed moved to the center of his room where he had attempted the summoning before.

This was the test. If everything had been a nightmare, if he was still the same person who had entered that assessment chamber this morning, then his abilities would work exactly as they always had.

He closed his eyes, centered himself, and reached out with his consciousness to touch the familiar bonds that connected him to his three companions.

The bonds that had been part of his life for so short yet so long he couldn't imagine existing without them.

Nothing.

Where there should have been the warm, comfortable presence of Lilith's dark humor, Tierra's calm wisdom, and Meredith's playful mischief, there was only… absence.

Not the temporary disconnection that sometimes occurred when the dimensional barriers were particularly thick, but complete and utter void, as if those bonds had never existed at all.

Panic began to claw at his chest with icy fingers. He tried again, pushing harder, reaching deeper into the dimensional spaces where his companions dwelt.

Still nothing. The psychic landscape of his mind, which had always hummed with the background presence of three distinct personalities, was as empty and silent as a tomb.

"Lilith," he whispered, his voice cracking with desperation. "Tierra. Meredith. Please, if you can hear me…"

Silence.

With growing dread, Creed tried to access his system interface, the familiar holographic screens that had been as much a part of his life as breathing.

Normally, a simple mental command would bring up displays showing his stats, his abilities, his connection status with his summons.

Nothing appeared.

No screens, no data, no comforting confirmation that he was still the person he'd always been. It was as if that entire aspect of his existence had been severed, cut away with surgical precision.

The room suddenly felt too small, too quiet, too normal for the cosmic catastrophe that was apparently unfolding in his very soul.

Creed sank back onto his bed, staring at his hands as if they belonged to a stranger, feeling the weight of the mark on his forehead like a physical presence.

If he couldn't summon his companions, if he couldn't access his system interface, if he bore a mark that hadn't been there before… then what had he become?

What choice had he made in that realm of shadows and impossible entities?

And most terrifyingly of all: if everything that had happened was real, if his choice had been real, then what consequences were already set in motion that he couldn't remember, couldn't control, couldn't undo?

[End Of Volume: The Choice!]