One second, she’s curled in my lap—a purring queen who clearly owns the furniture, the room, and me. The next? Gone. No warning. Vanished like she turned to smoke just to prove a point.
“Blink and you’ll miss it” doesn’t cut it. I never had a chance.
Now she’s perched on her desk, legs draped over mine with the casual dominance of someone deciding whether I live or die. Judging by her grin—pure smug, the kind that says she just rewrote gravity for fun—I’m already condemned.
She leans in, slow and deliberate, stretching the moment until it hums. A smirk drifts across her lips. Her hand slips beneath the desk.
No time to react.
Then it hits me.
My gut flips inside out.
Gravity quits on me. Clean exit. Chair? Gone. Feet? Weightless. I’m dangling—trapped in some floaty limbo between flight and freefall.
Not falling. Not flying. Just... hanging. Like someone hit pause and forgot to press play.
My brain offers no response, a barren landscape devoid of logic or reason. Only her fingers move, a soft, unhurried, indifferent exploration through my hair, as if I were a pet burdened by some ancient curse.
And she’s taller now.
Not figuratively. Literally. Her eyes rise above mine. Her shadow stretches. Her presence swells.
Then the real twist lands.
Nothing else changed. The desk’s the same height. Ceiling, unchanged. The room didn’t shift.
I did.
I shrank.
“Oh, son of a bitch,” I mutter as cold magic snakes across my skin. “A little warning would’ve been nice.”
“Come now, darling.” Her grin glows with chaos—half magician, half predator. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“You’re such a tease.”
She licks her lips—slow, deliberate, unhelpful. “Oh... you have no idea.”
A kiss brushes my cheek. Too quick to hate. Almost sweet.
Then her teeth sink into my ear.
She shoves me. Not hard. Barely a push. I drift, a discarded prop on a forgotten stage. My arms remain locked, my legs stiff, while reality itself refuses to align with my senses.
Frozen between the dreadful T-Pose, and a half ass jumping jack.
She offers no backward glance, simply pivoting on her heel and gliding toward her desk with the same nonchalant ease as someone who had just rewritten the laws of physics for mere amusement.
And Zen? Still here. Naturally. Reclined on a sleek black recliner where the couch used to be—apparently mid-convo redecorating is the vibe now.
He watches me with philosopher calm, elbows on knees, chin resting on folded knuckles. That look? Patient. Pleased. Like he’s seen this play out a hundred times and lost all interest in my confusion.
Something feels amiss. Ishtar and Zen move in a practiced harmony, their actions a shared rhythm, a synchronized breath. They are dancers entwined in choreography unknown to me, their movements a script I was never given.
“Alright,” I sigh, dragging it out. “Cut the weirdness. You two.”
Ishtar tosses a shrug over her shoulder, exaggerated and dripping with theater. “Why... whatever do you mean?”
“You’re about to do something. And I already know I’m not gonna like it.”
Zen grins and throws finger guns. “Technically, you’re gonna hate it.”
I groan. “Fantastic. What fresh hell are you cooking up now?”
Ishtar’s smile spreads—teeth and mischief. “We. Are. Going to get down and dirty…”
I exhale through my teeth. “Where do I fit in this nightmare-fueled burlesque?”
“Right!” She claps—sharp, cheerful, and terrifying. A teacher about to explain nuclear physics with a sock puppet.
The air warps.
It ripples, heat-haze and headache, folding in on itself with razor edges and migraine hum. Then: bam. Screens.
They snap into view—massive gold-on-black projections flickering with code too fast for my overworked brain. UI overdose. Whoever built this needed fewer energy drinks and more restraint.
At the top, a glowing title screen:
Below it, not a tower of stats and labels that scream “first day energy.”
No Strength. No Endurance. No Intelligence. None of the usuals.
Ishtar studies the screen as if she’s judging fruit at a market. Arms crossed. Eyebrow raised.
“Alright, darling,” she purrs. “Let’s see what we’re working with.”
I look from the screen to her.
Eyes narrow.
“This better not be some kind of cosmic joke.”
Zen finally leans in. “Ever skip a tutorial, and five minutes later realize that was a tragic mistake?”
“Uh… yeah. Kinda.” I blink. “Why?”
Ishtar’s voice slinks through the air—warm, sweet, and sugarcoated in warning. Velvet glove, dagger underneath.
“Remember that little incident, darling? The skirmish with the demi-humans?”
“Sure. What about it?”
“That was your… tutorial. In a manner of speaking.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
That immediately sets off alarms. Because when she says "tutorial," I don’t hear “gentle onboarding.” I hear “concussion speedrun.”
Off to the side, Zen’s still hovering like a moody thundercloud that picked up a nicotine addiction. Arms crossed. Cigarette dangling from his lips like it’s contractually obligated.
“Ish…” he mutters, like he's already tired of whatever’s about to happen.
She rolls her eyes, full theater. “You're the one who scrambled the link. You explain it.”
Zen exhales a sigh that feels like it's made of pure existential dread. “Okay. So. Long story short—” puff, pause, another puff “—you and I? Not compatible.”
I blink. “Wow. That’s rough, buddy.”
“However.” He takes another long drag. “I was compatible with your nephew. Until the summoning went sideways. Hard left turn. And something else hitched a ride. Onto you.”
I stare at him. He stares right back.
“…Something?”
“Yeah. No idea what. Or who. Or why. Interference. A glitch. Cosmic fumble.”
I rub my eyes. “Man, I miss when ‘weird’ just meant expired milk and power outages.”
Zen ignores me. Or maybe he’s just on autopilot at this point. “Normally, new arrivals get the proper tutorial experience. Meadow. Skybox. Fairy chests. Maybe a slime fight or two.”
“Let me guess—I skipped all that.”
“Oh yeah. Whatever stowed away on your soul hijacked the spawn protocol. Dropped you right into the ruins.”
“Great.” I exhale. “Hey, side note? That was not a short story.”
Ishtar snorts. Loud. Unfiltered. Okay. Unexpected solidarity. Sarcasm recognizes sarcasm.
“Luckily for you,” she says, stepping back in with that always-too-knowing tone, “I managed to intercept before things got worse.”
“Define worse.”
She doesn’t. Of course not.
“Unluckily for you,” she continues, “the system glitched. It tried to match your soul signature… and picked the wrong template.”
I squint. “Soul-Binder?”
“You are a Soul-Binder. That’s not the issue. Every off-worlder gets a unique binding. It’s how the system stabilizes foreign souls. Yours just—well. It confused yours with someone else’s.”
I cross my arms. “So… what did it think I was?”
Her smile tightens at the corners, twitching like it’s holding back either a joke or a confession. And the temperature drops just enough for my skin to notice.
“It thinks you’re the Beast Lord.”
I blink. Again. I’m starting to lose count.
“…Am I?”
Zen chimes in, still not looking directly at me. “Nope.”
“Then what am I?”
And that’s when Ishtar goes full Cheshire. Slow grin. Gleaming eyes. Aura of mild, magical malice.
“You, darling… are the Love-Binder. Or rather. My champion, The Zaddy.”
There’s a silence.
Then a breath.
Then the laughter hits me like a truck. It starts small—cough, wheeze, confused chuckle—and builds into a slow, shaking sort of disbelief that makes my ribs hurt.
“Love Binder,” I say, between broken gasps. “What the hell am I supposed to do with that? Seduce dragons? Start a harem?”
Silence again.
Zen suddenly finds the corner of the room very compelling. He won’t look at me. Won’t even acknowledge me. His cigarette becomes the most fascinating object in the multiverse.
Ishtar? She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look away. That smile holds steady, but her eyes—they say something else. A flicker of regret. Or maybe a warning.
My stomach does a little somersault.
“I’m here to play…” I whisper, like saying it quieter will undo the implication.
She steps closer. Slow. Confident. Terrifying in a lipstick-and-blood kind of way. Her smile doesn’t widen—it deepens. As if it just learned my name and can’t wait to whisper it into a nightmare.
Ishtar flicks her hand. The interface glitches—flickers, stutters—then flashes its smug little update.
[Secondary Designation: Beast-Master Soul System – UNLOCKED]
[Basic Elemental Magic – UNLOCKED]
[Skill: Appraisal – UNLOCKED]
[Skill: Storage – UNLOCKED]
[Skill: Identify – UNLOCKED]
She snaps her fingers. The screen vanishes. Naturally. Replaced by something worse.
...Cool. Totally not ominous.
Then my clothes disappear.
Not tear. Not burn. Not even a pixelated fade-out. Just gone. One blink, and I'm standing there, fully exposed in divine ultra-HD, center stage in some cosmic developer’s wet dream.
And that’s not even the weird part.
A charge creeps through my bloodstream. Static on the move. Fizzy, invasive, wrong. My skin glows, then dims. Glow again. Then I watch, with increasing horror, as I start peeling out of reality layer by layer. Muscle. Bone. Tendons. Until I’m just... a wireframe. Me, but not me. Golden outline suspended midair.
Ishtar hums. Amused. Mildly annoyed. Hard to tell with her. “Mm. Just a few tweaks.”
“Tweaks?” I deadpan.
She’s suddenly in front of me—no warning, just bam—pats my cheek. “Don’t worry, love.”
Before I can ask anything else, she zips back to her desk like none of this is deeply violating. A wave of heat punches through my chest—slow and thick. Pressure builds under my skin. Not pain, exactly. A weight. Dense. Humming.
I flex my hands. No sparks. No spells. Just fingers. Still mine. Still me. I think.
“See? Progress!” she chirps, far too pleased. “Now, time for some fine-tuning.”
She smiles. My entire nervous system seizes up.
Every muscle twists like it's being wrung out. Pulled. Reshaped. Rearranged. Not painful... just deeply, cosmically wrong.
Then it’s over.
I inhale sharp. Didn’t even know I’d stopped breathing.
“What the hell did you do?” I manage.
“Corrections,” she says sweetly. “I’m all about precision.”
Zen mutters without looking up, “And stamina.”
I shoot him a glare. “Not helping.”
Ishtar beams like a cat who caught the canary and made it sign a non-disclosure agreement. “You’ll see soon enough.”
“Yeah,” I mutter. “Real comforting.”
“Wasn’t meant to be.”
And because she hasn’t inflicted quite enough psychological damage for one divine appointment, she claps her hands.
With a flare of light and the flourish of someone way too into theater, a golden scroll materializes and unfurls in her hand.
“Now,” she says, voice all sunshine and sugar, “for the fun part.”
“Nope,” I shoot back immediately. “Never once in my life has that phrase ended well.”
She rolls the scroll toward me like she’s unveiling a brand new car on some metaphysical game show. The words shimmer, adjusting themselves.
I skim the fine print. A mistake. Instant regret.
Clause 17B:
To invoke the full benefits of Ishtar’s divine blessing, the Soul-Binder must:
I blink.
Read it again.
Nope. Still says what I think it says.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
Ishtar fans herself like this is just another Tuesday. “I call it... motivational management.”
“Motiva—?” I rub my face with both hands. “You’re serious?”
“Obviously. Divine blessings are investments. I expect returns.”
“Returns,” I echo, hoping I misheard.
“Physical partners, children, lovers,” Zen says, way too casual for someone dropping sex-ed from the gods.
I stare at him. “Is this normal?”
He shrugs. The slow, resigned shrug of a man who’s been defeated by paperwork and fate. “Just vibe with it?”
I glance from him, to her, to the contract. The divine legalese shimmers again.
Gods are insane.