Dark Lord Seduction System: Taming Wives, Daughters, Aunts, and CEOs Chapter 1035: The Edge of the World

Though I harbored a strong desire to be intimate with Catherine and Dominique right there and then, their excitement for the Ghost Mansion mirrored everyone else’s.

After refreshing themselves and changing into pristine dresses—which they had seemingly worn only for my arrival, akin to thoughtful offerings—we re-boarded the van, resuming our journey.

Catherine’s new attire was understated: a fitted black dress that allowed her recent haircut to command attention. Dominique opted for a deep burgundy hue, her gold choker still a proud adornment, the sole remnant of her previous outfit.

A quiet sense of contentment settled over them as they took their seats in the van. Their sisters greeted them without a word, exchanging knowing glances. Madison offered a smirk, possessing an uncanny ability to detect recent intimacy much like dogs sense fear, while Amanda’s single raised eyebrow conveyed a universe of unspoken understanding.

I found no fault with their absence from the office; not in the slightest. I was certain the Ghost Mansion night would not conclude without at least a couple of orgies—more likely four or five, given my women’s inclinations.

The build-up would only intensify the eventual pleasure. After all, what is the purpose of divinity if not to inspire fervent pleas for a second round from one’s beloved?

The van navigated the Los Angeles night, transporting over thirty women toward an experience most had only encountered through hushed conversations and secondhand accounts from Soo-Jin and Madison.

These were the two who had ventured there previously, returning subtly altered in ways they struggled to articulate but couldn’t stop discussing.

Fascinating, mortals and their peculiar legends.

The urban landscape outside the windows gradually receded. Residential areas transitioned into stretches of darkness, with streetlights becoming increasingly sparse.

The constant hum of Los Angeles—sirens, traffic, the low-frequency thrum of ten million lives coexisting—faded until the only audible sounds were the van’s engine and the soft chatter, laughter, and occasional dozing murmurs of the thirty women nestled against each other.

Margaret rested in her massage chair, her expression remarkably serene for a woman carrying my child. Patricia sat beside her, engrossed in her Quantum Watch, her hand resting protectively on both her own and Margaret’s abdomen.

Mom occupied the row behind me, engaged in a quiet discussion with Maria regarding hospital schedules and patient workloads. These two women, long acquainted, now found themselves united on common ground while I sat, feigning ignorance of my intentions to subtly disrupt their established order later.

Genevieve and Eziel were seated with Maya between them, sharing headphones and watching something on a tablet that elicited such hearty laughter from Maya that her glasses frequently slipped from her nose.

Isabella had joined Anastasia in her corner, posing inquiries about biotech research. Anastasia responded with the focused intensity of a genius who had finally found an eager listener for discussions on protein folding at midnight.

My harem, engrossed in their domesticity, were being transported toward a reality far more ancient and profound than any of them could truly grasp.

My women. Mid-journey. Bridging one existence and the next. How charmingly quaint.

Before long, we arrived at the precipice known as the Chasm.

It marked the boundary between the world they knew and the one they were about to enter—a world I permitted them to briefly glimpse.

The van slowed to a halt on the cliff's edge, where the familiar world simply… ceased.

Where asphalt yielded to an abyss, and the city's glow dissolved into an expanse of darkness so absolute it evoked the void between stars. The Chasm yawned before us—an anomaly of geography, existing just forty minutes from a major city, a place where maps were mere suggestions and reality contorted around something predating cartography, deities, and my own considerable ego.

The warning signs encountered en route remained conspicuously present.

DEAD END. ROAD TERMINATES AHEAD. NO OUTLET.

PRIVATE PROPERTY—PROCEED NO FURTHER.

CAUTION—IMMINENT CLIFF FACE. FINAL ADMONITION.

Each sign conveyed a greater sense of urgency than the last, placed by some misguided soul aware of the destination's peril and seeking to shield others from its discovery. How touching. How utterly futile.

I disembarked first, my women following suit, coalescing at the edge in a tableau of evening wear, travel attire, and perplexed murmurs, their gazes fixed upon the darkness like a flock of lost lambs.

A wind ascended from the depths below—chilling, ancient, carrying an aroma utterly alien to any documented geography.

It spoke of salt and stone, and something more profound, a mineralic essence of antiquity that permeated the nasal passages and settled into the lungs with an apparent permanence. The void below was not merely dark; it was sentient. Aware.

It was the same insatiable emptiness that had once whispered to Soo-Jin when she first stood upon this spot, the identical cranial pressure that felt less like vertigo and more like the attention of a colossal entity acknowledging your presence.

A realm about which my knowledge was scant, yet I harbored absolute certainty that it contained entities beyond that vacant expanse—beings that the mansion was constructed to safeguard, to conceal, or perhaps to channel into unintended locales.

My best guess is that the mansion, along with the Chasm itself, served as sentries, standing guard over whatever lay beyond the edge of the known world.

Reality was being most generous, rolling out the red carpet for my arrival.

However, it wasn't the Chasm that captured my attention the most. It was the reactions—or more accurately, the complete lack thereof—from my women.

They displayed no surprise. Unlike Soo-Jin and Madison, whose initial encounters with such a phenomenon resulted in wide-eyed shock, stumbling backward as their understanding of reality was violently shaken.

It also differed from ARIA’s first experience, where even a divine intelligence required several moments to process an anomaly defying all known laws of physics.

Instead, my women gazed into the impossible darkness and simply nodded, as if they had anticipated it, as if they had already been informed of what awaited them. How quaint. My astute women, acting as though they weren't staring into a maw capable of swallowing them whole, were I to permit it.

Soo-Jin stood slightly apart, arms crossed, a faint smile gracing her lips as she observed the others. She recalled her own first encounter. Since then, she had returned frequently with ARIA, for reasons I now understood and respected, treating the Chasm like a guard dog that had learned her scent.

Yet, she watched the other women process the sight with the quiet amusement of someone who had already passed the test and was now observing the novices.

None of them faltered or stumbled even slightly—

Madison stood beside me, also with arms crossed, studying the Chasm with the same focused expression she adopted when reviewing quarterly reports that met her stringent expectations.

She had informed them. All of them. She had prepared them for this moment, ensuring that when they reached the edge of the world and peered into the void, their minds, composure, and ability to function would remain intact.

She is truly thoughtful.

My queen, acting as the den mother to my harem while I observed, like the benevolent deity I am.

I met her gaze. She sensed my attention and turned, raising a single eyebrow.

“You briefed them,” she stated.

“Of course, I briefed them. Did you truly believe I would allow thirty women to approach a phenomenon like this without warning? Half of them would have fainted. Anastasia would have attempted to collect a sample. Reyna would have tossed a bottle into it to see if it returned.”

“Would it have?”

“It did not.”

“You tossed a bottle into the Chasm? When?”

“With ARIA…” she paused. “For science.” She turned her attention back to the void. “None of them returned.”

I adored this woman. Truly. In my own, admittedly somewhat terrifying, way.

The Chasm seemed to fix its gaze back upon me. Patient. Eternal. Whatever resided beyond hummed with a frequency I felt deep within my bones but could not articulate.

And somewhere across that unfathomable expanse, the Ghost Mansion also awaited us. Its warm stone embrace. The endlessly reflective walls. The fountain defying gravity, flowing upward. The gardens that subtly shifted when unobserved.

The visage etched into the tower, its window-eyes tracking every movement.

The distant beach below the cliff, where waves crashed in formations too intricate and perfect to be natural.

All of it, waiting. Just as it always waited. As if meticulously constructed for this specific night, this particular assembly, this precise moment when thirty women, a goddess, and a boy from Lincoln Heights would cross the threshold together—for even the most ancient of voids understand the importance of not keeping a Dark Lord waiting.

I declared, my voice low yet carrying on the wind.