'Lust system': Rise of the Harem lord-Chapter 39: The Girl Who Heard Feelings

Location: Ruins of Silenra – Midnight Arrival

Wind howled through crumbled towers and broken stone bridges. The Ruins of Silenra looked like they had been swallowed by silence itself—eerie, dust-covered, ancient.

Elias and the girls stood at the outer ridge, cloaked in system-protected suits as the cold static in the air buzzed through their boots.

"This place gives me chills," Mira muttered.

Lilith smirked. "That’s because it’s soaked in failed bonds."

Velhira closed her eyes, sensing the system threads in the air. "There’s someone here... she’s barely stabilized. A raw Host. But unique."

Aya tightened her gloves. "Where’s Cassian?"

Elias said nothing.

He could already feel it—the void Cassian left behind. A cut bond. Another lifeless echo.

They moved.

---

First Encounter: The Echo Girl

Deep in the heart of the ruins, they found her.

A girl, around nineteen, sitting in the middle of a broken amphitheater, humming softly. Her eyes were covered by a silk ribbon. Hair silver-white, skin pale, and around her body floated small, faintly glowing notes—like living music.

Sitting beside her was a boy. Or at least... the shell of one.

His chest bore the mark of a shattered bond.

Emotionless. Still breathing. But hollow.

Elias stepped forward. "Lyra?"

The girl stopped humming. She tilted her head.

"You’re... loud," she whispered. "But not angry. Not broken."

Sae gasped. "She can hear... our feelings?"

Velhira nodded. "Her Lust System adapted through empathy—not lust or control."

Lyra’s voice cracked. "They told me I could bond through song. That my voice would find someone who felt like me."

She gently reached for the lifeless boy’s hand.

"I found him. And he felt... beautiful. Until..."

Her voice broke.

"He disappeared inside."

---

Cassian’s Message

Suddenly—

> [SYSTEM INTERFERENCE DETECTED]

[Unauthorized Host Access – Cassian Thorn Signature]

[Message Playback Engaged]

The ruins lit up with red static.

Cassian’s face appeared in the shattered sky above them.

"Hello again, Elias."

His voice was calm, sterile.

"I thought you’d want to see the result of your precious ’freedom’. Lyra bonded by emotion. He trusted her... and then broke."

He leaned forward.

"Because feelings don’t last, Elias. They decay. Like everything else."

He snapped his fingers.

The ground beneath the dead Host boy cracked—

And dozens of emotionless husks rose up from the amphitheater floor.

Eyes blank.

Systems still active.

But every bond... gone.

---

Battle: Emotionless vs. Empaths

"Host husks," Mira growled. "He’s using the shattered ones as weapons."

Aya drew her blade. "Let’s clear them."

"Wait!" Lyra stood. Her body trembled. "Don’t fight them. They... they can still hear."

Elias moved fast, standing in front of her as the husks charged.

"We’ll protect you. But we need your song."

Lyra nodded slowly. "Then I’ll sing."

She lifted her arms.

Her voice rose—not loud, not powerful.

But pure.

Like the first note of a lullaby you didn’t know you remembered.

---

Lyra’s Gift: Soul Thread Melody

The floating musical notes around her burst into color.

The husks stopped mid-charge.

They didn’t attack.

They stood—trembling.

Eyes flickered.

One dropped his weapon.

Another sank to his knees, whispering something inaudible.

Aya paused, stunned. "She’s reaching them."

Lyra cried as she sang, each note syncing to their broken hearts.

And slowly—

Their bonds began to glow faintly.

Not enough to restore them.

But enough to remind them they once felt something.

---

Aftermath

The husks collapsed, unconscious—but peaceful.

Elias caught Lyra as she stumbled. "You did it."

"I heard them... I heard all of them," she sobbed. "And one voice that was colder than silence."

"Cassian," Elias muttered. "He was here. But he wanted us to see this."

Velhira looked at the sky. "He’s testing us."

Aurora frowned. "No. He’s mocking us."

---

New Host Registered

> [Lyra – Host of Lust Variant: Echo of Emotion]

[Bond Form: Sound-Thread Synchronization]

[Stability: Low. Protection Required.]

Lyra smiled weakly. "I’ll go with you. If my voice can help more people... I want to sing for them."

Elias placed a hand on her shoulder. "Then welcome to the Dominion."

---

Final Scene: Cassian’s Next Move

In the shadows of a deep crystal cavern, Cassian walked past another Host chained to a slab, still resisting.

"I wonder how long you’ll hold onto your love," Cassian whispered.

He glanced at a mirror.

Elias’s face flickered on the other side.

"You saved the songbird, Harem Lord."

He smirked.

"Now let’s see if you can save the one who betrayed you."

The image changed—

To Mira.

The journey back from Silenra was quiet.

Lyra sat near the edge of the air skimmer, humming softly with her hands over her ears. Her song now felt like a shield, protecting her heart from what she had felt in the ruins.

Elias stood behind her, arms crossed, deep in thought.

Zehn was helping Sae patch one of the panel joints. Aurora sparred idly with Aya on the back platform. Lilith had her feet up, sipping something red and sweet, watching them all like a queen surveying her realm.

But Mira...

She was unusually silent.

Tucked away in the far corner, eyes glued to her device, not speaking a word since Cassian’s message.

Elias noticed.

When the skimmer landed back at the Dominion, he waited for the others to head in first. Then he walked over to her.

"You’ve barely looked at me since we left the ruins."

Mira didn’t answer at first. Then, slowly, she locked her tablet, stood up, and turned to him.

"Because I know what’s coming."

Elias raised a brow. "You want to tell me, or should I guess?"

She stepped down from the ramp, hands clenched. "I wasn’t always a field tech. Before the Lust System adapted... I was on the original codex design team. For emotional restraints."

His eyes narrowed slightly.

"So when Cassian said you were part of it—he wasn’t lying."

"No," she said. "But he also didn’t tell you the whole story."

The night was silent. The air around them tense.

"I was young. Recruited because of my mind, my neural link speeds. We were tasked with keeping Hosts from bonding too deep. Too real. They thought strong emotion would make the systems break."

"And you helped them?" Elias asked, voice still calm, but harder now.

"I created the first algorithm that would auto-repress affection beyond baseline attraction." She breathed in, slow and steady. "But I also realized how wrong it was. I left. Erased my track logs. I thought it was buried."

"It wasn’t," he said flatly.

She nodded. "Cassian found it. And now he’ll use it to rip us apart."

Elias stared at her for a long time.

"You should’ve told me."

"I was afraid you’d see me like he does. A hypocrite."

Elias exhaled and looked up at the stars. He remembered the first time Mira patched his broken heart thread after a failed sync. The way she smiled behind her visor, always acting like nothing bothered her. But she carried guilt like a second skin.

"You’re not him," he finally said. "But if he comes after you—"

"He won’t stop there." Mira’s voice turned colder. "He’ll try to use my code. And if he reverses it... he could suppress every Host’s bond again. Worse, he could lock them into it."

Elias’s jaw tightened.

"Then we stop him before he even gets close."

Mira gave him a long, relieved look, her eyes softening. "Even now, after all of it... you still trust me?"

He stepped closer.

"I trust you more than you trust yourself."

For the first time in days, Mira smiled.

"And I still know how to write a backdoor he’ll never see coming."

They returned to the tower where Velhira was already waiting with Aurora and Lilith.

"There’s chatter," Velhira said. "Two more awakenings in the North. One is already under threat."

"And the other?" Elias asked.

Aurora tapped her device. "Off-grid. No signal. Could be a trap."

Elias looked at the group. "Doesn’t matter. We split. Half to intercept. Half to track Cassian’s movements."

Aya cracked her knuckles. "And if we catch him?"

Elias turned to the window.

"Then we don’t let him run this time."

Far away, in the frozen wastelands beyond the Dominion’s northern walls, Cassian stood at the edge of a blackened field, watching another Host cry over the hollow body of a severed bond.

He turned slowly toward the stars, where he knew Elias watched the world like a guardian.

"You keep saving them," he whispered, "but I only have to break one."

His fingers moved to a thread tied around his wrist—pale blue, glowing faintly.

One bond.

One memory.

One girl.

And she still belonged to Elias.

Cassian smiled.

"Let’s see what happens when the system asks him to choose."

The wind cut sharp as Mira and Aya descended from the skimmer, boots crunching into snow and ice.

They had reached Gravemire Ridge, a dead-zone nestled between fractured system zones. The kind of place the System had long forgotten. No formal Hosts. No guards. Just echoes.

Aya scanned the broken remains of what used to be a signal relay tower.

"No life signatures. You sure the coordinates are right?"

Mira nodded, wiping frost from her visor. "They pinged a Host thread flare here exactly thirty minutes ago."

Aya turned to her. "You trust your numbers?"

"I always do."

They moved quickly, weapons lowered but ready. The cold bit through their suits, but neither complained.

As they reached the center of the ridge, they heard it—low humming. Metallic. Almost mechanical.

Then, a voice.

"She doesn’t need saving."

They turned fast—Aya already had her blade out.

From the shadows stepped a group of five figures. Their bodies were wrapped in mismatched armor and cloth, their eyes glowing faintly.

The one in front, a woman with ash-grey hair and a long scar down her cheek, stepped forward.

"She chose us. Not the Dominion. Not your ’Harem Lord’."

Aya didn’t blink. "Where is the Host?"

"She is safe," the woman replied calmly. "And under the protection of the Liberated Path."

Mira’s eyes widened. "You’re one of them. Cassian’s cult."

"We don’t worship him," the woman said sharply. "We follow what he made possible—freedom from forced emotion. Freedom from being bound to anyone." freewēbnoveℓ.com

Aya scoffed. "You’re just broken Hosts who gave up."

"No," the woman replied. "We’re Hosts who refused to be programmed to love. And we don’t let the Dominion overwrite us."

Before Aya could lunge, Mira stepped forward.

"We’re not here to fight. We came to talk to the girl. That’s all."

A tense silence followed.

Then, a voice behind the cultists.

"Let them through."

The figures parted.

Standing there, on the edge of a crystal ridge, was a girl—tall, golden-eyed, with wild, flowing dreadlocks and a glowing sigil on her chest that pulsed like a heartbeat.

She was young.

But her presence... burned.

"My name is Senna," she said. "And I am the Host of the Lust System’s Resonant Pain Core."

Aya blinked. "Never heard of that one."

"You wouldn’t have," Senna said softly. "It was locked away. My power doesn’t bond through pleasure, affection, or words."

She raised her hand.

"It bonds through suffering. The more pain shared between me and another... the stronger our connection becomes."

Mira whispered, "She’s a trauma-linked Host..."

Senna’s face held no shame. "I don’t want to be saved, and I don’t want to be used. I want to choose my own purpose."

Aya stepped forward, her voice calm but sharp. "You’re strong. I get that. But you think Cassian is fighting for choice? He’s not. He’s cutting people off from what makes them human."

"Maybe being human is the problem," Senna replied quietly.

A gust of wind blew past them.

Suddenly—

> [Emergency Thread Sync: Incoming Interference Detected]

[Cassian Signature Confirmed – Remote Influence: Active Nearby]

Mira’s eyes went wide. "He’s close. He’s watching her through the bond channel."

Senna flinched, clutching her chest. "He’s... he’s talking to me. Now."

Aya moved fast.

"Shut it down. Cut his thread before he hijacks your system."

The cultists raised their weapons.

"Don’t touch her!" one shouted.

But Senna raised a hand. "Enough. Let them."

She looked at Mira. "If you can stop him... do it."

Mira knelt quickly, unlocking a custom protocol and syncing to Senna’s core thread. Her fingers moved in a blur.

Cassian’s voice echoed from the wind.

"Even you, Mira? After all we built?"

Aya raised her blade, voice fierce. "We’re done with your games."

A final keystroke.

The interference cut out.

Silence.

Senna collapsed forward—Mira caught her.

"She’s clean. Cassian’s remote link is gone."

Aya stood over the cultists. "If any of you want to keep following his orders, now’s the time to leave."

But none of them moved.

Senna looked up at Mira. "You... you didn’t try to overwrite me."

"No," Mira said. "I don’t do that anymore."

Senna took a deep breath. "Then maybe... I’ll come with you."

The cultist woman stepped forward, hesitant.

"If you betray her trust..."

"We won’t," Aya said. "She’ll have a choice every step of the way."

As the storm clouds rolled in above Gravemire, Mira messaged Elias:

Thread secured. One new Host. Trauma-based. Strong, but raw. She chose us. We’re heading home.

Elias responded immediately.

Understood. Cassian just made his next move here too. We’ll meet back at Dominion. Be ready.

Mira looked at Senna.

"Ready to see what the real system feels like?"

Senna smiled faintly. "Let’s find out."

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