He favored beautiful women and believed without question that he deserved them. So he had only taken such women until now.

JeJe was one of “those women”—pretty enough, but that was all. This was because the women Shahan brought to his bedroom were all outstanding beauties renowned throughout various countries, and after maintaining such a promiscuous lifestyle for so long, even the most beautiful women all started to look the same to him. The absolute standard of beauty was himself alone.

Shahan suffered from narcissism, and he couldn’t help it. Though half his blood was beast, he was nonetheless of celestial lineage, and his bewitching appearance allowed him to use people as easily as game pieces. Everything was easy and tedious.

JeJe too was just another beautiful, boring thing—and worse, a half-beast even lower than common humans. Yet for several years now, whenever he faced JeJe for long periods, an unfamiliar emotion would surface. At first, he simply let it pass, but when JeJe remained by Kesera’s side longer than expected, even that became impossible.

Hunger and lust. Unable to understand how to reconcile these contradictory emotions rising simultaneously, Shahan avoided JeJe for a while. While lust made sense given that JeJe met his beauty standards, what about hunger?

He thought he had shed much of his beast blood, but apparently he was still unstable.

Because Shahan was both celestial and carried snake blood, he instinctively followed the food chain. Was this why he felt hungry whenever he saw JeJe? He often experienced uncontrollable hunger when seeing beastkin of mouse, bird, or rabbit varieties, which had led him to kill many of them.

During the day, he blessed them in the name of the High Priest; at night, under the pretext of natural law, he tasted their blood—devouring them greedily, ravenously, voraciously.

So what about JeJe, who stirred his appetite? He’d heard she was also a beastkin, but no one knew which animal. Given her small stature, perhaps squirrel or rabbit? The suspicions didn’t end there.

If JeJe were a squirrel or rabbit beastkin, he should rightfully harbor murderous intent toward her, yet Shahan only felt hunger without ever once feeling the urge to kill her. Did this mean they weren’t in a predator-prey relationship?

JeJe exuded an intensely sweet scent—that deliciously sweet smell unique to prey animals, the snake’s food. This puzzled Shahan even more about JeJe. Her body lacked the tail or ears that half-beasts should naturally have.

She might be hiding them, of course. Even without ears, she should definitely have a tail.

What Shahan wanted to confirm was exactly that—to strip JeJe’s clothes and verify the tail attached to her b*ttocks. If things went his way, he certainly wouldn’t stop at just checking her tail.

Perhaps he didn’t need to remove her clothes at all, but he simply wanted to. No, he wanted to see JeJe begging him to undress her and take her body, like countless other women had done.

Not with that contemptuous expression like she’d lost her eyes, reluctantly meeting his gaze—but with flushed eyes, crying uncontrollably, inevitably calling Shahan’s name while mindlessly rocking with his thrusts.

Then he felt he might finally receive all the pleasure he had been unable to find until now. The moment he imagined that scene, a thrilling pleasure rushed through him. His fist, resting on the edge of the bathtub, clenched tightly.

To resolve this curiosity that neither moved forward nor flowed backward like stagnant water, he had tried everything. Wondering if there might be other women like JeJe, he had taken women around her age.

But he had never forced anyone. Until now, Shahan had never sought out women on his own, and even the girl he had just fed his s*men to had been one who first requested to be his night companion.

A failure? Then he tried women older or younger than JeJe. Desperately suppressing the urge to slaughter them, he had brought rabbit or squirrel beastkin women and taken them for three days and nights. None of them satisfied him.

Shahan increasingly suffered from extreme boredom and lethargy. No matter which woman he embraced, he couldn’t find pleasure. He mechanically moved his p*nis and ej*culated copiously where they wanted—that was all. Many women wanted to bear Shahan’s child, which had caused him no small headache more than once.

The child of the High Priest, who held the highest power in the empire after the Emperor. The noble blood of the celestials. A husband beautiful enough to make one lose their mind. The reasons were abundant.

Shahan pretended to be meticulous about contraception, but in truth, he could determine a woman’s pregnancy at will, so it didn’t matter. Indeed, weren’t celestial abilities just things that made life a little easier?

If he didn’t want it, a woman wouldn’t conceive. Not that making them pregnant was easy either. It was still much easier to leave no trace than to create new life.

Shahan finished organizing his thoughts and rose from the bathtub. Cold water dripped from his n*ked body, carved like white marble, pooling on the floor. His hair, tangled with droplets, clung to his neck, back, and the groove of his b*ttocks.

Looking at his blindingly exquisite n*ked reflection in the steamy mirror, Shahan narrowed his brow. Somehow, he felt even this wouldn’t work on JeJe. He had diligently tried to lure her to his bedroom and openly expressed interest in her. All were rejected.

Perhaps she felt repulsed because of his history of casually flirting with women. If she truly disliked him and that’s why she acted this way, that would be another problem. Though uncomfortable, he sometimes deliberately ignored her more than others, barked at her, and showed irritation.

Of course, she ignored it all. JeJe never returned the same level of interest he showed her, which infuriated him beyond endurance.

Who did she think she was? Though indignant, he decided to change his approach for now. “I regard you, JeJe, differently from other women. I cherish you specially.” If he could just plant this false belief, everything would proceed smoothly afterward. And for Shahan, such acting was as easy as breathing.

Soon it would be JeJe’s coming-of-age ceremony. That day would be the turning point, the moment of transformation.