My Femboy System
Chapter 43: Blood under Starlight

Chapter 43: Blood under Starlight

There are moments in life when logic and survival quietly shake hands, step aside, and let chaos take the reins with a smirk and blood on its teeth.

This was one of those moments.

We stood in a narrow corridor carved from the Tower’s underbelly, still catching our breath in the low haze of butchered silence. Behind us, a slaughter disguised as salvation—where hunger had teeth and wine had rot.

Ahead, the tunnel wound back toward the grand hall, a banquet chamber now baptized in horror and ritual. The walls sweated with moisture, as if the Tower itself had been holding its breath and was only now exhaling.

I glanced at the others, each of us holding onto something fragile—Miko gripped his side, shadows still flickering around his boots like nervous children; Leo stood firm but silent, the tension in his jaw a wordless warning; Willow leaned against a vine-wrapped column, poised like a bored angel sculpted from hedonism; and Aria...she stood close enough for me to feel the heat of her hesitation, her arms drawn in, her fingers twitching with the ghost of something unspoken.

"We need to go back," I said, my voice low, steady, and just sharp enough to cut through the collective dread. "Back to the main hall with the other guests. We regroup, reassess, and pray the wine isn’t sentient."

Willow arched a perfectly sculpted brow, that damn smirk already blooming like a scandal in spring. "Back? As in, back to the nightmare buffet? The one that tried to seduce our souls and slow-roast our sanity?"

I gave her a look. Flat and unamused. "Yes. Back to the all-you-can-eat trauma platter. The one where the foie gras made eye contact and whispered childhood secrets. Better than active cannibalism don’t you suppose?"

Leo nodded, his silence as reliable as a blade drawn in moonlight. Miko sighed. Aria said nothing, but her shoulders shifted, as though aligning herself with the decision before she had time to regret it.

So we moved.

The corridor leading toward the main dining hall pressed inward, a gullet of smooth stone and whispering damp. The air grew colder the deeper we went, touched by some unseen draft that crawled along our spines and down our throats. Shadows stretched across the floor in unnatural directions. Even our footsteps, though careful, seemed louder than they should have been.

And then it happened.

A sound tore through the quiet like a blade dragged over bone—metal grinding against stone, shrieking with all the subtlety of a massacre. The kind of noise that turned your blood cold and your muscles rigid before your mind could make sense of anything at all.

We stopped, each of us frozen like sinners caught mid-prayer.

Something massive was approaching.

And it didn’t care to be quiet.

Out from the shadows it stepped—a brute the size of a collapsing cathedral. Nearly nine feet tall, muscle wrapped over bone like thick rope stretched too tight, every inch of him etched with scars that looked carved, not earned.

He wore a butcher’s tunic soaked in blood—some old, some terrifyingly fresh—and he reeked of iron and rot, the scent of meat left too long in summer heat. His face was half-covered by a cracked porcelain mask shaped like a smirking skull.

And in his massive hand? A butcher’s axe.

Not a cleaver.

An axe big enough to fell gods.

The air around him grew heavy with pressure, thick and oppressive, like the moment before a thunderclap when the clouds lean in and hold your breath for you.

I rolled my shoulders once and spun my dagger into my palm. "Well," I muttered, "looks like the Tower sent it’s main course."

Leo moved first—no hesitation, no roar, just pure motion. His fist connected with the brute’s side, a strike that would have broken ribs on anything mortal. The impact echoed through the tunnel like a cannonball slamming into granite.

The brute barely flinched.

"Shit," Leo hissed, leaping back.

I darted right, letting instinct guide me, the dagger in my hand a silver flash as I struck low beneath the ribs. The blade bit into flesh, but instead of blood, steam hissed from the wound, hot and oily with the scent of burning sugar.

Willow moved in beside me, catching my blade mid-spin with a theatrical flair only she could make look casual.

"My turn," she purred, sliding beneath the brute’s swing and lashing her blade across his thigh in a curving arc of grace and violence. The monster growled, twisting with alarming speed, bringing his axe down so hard the floor beneath us cracked like eggshell.

Miko emerged from a wall of shadow behind the brute, eyes glowing faintly, lips curled in concentration.

"Duck!" he shouted.

I dropped just in time as a whip of solid shadow shot over my head and slammed into the brute’s back, erupting in a splash of smoke.

Still not enough.

The brute turned, axe sweeping in a wide arc that grazed Leo’s shoulder and sent him tumbling into the wall with a grunt. Willow caught the shaft of the weapon just in time to redirect its edge from her chest, but not before it carved a deep line across her side.

We were losing ground.

He was faster than he looked, and stronger than anything should be.

They say some monsters are born. Others are built. This one had clearly been worshiped into existence.

"Keep pressure," I growled, sliding to the left. "Move as a pack!"

But even that wasn’t enough.

Every strike we landed hissed steam but no blood. Every blow he delivered felt like a sermon in violence. He wasn’t fighting to win—he was fighting to wear us down, like a chef preparing meat before the final carve.

I thought about using my skills Velvet Leech and Velvet Aura to gain some semblance of an upper hand. I was just about to move until—

A voice.

Soft at first. Almost nothing.

But growing louder.

A chant.

Aria.

She stood at the end of the tunnel, her hands trembling, her lips moving in words I couldn’t understand—guttural syllables wrapped in starlight, melodic and terrible. The ceiling above her pulsed once, then shimmered.

Clouds gathered—soft, silver, gentle—and then split.

Stars emerged.

Tiny. Perfect. Glowing like distant memories.

They floated just beneath the stone ceiling, flickering into existence like a constellation being drawn from dreams.

We all froze.

Even the brute paused, head tilted up, as though recognizing something old.

Aria pointed, her voice still rhythmic, burning.

"Left knee—he’s favoring it."

Leo didn’t wait. He spun low, both fists crashing into the brute’s knee with a crunch that made the giant stumble.

"Right shoulder—now!"

I moved. My dagger traced the path she called, slicing across flesh just above the collarbone. The brute roared, the hiss of steam now tinged red.

"Willow—spin left, throat!"

Willow became a shadow of steel, sliding in, I passed her the dagger which traced a kiss across the brute’s throat. The wound opened. This time, he screamed.

We moved like a machine with one voice, each strike called like sheet music from Aria’s lips. Her hands painted the air as she chanted, guiding us like marionettes tethered to stars. Her body trembled, light bleeding from her fingertips.

And at last, Leo leapt, his fist crashing into the brute’s mask.

Porcelain shattered.

The body fell.

Still, heavy, and dead.

Aria collapsed with it.

I caught her as she crumpled, her weight surprisingly light, her skin flushed and damp with sweat. Her breath came in tiny, pained gasps. Her eyelids fluttered.

"Aria," I whispered, brushing damp curls from her brow. "What the hell was that?"

She looked up at me, barely lucid. Her voice cracked like parchment.

"I’m not allowed to say," she murmured, breathless. "I’m sorry."

I shook my head. "We’ll discuss permissions later."

And then we heard it.

Footsteps.

Dozens.

Marching.

Dragging.

Clanking.

The stretch of the hallway beyond the chefs’ domain echoed with it.

Miko turned toward the brute to deliver one last insult, but stopped.

The brute twitched. Then grabbed him.

A massive hand snapped around Miko’s ankle and pulled.

"Miko!" I shouted.

"Run!" he gasped, slamming his palms down as his body was dragged across the floor. "I’ll hold him!"

Leo grabbed Aria, slinging her over his shoulder like a knight returning from war. Willow grabbed Miko’s arms, trying to pry him free, but the brute was already rising.

"I’ve got this!" Miko screamed, shadows pooling beneath his fingertips. "Go!"

They did.

Willow followed behind Leo, and together they dashed back in retreat.

However, I stayed behind, bolting toward Miko.

I raised my dagger high.

And slashed.

Again.

And again.

Until the brute finally screamed and released Miko’s leg.

In an instant, Miko summoned three shadow figures, thick as smoke and solid as hate, pinning the brute with inky limbs. He didn’t yell in triumph. He didn’t gloat.

He collapsed into my arms.

Together, we stumbled through the doors leading back into the special dining courters.

Willow turned at the threshold and raised her hand. Her voice, sharp and terrible, rose in demonic syllables that slithered through the air like serpents wrapped in fire.

The doorway slammed shut behind us and was sealed as Willow finished her spell.

And finally, silence.

We collapsed into the dark chamber once again.

We were alive.

Bruised, bloodied, hollowed-out like fruit left too long in the sun—but alive.

And for a moment, just a moment, that felt like it should be enough. But it wasn’t. Because something had taken root in the silence left behind. Not fear. Not exactly. It was something deeper. Sharper.

Hopelessness.

It crept into our bones like cold, curling fingers between ribs, whispering that this was only the beginning. Not a victory. A delay. The Tower hadn’t been testing us—it had been thinning the herd, skimming the surface of our resolve, looking for cracks.

We sat together in the hush of the sealed chamber, bodies slouched, minds spiraling in quiet loops. The air stank of wine-soaked rot and sweat, of ancient stone and unseen blood. Every breath tasted like aftermath.

Now we were trapped in here...for good.

Miko broke the silence first, voice low and bitter. "Tell me again why we thought skipping dessert was a smart choice."

Willow gave a tired groan, draping her arm over her eyes. "Because the dessert was probably sentient and made of people."

Leo said nothing. He sat beside Aria, head bowed, as if trying to listen to the pulse of the Tower itself. Even he looked shaken, and that was new.

I stood near the door, pressing one hand to the stone—partly for balance, partly because I needed to feel something solid.

And then—

"Quiet," I said, the word slipping out sharper than intended.

Everyone froze.

I tilted my head and whipped around, eyes narrowing, and focused past the ringing in my ears, past the lingering echo of that monstrous fight.

There. Beneath it all.

A hum.

Soft, low, almost too faint to notice—but it was there. The kind of sound that didn’t belong to breath or magic. A mechanical whir, subtle as a heartbeat, coming from somewhere ahead, buried in the dark. It lasted for only a second.

I turned to Aria, whose head still lolled gently against Leo’s shoulder.

"You said you scouted the perimeter," I said carefully, watching her reaction.

Her lips parted. She nodded slowly. "I did. Every inch. I—I swear."

I looked toward one of the pillars nearby. Then to the next. Then the next. It hit me like cold water over the spine.

The elevator hadn’t vanished.

It had been hidden.

Masked. Cloaked. Maybe even reshaped by the Tower’s illusionary magic—folded into its architecture like a trick mirror.

There were dozens of those pillars. Maybe hundreds. And each one was wide enough to easily house an elevator shaft and then some if hollowed.

Any one of them could be the way out.

And yet, strangely, I didn’t feel overwhelmed.

Not like before.

Even standing in the middle of a room designed to disorient and devour us, I felt something different this time. Because we weren’t like the others. We hadn’t been consumed. We hadn’t been broken.

And—unlike anyone else I’d seen here—we had the numbers.

"We’re not done yet," I said, my eyes drifting from one towering structure to the next. Each pillar loomed like a monument to something long dead—silent, imposing, and suspiciously perfect. "I don’t think the elevator’s gone. I think it’s disguised. Hidden inside one of these."

Aria stirred, slowly lifting herself away from Leo’s shoulder. Her eyes—glazed with fatigue—flicked up toward the ceiling.

"I can trace our paths. If one of us happens to find the elevator we can backtrack and regroup here," she murmured, like she was remembering the words as she said them.

I watched as she raised her trembling hand.

Stars bloomed into existence above us.

Tiny pinpricks of light, stretching out across a layer of clouded sky that hadn’t been there seconds before. The air shimmered faintly, as if reality itself was folding back to let something older through.

And then Aria gasped.

Her hand dropped.

Blood ran from her nose in a thin crimson line. She staggered sideways, catching herself against the cold stone.

"I’m fine," she breathed, though the way her body swayed betrayed the lie in her voice.

She wasn’t. But she was trying. And that was all that mattered right now.

I gave her a nod, steady and certain.

Willow straightened, brushing dust from her body and flashing a sharp grin. Leo silently stood, adjusting his coat, already ready.

Miko rolled his shoulders, muttering something obscene under his breath as the shadows beneath his boots flickered to life again.

We split up.

Willow and Leo veered off to the right, quiet and coordinated, their footsteps hushed beneath the eerie glow of the ceiling stars. Miko took Aria gently by the arm and guided her to the left, careful not to move too quickly, staying close.

I went forward alone, straight down the middle, following the slow-drifting thread of starlight above me. As I walked, the stars surrounding me brightened a little, marking my path with each step.

The clouds on the ceiling shimmered like moving oil, catching bits of reflected firelight and cosmic pulse. It was wrong for this place—too serene, too beautiful—but I let it guide me anyway.

My boots echoed softly on the stone as I passed one pillar, then another. Each one cold to the touch, ancient and solid—but I knew better. The Tower had already taught me how well it could lie.

And for the first time since entering this gilded nightmare, I felt something whispering just below the dread.

Something I hadn’t dared name until now.

Not relief. Not safety.

Hope.

Quiet and fragile, yes, but unmistakably real.

I let it bloom across my lips in the barest hint of a smile.

It was then that I heard the air snap.

A single sound, sharp and impossible to ignore, tore through the stillness like a blade through silk.

A crack from a weapon long forgotten.

A thunderclap of violence.

The sound of gunfire.

And it was coming from right up ahead.