10x God-Tier Stealing System: Pumping S-Rank SuperHeroines Daily!-Chapter 76 - A Threat Hidden Behind Screens

He stepped toward her, bridging the small gap until he could smell the sweet, frantic heat of her skin. He lifted his hand and placed it gently over her head. Without a word, he pulled her into a hug. One hand remained casually in his pocket, while the other held her head against his shoulder, masking her view of the body.

He could feel her heart racing against his chest, the soft mounds of her breasts pressing into him through the layers of their clothing. This was her first intentional kill of a civilian—a trauma that would leave her raw and open.

For a villain, such an act was a Tuesday. For a hero, it was the end of the world.

"N-no... what I did..."

Her voice was a broken whisper, muffled against his shoulder.

"If he had attacked me and succeeded, you would have felt the same guilt," Cruxius said, his fingers trailing through her hair, a subtle, grounding touch as he felt her body flinch and tremble against him. "And now, even after protecting me, you feel it just the same. Be in control, Ytrisia. You saved a life."

"Y-yes..."

Ytrisia slowly lifted her eyes, her face flushed with a mix of shame and a strange, desperate gratitude for his touch. She tried to push herself away, her palms lingering on his chest for a second too long.

’!?’

As she moved, her gaze landed on his neck. Near the collar of his shirt, deep, dark red marks had begun to bloom—the clear, bruised imprints of fingers from his earlier struggle.

"Are you alright?"

She forgot her own guilt for a moment, her fingers reaching out with a gentle, tentative touch to trace the angry welts on his throat.

"Ugh, yes... thanks to you, I controlled my anger," Cruxius replied with a faint, weary smile.

The pain in his neck was a dull, throbbing roar. He had been close to snapping, close to letting his fury consume him and ruining his plans by killing Eventide then and there. But he had found a better distraction—the sight of Ytrisia’s body, the way her suit clung to her hips, the way she moved.

Lust was a far more effective tool for focus than anger. It was the ultimate primal anchor.

"Master!? How did this happen?"

Darithi, who had been following his instructions to a fault, suddenly appeared at the lift doors. Her usually impassive face flickered with a sharp, cold concern as she saw the marks on Cruxius’s neck. She stepped forward, her eyes darting between the body on the floor and her master’s bruised skin.

"...It was an accident," Cruxius replied shortly. He didn’t need Darithi going on a vengeful rampage yet. "I’ve been eating garbage since morning. I need something decent, Darithi. Let’s go to a restaurant."

He needed to get away from the scent of blood. He exited the lift, stepping over Alvian’s cooling remains without a second glance, and moved toward the adjacent elevator.

’Shit....’

As the doors of the second lift slid closed, a wave of dizziness washed over him. His lack of endurance was finally catching up. His vision blurred at the edges, and he was forced to lean heavily against the back wall of the lift. He closed his eyes, his head lolling back against the cool metal, trying to keep his breathing even so the women wouldn’t notice his weakness.

He had achieved his goal. He had shown Ytrisia the rot within her own world and tied her soul to his through shared blood.

"I’m fine," he lied, opening his eyes to find Ytrisia watching him with a look of deep, pained conflict. "So, Ytrisia... do you want to be my bodyguard?"

"I don’t understand," she whispered. The proposal felt like a lifeline and a trap all at once. Her duty was to the city, to the orphanage, to the nameless masses.

"You see, I’ve pretty much offended the Hero Association," Cruxius stated, his voice raspy but firm. "And now that Eventide has used my face to kill Alvian, the villains will likely be coming for me too. I’m a marked man on both sides."

"...So that’s why he attacked you..." Ytrisia muttered.

She could see it now—the perfect, cruel logic of it. The Association wanted him gone, and the villains would want revenge for the death of their puppet dean. Her jaw clenched. The very organization she served was using the same underhanded tactics as the monsters they hunted.

’How low can they fall?’ she thought, a spark of genuine hatred for the Association flickering in her amethyst eyes.

"But Darithi is here too," she added, the last remnants of her sense of duty holding her back.

’Hmph, stop thinking and just choose me, woman,’ Cruxius thought, watching the way she bit her lip, her internal struggle visible in the way her fingers twisted together.

"No, Master is correct," Darithi interrupted, her voice uncharacteristically soft. She looked at the bruises on Cruxius’s neck and then at Ytrisia. "Given my rank, I cannot guarantee his safety against what is coming. You are the only one who can truly stand between him and the world."

Far beneath the surface of an unnamed location, hidden even below the deepest basement, a maze of tangled wires snaked across the floor like frozen serpents. Antennas above marked the invisible paths of data—silent signals racing across the land, undetected by the world above.

Beneath it all, buried in a tomb of silence, sat a bunker-like chamber.

A server room.

It buzzed with a cold, sterile hum—mechanical, indifferent, and bone-chilling. But inside the heart of the stack, there was only heat. Not the artificial warmth of overclocked processors, but a feverish, radiating heat.

From her.

She sat hunched in the corner of the room, dwarfed by towers of humming steel and blinking LEDs. The rhythmic flicker of cyan and crimson light washed over her tear-streaked face, casting long, dancing shadows against the equipment.

Her oversized hoodie draped over her small frame like a veil of shadows, the thick fabric sliding off one pale, trembling shoulder. The dampness of her tears and the sweat from her localized fever made the cotton cling to her skin, subtly outlining the delicate curve of her back and the sharp jut of her shoulder blades as she shuddered. Her eyes were a roadmap of broken capillaries, fixed on the monitors with a haunting, glassy stare.

Click. Clack. Click.

Each keystroke sounded like a gunshot in the oppressive silence.

Her hands flew, fingers jittering across the mechanical keyboard with raw desperation, rage, and grief tangled into every motion. The oversized sleeves of her hoodie slipped back with every strike, revealing thin, pale wrists that looked fragile enough to snap.

"You killed me, Cruxius..." she whispered.

Her voice cracked, a jagged sound made of glass tearing through her throat. "You said we’d finish it together. You said..."

She stopped. A shallow, hitching breath caught in her lungs, causing her chest to heave beneath the heavy fabric of her hoodie. For a moment, the tension of her posture pulled the material taut, outlining the soft, trembling mounds of her breasts as they rose and fell in a frantic rhythm. Her fingers hovered midair, suspended by a memory, before slamming back down with renewed violence.

"I will destroy the Blac family..."