Forced to Become the Protagonist of a Restricted Novel [Transmigration & Rebirth] - Chapter 3

“Wait!”

Su Cheng pressed a hand against the man’s chest.

His skin burned feverishly, radiating heat so intense it was palpable even through clothing, nearly scalding her fingers.

Demon sightings were rare in the northern continent.

This was land controlled by the Church, which strictly forbade entry to the God of Darkness’s favored races.

Especially in places like Golden Amber City, where large Church temples housed numerous elite clergy.

Among them, those capable of sensing and tracking demonic auras numbered far more than just one or two.

Major temples contained teleportation arrays said to connect directly to the Church’s holy city, allowing them to summon groups of peerless experts within minutes.

If necessary, even the lesser deities of the divine realm.

Su Cheng didn’t know the story of the original demoness antagonist—why she came to the northern continent, how she was captured by the Church, or how she escaped.

Perhaps it was written later, but she had skipped chapters and missed it.

But she did know that after Lin Yun got involved with the demoness, a series of troubles ensued.

“You need to… engage with someone. I get that,” Su Cheng asked, “But why come to my place? Why me?”

The demon leaned against the wall, panting. “There’s a certain aura about you. Faint, but I instinctively teleported here. It’s my first time on the human continent—I wanted to pick someone… less terrible.”

Su Cheng: “?”

On her?

She had already checked all her pockets—the bracelet definitely wasn’t on her!

The demon cracked his eyes open slightly. Sweat slid down his sharp jawline, dripping onto his firm, well-built chest.

“…Mage,” he said irritably, “Are you incapable?”

“Who says I am!” Su Cheng reflexively denied it. “I just thought—given your condition—what if something goes wrong?”

The demon fixed her with those ice-blue eyes. “You are.”

Su Cheng was about to retort when the tail coiled around her waist suddenly tightened.

The demon abruptly leaned in, his scorching breath brushing against her neck. Then his slightly elongated tongue darted out, licking the smooth skin there.

His tongue was long and agile, the tip searing like a branding iron as it traced over her thin skin, pressing against the warm veins beneath.

“You resonate with wind element? I have wind affinity too, so…”

His lips grazed her bare shoulder. He withdrew his teasing tongue and began to scrape his fangs against the tender flesh.

“…Blood will work too. And faster.”

With that, he bit down.

Su Cheng shuddered.

It didn’t actually hurt much—his bite was gentle, almost tender as he drank.

But as he lapped at the wound between sips, the sensation was both itchy and tingling. Amid the faint pulses of pain, an undercurrent of pleasure even began to rise.

Electricity spread through her spine. Her weak, pliant waist sagged, only to be firmly held in place by his tail.

The tip of the inky appendage, which had been resting on her thigh, suddenly flicked up, the bony blade at its end wagging excitedly in the air.

…Like a dog that had just gotten a bone.

Su Cheng thought dizzily.

“Done.”

After a while, the demon stopped and released her from his tail’s grip, licking his thin lips in satisfaction.

The markings on his face faintly shimmered, and his striking blue eyes gleamed with renewed vigor.

Su Cheng stood up. “All good now?”

Suddenly, the demon’s tail lashed out again, coiling around her waist and lifting her onto the table.

Then he leaned in, one knee pressing between hers, a hand planted beside her, looming over her as he bit his own finger.

His large, sinewy hand flexed, the sharp claws retracting into ordinary nails. Dark crimson blood welled from the tip of his finger.

Then he smeared it roughly over her lips.

Streaks of deep red-black blood, like careless brushstrokes on a canvas. His rough fingers pressed insistently, turning her soft pink lips red under the pressure.

Su Cheng let out an uncomfortable hum, instinctively turning her head to avoid it, only to have her face gripped again.

The demon looked down at her, “…Drink.”

“Hmm?” Su Cheng blinked. “Will drinking blood help?”

“An Incubus’s blood can suppress all lust-related curses. One dose will keep the symptoms at bay for at least ten to fifteen days,” he murmured. “But if you aren’t cursed, drinking it will poison you instead.”

Su Cheng immediately grabbed the demon’s hand and buried her face in it, sucking eagerly.

A surge of warmth flooded her throat.

Her eyes flew open wide.

The blood carried a surge of power that instantly invigorated her, heat coursing through every limb and vein.

A restless, needle-like sting spread alongside it, quickly converging toward her back.

The toxins in the demon’s blood were gradually absorbed, neutralizing the curse’s power.

An intoxicating pleasure began to rise.

It was as if she had plunged into a misty hot spring, every pore in her body opening wide, warmth seeping into her flesh and blood.

Su Cheng even heard faint, delighted laughter.

The voices overlapped and stretched—some male, some female, some shrill and high-pitched, others deep and hoarse—all blending together strangely.

Like some signal from a mysterious dimension, guiding her mind into an unknown realm.

Su Cheng: “!”

—That was the laughter of wind Elemental Spirits.

They flitted and danced around her, faint blue shadows flickering in the air, with even distant specks of red appearing.

Fire Elemental Spirits.

In a room with open windows but no lit fireplace, wind spirits naturally outnumbered fire spirits, which might be extremely rare or even absent.

Yet she could still see them, without casting spells or entering meditation.

Her sensitivity to Elemental Spirits might have improved.

…Perhaps only temporarily.

But the sensation was still utterly intoxicating.

She drank the blood more greedily.

Her tongue curled over the wound on his hand, licking the small cut repeatedly, even biting down to squeeze out more blood.

Human lips and tongues were soft, slightly cooler than his body temperature, carrying a hint of chill.

The demon’s eyes widened slightly, his expression growing uneasy. His folded wings began to stretch faintly, and his drooping tail flicked again.

The girl before him clung to his wrist, sucking on one of his fingers, biting, licking, and swallowing eagerly, her amber eyes swirling with drunken pleasure.

The demon watched this scene, his other claw on the table clenching involuntarily, veins bulging on the back of his hand.

His gaze darkened. That hand twitched as if to grab her, but he stopped, instead tugging irritably at the chain around his neck.

After another half-minute, Su Cheng began to feel exhausted.

The pain from the curse on her back had faded, but as more blood entered her system, her body seemed to grow heavier.

Even though she was just sitting still, it felt like she was expending energy.

Recalling the original plot, Su Cheng took advantage of the demon’s distracted gaze to secretly swipe her bloodstained finger over the wound on her shoulder.

Her fingertip, now smeared with both their blood, drew a few crooked concentric circles and triangles on the table behind her.

A dark red light suddenly erupted in the room.

The demon shuddered violently, staggering back a few steps before collapsing onto the sofa by the window. “You—you—”

Su Cheng wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth. “You had quite the scheme, didn’t you? Claiming the blood would counteract the curse, when in reality, you just wanted me to share the burden of your restraints.”

As she spoke, her gaze drifted to his neck.

The chain encircling his throat pressed tightly against his pale skin, the golden glow of the runes seeming to pierce into his veins.

It began to contract slowly, like molten gold being poured over his flesh.

The demon’s breathing grew increasingly labored, sweat dampening his hair and trickling down the veins on his neck before pooling in the hollow of his collarbone, soaking his tattered clothes.

When he twisted his neck, the ends of his hair brushed against the chain, stirring tiny golden ripples.

Tilting his head back, he tried to press his tongue against the roof of his mouth to ease the suffocating sensation, the line from his jaw to his collarbone taut as a drawn bowstring.

A few low moans escaped him as he clawed angrily at his heaving chest. “Who the hell are you—how do you know about the counter-curse—”

He seemed utterly unable to accept that he’d been outplayed.

Su Cheng watched him silently.

In the original story, Lin Yun had clashed fiercely with the female antagonist, who had also attempted something similar. But the old man in the bracelet had warned him, allowing him to counter her in time.

The demon had initially slept with the protagonist to regain his strength, but once he’d recovered enough, he’d sought to rid himself of the restraints around his neck.

This time was no different.

Though the circumstances varied, the outcome was the same.

Su Cheng observed the demon curled up on the sofa, listening to his increasingly ragged breaths—the backlash of the counter-curse.

Because she knew the plot, she wasn’t the least bit angry.

“That Lightforged Binding Seal around your neck,” Su Cheng said, sitting on the table and nudging his kneecap lightly with her foot, “I can probably guess who put it there—”

This was pure nonsense.

But because she’d accurately named the holy spell, the demon stiffened, clearly buying it.

“I can help ease your problem,” Su Cheng murmured, “but I have conditions.”

Truthfully, as a human—not a dark-blooded race—her resistance to holy spells wasn’t that low.

So even if she shared the burden of the spell with him, it wouldn’t be life-threatening, just exhausting.

The original story had mentioned this too.

Lin Yun hadn’t cared about exhaustion; he’d only wanted to use this as leverage to coerce the female antagonist into sleeping with him.

For Su Cheng, sleeping together was secondary. The priority was obtaining his blood—otherwise, once the curse flared up, she’d die without a partner.

Incubus blood was practically the equivalent of emergency heart medication.

Once the blood left his body, he wouldn’t be able to control the drinker anyway, so all she needed was for him to donate some blood to store in a vial.

“…Conditions?”

The demon sneered between gasps, as if about to say something, but his voice fractured under the pain.

Frowning at the sight, Su Cheng lifted her leg and pressed her knee under his chin, slowly raising his head.

The man was panting heavily, his cheeks, neck, and chest flushed with an unhealthy crimson, exuding a decadent and erotic allure.

She touched the rune-engraved chains and silently recited the incantation mentioned in the book.

The cheat the old man had taught the male protagonist wasn’t in the common tongue but consisted of a few eerie syllables.

Because their combined pronunciation sounded like a string of curses, Lin Yun had found it absurdly funny at the time, and Su Cheng had memorized those syllables as a result.

“Ah—”

The demon’s breathing gradually steadied, and his complexion improved slightly, though he still appeared far from comfortable.

“See, if you want this to continue,” Su Cheng withdrew her hand and blinked, “then I want your—”

“Ha,” the demon lifted his face to look at her, suddenly gripping her ankle. “Human, I know what you want. I agree.”

Since her shoes had long been lost, the girl’s bare feet were delicate and smooth, with faint blue veins tracing her instep and toes like polished seashells.

The demon smirked mockingly at her, pulling her leg up and pressing a kiss to her ankle.

Su Cheng: “?!?!”

That’s not what I wanted!