The Heroine is My Stepsister, and I'm her Final Boss-Chapter 125: Inspection

Atlas stepped through the rune-sealed door like a diver slipping beneath black water. The temperature dropped by several degrees, thick and damp, like the breath of something ancient. Each step echoed, quiet but heavy, boots tapping against polished obsidian stone. His ’Truth Eyes’ remained active—lenses flickering faintly gold beneath his disguise—and yet, despite the clarity they provided, the deeper they walked, the more wrong everything felt.

It was an ache in the soul, like an old scar pulling at the edge of his instincts. The very walls hummed—not with magic, but with something older, more corrupted. A dense lattice of energy, faintly mechanical, faintly biological, and absolutely unnatural.

Beside him, Isabella glided forward with the grace of a predator pretending to be prey. Her heels clicked softly, confidently, the rhythm deliberate, echoing like a metronome counting down to something only she knew. The corridors twisted downward, no longer shaped by architects but carved—as if the palace had grown veins, spiraling deeper beneath its own flesh.

Atlas glanced at her, just once.

And she smiled.

Not the smile she gave dignitaries or councilmen. This one was raw. Private. A glint of possession.

He swallowed the bile rising in his throat. Focus. Mission. Don’t react.

But then—

He saw them.

The first cage came into view—a long, narrow glass box lined with sigils and chains. Inside, a creature hunched in the far corner: a scaled beast with green fur, horned shoulders, and sad eyes. A native of the Black Rivers of the Dark Continent. A gentle herbivore. One he had once fed by hand in the wild.

It looked at him, recognizing something in his scent. Its massive eyes widened in fear.

Atlas stopped. A beat too long.

Then another cage—this one holding a sand-hound, jaws muzzled, tail dragging. A predator bred to hunt in dimensional fog. And another. And another. Some of these species weren’t just endangered—they were thought to be extinct.

And she had them.

Here.

Beneath the palace.

He walked slower now, not from caution—but disbelief.

"How—?" he whispered before he could stop himself.

Isabella’s voice floated beside him like perfume. "Connections, Aiden. You’d be amazed what people will sell when they think the gods aren’t watching."

He clenched his jaw, controlling his breath.

But then—

He saw it.

A cage far larger than the others. Inside stood a being no taller than Atlas’s waist, thickly bearded, bald as bone, with hands calloused from lifetimes of work. He wore no chains, and yet... he stood with a posture that said he didn’t need them.

His eyes blazed with ancient hatred.

Atlas’s entire body tensed. "That’s..."

"A dwarf," Isabella said, finishing for him. "Real. Unbroken. One of my mages insisted we needed one. Claimed they were crucial to the power grid’s mineral compression formula." Her voice was calm, even flippant. "So I got one."

He stepped closer, unable to help himself.

The dwarf lunged forward, punching the barrier—not magic, but some kind of dense null-glass. The impact cracked the outer shell for just a second, enough to make it tremble. He screamed words that neither Atlas nor Isabella understood. The cadence was lost. The language extinct.

"Want to touch him?" Isabella teased, her voice suddenly beside his ear. "It’s said dwarves never bathe, but you’d be surprised how warm they are."

He didn’t answer.

The dwarf screamed again—G#$%D@!#@Ui!—slamming the barrier with renewed rage.

"Enough," Isabella murmured, snapping her fingers. The lights around the cage dimmed. The dwarf retreated slowly, muttering curses as old as stone.

"Aiden, follow me," she said with a smile. "This is only the beginning."

He nodded slowly, his mind screaming with a hundred new threads.

They moved again, now side by side. Her shoulder brushing his, deliberately close. His height matched hers only because of her heels, the rhythmic tap of her steps playing like a warning bell. With every hall they passed, every layer of this underground lair peeled back, the deeper her madness was revealed—and the further he walked into her carefully staged theatre.

His beard itched under the illusion charm. A curse and a blessing. Because beneath it all—Atlas still had to play the part of the composed Viscount Aiden. One wrong breath, one misplaced stare—and the illusion would crumble.

And then he saw the baby dragons.

Three cages in total. One held a blue-scaled drake, its wings stunted and clipped. Another—a crimson wyrm with hollow sockets where its eyes had once been. The third cage... held bones. Familiar bones.

He slowed. His breath caught.

It was the skeleton of the red dragon he had killed with his bare hands days ago. The skull now bolted to a manasink stone, its ribcage used as the framework for a spell amplifier.

All of it.

Repurposed.

"Black market," he muttered under his breath.

"What was that?" she asked, still walking.

"Nothing, just admiring your ingenuity."

She smiled again. "That’s better."

He filed it away. Every connection. Every part. Her entire kingdom was afloat—powered—by ancient species trafficked from across continents. The Emerald Queen didn’t just trade in seduction or politics. She traded in extinction. And she did it while laughing.

They reached another door—this one arched and sealed with a dark burnished sigil. Unlike the others, it radiated not just mana, but something more primal.

A voice spoke in his head.

[Radiation detected.]

[No danger to host.]

Atlas stiffened.

"Not yet," Isabella said, eyes gleaming. "But soon."

"...first of all, need inspection before we enter here....hurry, before she arrives."

He turned to her. "Who arrives?"

Her grin widened. "You’ll see. But first..."

She stepped closer again, placing a hand on his chest—flat, palm down. Her touch was cold, not from temperature, but from control. Her nails, polished obsidian, tapped lightly against the fabric of his shirt, as if marking territory with every beat of his heart.

"You’ll need to remove your clothes," she murmured, voice too soft to be casual, too smooth to be anything but rehearsed.

Atlas blinked once. "...What?"

Isabella’s finger rose to his throat. Not to caress. To press. Her nail dug just enough to leave a scratch where his illusion shimmered faintly against her pressure—Aiden’s disguise reacting to the nearness of truth.

"If you want to see what’s inside," she said, her voice coiling with unspoken meaning, "you must first be seen yourself. Nothing enters my sanctum unrevealed."

Her eyes searched him—not for compliance, but cracks. Her gaze was sharper than any blade he’d faced in battle. She wasn’t asking. She was daring him.

He hesitated. But only for a moment. The mission demanded it. The secrets buried in this lab were too vital, her trust were too vital. Every piece of intel mattered—every rune, every arcane mechanism, every test subject—and if this was her test, he couldn’t afford to fail.

He nodded.

Without a word, he unfastened his coat, folding it neatly despite the heat blooming at the base of his neck. Then came the shirt—layer by layer, peeled away with a soldier’s precision. Cool air kissed his skin, and her gaze never left him.

She watched not like a lover—but like a tactician.

Like a predator. Gazing at his toned muscles like a hawk.

He removed his belt, unbuttoned his trousers. The silence grew heavier. The only sound was the hum of the mana conduits in the walls and the faint tapping of her nail against his collarbone—still there, still claiming.

She spoke again, her voice a whisper meant to stain. "Inspection is non-negotiable. The lab reacts to foreign enchantments... impurities. Illusions. Secrets."

A flicker of doubt passed through him. Was she bluffing? Was she merely toying with him?

Or... did she know?

"Underwear," she added, eyes flicking downward—her breath raising high, but with amusement. "Don’t make this more awkward than it already is."

He sighed, just loud enough to imply disapproval. Just quiet enough to conceal the flicker of alarm beneath it. He let the last of his clothing slide to the floor, his hands calm, even as his mind raced behind his steady eyes.

She stared.

with shock.

with hunger

With calculation.

Like his staff was a being of its own. Such unique features she had never seen in her life.

Her eyes drifted over the scars on his ribs, the faint lines across his arms. Symbols only someone like her would recognize—marks from battles no noble should survive, let alone a viscount from the southern coasts.

She stepped forward, her breath grazing his skin, her presence thick as fog. One hand trailed lightly over his shoulder, the other moved behind his back—checking for enchantment anchors, binding glyphs.

"You’re clean," she said at last. Her voice held no admiration. Only relief. Or disappointment. Perhaps both. But her breathing became ever more deeper with her heartbeat.

He held her gaze. "May I dress now?"

She tilted her head. "In a moment."

Silence.

She stepped away, finally, the space between them widening by degrees—but not enough to erase the taste of her intent in the air.

"There’s no place for masks where we’re going," she said, walking ahead. "The weapon does not tolerate lies."

As she passed through the final threshold, she didn’t look back. But her voice drifted behind her like smoke.

"Besides, I wanted to see if you were hiding anything interesting. And surprisingly, you were.."

Atlas, still and bare, allowed himself one long breath.

He had passed her test.

But the cost of that test... was her curiosity or her lust?

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Want to know what Isabella whispered to Atlas behind closed doors?

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🤫Chapter 130: skin to skin (18+) 🥵🥵🥵

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