"Open your mouth. Take it."

Sophia Adams jerked awake.

The first thing she saw was a huge, messy bed.

She was sitting on top of a man, a heavy iron chain clenched in her hand. The other end of it was locked tight around his neck.

And that outrageously suggestive line just now?

Yeah. That had come out of her own mouth.

Her hand was forcing his lips apart, thumb shoved into his mouth in a rough, almost brutal motion.

Their bodies were pressed close, way too close. She could even feel the man's scorching hardness beneath her, solid and impossible to ignore.

The man in front of her had white hair. His wrists were tied to the bed, a chain circling his throat.

He was completely naked, except for a torn scrap of cloth barely hanging around his waist.

His face looked like it had been painted by hand—pale skin, sharp features, absurdly handsome.

His eyes were like amber, bright and deep.

High nose bridge. Full lips. A razor-clean jawline. Wild, masculine, dangerously good-looking.

And those two fluffy beast ears on his head only made him look even more feral.

His tall, powerful body was covered in a mess of crimson whip marks and old scars crossing over each other.

Against his pale skin, it created this strange mix of beauty and sickness—fragile, broken, and weirdly seductive.

His long silver-white hair was soaked with cold sweat, hanging in damp strands against his bloodless cheeks.

He lifted his gaze slightly. Those golden-amber slit pupils were lifeless, but the hatred and finality in his gorgeous face ran so deep it felt bottomless.

Sophia barely shifted a little, and his breathing instantly turned ragged. His Adam's apple bobbed hard.

Her eyes followed that movement down.

Firm, powerful pecs.

A sharply defined eight-pack.

And two small pink nipples.

Sophia's whole face went red in one second.

What the hell was going on?

Wasn't she just staying up late reading an interstellar beast-world novel?

How did falling asleep turn into having a dream this insanely spicy?

Right then, the man started struggling in grief and fury, and the black iron chains gave off a string of hard little clinks.

"Mmph..."

Sophia let out a muffled sound and grabbed her head with a groan.

A tearing pain exploded deep inside her brain. Strange memories crashed into her mind like a flood, wild and unstoppable.

She had transmigrated into a book.

And not just any role—she had become the vicious female side character in the novel she'd stayed up reading last night.

A cannon-fodder villainess with the exact same name.

The original Sophia had been the daughter of a duke. Noble birth, top-tier status, and an S-rank soul resonance.

In this era, any female with S-rank soul resonance was ridiculously rare.

Under the forced will of The Prime Deity, the original host had formed contracts with five S-rank land beast husbands.

But then the Age of the Great Submergence arrived. Glaciers swallowed the continent, the empire declined, and the deadly cold tide was about to hit.

The continent got split into two worlds: the Outer Sector and the Inner Sector.

The Outer Sector was where low-class beastfolk and survivors lived, packed into floating box-like shelters near the sea. Basically a giant slum.

The Inner Sector, meanwhile, belonged to survivors and beastfolk with status, rank, and resources.

The original host had suffered a devastating head injury. Her soul-source completely collapsed, her World Tree withered, and she became useless through and through.

So all she could do was stay in the Outer Sector.

The novel's heroine was Vivian Charmwell.

Her whole setting was basically "everyone loves her."

And the original Sophia?

She existed purely to be Vivian's foil. A walking comparison prop.

Before the Age of the Great Submergence, Vivian had contracted five ocean beast husbands. Back then, everyone laughed at her, saying she had trash luck—even her mates were the lowest-ranking sea beasts.

Then the glaciers melted, the age changed, and suddenly all food had to be obtained from the ocean.

The sea beasts instantly flipped the script and became the highest-status beast group around.

With those five ocean beast husbands, Vivian moved straight into the Inner Sector, living the good life every day—big fish, meat, comfort, and all the spotlight.

Then she set her sights on the original host's five S-rank beast husbands.

Because in the Age of the Great Submergence, S-rank land beastfolk could evolve marine forms and go hunting in the sea.

So Vivian took advantage of the original host's jealousy and deliberately sent her sea-serpent husband, Caspian Voss, to seduce her.

And the original host, a complete love-brain, got hooked after just a few sweet words.

After that, she started crazily abusing, humiliating, and selling off her five land beast husbands, all because they couldn't go out to sea and hunt.

In the end, all five of those S-rank future big shots got picked up by Vivian.

And the original host?

The moment she dissolved her contracts with them, Caspian dumped her without a second thought.

With her soul resonance damaged, she had almost no fighting ability left. Nobody cared whether she lived or died.

Later, sea beast pirates attacked the Outer Sector.

Because she couldn't protect herself at all, she was torn apart alive by sea beasts.

No corpse left. Nothing.

The scarred, beautiful man in front of her right now was Cedric Snowmane, crown prince of The Snowmane Lion Clan.

He was also one of the original host's five beast husbands.

Before the disaster, he had been a high-and-mighty seventh-rank powerhouse.

Now the continent had sunk, land beastfolk couldn't dive into the sea to obtain sea beast crystals to maintain their strength, and his power had crashed all the way down to rank three.

In the camp, everyone mocked him as a useless beast.

Outside the thin wooden wall, waves of mocking voices came through loud and clear, with zero intention of hiding.

"Tsk, tsk. This Sophia Adams is seriously shameless. Broad daylight, and she drags her own beast husband into one of those market hookup shacks, chains him to the bed, and starts doing it in public. She didn't even shut the door properly. She's basically inviting us to watch the live show."

"So what if he used to be an S-rank Snowmane Lion? Right now he can't even beat a mid-rank sea beast. He's dropped to rank three, and if he doesn't get more beast crystals soon, he'll fall to rank one. Then he'll be a full-on useless beast—totally done for."

"Pretty face, though. Shame that's worthless in The Driftwood Camp. Good looks can't even trade for one sip of fresh water here."

Every sneer was like a blade, carving into Cedric's heart one cut at a time.

He bit down on his lip in humiliation and rage, staring at Sophia with red-rimmed amber eyes. Shame and fury flashed across them.

Sophia's whole body went stiff. Her scalp tingled so hard it almost went numb.

Looking into Cedric's furious, grief-stricken amber eyes, her heart started pounding like crazy.

How was this a "useless beast"?

This was clearly a walking time bomb that looked ready to drag her down with him at any second.

"Had your fun yet?"

Cedric suddenly spoke. His voice was hoarse, rough like boiling water had scorched his throat.

He stared straight at Sophia, and there wasn't a trace of desire to live in his eyes—only hatred so intense it looked capable of burning the world down.

"You went this far to humiliate me for Caspian Voss. Isn't this all just to force me to self-destruct?" His voice was flat, but every word was soaked in loathing. "Sophia Adams, stop dragging it out. Just kill me."

He couldn't even be bothered to struggle anymore.

All he wanted was death—to put an end to this endless humiliation once and for all.

Sophia parted her lips, about to speak—

Bang!

The shaky wooden door was kicked open.

Blinding sunlight poured in.

Vivian Charmwell strode into the room with her beautiful, soft-featured sea-serpent husband Caspian Voss right beside her.

Vivian's clothes were clean and neat, her features delicate, her whole bearing proud and noble.

Among the ragged, half-starved lower-class beastfolk of the Outer Sector, she looked completely out of place.

Her gaze swept across Cedric's wretched state on the bed, and pain and pity instantly appeared on her face.

"Sophia Adams! You're unbelievable! You're not even human! This is too much!"

Vivian rushed forward and stopped by the bed. Looking down from above, she pointed straight at Sophia's nose and snapped, "Cedric was an S-rank beastman no matter what. How could you humiliate him like this with such disgusting methods? Since you look down on him so much, why don't you just name your price? I'll take him in. I'll form a contract with him myself!"

Then she turned to Cedric, her eyes instantly filling with tenderness, her voice soft as water.

"Cedric, don't be scared. No matter how many imperial credits she asks for, even if I have to trade the most precious fresh water and vegetables, I'll still save you from her claws. I won't let you suffer like this ever again."